Energy News Beat

A group of 28 premature babies has been evacuated from al-Shifa Hospital in the besieged Gaza Strip and taken to Egypt for urgent treatment as Palestinian officials say Israeli forces have attacked another hospital in northern Gaza.

The newborns had been patients at al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest medical facility, where several others had died after their incubators stopped working for a lack of fuel as medical services collapse during the Israeli military’s ground and air assault on Gaza City.

The babies were transported on Sunday to Al-Helal L-Emirati Maternity Hospital in Rafah in southern Gaza, so their condition could be stabilised before making the trip to Egypt through the Rafah border crossing on Monday.

“Three babies still remain at the Emirati hospital and continue to receive treatment,” a World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson told the Reuters news agency.

“All babies are fighting serious infections and continue needing health care.”

Medics prepare premature babies for transport to Egypt after they were evacuated from al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City to a hospital in Rafah [Fatima Shbair/AP Photo]

Last week, Israeli forces seized al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical facility in Gaza, to search for what they said was a Hamas tunnel network and command centre built underneath the complex. Hamas has denied the allegations.

During the Israeli operation, hundreds of patients, medical staff and displaced people left al-Shifa at the weekend and moved to the southern Gaza Strip.

Since al-Shifa doctors have raised the alarm about the situation at the hospital for premature babies and the lack of clean water and medicines in the neonatal ward, eight infants have died, according to hospital officials.

At another hospital in northern Gaza, at least 12 people were killed by artillery fire on Monday and dozens wounded, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.

The ministry said hundreds of people were trapped at the facility, which was encircled by Israeli tanks.

Reporting from the hospital, journalist Anas al-Sharif described the scenes inside as “chaotic”.

“There is an overwhelming state of panic among patients,” he told Al Jazeera. “Victims are piling up on the floor.”

The WHO’s chief said the United Nations agency was “appalled” by the attack on the Indonesian Hospital.

“Health workers and civilians should never have to be exposed to such horror, and especially while inside a hospital,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Indonesia’s foreign minister condemned the attack on the hospital, which was built in 2016 and funded by Indonesia, and called it a “clear violation of international humanitarian laws”.

“All countries, especially those that have close relations with Israel, must use all their influence and capabilities to urge Israel to stop its atrocities,” Retno Marsudi said.

“We are very concerned about the fate of our colleagues and the fate of wounded and patients as well as [displaced] people who may have still [been] sheltering there. No ambulances can reach them, and we’re afraid the wounded will die,” said Nahed Abu Taaema, director of Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza.

Like most hospitals and clinics in the northern half of the Gaza Strip, the Indonesian Hospital has largely ceased operations but is sheltering patients, staff and displaced people who have sought shelter at the site after Israel launched its assault on Gaza last month.

Smoke rises after an Israeli strike near the Indonesian Hospital, which has run out of fuel and electricity, in the northern Gaza Strip on November 12, 2023 [Anas al-Shareef/Reuters]

As fighting continues between Israeli forces and Hamas in Gaza, US and Israeli officials said a Qatari-mediated deal to free some of the captives held in the Palestinian enclave and pause fighting temporarily to enable aid deliveries to stricken civilians was edging closer.

About 240 hostages were taken during a deadly assault on southern Israel by Hamas on October 7. About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, according to Israeli tallies.

After the attack, Israel promised to topple the armed group, which has governed Gaza since 2007, and it launched a devastating bombardment and ground offensive on Gaza.

At least 13,000 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 5,500 children, according to Palestinian officials.

Group of 28 infants evacuated from the besieged al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City arrive in Egypt.

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In a letter, some of OpenAI’s most senior staff members threatened to leave the company if the board was not replaced.

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A unit of LNG giant Shell has completed its previously announced deal with BP to sell a 27 percent stake in the Woodside-led Browse project in Australia.

“Shell Australia has completed the sale of our interest in the Browse project to BP as was announced on April 29, 2023,” the company said in a short statement.

Shell’s unit did not provide any further information.

The company announced in a statement issued on April 29 that Browse remains “an important Australian resource which if developed will provide much needed energy to customers as the energy market transitions towards lower carbon energy.”

“Shell regularly assesses its portfolio to inform capital allocation and maximize returns and performance however, the Browse asset is no longer a strategic fit in the context of Shell’s global portfolio,” it said at the time.

The firm did not disclose any financial details regarding the deal.

BP Developments Australia, a unit of BP, now has a 44.33 percent stake in the project.

Japan Australia LNG, a joint venture of Mitsubishi and Mitsui, owns a 14.4 percent stake, while PetroChina International has a 10.67 percent.

Woodside leads the project with a 30.60 percent stake.

The Australian LNG firm said in September last year that it was progressing with its plans to send natural gas from the Browse Basin offshore Western Australia to North West Shelf’s Karratha gas plant on Burrup peninsula.

Woodside and its partners are proposing to develop the Brecknock, Calliance, and Torosa fields located approximately 425 km north of Broome in the offshore Browse Basin.

The proposed development concept includes two floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facilities delivering 11.4 Mtpa of LNG/LPG and domestic gas, and an about 900 km pipeline to existing NWS project infrastructure.

The Karratha gas plant in Western Australia, part of the NWS project, shipped its 6000th cargo of LNG in September last year.

It has five LNG trains with a capacity of 16.9 million tonnes per year. Also, it features domestic gas trains, condensate stabilization units, and LPG units.

Australia’s oldest LNG plant has been liquefying gas from fields located off the north-west coast of Australia since 1989.

However, these fields are running out of gas and the project is now shifting its focus towards a different business model aimed at processing gas from third parties.

Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill said during the company’s recent investor briefing that the company needs “three things for Browse.”

“We need a carbon solution; we need kind of clarity on our ability to obtain environmental approvals; and we need commercial agreement to process Browse gas through the North West Shelf,” she said.

O’Neill said that Woodside has made “really good progress” on a carbon solution and the company continues to work with the governments on environmental approvals.

“Those applications have been with the regulators for several years now and we continue to try to move them forward but it is a bit of a challenging environment,” she said.

“And thirdly, we are in active discussions between the Browse JV and North West Shelf JV on a potential tolling agreement. So, we continue to work on the things that are critical path,” she said.

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World Oil

(WO) — As a result of the order issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Nov. 14, 2023, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has scheduled Lease Sale 261 for Dec. 20, 2023.

The Gulf of Mexico oil and gas lease sale was originally scheduled for Sept. 27, 2023, and later scheduled for Nov. 8, 2023, in response to judicial orders.

Pursuant to direction from the Court, BOEM will include lease blocks that were previously excluded due to concerns regarding potential impacts to the Rice’s whale population in the Gulf of Mexico. BOEM will also remove portions of a related stipulation meant to address those potential impacts from the lease terms for any leases that may result from Lease Sale 261.

A Final Notice of Sale will be published in the Federal Register on Nov. 20, 2023, and will be available for public inspection on Nov. 17, 2023.

 

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Oil Price

OPEC’s third-largest producer, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), could raise its oil output next year as it has won a higher quota under the OPEC+ agreement.

The UAE, OPEC’s third-biggest producer after Saudi Arabia and Iraq, said in the summer that it would not join the Saudis in making voluntary production cuts.

The UAE has argued for years that it should be allowed to pump more than its current OPEC+ quota as it is raising its production capacity.

At the June meeting, the UAE got a huge concession from OPEC+ in the form of an upward revision of its quota that will take its production up by 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 3.219 million bpd for 2024.

 

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A pair of community microgrid projects in Massachusetts are already helping to inspire similar projects in the state before construction has even begun.

The city of Chelsea and Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood are each developing projects that supporters hope can become powerful case studies for the potential of microgrids to increase resilience and create other benefits for residents.

Chelsea has ordered equipment for a microgrid that will connect municipal facilities, and is targeting a construction date in the second half of 2024. Chinatown is finalizing plans for a system to provide solar power and backup energy storage to a 200-unit affordable housing apartment building. 

“We do see this serving as a model for the nation if we can pull it off,” said Alexander Train, Chelsea’s director of housing and community development.

The list of communities considering whether to follow their lead includes Cambridge, Lynn, and Milton.

In the broadest sense, microgrids are small-scale energy systems in which power is produced, distributed, and consumed, typically all within a self-contained area such as a college campus or hospital complex. Microgrids can often operate independently from the main grid, providing continuous power, even in case of disruptions to the regional supply, and can help cut energy costs. 

Though they come in all configurations and sizes, microgrids have historically generated power with fossil fuels. But as the transition to sustainable energy accelerates, more organizations are looking at ways to combine renewable energy and battery storage to create cleaner microgrids. 

Several years ago, semi-retired engineer David Dayton saw in this evolving model an opportunity to improve the health and safety of environmental justice communities — areas that bear a disproportionate environmental burden and are often home to many low-income residents and people of color. 

Solar panels could cut energy costs, while batteries could provide power to critical facilities, such as municipal buildings, community centers, and senior housing, in case of power outages. Batteries could also be used to sell power back to the main grid to help pay for the system.

To get this vision off the ground, Dayton reached out to organizations he was familiar with, including the Green Justice Coalition and private companies Peregrine Energy Group and Synapse Energy Economics. The participants identified Chelsea and Chinatown as good candidates for a community microgrid. Both communities have high populations of immigrants and people of color, and both have median household incomes well below the average for the area. And they are vulnerable to climate change impacts including flooding and dangerous temperatures as the result of the urban heat island effect. 

In 2018, the group Dayton assembled acquired grants from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center for feasibility studies in the two communities.

The model developed during this process proposes to create the nation’s first community-owned “virtual microgrid.” The designs use cloud-based software to connect solar installations and batteries in locations that aren’t necessarily adjacent to each other, a departure from the conventional model in which the components of the microgrid are physically connected. This approach allows more flexibility in deciding what facilities can participate, particularly helpful when a community would like to include vital facilities that are geographically spread out. 

“It’s a microgrid without borders,” Dayton said. “We can add any building to the network at any time — they don’t have to be contiguous.”

Today, the first two projects are making progress. In Chelsea, a design has been created that includes 500 kilowatt-hour batteries at both the police station and city hall, as well as a 400 kilowatt solar array at the department of public works facility. Plans are already in the works to start gathering more community input by the end of the year about expanding the system to other essential locations such as senior housing, churches, or health care centers. 

“We want this system to proliferate as fast as we possibly can,” Train said.

In Chinatown, project developers have had to scale back their initial ambitions of connecting several multifamily housing buildings. They are now focused on serving Masspike Towers, a privately owned development of 190 affordable units, before expanding. The plan, still being finalized, is to build a solar installation and share the savings across all residents in a model similar to community solar. Battery storage will help keep common areas powered and extensive energy efficiency measures will reduce overall consumption. 

“Our goal is to bring the benefits of clean energy and decarbonization incentives to a low-income urban community that has historically missed out on a lot of those benefits,” said Lydia Lowe, executive director of the Chinatown Community Land Trust, one of the community partners in the project

As work has progressed in Chelsea and Chinatown, other communities have started to wonder about the possibilities. And the two ongoing projects are offering valuable lessons about how to make community microgrids work. 

Financing has emerged as a potential major sticking point. In Chelsea, where the city will own the system, the city council voted to provide $4 million in funding to the project. That money – along with federal support, the savings created by solar generation, and the revenue from selling stored powerback onto the grid – is enough to get the project up and running. Building on municipal sites that each have only one tenant also helps simplify the design and logistics. 

In Chinatown, however, the city is providing some funding, but not enough to cover the entire project, making it more challenging to structure the financing in a way that is affordable yet satisfies potential investors. 

“It is a little bit tougher. We were able to get the city on board in Chelsea,” said Sari Kayyali, microgrid manager for the two projects. “We’ve been working with them to find a workable scope that can pay back investors in a timely manner.”

The work thus far has also highlighted the importance of the community-led ethos that distinguishes the approach from other microgrids, which are generally privately owned and operated. From the beginning, Dayton and other planners felt it was essential to the underlying mission of environmental justice that community members have a lot of say in determining the goals, design, and operations of these community microgrids. In both Chelsea and Chinatown, the planners divided the $75,000 each community received, dedicating half to engineering and technical planning, and giving the other half to community organizations to conduct outreach and education. 

In Chelsea, these efforts were key to securing the microrid’s future: The strong support of the community helped sway a few skeptical city councilors to vote for funding for the project, said Elena González, technical director of Climable, a nonprofit that has conducted community engagement and outreach for Chelsea, Chinatown, and Cambridge.

But the importance of community involvement is far more than just strategic, supporters said. 

“These microgrid projects empower communities and give them a role in the way that energy development happens,” González said. “This is something that has a huge impact in people’s lives and it is important that the community leads.”

 

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Energy News Beat

ENB Pub Note: The US administration clearly has its head in the sand. China and Saudi Arabia have just exchanged billions in currency to trade oil outside the “Petro Dollar.” After the Biden administration weaponized the dollar through sanctions, they escalated the total devaluation of the dollar and subsequently crippled the US’s ability to pay its debt. 

The United States is confident that the Arab states will not use oil supply as a weapon as they have done in the past, White House energy security adviser Amos Hochstein told the Financial Times in an interview published this weekend.

“Oil has been weaponised from time-to-time since it became a traded commodity, so we’re always worried about that, working against that, but I think so far it hasn’t,” Hochstein told FT.

According to the Biden Administration’s top energy adviser, the U.S. and the global oil market are managing the double geopolitical jeopardy of the past year – the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war – “fairly well.”

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Investing

Brent and U.S. crude futures climbed more than 2.5%, gaining $2 a barrel on Monday, as further supply cuts in OPEC+ production are expected in the coming weeks.

Brent crude futures were up $2.19 to $82.80 a barrel by 10:32 a.m. CT (1632 GMT).

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was up $1.98, or 2.6% at $77.87.

The front-month December WTI contract expires later on Monday. The more active January futures gained $2.12 to $78.16, up 2.79%.

Both contracts settled 4% higher on Friday after three OPEC+ sources told Reuters that the producer group, comprising the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including Russia, is set to consider whether to make additional supply cuts when it meets on Nov. 26.

Oil prices have dropped almost 20% since late September, while prompt inter-month spreads for Brent and WTI slipped into contango last week. In a contango market, prompt prices are lower than those in future months, signalling sufficient supply.

“In light of last week’s obliteration of oil bulls, some kind of response was forthcoming from the (OPEC) producer group,” said Tamas Varga of oil broker PVM.

“If additional cuts are agreed, a short-term price boost is expected, but its longer-term price impact seems dubious as enforcement and adherence will be the salient issue.”

Investors are also keeping an eye on Russian crude oil trade after Washington imposed sanctions on three ships that have sent Sokol crude to India.

On Friday, Moscow lifted a ban on gasoline exports which could add to global supplies of the motor fuel. That came after Russia scrapped most restrictions on exports of diesel last month.

The number of oil and gas rigs operated by U.S. companies rose last week, the first gain in three weeks, energy services business Baker Hughes said on Friday. The oil and gas rig count serves as an early indicator of future output.

Meanwhile, U.S. oil refiners are on course to boost production by 559,000 barrels per day (bpd) this week as they come out of fall planned maintenance leaving just 264,000 bpd of capacity offline, research company IIR Energy said on Monday.

In the Middle East, U.S. and Israeli officials said a deal to free some of the hostages held in the besieged Gaza enclave was edging closer despite fierce fighting.

 

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World Oil

(Bloomberg) — Kimmeridge Energy Management Co., which is among the most active and outspoken U.S. oil and gas investors, said a merger of Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Southwestern Energy Co. would create one of the industry’s most sought-after stocks.

“There are only a few must-own stocks in the sector, and this would ultimately be one of them,” Mark Viviano, a managing partner at Kimmeridge, said in a statement.

Bloomberg reported in October that Chesapeake is considering buying Southwestern through a deal that would create one of the largest U.S. natural gas producers. Kimmeridge is Chesapeake’s 13th largest shareholder. The companies didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Despite the spate of large deals over the last several weeks, the universe of shale drillers remains highly fragmented and more consolidation is necessary, Kimmeridge founder Ben Dell said in an interview.

While he’s not involved with the talks, Dell said he’s optimistic Chesapeake and Southwestern will eventually hammer out a deal. The roadblocks in such negotiations are typically “personal,” he said.

“My experience in M&A is that who survives from the board and who survives from management are the one and two sticking points,” Dell said. “It is almost never about actual economics.”

Merger and acquisition activity has been accelerating among shale drillers as the sector matures and companies begin to exhaust their portfolios of undrilled opportunities. As a result, executive teams seeking to shore up reserves to ensure ample, future production are buying up rivals.

Another potential deal that makes sense would be between Chord Energy Corp. of Houston and Calgary-based Enerplus Corp., Viviano said. Both have production in the Bakken shale formation of North Dakota, and a combination of them would create a $10 billion company that would establish a platform for consolidation across the basin, Viviano said.

Kimmeridge is the third-largest shareholder of Enerplus, owning about 3.4% of the stock.

Chord has a market value of about $6.8 billion. Enerplus, which is worth about $3.4 billion, would probably require a premium of about 15%, given its strong assets, Viviano said.

Chord and Enerplus didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Kimmeridge held a 2.4% stake in Chesapeake as of Sept. 30 that at the current share price is worth roughly $260 million. The investor has increased its holdings in the stock by more than 60% since the first quarter of 2022.

Chesapeake and Southwestern are two of the biggest players in the Marcellus, a giant shale gas formation in the Northeastern U.S.. They also operate in the Haynesville, another gas-heavy basin along the Louisiana-Texas border. The way the two companies’ assets overlap make sense for a merger, and Chesapeake’s strong balance sheet would help Southwestern, Dell said. The companies’ positions in Haynesville are complementary, he said.

 

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Manage consent

 

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