Oil prices closed 1% lower on Friday and fell even more for the week as markets remained wary of soft Chinese demand even as producer group OPEC+ extended supply cuts.
Brazilian state-controlled company Petrobras saw earnings down in the final quarter of 2023, as results were affected by the depreciation of Brent crude prices and lower oil products margins.
In an oil market update sent to Rigzone late Tuesday, Rystad Energy Senior Vice President Jorge Leon outlined that OPEC+’s extended production cuts of 1.7 million barrels per day into the second quarter have resulted in an increase of $5 per barrel to Rystad Energy’s previous price projection.
Oil prices were little changed on Thursday as markets weighed new economic data from China against increasing supply from the Western Hemisphere. Brent crude futures settled flat at $82.96 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures ended 20 cents lower at $78.93.
With its burgeoning offshore oil and gas prospects, Namibia is set to firmly establish itself as one of the continent’s hydrocarbon investment hotspots when it headlines the 2024 Invest in African Energy forum scheduled for May in Paris.
The Federal Government has said that the 7th Nigeria International Energy Summit (NIES 2024) would serve as catalyst for positive change, innovation and resilience in view of industry challenges.
A series of legal rulings by Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court (FSC) on 21 February underlined that the planned New Oil Law being worked on by the government of Iraq in Baghdad will be the final agent of change that will end any semblance of independence for Iraqi Kurdistan. And for Western oil companies working in the region, it looks like the future has been cancelled.
When the use of seismic surveys became common place, Oil and gas drillers used to drill only in spots the human eye could detect from seismic and other data, but that’s all changing now. The next round of onshore discoveries is being aided by new Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning software that sees what we can’t, forever disrupting the exploration game.
Heavyweights Saudi Arabia and Russia, alongside several other key OPEC+ producers, will extend their voluntary crude supply cuts until the end of the second quarter.
The US oil, gas rig count gained five to 669 for the week ended Feb. 21, S&P Global Commodity Insights data showed, as fourth-quarter upstream earnings season essentially came to a close with indications of slightly higher capex in 2024 and also of moderating production growth.