Energy Markets Outlook : The Geopolitics of the war with Russia and China With T. Greg Merrion Dr. Dan Fine John Byrom Dr. Dan Fine, distinguished energy scholar, Harvard University Fellow and MIT graduate, T. Greg Merrion, Chairman of Merrion Oil and Gas and John Byrom, PESCO Business Development Manager, will be presenters at an Energy Markets Briefing on Tuesday, June 21 at the Henderson Fine Arts Center on the campus of San Juan College. The briefing will run from 10:00 to noon. Panelists will be moderated by Arvin Trujillo, 4CED CEO.
It’s not news to anyone recently filling up their truck or car that something’s up in the energy market and (hint) it’s not supply. Natural gas prices are up substantially as well from recent record lows and it’s not even winter.
Dr. Fine will share his thoughts about the war in the Ukraine and how it may affect the U.S. and possibly the San Juan Basin as European countries, especially Germany, look for natural gas and oil resources for their energy needs. Although the war in Ukraine is a regional conflict, Dr. Fine believes it could escalate to a more global war if not careful.
Dr. Fine will also share his concerns about the conflict beginning to materialize in Southeast Asia between taiwan and China. John Byrom will share insights into the emerging hydrogen markets and about PESCO’s manufacturing capabilities. T. Greg Merrion will offer insights into San Juan Basin natural gas and oil reserves and what we should do to prepare. For more information call (505) 566-3720. Four Corners Economic Development or email info@4cornersed.com
The Full article in the Farmington Daily Times Energy Magazine (USA TODAY)
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With the OPEC-Russia meeting ahead, the price of oil is at a crossroad.
President Trump wants lower prices for gasoline at the pump and the Democratic Party wants a shortage to lift prices higher. This is the 2020 presidential election, to re-elect Trump or a create a Democratic left-center White House.
Is OPEC-Russia ready to sustain output cutbacks for $70 Brent Oil or continue revenue maximum against market share? Curiously, in the conversation at Vienna the Oxy purchase of Anadarko will resonate. Why? Oxy must now increase its export of oil to lower its debt (Warren Buffet and more) and prevent a serious management miscalculation of paying too much for Anadarko.
Permian Delaware shale, with new high volume pipelines completed soon, must find expanding import markets of l.5 million barrels of oil per day or the equivalent of OPEC-Russia resuming late 2016 output for export.
As this writer concludes this column for the The Farmington Daily Times’ Energy Magazine, which Is going on hiatus in San Juan County after this edition, there is no change in an outlook that dates back to the oil price crash of 2014-2016.
There is too much oil (over-supply) against world demand for it.
Exxon-XTO in the Permian is prepared for $40 per barrel, and to still add $82 billion value in the New Mexican Permian or the Delaware in the next 40 years.
However, along with Chevron, Oxy, EOG and Pioneer, it must have a market for the economic recovery of reserves estimated at nearly 47 billion barrels in the Permian Delaware Basin. They must export against OPEC-Russia production.
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The lifting cost of Saudi Aramco oil remains lower than Permian Shale. Saudi Aramco has sold debt (bonds) and 63% of its cash flow goes to its government? With oil demand slack and sluggish, and electric vehicles preparing for a 2024 market challenge both technically and politically (zero emissions).
While associated natural gas has partially become a free commodity from Permian Delaware producers, natural gas is up next, after coal, as a target for Green Energy. It should resemble oil on a smaller scale as price dependent entirely on exports in the form of LNG.
Will Persian Gulf, Australian, and Russian natural gas production roll backward in favor of American LNG? American exporters today cannot compete in a $5 per ton Asian LNG market.
Some San Juan Basin producers at the recent San Juan Basin Energy Conference openly discussed shifting capital spending
from natural gas to oil development.
This writer reaffirms his $50 average price for WTI oil in 2019 presented for the smaller independent producers at a briefing at Merrion Oil last December, but beginning early in 2020 forecasts a second half average of $38 per barrel .
In New Mexico, the Governor can adjust the Energy Transition Act basic law next February, but it should be a petroleum-revenue 30 day session without serious oil and gas organized opposition.
New Mexico is now a hybrid Green State with more exportable oil and gas than every OPEC country except Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and yet it will impose the most effective rules for methane capture.
No amount of ad hominem distraction against its policy and leadership will change this direction, and the nation could follow with the outcome of the national election next year.
Daniel Fine is the associate director of New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy. The opinions expressed are his own.”
A must read! -> 2/11/2019 Hobbs News Sun | Sunday, February 10, 2019 | 7 Energy expert: New Mexico oil production has lessened potential for war CURTIS C. WYNNE NEWS-SUN
County ranks third in the nation in oil production.
Lea and Eddy counties have made history by reducing the possibility of a
Middle Eastern war for oil, according to Daniel Fine, a research and
development energy expert at New Mexico Tech.
Why? Because oil and gas production eliminates this nation’s need to rely on
the Middle East for fossil fuel.
Having served in developing former Gov. Susana Martinez’s energy policy and
in the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, Fine said he’s
currently writing an energy paper for a Washington, D.C. think tank.
“What has happened now, with President Trump’s policies and the
(Department of) Interior policies under (David) Bernhardt, is the chance of the
United States getting into a Middle East war to protect its interests in oil supply
and imports has evaporated, finished,” Fine said.
He dated the potential for war in the Middle East over oil as early as the 1970s.
“We have almost 50 years of tension and potential military participation in the
Middle East to provide us with imported oil from there,” Fine said. “The two
counties in New Mexico have eliminated this and have now played an important
n an earlier column, readers overseas benefited from this writer’s forecast that crude oil prices would fall dramatically because most commodity traders got it wrong. Simply, this column’s analysis was the buying of oil assumed a shortage would result once the sanctions against Iran would be activated the first week of November.
President Trump wanted lower oil prices with OPEC and Saudi Arabia pumping more. Two weeks ago, a call from the Middle East confirmed readers of the column had followed the analysis in the Energy Magazine and sold Brent oil — and profited.
Oil has slumped under $60 as the delusion of a shortage vanished. In the November issue column, this writer made a call: the oil price would reach $50 as a low. There is no change in that forecast. The price in the commodity market for WTI crude would touch in the very high $40 range before the Saudi-led production cut-back is realized. Why? Again, too much capacity to produce too much oil for demand.
Oil demand without commodity traders’ bets on the sanctions against Iranian oil production and export contradicts flagging demand. Some Southwest shale producers, faced with discounts on domestic sales, are exporting oil to world markets and capturing the higher Brent price or differential between the WTI priced Midland domestic and the Brent price for the World.
But this would shift Southwest tight oil into a world market where such supply also chases weaker demand. This switches U.S. oil into world oil as exports and diverts it from going into U.S. storage.
Unlike the last three price sell-offs Saudi Arabia, speaking for OPEC, is strangely silent on calling on non-OPEC producers join it in lowering production or “balancing” the
market.
Quite the opposite. Led by shale producers in the Delaware (New Mexico) Basin in the Permian complex, United State production approaches 12 million barrels per day, a historic high and number one position against the Middle East and Russia.
Only a serious price decline, short of the 2015 bottom, would signal oil non-completions. A cutback of U.S. production by 750,000 barrels per with an OPEC cutback independent of Russian production of around one million barrels will stabilize or balance the world oil market.
But U.S producers cannot (anti-trust) belong to a collective price-setting organization (cartel).
President Trump wants lower prices, even if this means a breakup of OPEC into two and a moderate production roll-back by Southwest producers – a negative cash flow for those without or less advantaged by Tier One wells.
The overwhelming Democratic Party electoral win influenced OPEC and Saudi Arabia to resist President Trump’s pressure for lower world oil prices because he is much weaker and easier to upend in oil supply and demand world “domination.”
Bingaman is back!
The Democratic Party indirectly dimmed the “blue flame” price outlook regardless of blue wave voting margins. But enough of “color revolutions” in politics or economics?
This writer is constructively reacting to the return of former Sen. Jeff Bingaman to New Mexico’s politics through new state Governor-elect Michelle Lujan Grisham. She asked him to head her transition team.
With Democratic Party factionalism into Progressive/Ultra-Progressive forces against the traditional Moderate/Conservatives, Sen. Bingaman’s experience and history in working with the late Senator Domenici in forging the U.S Energy Act of 2005 is in best interest of New Mexico.
Recall the energy policy of “all of the above” in the Bush and Obama Administrations coupled with the Energy Policy of outgoing Governor Susana Martinez was a compromise of give-and-take between two New Mexico Senators of different parties and energy policy objectives.
Dr. Daniel Fine is the associate director of New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy and the State of New Mexico Natural Gas Export Coordinator. The opinions expressed are his own.
During President Donald Trump’s summit in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin, both leaders made controversial statements leading to accusations of treason. USA TODAY
The opposition in Congress wants to see a transcript of what President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin talked about for two hours alone. No doubt some of that time was spent discussing OPEC and the price of oil.
This is above all an issue now for the first time in world petroleum history because Russia has become part of OPEC in the agreement to manage world supply of oil and, indirectly, its price.
OPEC and Russia produce almost half of the supply of world oil. At full capacity, and spare capacity added in, they would be slightly over 50 percent. For now, OPEC plus Russia is the world price-setter for oil.
Shale and tight oil, mainly from the Southwest and North Dakota, along with conventional oil production in the United States, should account for 12 percent later this year if prices stabilize.
This was the reality of talk between Putin and Trump.
Trump-Putin summit kicks off in Helsinki
Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands before a meeting in Helsinki. Brendan Smialowski, AFP/Getty Images
Putin, with OPEC, controls the price of world oil. America is not the price-setter: it is the price-taker.
But President Trump is the first U.S. President to take on OPEC. He has said that OPEC prices are “artificial” and as such violate free trade in oil.
This was true under the Obama presidency in 2014 when OPEC, following Saudi Arabia, set out to destroy shale oil producers in America in a price war against high-cost American producers by increasing production at a time of world-wide oversupply.
Recall, the downturn in the San Juan and Permian basins.
Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke have made an energy policy of domination which now includes having an edge in price-setting. They want more oil even if it means lower prices as supply challenges demand.
No doubt, Trump explained this to Putin and inferred that Russia might leave its de facto membership in OPEC.
How would Putin reply, if asked by Trump? His reputation is such that he sees an opening and prompts Trump to consider ending some sanctions against Russia in oil exploration and production. Why not allow Russian oil companies to borrow to finance capital projects in Western banks? Why not re-open Exxon-Mobil Arctic oil joint projects? Is more Russian production of oil another way to lower oil prices at the pump and upend OPEC?
News of the Trump administration’s invitation to Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet with the president in Washington appeared to catch Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence, off guard as he attended a security forum in Colorado. (July 19) AP
Trump could sense a deal but one which would rattle Republicans back in Washington. His official domestic political opposition no doubt would block any such deal unless Trump is out of office either through impeachment or in 2020.
There is a Congressional process in Washington to place OPEC under American Anti-Trust laws. The Administration would sue the sellers of OPEC oil in U.S courts.
Sounds easy, but similar to 1973 it failed in the embargo crisis by OPEC of oil exports to the United States. Apart from the legal process, how would OPEC oil be treated if it were re-exported from Mexico or Nigeria, for example.
If imports from OPEC-Russia were to stop, American self-sufficiency together with Canadian imports and other non-OPEC producers with slightly higher prices would replace OPEC oil.
However, if OPEC itself dissolves there would be individual producers prepared to sell their oil as former members of OPEC. This would resemble a free market in world oil and Trump would have an American First triumph in which the price oil is more likely to be real than artificial, that is, market-derived from free-flowing supply and demand.
Dr. Daniel Fine is the associate director of New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy and is the State of New Mexico Natural Gas Export Coordinator. The opinions expressed are his own. Find more columns by Dr. Fine at www-daily-times.com or read Energy Magazine back issues in our Special Publications
The article can be found here-> https://www.daily-times.com/story/opinion/columnists/2018/06/24/fine-oil-before-and-after-november-election/699460002/ The Trump Administration is moving towards less royalty rates on Federal land leases, less Bureau of Land Management discretion on Environmental Protection Act obstruction on the Application for Petroleum Drilling process, less coal and nuclear power generation decline, and less oil supply confidence in OPEC-Russia world price management.
This is the thrust of the signature world energy domination policy of Secretary Ryan Zinke for the last 16 months. It accounts for the action of OPEC-Russia 10 days ago. Saudi Arabia led OPEC to increase oil production to respond to President Donald Trump, but averted a price shock with gradualism. More output from OPEC offers increased revenue in the very short term.
It now faces an election to decide majority party control of Congress. Should the Democratic Party win at least in the House of Representatives, President Donald Trump will be set back on energy policy and its action realization. He will be forced to use executive power narrowly.
The Democratic Party will prepare for 2020 and the foreclosure of Trump-Zinke on world energy domination through an American petroleum system and public land dispensation.
What will the Democratic Party control of energy in Washington and Santa Fe look like?
Imported oil is consistent with a resumption of climate change energy policy which is less carbon in the economy and more renewables as the alternative.
World investment flows are putting solar and wind ahead of oil and gas for the first time. Electric cars are now one to every six in sales in California and soon in Europe, displacing diesel engines.
The Democratic Party in Washington in 2020 will no doubt align with the European Union in Climate Change with a roll-back of the Trump Administration regulatory reform.
Methane, public land access, a return of BLM dominance, along with tax and infrastructure incentives can be expected. Battery charging technology and its placement capacity expansion on the Interstates will promote the market for electric vehicles. New issues restricting unitization, spacing and density of oil and gas wells should appear on state and Federal land.
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In Santa Fe, the current Martinez energy policy and plan (2015) would be rejected in favor of a new Democratic Governor’s choice to start over in 2019. It should be like Colorado’s energy policy but with strong regulatory hydraulic fracturing intervention and fresh water use conservation emphasis.
The oil and gas industry concentration on the Delaware, Permian, Williston (along with the Bakken Formation), Eagle Ford basins along with the Marcellus in natural gas will double up at heavier entry cost and consolidation.
This process, however, promises San Juan Basin natural gas higher prices. New exploration and production on public land would be minimal and legally challenged.
New off-shore U.S oil would be closed with “national monument” type public law.
The Democratic Party has no conservative business Democratic faction to offset the impact on American oil and gas as an industry.
In New Mexico, county leaders from San Juan, Eddy and Lea will continue to argue on the basis of statewide revenue. The Democratic Party in Santa Fe must demonstrate economic development through diversity while oil and gas is politically isolated.
With Canadian imports and even Russian gas in Boston harbor in very cold and snow-storm winters, the East Coast can return to the way it was before Trump on foreign oil imports – America no longer “First.”
The West Coast without refineries and wired power from natural gas is already there in Democratic Party dominance and declining combustion engines.
Dr. Daniel Fine is the associate director of New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy and the State of New Mexico Natural Gas Export Coordinator. The opinions expressed are his own.
Among some speakers at the 2018 Four Corners Oil and Gas Conference last month in Farmington there were evasive positions on the future of OPEC. Also, previous online or media positions of “free trade” were muted to be popular with the oil, gas and equipment operators who made up those in attendance.
There is no “free trade” with OPEC as a cartel, either with assigned member production quotas or with the current maximization of revenue strategy led by Saudi Arabia. If you hear free traders saddling up with current higher prices and OPEC, run for cover.
On Thanksgiving 2014, OPEC and Saudi Arabia refused to reduce oil production volume and entered a market share offensive against non-OPEC high cost oil producers in shale and tight sands.
This was a glut, or oversupply, of world oil but it was a chance to put San Juan oil just then — with rising production in the Gallup Sand — out of business. This was only reversed through the Algiers Meeting and agreement among OPEC members by cartel anti-free trade supply and demand manipulation.
President Trump captured this with his position that something was “artificial” about the price and supply of OPEC oil. Internal changes in the ruling House of Saudi Arabia, coupled with its power over OPEC, raised the price of world oil at least temporarily within the historic cycle of the industry.
Some Republicans oppose Trump and published or spoke against his opposition to OPEC. which is also connected to higher oil prices for consumers who might be voters. OPEC members had no problem with a hypocritical response to let the market work. Not only is there no free market making oil prices, but oil and gas operators do not make markets any longer. Commodity traders have replaced them since the 1980s.
Only three years ago, when OPEC/Saudi Arabia had deviated from its role of supporting the world price of oil through supply volume strategy, Harold Hamm of Continental Resources called for smashing OPEC to protect independent and non-super major producers in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and North Dakota.
At the Expo, this writer traced current OPEC oil price support to the fall of Venezuela as a producer.
Less Venezuela barrels in OPEC production protects other members, and now, Russia, from real cutbacks. Among American conservatives who believe there are free markets for oil, very little understanding of world petroleum economics and history exists.
What happens to OPEC supply and demand management when Saudi Aramco floats its shares on stock markets and reached its target of an intake of 100 billion dollars? Are New Mexico and Southwest producers preparing planning price scenarios similar to world producers for oil prices next year or in 2020? What would Washington do in a second downturn with the oil prices “awry” again?
In a free trade world, nothing.
On natural gas prices that afternoon, there was a sense of how low the San Juan discount to Cushing could go and adaptation in taking some producing gas wells out of production.
Late that afternoon, after New Mexico Secretary of Energy Ken McQueen spoke of his work on the Governor’s Initiative of cost-cutting via state regulatory access and permitting on Federal land, I concluded that the San Juan Basin still has too much natural gas too fail.
And what happened to the big banks 10 years ago?
And General Motors?
Dr. Daniel Fine is the associate director of New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy and the State of New Mexico Natural Gas Export Coordinator. The opinions expressed are his own.
Link to the article American oil production is poised to reach upward to 11 million barrels of oil per day if the price of West Texas Crude reaches $75 a barrel.
Saudi Arabia or Saudi Aramco believes it will, and commodity speculators are following. It is similar to 2008 in June when Goldman Sachs forecast $250 per barrel as the price approached $150.
What events are running through computer modelling to trigger speculative buying? First, the effort of Saudi Arabia to sell shares in Saudi Aramco to the world – at least 5 percent.
The price of oil is the key for the price per share at an initial public offering. It must be high enough to overcome doubts about the company in terms of ultimate economic value and size of its reserves as well as potential legal action based on the 9/11 Saudi Arabian operatives in the destruction of the World Trade Centers and the death of nearly 3,000 and related family injuries.
Second, chemical warfare in Syria and Western military reaction. This is a momentary reflux in trading behavior which dates back to 1973. After 2010 and the appearance of shale and tight oil, buying oil as commodity tight on supply is self-initiated by speculators with no basis in reality. America’s three oil basins now supply oil to replace Middle East shortages in world export flows. Continental North American production adds to a self-sufficient mix.
This event can no longer deprive the United States of physical barrels resulting in shortage of supply. Prices outside of trading pits or online bids and asks are now determined by West Texas Intermediate, which reflects self-sufficiency against non-North American sourced oil. The Persian Gulf against the Permian Basin?
Demand for oil in producer estimates, such as, Saudi Aramco or total range between 1.2 percent and less than 1.0 percent growth per year. Supply of oil from American unconventional sources is increasing, with high prices at 8 percent.
The two year low of downturn prices did not create conditions for a supply crunch. Super-giant oil fields are few and far between even at higher prices. Supply shortage talk on the social and commercial media is promoted by Saudi Arabian interest in higher oil prices to support its potential IPO share price. Offshore Norway has applied shale recovery technology from New Mexico, Texas and North Dakota and can be profitable at $35 per barrel against $80 breakeven in 2013.
Third, reaction to OPEC-Russia announcements of production reductions – oil off the world market — are not likely signals for commodity traders to buy. How much oil can OPEC members and Russia take off the market? How long can they lower production in terms of fiscal requirements?
One last event in production denial would be the imposition of sanctions against Iranian oil exports, which would follow the decision to void the nuclear weapons treaty by President Trump. The North American market for Iranian is almost non-existent.
As before, this Energy Magazine column warns of a downturn next year. How bad? If the buzz around the Permian is that its “health” no longer depends on the price of oil has been taken seriously, the downturn will be serious.
Exxon-Mobil/XTO is preparing to enter the world market of LNG (liquid natural gas) with a plant in Louisiana. Its natural gas feedstock would be from its Delaware Basin production (New Mexico’s Permian).
The scale and size of its LNG facility will place American production and export as a world leader next to Qatar, which is reacting to Saudi Arabian hostility by expanding investment in American oil and gas.
Turning to Europe, the opportunity of geopolitical deployment of American gas to Europe to offset Russian supply promoted by the State Departments of Bush through Obama and now of Trump has been set back.
Germany has approved the Russian natural gas pipeline under the North Sea despite efforts to isolate Russia because of the Crimea annexation.
This means ongoing European natural gas dependence on Russia without transit pipelines through the Ukraine. And indirectly it keeps demand and prices for San Juan natural gas lower.
As long as Marcellus natural gas is semi-stranded by New England’s opposition to building pipelines for its markets, based on environmentalist politics, American natural gas is unable to replace residential reliance on heating oil imported from high-risk Venezuela.
Russian LNG appeared in Boston harbor during the worst of a New England winter as an alternative to low- cost pipeline gas from Pennsylvania. This partially keeps San Juan Basin gas at low prices.
Dr. Daniel Fine is the associate director of New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy and the State of New Mexico Natural Gas Export Coordinator. The opinions expressed are his own.
“For a week in March, Houston was the site of a world assembly of oil producers engaged in an OPEC-Russia dialogue with American shale or light tight oil producers on supply and — indirectly — price.
OPEC and Saudi Arabia pitched a market information offensive.
Put simply, American oil producers should cut-back or stabilize output in a “family” arrangement to avoid an expansion of supply that threatens the price of world oil.
But there is no U.S. Oil Company (government owned) in America, unlike all members plus Russia which are state companies. Russia is a mix. OPEC members are a price-setting cartel. So, a restaurant in Houston was selected as the site for an elite dinner of OPEC and American shale oil operators.
Platitudes and generalizations dominated the American-initiated conversation, because anything more would be in violation of U.S. anti-trust laws.
Saudi Arabia, consistent with its effort to sell shares in itself in an Initial Public Offering (forthcoming), emphasized there was enough future world demand to satisfy the Americans as well as OPEC.
This was 1.5 percent growth per year for the next decade or two. Almost silence, however, on Saudi Aramco’s capacity expansion of another l.5 million barrels per day as “spare capacity.”
Does the future demand short term or long term offer support for an unspeakable and unenforceable supply agreement that involves enough for all? Will American shale producers in the Permian exclude themselves from capturing any growth of demand?
Devon, no longer in the San Juan Basin, but dominant in Oklahoma, is going for double-digit production increases yearly and is increasing its dividend to shareholders who might otherwise be attracted to the idea of drilling and completing less to prop up the price per barrel.
The Houston dinner failed, as a half a dozen companies did not show up in compliance with legal restrictions. It failed to persuade the America shale industry to act with OPEC’s oil supply and price management as a “family” and not as a law-breaking cartel.
Less than a week later, Iran signaled that it would not renew the production cut that has removed 1.8 million OPEC barrels of oil from the world and increased prices.
Saudi Arabia was projecting a forecast that a tight market for oil is ahead this year or next as oil projects will not replace wells while demand is strong.
Few were sold on this forecast since shale oil well completions are effectively responsive to price signals with well completions compared to conventional replacement-based on prior oil field investment.
Oil traders are largely unconvinced or agnostic listening in to the Houston contradictions. Most will watch Iran in late May as a sell signal in the making of algorithms.
The Trump Administration on steel tariffs takes the Obama Administration’s failure to do so as a starting point. It was Secretary of the Treasury Lew under Obama who made the case for tariffs during his many visits to Beijing. He would accuse China of promoting an overcapacity of steel production for export and consequent flooding of the American market and the United States with cheap steel.
The Chinese no doubt listened politely to the words but did not anticipate action. They followed a strategy of export price advantage for driving American-owned and operated steel out of business.
Action was taken last month by President Donald Trump. And yet nothing in the customary reaction against Trump recalled that President George W. Bush declared sanctions against Chinese Steel export dumping over 10 years ago, which lasted 18 months, and is credited for an American steel innovation-led comeback.
National security requires American made high-quality steel not only for defense and defense-industrial capability, but also for the complex steel in San Juan and Permian natural gas and steel pipelines.
What is needed is metallurgy for manufacturing and equipment for continuous casting, cooling, rolling and welding. There is only one plant left in the United States that has some capacity for high strength pipeline steel (API X70 and X80).
The oil and gas industry in the San Juan Basin should not depend on imports from a non-continental foreign source as a matter of national security.
China already dominates the American market (oil and gas) for steel valves. There is vulnerability if China follows its rare earth history.
First, it lowered prices via exports. Second, with this weapon, American rare earth domestic production failed and China bought the technology and transferred it to China. Third, China raises prices for American users of rare earths.
The North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations continue with more confidence that fuels (natural gas) will be exempt from negative outcomes. The exemption for Canada and Mexico from steel and aluminum tariffs based on a no-threat-to-national-security finding and continental sources, suggests understanding that trade in fuels will not be restricted.
Daniel Fine is the associate director of New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy and the State of New Mexico Natural Gas Export Coordinator. The opinions expressed are his own.
For a week in March, Houston was the site of a world assembly of oil producers engaged in an OPEC-Russia dialogue with American shale or light tight oil producers on supply and — indirectly — price.
OPEC and Saudi Arabia pitched a market information offensive.
Put simply, American oil producers should cut-back or stabilize output in a “family” arrangement to avoid an expansion of supply that threatens the price of world oil.
But there is no U.S. Oil Company (government owned) in America, unlike all members plus Russia which are state companies. Russia is a mix. OPEC members are a price-setting cartel. So, a restaurant in Houston was selected as the site for an elite dinner of OPEC and American shale oil operators.
Platitudes and generalizations dominated the American-initiated conversation, because anything more would be in violation of U.S. anti-trust laws.
Saudi Arabia, consistent with its effort to sell shares in itself in an Initial Public Offering (forthcoming), emphasized there was enough future world demand to satisfy the Americans as well as OPEC.
This was 1.5 percent growth per year for the next decade or two. Almost silence, however, on Saudi Aramco’s capacity expansion of another l.5 million barrels per day as “spare capacity.”
Does the future demand short term or long term offer support for an unspeakable and unenforceable supply agreement that involves enough for all? Will American shale producers in the Permian exclude themselves from capturing any growth of demand?
Devon, no longer in the San Juan Basin, but dominant in Oklahoma, is going for double-digit production increases yearly and is increasing its dividend to shareholders who might otherwise be attracted to the idea of drilling and completing less to prop up the price per barrel.
The Houston dinner failed, as a half a dozen companies did not show up in compliance with legal restrictions. It failed to persuade the America shale industry to act with OPEC’s oil supply and price management as a “family” and not as a law-breaking cartel.
Less than a week later, Iran signaled that it would not renew the production cut that has removed 1.8 million OPEC barrels of oil from the world and increased prices.
Saudi Arabia was projecting a forecast that a tight market for oil is ahead this year or next as oil projects will not replace wells while demand is strong.
Few were sold on this forecast since shale oil well completions are effectively responsive to price signals with well completions compared to conventional replacement-based on prior oil field investment.
Oil traders are largely unconvinced or agnostic listening in to the Houston contradictions. Most will watch Iran in late May as a sell signal in the making of algorithms.
The Trump Administration on steel tariffs takes the Obama Administration’s failure to do so as a starting point. It was Secretary of the Treasury Lew under Obama who made the case for tariffs during his many visits to Beijing. He would accuse China of promoting an overcapacity of steel production for export and consequent flooding of the American market and the United States with cheap steel.
The Chinese no doubt listened politely to the words but did not anticipate action. They followed a strategy of export price advantage for driving American-owned and operated steel out of business.
Action was taken last month by President Donald Trump. And yet nothing in the customary reaction against Trump recalled that President George W. Bush declared sanctions against Chinese Steel export dumping over 10 years ago, which lasted 18 months, and is credited for an American steel innovation-led comeback.
National security requires American made high-quality steel not only for defense and defense-industrial capability, but also for the complex steel in San Juan and Permian natural gas and steel pipelines.
What is needed is metallurgy for manufacturing and equipment for continuous casting, cooling, rolling and welding. There is only one plant left in the United States that has some capacity for high strength pipeline steel (API X70 and X80).
The oil and gas industry in the San Juan Basin should not depend on imports from a non-continental foreign source as a matter of national security.
China already dominates the American market (oil and gas) for steel valves. There is vulnerability if China follows its rare earth history.
First, it lowered prices via exports. Second, with this weapon, American rare earth domestic production failed and China bought the technology and transferred it to China. Third, China raises prices for American users of rare earths.
The North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations continue with more confidence that fuels (natural gas) will be exempt from negative outcomes. The exemption for Canada and Mexico from steel and aluminum tariffs based on a no-threat-to-national-security finding and continental sources, suggests understanding that trade in fuels will not be restricted.”
Daniel Fine is the associate director of New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy and the State of New Mexico Natural Gas Export Coordinator. The opinions expressed are his own.
The North American Free Trade Agreement is now in a final stage with the U.S. team looking over the “energy chapter,” which has been approved by Canada and Mexico. The Administration’s position, with a revisionist-protectionist core, offers President Trump a withdrawal-from-NAFTA option, at least a tactical move to shake up Canada and Mexico in the interest of American merchandise and agricultural exports.
However, not much is known from the inside on plans for natural gas exports to Mexico. In 1992, the beginning of NAFTA, Mexico’s oil and gas industry was government owned and operated so it fell outside a free trade agreement.
Today, Mexico permits private capital to build, own and operate oil and gas exploration, production and transportation (pipelines) under its Energy Reform Law.
This admits natural gas into the NAFTA framework. Nearly $6 billion of Southwest natural gas was sold (exported) to Mexico last year.
Mexico imports 53 percent of its natural gas from the United States – with 60 percent on track. Needless to say, Mexico is dependent on American natural gas for its power generation.Texas natural gas pipeline entry points dominate the trade, while the Delaware and the San Juan basins are next as business and strategic sources.
The Mancos Shale natural gas below the Four Corners must access the expanding Mexican market in any revision of NAFTA terms. The Trump Administration’s understanding of American natural gas trade with Mexico should include regional economic integration. Energy is required for Mexican industrial growth, and Mexico has constructed the pipelines on its side border to receive and transport natural gas from the Permian and the San Juan Basin.
NAFTA revised should make natural gas exports from the U.S. Southwest a natural resource exemption from narrow foreign trade objectives. Natural gas reserves in the Southwest can be accessible to Mexican importers if pipelines to cross-border points attract American investment long-term. NAFTA changes
would create risk disincentives.
U.S. NAFTA negotiations can be aligned with the Trump-Zinke energy policy of world domination if the export “New Mexican natural gas” is designated a “win – win.”
If the Mexican market for American natural gas is lost, New Mexican natural gas would be mostly “stranded” without offset storage; and, it would push back on the Permian with an oil-only reality as the output of gas from Pennsylvania and Ohio output expands.
Unless Texas and New York media understand the history behind the oil price collapse history of 2014-2016 the industry and public will be compelled to repeat that history soon.
Oil prices are coupled into a “bubble”; or worse – speculation in a “coin” which exists as a product of computer software. Is Bitcoin speculation infecting the value of oil in commodity trading at least momentarily?
Will hedging create a trade?
With New Mexico oil production over 500,000 barrels per day (323,000 four years ago), the coming 30 days in Santa Fe (Legislative Session) should see a Democratic Party state budget expansion or plain spending offensive which would mirror 2018 primaries and general election conflict between progressives and centrists.
There is no threat from off-shore (Atlantic and Pacific Ocean) to New Mexican oil and gas development. President Trump is right to remove off-shore prohibitions, but now the market takes over. The cost of San Juan Basin natural gas is 80 percent less than exploration and production 50 miles out in North Carolina’s Atlantic Ocean.
Three or four dimensional seismic investments—yes; production—no; not as long as there is economic shale natural gas on-shore in New Mexico and the Southwest.
Daniel Fine is the associate director of New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy. The opinions expressed are his own.