The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring financial educator and author Jared Dillian has been released. Listen here.
I've met two of the people in the movie. Benny Peiser and Austin Williams. I had an interesting chat with AW at FSU in Camebridge lat month. He describes himself as an architect and is awesomely bright but also someone you could have a pint with. He speaks Chinese and worked their too (some would say it makes him dodgy but he didn't try and recruit me). He appears briefly at 1:04.30, 1:13.40, and 1:16.00. Benny Peiser invited me to a discussion about Africa at the HoL.
Coincidentally (and I'm sure you want to know) what is the 4th biggest island in the world with a land mass bigger than France and a population greater than Australia?
..............and become more like Bhutan Sekforde ?
Bhutan is the world's first carbon-negative country; its vast forests absorb more carbon dioxide (CO2) than the country emits from all activities. This accomplishment stems from Bhutan's holistic approach to development.19 Oct 2023
Of course you'll also move towards their GDP per capita and life expectancy. Your claims about the science of climate change are disputed by many scientists. Just on carbon dioxide it has been much higher and is actually plant food whilst temperature has been higher and lower in the past.
Problem being that in the real world it makes new fields uneconomic so effectively a backdoor way of closing down the North Sea to hydrocarbons. Labour will surprise us with an alternative way of raising revenue to compensate for increased import costs of oil and gas.
"Lets all face it - a lot of this is guesswork based on oil, tax, timing of payments and probably some butterfly flapping its wings in south america" - which the Governent or opposition could change in an instant. At the moment we're relying on the butterfly.
The media have picked up on China's cyber attacks and spreading of misinformation. Net Zero benefits them, not us, so why not help the climate activists? It undermines our security and helps the Chinese export of solar panels and EV's.
juststopoil are drowning. Throw them an anvil.
Investors in NS O&G and the public are the collateral damage. ESG is losing its cachet but the winners (self-interest) are Big Tech who really don’t care so much about hydrocarbons. Although they use them it is a smaller energy consideration than their main source – ELECTRICITY which can only be exported relatively short distances. There will always be hydrocarbons and even Tessa Khan admits that it is an international market with an efficient and cheap infrastructure but the source is often in countries that don’t obey the West and can make life temporarily difficult. Electricity is oxygen to Big Tech.
Big Tech and the demands of AI have created an insatiable demand for electricity that needs a connection to a cable that you plug into. The economics worsen the longer the cable and also how do you protect hundreds of miles that cross international waters?
Big Tech have chosen to have their OWN supply. It may be more expensive due to economies of scale but they escape any WFT on their massive profits anyway and wouldn’t risk them with governments seemingly incapable and scared of challenging them. I’m not calling it a conspiracy but it is a situation that suits Amazon, Meta etc. They don’t really need each other’s support to build a wind/solar farm but they all have the same requirements.
*I never saw the “Where’s Ed?” website and only guessed his absence was telling. Labour aren’t really trapped yet and both parties have the assistance of “useful idiots” (juststopoil, Jeremy Hunt etc.). They know the public has a short memory and rely on expediency and short-term tactics that they think will please voters. Net Zero is a cult but there are many others. Just take Catholicism (I am baptised and confirmed), it regularly turns wine into blood and dry bread into flesh. Just repeat the mantra and very soon NZ chanting is hard to tell apart from religious prayers and liturgy. We have AI existing alongside Saints and a place called heaven. O&G will survive and live alongside the latest cult (NZ) which is losing converts who don’t like the taste of their Kool-Aid.
We are winning from here – SLOWLY.
And I thought it was only Trump that was accused of being transactional. Still not to worry. We'll soon be in the same boat relying on increased foreign imports for oil and refined products. Labour and Jeremy Hunt favour Russia too.
But sometimes it is just catnip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHOr2WH7V1k
What made me watch it again was this film released today:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/03/21/climate-the-movie/#respond
It is long unfortunately and repeats a lot of what we already know but resistance is finally gaining traction. What it does explain quite well imo is the creeping control of governments into what we eat, how we travel, holidays etc. just for starters. It is career suicide to be a so called 'climate denier' even if you're a scientist with data and evidence. I saw a play yesterday evening called "Power of Sail" which revolved around a Harvard professor inviting a right-wing firebrand to a lecture - it of course immediately brings protestors out on the campus and the play is really about free speech and silencing debate. I learned that a sailboat has right of way when 'under sail' to qualify for the right of way over power-driven vessels. I think this was the anology that liberalism trumps all other forms of power and you have to adhere to the fantasy of a 'greater good' like ESG. The comparisons with religion are unavoidable. The play is about the hypocrisy that runs through activism and the zealotry it inspires. I found it interesting that when challenged the white nationalist (who never appeared) was the only one in the play who actually openly stood up for what he believed in. In Academia there is a lot of "trade off" combined with cynicism and hypocrisy. It is even worse in politics.
"Equinor shares rose after the tender announcement - a sign that some investors feared Norway's biggest company could end up spending too much on projects less profitable than its oil and gas business and were relieved it did not win." Reuters
I'd trust Equinor more than IKEA to build wind farms. How to you get a flat pack turbine in the car anyway?
*I wonder if Equinor was a reluctant bidder anyway and it was political to at least join in the dad's race.
"Campaign group Net Zero Watch has welcomed the announcement by the Scottish Government that they are considering legislating to water down their Net Zero targets.[1] Net Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan told the Holyrood Parliament that, having set themselves a legally binding target of cutting carbon emissions by 75% by 2030, she and her officials were now considering a variety of options to address the impossibility of actually delivering, including legislation.
Welcoming the move, Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:
Politicians across the world have set ruinous, utopian targets that are impossible to deliver. Ms McAllan is the first to publicly face up to reality, but she won’t be the last. We have reached the high water mark for Net Zero.
Under the Climate Change Act, governments can amend the decarbonisation target and the timetable for achieving it by regulation, as happened in 2020 [2]. It is also open to them to legislate.
Mr Montford said:
This is a purely political decision. Whatever course they take, the Scottish Government will face opposition from environmentalists, the Climate Change Committee and their Green coalition partners. But they have no option. You can’t negotiate with reality."
"You can't negotiate with reality" is true but you can ignore it. Ask Ed and juststopoil.
An EV article about the Mariner field which is heavy oil.
"Equinor invested £6.4 billion ahead of first oil from Mariner in 2019, but just two years later the Norwegian state-owned firm took a £1.3 billion impairment after a major downgrade to its recoverable reserves.
Mariner is one of several heavy oil fields East of Shetland which have posed a complex challenge for North Sea operators.
Some of the areas of equipment on Mariner already facing issues include plate heat exchangers, rotating equipment and the sourcing of replacement parts.
Mr Holdsworth said rotating equipment is a “repeat issue” at Mariner for the Norwegian state-owned operator.
“A lot of pumps and some mechanical seal issues that we’ve seen to date, apparently the rates through the pumps are different to what we were expecting in design,” he said.
Mr Holdsworth said Equinor is seeking input from supply chain firms with experience in reverse engineering, sourcing spares, or new solutions to replace equipment to increase performance."
Just a reminder that O&G is a hostile environment wherever you go. I'd say we've done pretty well with Kraken. It has never been easy.
I don't comment on accounts usually as there are others better qualified that post regularly on here. The costs of these ageing fields does not leave a lot of room for profit with the current price of oil; certainly not windfall profits but this isn't a UK phenomenon. Wind is struggling to replace gas for electricity and oil energy is far more complex. There has been (imo) a cutback throughout the world on investment in oil. A combination of ESG and the cult of climate activism being the main drivers. Against this the world is becoming a lot more unsafe and underinvestment in infrastructure (inc. NHS, utilities, roads etc.. is ubiquitous across Europe and the US.
That is changing as realisation dawns that there are NO silver bullets when it comes to energy and the advantages of using the most dense and the cheapest are well understood.
There will be NO investment in NEW fields with Labour's plans and the Tories have cratered the sector anyhow. Leaving the British public to rely solely on imports of hydrocarbons in the future. This is an impossible situation and will bring down governments.
I can imagine that Ed Miliband is not the most popular member of the shadow cabinet; certainly not with Rachel Reeves. He must have some negatives and is blackmailing the Labour Party. I can't see any other reason that makes sense.
Only a recession can stop oil going higher and we're hardly firing on all cylinders at present.
Oil higher is my bet and Labour to encourage investment in domestic O&G for revenue if no other reason [obviously Ed Miliband is removed from his current role]. The public would rather have some say in energy choice against an underfunded NHS for example (and the roads need tarmac).
We are coming to the fin de siècle of the renewable madness. Realism is sprouting again.
The Norwegian government has unveiled Ventyr Energi, a consortium of Parkwind and Ingka Investments, as the winner of the Sørlige Nordsjø II (Southern North Sea II) offshore wind auction round in Norway. The winning bid in the auction was NOK 1.15 (EUR 0.099) per kilowatt hour. The Norwegian Parliament has decided that the upper limit for state support is NOK 23 billion (approximately EUR 1.9 billion).
It works like the UK CfD system so is the equivalent of £85.19 MWh. I'm no expert but our failed auction AR5 was priced at £44 MWh. The experts will analyse and give their opinions and I wouldn't be surprised if they comment on the winning consortium which includes IKEA who have a 49 per cent stake. I think that the larger global companies are ensuring they have an alternative to the public grid. The politicians will crow about the "success" of the auction so it will be interesting to see what the experts think.
Https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-news/more-fantasy-energy-policy
The author of this, Andrew Montford, has a point but also ignores the elephant in the room. If we wish to continue with technological advances and AI, together with EVs and heat pumps, we're gonna be using a lot more electricity whilst relying on an intermittent and far less dense source of power for the electricity. Higher electricity bills are unavoidable whatever route is chosen. Labour have demonised the term "profit" unless it is by a renewable company, who sadly don't even make a profit if the subsidies are removed. In this new economy the only alternative is to nationalise because companies won't invest if there is no possibility of making a profit.
We're all living in a fantasy land. Energy has been far too cheap for far too long. The public will soon find out and it looks like Labour will be in power when it happens.
Andrew is correct in that the green zealots have got us into this mess by demanding the impossible and politicians promising it (renewables 9X cheaper; Labour).
Juan - I'm with you. The above is regarding electricity and gas and it is even more difficult and tricky to understand oil which is the other 75/80% of energy we use in the UK. Hunt conflated the two (O&G) with the EPL and that may prove to be a massive blunder. EnQuest have broken no laws and done nothing wrong. With the lack of investment oil is a becoming a rare commodity and one of the few sectors that will make a profit as it is largely blackout resistant. Labour has made its bed but I don't think they're prepared to lie in it.
It is worrying M. Labour have got in a lot of confusion over this. For beneficial change the influence of a 'disruptor' is sometimes uncomfortable as few embrace change automatically but if it has an economic or social benefit it will get through eventually. Poor old ED has confused disruptor with destructor.
Hi old mentor Gordon Brown sold a large amount of our gold reserves at the bottom of the market because he was concerned about the "volatility" of gold (echoes of energy prices). Brown was wrong then and Labour are wrong now. Ed Miliband's O&G are the volatile gold reserves of Gordon Brown.
Labour want to destroy the O&G industry at the altar of climate ideology which is based on a lot of hocus-pocus based on impossble to prove theories and models.
This madness will end.
Https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/03/19/the-tories-are-stuck-in-a-net-zero-trap-of-their-own-making/
I particularly liked this. It was a simple mistake anybody could make. Renewables weren't 9X cheaper than gas - it was the other way around, certainly with green hydrogen:
"Green hydrogen is another silver bullet that’s colossally expensive. In a 2022 report, policy expert Francis Menton went through the pie-in-the-sky economics of relying on renewable electricity to make hydrogen to burn in a gas-fired power station. To use green hydrogen to produce the same quantities of electricity as gas, you need a turbine capable of producing 288 MW, costing $305 million (£240 million), plus a supporting 4.7 GW of solar capacity – more than 16 times the capacity of the gas-fired power station – to provide electricity directly to the grid and generate sufficient hydrogen to be stored as backup. In total, this would cost $6.6 billion (£5.2 billion). By contrast, natural gas would require just the $305 million gas turbine plus $600 million-worth (£472 million) of natural gas, making a total cost of around $900m."
Remarkablly steady. Almost as if a foot was on the break. Steady upward pressure that gets in the way of geopolitics and benefits those nasty producers. I'd release reserves into the market from SPR if I was an embattled US President.
It's also about timing as well Keir
https://twitter.com/sarahhowardSAR/status/1734682138350604795/photo/1
December 2023
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/03/19/electric-lorry-maker-backed-by-david-beckham-collapses-into-administration/
March 2024