WTI $36.76 -$3.01, Brent $39.78 -$2.88, Diff -$3.02 +9c, NG $2.40 -19c

Oil price

Oil had a bad day, it joined equity markets that decided on masse that with the virus numbers increasing across the board and demand falling led by the Chinese buyers. Also two of the biggest refineries in the US havent yet reopened following Hurricane Laura yet.

Or it could be a Gamma squeeze or even reverse conversion, you couldn’t make it up, but for recent first time investment from Millennial’s it’s their first market correction, tell them that a 50% correction isn’t unusual or even bad…

Retail gasoline last week fell by 1.1 cents, rose by 4.5 cents m/m and fell by 33.9 cents y/y.

Kosmos Energy

Kosmos has announced that it has farmed-down to Shell a portfolio of assets for around $100m plus another potential $100m. The portfolio consists of assets in Sao Tome & Principe, Suriname, Namibia and South Africa. A third of the proceeds will go towards testing in the Gulf of Mexico with the remainder on reducing borrowings.

PetroTal Corp

PetroTal has announced that it is ready to reopen the Bretana field as soon as the ongoing discussions between the communities and the Government of Peru have been ratified, which is expected in the next few days as reported by Government officials.

This comes after a six year financial commitment of c.$1.7bn to the communities, designated for economic development of the localities over the next four months, by the Peruvian government. Since the announcement of the Decree, which PetroTal strongly supports, government and municipality representatives have been consulting with the community representatives on the Decree.  After meeting with the Bretana community in the coming days, it is expected that PetroTal will restart oil production shortly.

Echo Energy

Echo has announced that it has bought 4 gas compressors, previously leased which are used to increase the pressure of the gas for pipeline transportation from fields at a cost of $2.2m to be paid over 36 months.

The company has also announced that due to improved market conditions the company is increasing production by bringing back wells into production that were previously shut-in. This should increase production by some 108 b/d across the Santa Cruz Sur assets.

The wells which have now successfully been brought back online are producing at an average rate approximately 13% higher than the pre shut-in levels potentially due to pressure build up in the reservoir during the period of shut-in. This is due to pressure build-up and may be possible across the remaining shut-in wells but whether it is a permanent increase will have to be seen.

Premier Oil

Yesterday I interviewed Premier CEO, Tony Durrant on Core Finance TV. The link was in yesterday’s blog but it was published quite late so here is another copy of the link in case it snuck through…

Core Finance CEO interview: Tony Durrant of Premier Oil

KeyFacts Energy Industry Directory: Malcy's Blog