Friday, January 8th, 2021
Brent topped $55 per barrel at the end of the week, as the pledge from Saudi Arabia to cut deeper has built a solid rally. Other forces are at play as well, including monetary stimulus, the prospects of deeper fiscal stimulus in the U.S., and vaccine optimism. “The past 10 weeks of trading have seen only one weekly decline, which was comparatively small,” said Carsten Fritsch, an analyst at Commerzbank AG. “This is testimony to the strength of the oil market in the last 2 1/2 months.”
Cold winter rallies coal and gas. Thermal coal prices in China are shooting up, and JKM prices for LNG are skyrocketing. Spot prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) delivery in Asia jumped to a six-year high. A cold winter across the northern hemisphere is contributing to price gains. Javier Blas of Bloomberg notes that at least one LNG spot cargo was sold for $33-$36/MMBtu, which would be a historically high price.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Originally published on January 6, 2021 8:38 pm
Updated at 7:54 pm ET
One of the Trump administration s biggest environmental rollbacks suffered a stunning setback Wednesday, as a decades-long push to drill for oil in Alaska s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ended with a lease sale that attracted just three bidders one of which was the state of Alaska itself.
Alaska s state-owned economic development corporation was the only bidder on nine of the parcels offered for lease in the northernmost swath of the refuge, known as the coastal plain. Two small companies also each picked up a single parcel.
On Wednesday, while a mob of domestic terrorists stormed the U.S. Capitol, something else undemocratic was going on: the Trump administration was holding the first-ever sale for oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). And, like the attempted coup, it was a complete failure one that’s likely to lead to permanent protections for the country’s last unspoiled wilderness.
“Today’s sale reflects the brutal economic realities the oil and gas industry continues to face after the unprecedented events of 2020, coupled with ongoing regulatory uncertainty,” said Kara Moriarty, president and CEO of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, an industry advocacy group, in an emailed statement.
Supermajors steer clear of Trumpâs Arctic drilling lease auction By Jennifer A. Dlouhy on 1/7/2021
Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge drilling blocks
WASHINGTON (Bloomberg) The Trump administrationâs unprecedented auction of Arctic drilling rights Wednesday netted just $14.4 million from three bidders, with major oil companies steering clear of the sale.
Amid low crude prices, fears about a backlash from the public and the prospect of regulatory uncertainty, just two oil companies placed bids on leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refugeâs coastal plain: Knik Arm Services LLC and Regenerate Alaska Inc. They were joined by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a state-owned economic development corporation that last month approved spending $20 million on coastal plain leases but has never spearheaded an oil exploration project.