Wall Street analysts sharply increased their Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) second-quarter profit estimates on Tuesday, after the largest U.S. oil producer projected it could almost double its first-quarter earnings. Exxon’s preview, released on Friday, signaled strong results ahead by oil companies and refiners and brought renewed criticism from the White House and fresh calls for a windfall profit tax by U.S. lawmakers under pressure from voters feeling pain at the pump. The White House repeated its call for oil companies to “use their record profits to expand refining capacity, increase ...

Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, raised August crude oil prices for Asian buyers to near record levels amid tight supply and robust demand. The official selling price (OSP) for August-loading Arab Light to Asia was raised by $2.80 a barrel from July to $9.30 a barrel over Oman/Dubai quotes, people familiar with the matter said, close to the record high premium of $9.35 per barrel hit in May. That was in line with market forecasts polled by Reuters for an increase of around $2.7 a barrel. OPEC+ has ...

Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday a reported proposal from Japan to cap the price of Russian oil at around half its current level would lead to significantly less oil on the market and could push prices above $300-$400 a barrel. Commenting on the proposal, which was reportedly put forward by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Medvedev said Japan “would have neither oil nor gas from Russia, as well as no participation in the Sakhalin-2 LNG project” as a result. President Vladimir Putin last week signed a decree that ...

Norwegian offshore workers on Tuesday began a strike that will reduce oil and gas output, the union leading the industrial action told Reuters. The strike, in which workers are demanding wage hikes to compensate for rising inflation, comes amid high oil and gas prices, with supplies of natural gas to Europe especially tight after Russian export cutbacks. “The strike has begun,” Audun Ingvartsen, the leader of the Lederne trade union said in an interview. The Norwegian government has said it was following the conflict “closely”. It can intervene to stop ...

Schlumberger, Baker Hughes and Halliburton are in the process of liquidating and exiting existing tenders and contracts in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region to be in compliance with a Federal Supreme Court ruling, the oil ministry said July 4. The three oil service companies told the federal oil ministry they would not apply for new energy projects in Kurdistan, the ministry said in a statement. Halliburton, Schlumberger and Baker Hughes were not immediately available for comment. The Federal Supreme Court ruled on Feb. 15 that Kurdistan’s independent oil and gas industry ...

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday OPEC+ must produce more oil to try to tackle a growing cost-of-living crisis and bring down prices. “There is no doubt that we are going to need a lot more OPEC+ oil,” he told parliament, referring to a group that includes Saudi Arabia, Russia and other major oil producers. “The UK has … strong and productive relations with Saudi Arabia. We need to make sure the whole of the West does as well,” Johnson said, adding that Saudi Arabia needed to produce ...

Iran, whose energy trade is pressed by US sanctions, is ready to pump more oil as the world needs the crude to balance supply and demand and calm prices before travel seasons in the US and Europe, the oil minister Javad Owji said, according to economic daily Donyay-e Eqtesad. Iran could increase production to levels before the sanctions, he said, without giving an estimate of current output. “There are some worries about oil supply shortage in the coming months,” he said, despite some concerns about economic slowdown and possible curbs ...

The world’s seven-largest industrialized economies have floated the idea of a price cap on Russian oil to further squeeze the Kremlin’s ability to fund its onslaught in Ukraine and try to protect consumers amid surging energy prices. The G-7′s pursuit of a price ceiling on Russian oil is not without its challenges, however, with energy analysts highly skeptical about the integrity of the proposal. For its part, the Kremlin has warned any attempt to impose a price cap on Russian oil will cause more harm than good. How the idea ...

Kuwait ranked ninth in the world for recoverable oil reserves, according to data issued by Rystad Energy, a company specialized in oil research. The company said these reserves amount to 53 billion barrels, noting that the total recoverable oil around the world is now down by 9% from last year, which threatens global energy security, reports Al-Anba daily. The company reviewed the countries with the largest recoverable reserves. Referring to the report on extractable oil resources, the largest 5 reserves are held by Saudi Arabia, with 275 billion barrels, followed ...

Ecuador’s oil output has recovered by about 90% since a deal between the government and demonstrators ended nationwide protests late last week, with output up to 461,367 barrels per day (bpd), the ministry of mines and energy said on Monday. More than two weeks of protests in Ecuador caused state-run oil company Petroecuador to lose 1.99 million barrels of oil production, while the government declared force majeure for the public and private oil sector. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Yury Garcia and Oliver Griffin; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Paul ...

Equinor has initiated a safe shutdown of the Gudrun, Oseberg South and Oseberg East fields after members of the Norwegian Organisation of Managers and Executives (Lederne) trade union went on strike from midnight. The background for the strike is that the members of Lederne in a referendum voted against the mediator’s proposal during the wage negotiations for offshore personnel between the labour organisations and the employers’ organisation, the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association (Norog). Total production from Gudrun, Oseberg South and Oseberg East is around 89,000 barrels of oil equivalent ...

Brent oil prices slipped on Tuesday, reversing earlier gains, as concerns of a possible global recession curtailing fuel demand outweighed supply disruption fears, highlighted by an expected production cut in Norway. Brent crude fell 38 cents, or 0.3%, to $113.12 a barrel by 0914 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude climbed 84 cents, or 0.8%, to $109.27 a barrel, from Friday’s close. There was no settlement for WTI on Monday because of the Independence Day public holiday in the United States. “Oil is still struggling to break out from ...

Energy ICE Brent saw further strength yesterday, settling almost 1.7% higher on the day. While there are demand concerns given the gloomier macro outlook, the market is still expected to be tight for the remainder of the year. OPEC+ producers have limited room to increase output significantly, and so are unable to provide much relief to the market. As mentioned in yesterday’s note, OPEC production declined over June, with the bulk of members falling short of their output targets. However, political pressure on OPEC members to increase output will keep ...

Investors continued to liquidate bullish long positions in petroleum last week as the economic outlook deteriorated though the rate of selling was much slower after heavy selling the week before. Hedge funds and other money managers sold the equivalent of 9 million barrels in the six most important futures and options contracts in the week to June 28, following on from sales of 71 million in the week to June 21. Most the recent adjustment has come from the liquidation of former bullish long positions as the outlook for the ...

Russia needs to wait and see how proposals on capping the price of Russian oil exports are finalised, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Commenting on reports that Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had proposed a cap at around half the current price, Peskov said that other countries may disagree with that. “This statement… does not mean that such parameters will be agreed by other countries,” Peskov told his daily conference call with reporters. “So far, this is a single statement only, without any decisions taken.” G7 leaders agreed last ...