EA Podcast

In the latest episode of Back to Fundamentals, we welcome Vicki Hollub, President and CEO of Occidental. Vicki is joined by Energy Aspects’ Amrita Sen, Founder and Director of Research, and Ram Parikh, Senior Crude Analyst, to talk about the future of the US shale industry and how it’s adapting to this new, green world.

Vicki shares her views on long-term oil demand and how she believes US shale oil production has peaked, as well as Occidental's strategy to address climate change and its role in helping communities to establish local businesses.

Join us next week for another episode of Back to Fundamentals, where we will be in conversation with another senior energy executive to discuss markets and the energy transition.

In the latest episode of Back to Fundamentals, we are pleased to have Mr Chen, Deputy General Manager at Rongsheng Singapore, share his views. Mr Chen is joined by Energy Aspects’ Amrita Sen, Founder and Director of Research, and Raul Alcamo, Head of Refining, to discuss the need for rationalisation in the Chinese refining sector, the country’s recovery from COVID-19, the future of petrochemicals, broader Asian demand and products market oversupply.

Mr Chen speaks of Rongsheng’s ability to generate high profits, even as the rest of the world’s refineries are recording heavy losses. He also discusses what Rongsheng’s Phase II refining project, due to start in October, will do to sweet-sour crude differentials, the company's views on whether other independent refiners will also get product export quotas and how many refinery closures will be required to balance the market.

Join us next week for another episode of Back to Fundamentals, where we will be in conversation with another senior energy executive to discuss global energy markets.

We are pleased to launch the second season of our Back to Fundamentals podcast series. This season will each week feature a senior energy executive discussing markets and the energy transition.

In the first episode of the season, we welcome Lorenzo Simonelli, Chairman and CEO at Baker Hughes. Lorenzo is joined by Amrita Sen (Founder and Director of Research) and Virendra Chauhan (Head of Upstream) from Energy Aspects to talk about oil’s role in the energy transition, future supply trends and changes to the energy mix.

In the final episode of season one of Back to Fundamentals, Energy Aspects' Global Gas Analyst James Waddell discusses our outlook for the North American natural gas and power markets this summer and into 2021 with Nina Fahy, our Head of North America Natural Gas, and Head of North American Power Peter Rosenthal.

There are a lot of moving parts in this summer’s gas balances, from LNG export curtailment to production volatility following oil well shut-ins from April, and all this is happening amid the continued overhang from the coronavirus on both industrial demand and overall power usage. Prices ratcheted lower to pick up excess power demand, at least until temperatures spiked this summer. These will help push end-of-season inventories toward record highs.

Power demand continues to claw back consumption lost to factory and office closures, but we expect the recovery will be lumpy as the spread of COVID-19 persists in the US, and the overall economy may take years to reach output levels seen in 2019. This, along with upcoming capacity auctions and the November presidential election, will determine if coal retirements will increase further.

In this episode, Energy Aspects' oil analyst Christopher Haines discusses our outlook for NGLs and naphtha markets with Head of NGLs Samantha Hartke and oil products analyst Ciaran Tyler.

The outlook for LPG and naphtha demand looks bullish. Feedstock demand is recovering from its April trough, and new petrochemical capacity and a lighter maintenance season y/y are set to feature in H2 20. Tighter naphtha supplies from low refinery runs and the inching upward of US and Middle East field production will put a floor of support under prices in Q3 20, while the onset of heating demand in Q4 20 will further constrict LPG balances.

However, a tsunami of new downstream petrochemical capacity is likely to weaken downstream prices, compressing petrochemical margins and forcing firms in this sector—which were already struggling due to COVID-19—to make some hard decisions to secure revenue.

In this episode, Energy Aspects' Chief Oil Analyst Amrita Sen discusses our outlook for oil supply with Head of Geopolitics Richard Bronze and Head of Upstream Virendra Chauhan.

The market is focussing on the demand fallout from COVID-19 but it is supplies that have entered a new paradigm. Not only are both OPEC and non-OPEC supplies falling at a record pace, the return of some of these supplies will also be challenging, as some shuttered wells may be lost forever. This is particularly true for North America and regions with high water cut, so the years of 1+ mb/d of US shale growth are behind us. Not all of the 12 mb/d of current spare capacity globally can return. This means higher OPEC production and exports at a higher price in the medium term.