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Spot charter rates for the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier fleet dropped below $60,000 per day, while European and Asian prices also continued to decline this week.

Last week, Spark30S Atlantic decreased to $83,500 per day, and the Spark25S Pacific decreased to $66,000 per day.

“LNG freight rates have fallen for the seventh consecutive week. The Spark30S Atlantic decreased by $26,500 (32 percent) to $57,000 per day, whilst the Spark25S Pacific decreased by $7,000 (11 percent) to $59,000 per day,” Qasim Afghan, Spark’s commercial analyst told LNG Prime on Friday.

Afghan said that the Atlantic freight prices have halved since the beginning of the year.

Image: Spark

Spot rates are continuing to decline despite increasing reports of vessels diverting away from the Red Sea.

According to Spark, diverting a voyage via the Cape of Good Hope from the Arabian Gulf to North West Europe adds only $0.09 per MMBtu to the freight cost versus via Suez given Suez Canal savings, but increases laden voyage time by 9.5 days.

LNG ships are now favoring the Cape of Good Hope for safer passage.

On Thursday, no LNG vessels were transiting the Red Sea amid heightened tensions off the coast of Yemen, Kpler said.

Kpler data shows that 2-3 LNG tankers would usually pass the passage on a typical day.

Since January 15, over 11 vessels, including four Qatari cargoes headed for Europe, have taken the route via the Cape of Good Hope instead of the Red Sea, it said.

In Europe, the SparkNWE DES LNG front month also continued to drop this week.

The NWE DES LNG for February delivery was assessed last week at 9.081 per MMBtu and at a $0.805 per MMBtu discount to the TTF.

“The SparkNWE DES LNG price for February delivery is assessed at $8.126/MMBtu and at a $0.745/MMBtu discount to the TTF,” Afghan said.

Image: Spark

He said this is a $0.956/MMBtu decrease since last week and a $7.88 (49 percent) decline since the front month winter peak on October 13, 2023.

Levels of gas in storages in Europe remain high for this time of the year.

Data by Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) shows that gas storages in the EU were 77.47 percent full on January 17.

This week, JKM, the price for LNG cargoes delivered to Northeast Asia dropped when compared to the last week, according to Platts data.

JKM for March settled at $9.555/MMBtu on Thursday.

State-run Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC) said in a report earlier this week that Asian spot LNG prices continued to decline as inventories remain high across Northeast Asia, and demand remains weak and supply remains ample.

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Shell’s QGC business in Australia revealed plans to drill more wells as it looks to boost gas supply to its Queensland Curtis LNG export plant and the domestic market.

Shell Australia said in a statement that about 115 newly planned gas wells would be drilled and connected in the Western Downs region of Queensland.

“The project will support up to 300 jobs, helping to boost the regional economy and provide more gas for domestic and export customers over the next 15 years,” the company said.

“Developing new supplies of gas is the most effective way to secure reliable energy for Australia and its trading partners,” Shell Australia said.

Shell’s unit did not provide further information.

Back in February 2022, Shell Australia revealed plans for a large drilling campaign.

Between now and 2024, Shell, along with its JV partners CNOOC and Tokyo Gas, would progressively drill and connect about 145 new gas wells as part of its QGC business in the Western Downs region of Queensland, it said at the time.

The wells would connect to existing gas processing plants and would bring about 210 petajoules of gas to market over the next 15 years, Shell said.

QGC produces natural gas to supply the Australian domestic market but also for export as LNG via the two-train 8.5 mtpa liquefaction plant on Curtis Island in Queensland.

The Shell-operated QCLNG export plant recently shipped its 1000th cargo since it started operations in May 2015.

The project has produced a total of 66.21 million tons of LNG since May 2015, according to CNOOC Gas & Power.

Besides Shell, CNOOC owns 50 percent equity in QCLNG’s train 1 and Japan’s Tokyo Gas has 2.5 percent equity in train 2.

Back in 2021, Shell also sold a stake in QCLNG to a unit of Global Infrastructure Partners for about $2.5 billion.

Shell, via its unit QGC, owns 80 percent of the QCLNG common facilities that include storage tanks, jetties, and operations infrastructure that service the plant’s two trains.

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In 19 months, prices in San Francisco dropped nearly as much as in the first 19 months of Housing Bust 1. Overall Bay Area is well behind. We’re keeping score.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

The median price of single-family houses In San Francisco dropped to $1.45 million in December, down by 29.6%, or by $610,000 from the nutty peak in March 2022, and below the Decembers in 2022, 2021, 2020, 2018, and 2017, which was six years ago, folks, and same as December 2019, according to data by the California Association of Realtors (blue line in the chart).

The three-month moving average (3MMA), which irons out some of those ups and downs, dropped to $1.54 million in December, down by 24.4% from the peak, and the lowest for any December since 2018, so that was five years ago (red line in the chart).

January is when the median price drops a whole bunch, and February usually comes in close to January. The two lowest months in the chart since 2018 were January and February 2023. So you can kind of see where this is going in January and February 2024:

Housing market downturns are erratic and slow-moving. They’re not like cryptos that can collapse overnight. Housing market downturns can take years to play out.

In terms of Housing Bust 1 in San Francisco, the three-month moving average of the median price had peaked in May 2007 and then headed lower. In March 2012, after nearly five years of QE and 0%, the 3MMA bottomed out, having dropped 30% from the peak.

In terms of the entire SF Bay Area during Housing Bust 1, the 3MMA of the median price plunged by 58% from peak to trough, but it was front-loaded with a massive drop over the first two years, and then, despite QE and 0%, wobbled along these low levels till early 2012.

So we’re keeping score, comparing San Francisco’s Housing Bust 1 and Housing Bust 2 in one chart, in terms of the percentage drop from the peak (“Month 0”) of the 3MMA of the median price.

For Housing Bust 2, the 3MMA of the median price peaked in May 2022, that’s month zero; December 2023 is month 19. For Housing Bust 1, May 2007 is month zero.

Over the first 19 months of Housing Bust 2 in San Francisco, the 3MMA of the median price has dropped 24.4%. During the first 19 months of Housing Bust 1, the 3MMA dropped 25.8%. The drops are very close in magnitude, but the trajectories are different:

In the entire San Francisco Bay Area, the median price of single-family houses dropped to $1.18 million in December, down by 21.2% from the peak in April 2022.

The 3MMA dropped to $1.23 million, down by 15.4% from the peak. We’ll get to the remaining big counties of the Bay Area – the counties of San Mateo, Santa Clara, Contra Costa, and Alameda – in a moment.

Note the huge plunge of the 3MMA last year in late 2022. That was wild. The entire plunge from May 2022 through February 2023 was wild, after the wild spike in the two years before. So compared to that wild drop in December 2022, the 3MMA in December 2023 was up by 4.2%. But it was down by 2% from December 2021.

These are really crazy price movements since March 2020:

During Housing Bust 1 in the Bay Area, the 3MMA of the median price plunged by 58.5% over the first 19 months. Prices just kept plunging without any kind of uptick. That was very fast and furious for housing downturns.

Housing Bust 2 started out just as fast, but then the 3MMA recovered some before re-descending.

San Mateo County (Silicon Valley): The median price in December dropped to $1.80 million, down by 25% from the peak in April 2022, and down by 7.5% from two years ago, December 2021, but up by 7.5% from December 2022, due to the huge drop toward the end of 2022.

The 3MMA in December dropped by 17.5% from the peak to $1.90 million, down by 9.1% from December 2021 but up by 6.5% from December 2022, again due to the huge drop toward the end of that year.

Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley): The median price in December dropped to $1.73 million, down by 12% from the peak in May 2022, and down by 1% below two years ago, in December 2021, but up by 16.7% from December 2022, due to the huge drops toward the end of 2022.

The 3MMA in December dropped by 10% from the peak to $1.75 million, and was the highest 3MMA for Decembers.

Alameda County: The median price in December dropped to $1.17 million, down by 22% from the peak in May 2022, and down by 2% from December 2021, but was up by 10.3% from December 2022 given the huge plunge late that year.

The 3MMA in December dropped by 18% from the peak to $1.21 million, down by 3% from December 2021 but up by 4.4% from December 2022, again due to the huge drop toward the end of that year.

Contra Costa County: The median price in December dropped to $800,000, down by 24% from the peak in April 2022, and down by 4% from December 2021, but was up by 4.4% from December 2022, again given the huge plunge that month.

The 3MMA in December dropped by 18% from the peak to $828,000 million, down by 5% from December 2021 and down by 2% from December 2022, despite the huge drop toward the end of that year.

“Housing Crisis” – that’s the term being used to describe the problem in San Francisco and in the Bay Area overall of housing being so expensive that normal people with good incomes cannot afford to buy a house. And rents are too expensive too. Pressured by these housing costs, companies are having to offer enormous salaries to recruit people into this area, which makes employment costs very expensive. There are all kinds of taxpayer-funded initiatives – from federal, state, and local governments – to lower the burden of those housing costs, but they’re expensive for taxpayers!

But here is finally a market-based solution. Bringing down these oppressive housing costs that had spiked from already ridiculous levels in 2019 to super-ridiculous levels by mid-2022 is a good thing. It’s good for the local economy, it’s good for people looking to buy, it’s good for businesses and employment, it’s good for all kinds of reasons. For the market to bring down these oppressive housing costs and getting to some reasonable prices – reasonable in the Bay Area may still be high compared to other parts of the US – shouldn’t be lamented; it should cause a massive sigh of relief.

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2023 – The Year The Renewables Bubble Burst

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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.

Michael Tanner: [00:00:15] What’s going on, everybody? Welcome in to the Monday, January 22nd, 2024 edition of the Daily Energy News Beat standup. Here are today’s top headlines. First up 2023, the year the renewables bubble burst. Next up, California industry faces cash crunch amid policy change. Next up on the menu energy bills must rise to pay for net zero, according to Siemens Energy Board. Oh, yeah. Next up. This one’s frigid. Or cold. I mean, scores dead as frigid conditions ravage the United States. This is a CBS article. Um, then I will take over and cover a little bit of the oil and gas finance, quickly talking about what happened to oil prices on Friday, and then quickly cover rig counts and a look ahead to the coming week. But before we do that, guys, as always, thank you for joining us here on this gorgeous Monday. I’m Michael Tanner. This is Stuart Turley I’m going to go ahead and let you kick it off Stu. [00:01:12][56.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:01:12] All right. Hey let’s start off with our first article here dude. Uh, 2023, the year the renewables bubble burst. Michael. It’s been I’ve never seen this much animosity towards renewable. Uh, coming up, I mean, in a renewables are not available. But let’s go ahead and take a look at this article is pretty crazy. Why did energy clean energy take the biggest hit? Uh, wind and solar are more exposed to cost of capital in interest rates. Oh, well. [00:01:45][32.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:01:45] First off, why is that? Is you got to take out debt to use it. [00:01:48][3.3]

Stuart Turley: [00:01:49] Oh yeah. Oops. And cash flow. Oops. And here’s the other thing. Are characterized upfront by capital expenditure with low operating costs. Hogwash. This one I disagree with. Solar PV costs jumped at 23% from 2022 to 2023. Wow. There was also a slowdown in the secondary market, a 71% drop in transactions between investors and developers. Part of this was due to the horrific backlog, uh, regulatory problem. [00:02:27][38.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:02:28] What’s interesting is I think let’s let’s stick on this secondary market. Why is this important? Why is the secondary market important? Well, because the secondary market is where people like I mean, not me and you, Stu, but businesses who aren’t necessarily in the development space and now have an opportunity to invest. Basically, let’s say, Stu, you and I have a company meaning me, and you sell shares directly to one of our friends, family or fools. Okay? They give us some money. [00:02:59][30.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:02:59] If they say. [00:03:00][0.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:03:01] They are fools. Okay, then they have a stock certificate, quote unquote, a secondary transaction. Is them taking the fools, taking that that stock bought or, you know, stock certificate and selling it to somebody else. That’s called the secondary market, which is what is that? That’s the free market valuing that stock certificate. Think about me. And you convinced somebody to give us 100 grand. We give them 10,000 shares. That’s us really selling them. It’s why we joke the friends, family and fools around when you raise money. Um, who? Who invests in small businesses, friends, family, fools. But the secondary market is much more indicative of what I would call the free market optimization of finding an optimal price for something, aka pricing securities correctly. Primary markets. There can be arbitrage opportunity. So when you see secondary markets collapse, what does that mean. There’s no market for anything. The original primary transaction was so overpriced that now there’s not even a secondary market for people like, you know, for example, who uh, uh, the Carolina Panthers, uh, owner David Tepper. Where did he make all his money? Junk bonds. What are junk bonds? Secondary market transactions, buying up debt of certain companies that was issued to others, that was issued by banks and are now being traded on the open market. Those guys see arbitrage opportunities to come in and purchase. There’s none of that going on here. I, I don’t mean to harp on it, but I thought this was the most interesting part. Uh, and analysis in this article. [00:04:35][93.3]

Stuart Turley: [00:04:35] I love what you’re saying because I missed right over that. I mean, I just went right over both of my ears. Uh. Great job. Uh, did you just get another score on the game? [00:04:45][9.4]

Michael Tanner: [00:04:45] No, I was just signifying that every. [00:04:47][1.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:04:47] Oh, yeah. [00:04:48][0.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:04:48] Right over your head. [00:04:48][0.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:04:49] Uh, you can’t even see it. Okay, let’s go to the next part. [00:04:52][3.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:04:52] Oh, no. I think it’s important because they also talk about what’s on the horizon for 2024. In this article. [00:04:57][4.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:04:57] That was where I was going. And when you talk about this, uh, through although the investment sediment has changed in fossil fuels in the meantime have become somewhat fashionable again as energy security has been reprioritize the energy transition and in. Investment in the clean energy has not slowed down. I disagree, it’s about to take a hammer in the back of the head. U.S. 1.7 trillion was invested into clean energy in 2023, 65% more than into fossil fuels. Uh, Wood Mackenzie expects 710GW, uh, of new wind and solar capacity to be built across Europe by 2020 2030. I disagree with that totally. I think that as we come back around the end of this, people are done and they have got to get some more affordable, uh, energy. Here’s my prediction, Michael. Um, hydrogen and energy storage. I believe that hydrogen is going to be the next big carbon capture, and hydrogen is going to push, uh, solar and wind up on the side. Solar and wind are now being documented. Everybody is running away from it. Everybody’s going to be running to hydrogen, even though I don’t think it’s ready for prime time yet. The carbon capture and carbon taxes is where wealth distribution is going to be big in 2024. [00:06:26][88.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:06:27] Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean it’s cleared the renewables. Uh, and but I think what I like about this article is it shows specifically why the renewables bubble burst. What happened in 2023? The fed stopped 0% interest rates. The era of no more. Much like the er the. [00:06:48][21.1]

Stuart Turley: [00:06:48] Those zero with no $0 for you. [00:06:51][2.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:06:52] But it’s true. I mean, I can tell you firsthand examples of people who I know in the real estate business who had a strategy that was based upon 0% interest rates. Well, when you can’t go out and refinance your property, whether you’re a real estate investor or whether you’re a huge capital developer, well guess what? You’re you’re in big trouble. It’s it’s an interesting reason. One of the reasons why the shale boom and bust was so different was because, sure, there was a a decent amount of debt that was lost because there was a bunch of debt raised money, uh, drilled into these unproductive wells. But there’s a lot of equity. There was a lot more equity destroyed in the oil and gas business. We’re in the renewables business. It’s all debt. There’s no real equity being put into this because it’s so easy to get financing for renewable energies. Every bank wants to go out and finance an offshore wind farm or right now, offshore wind is probably holding up the best comparative to on onshore solar and onshore wind. Those two have taken a huge hit in terms of, um, right at equity or excuse me, debt implosion. So it really the story for renewables that is that it’s not the technology necessarily that’s failing. It is. But really what’s happening is the financing behind it has collapsed because it’s not profitable. [00:08:07][75.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:08:08] Right. And plus there’s about 19 other things on there. But hey let’s roll to the next one. Uh, California solar industry faces cash crunch amid policy change. Listen to this, Michael. 63% of solar installer members in California are facing cash flow issues following a new policy that reduced homeowner incentives. Holy smokes. Part of this is because of the new incentives, but also because the grid and how it’s being paid, the, uh, balancing and who’s pay and what. Rooftop solar system sales have plummeted by 85% compared to the previous year. Uh, the downturn in the green energy sector is expected to persist well beyond into 2024. Um, the new policy. Reduce the incentives. Let’s come down here. We’re worried a lot about the next two months. We think a lot more fallout may be coming. Yes. Thank you. [00:09:11][63.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:09:11] 63% of of 400 solar installers have cash flow issues. Yeah, that’s not good. That’s an underlying market problem. And they point out again consumer demand. [00:09:22][11.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:09:23] And it’s because the consumers and how they’re going to be refunded or saving money. It’s a whole nother big issue coming around the corner. [00:09:33][9.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:09:33] Hey Miss Producer, can you quickly throw up this this chart the iShares Global Clean Energy ETF. Look I look at this stew you’re talking at the beginning of 2020 after we we we see the Covid drop, right. You see that early Covid drop as you roll in from 2019 to 2020. Then all of a sudden throughout 2020, you saw I mean really it quadrupled in in value over a really a year period y 0% interest rates, huge amount of government spending. Everybody was all about trying to spend, you know, we got to pump money to the pump money. The economy since 2021, the ETF has now fallen back to it’s a. Original, almost pre-COVID levels. Wow, does that tell you? It means if things aren’t working properly, the markets are not operating efficiently. It’s the clearest sign of this stuff. You you know, we have all this antidote, all evidence. You know, Stu and I talk about wind farms don’t work. He drives by a solar farms. They’re not working. That’s all anecdotal. What these last two articles are showing us is market data. The free market is telling us this isn’t working. [00:10:40][66.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:10:40] Oops. Runaway, runaway. Okay, this one is a little bit different. Michael, when you take a look at the tidal energy, bills must rise to pay for net zero, says Siemens Energy Board. And I’m like, like they haven’t risen enough. You can guess who added that one. But here, let’s go through this. Siemens lost billions on offshore wind. They have. But he is saying something different here. Joe Kaeser, chairman of the Siemens Energy, suggested higher energy bills were inevitable as turbine makers grapple with huge losses, forcing them to pass their costs on the consumer. Um, I believe that for a while customers need to accept higher pricing, and then there might be innovation about the weight of the blades and other efficiency methods. But the point is, if there’s no profit pool in an industry, why should that industry innovate? [00:11:41][60.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:11:42] Oh, again, the market at work, who’s gonna innovate if there’s no profits? [00:11:47][4.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:11:48] There is. And and so the the world part of this, Michael, is the world is busted. Broke. We are broke. We have been printing money and until it’s now no longer capable, the ink is now gone. So listen to this. Inflation has also led to the cancellation of many offshore wind projects. 15 gigawatt worth of projects were canceled or postponed last year. Uh which provided and electricity more than 12 million home wow is. [00:12:23][35.4]

Michael Tanner: [00:12:24] Yeah. I mean for needing customers to accept higher pricing. That’s a tough ask and that it can be ask. It’s not that you can’t ask and raise your prices that, you know, industries have done that before. The problem is, when it comes to something as basic as energy, people start asking the question, well, wait a second here. Why is why is my next door neighbor paying less? Well, he’s using natural gas. [00:12:50][25.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:12:50] Here’s this one’s critical. I think the net zero targets are realistic, but they come at a cost. Mr. Kaiser says you need to stick by the facts at some point, even though facts sometimes may not be lying. He also added there is a governed by a Trag, uh, triangle of reliability, affordability and sustainability. But sustainable and affordability may conflict well. You cannot call on wind and solar sustainable without printing money. In this energy thread we’re talking about displays it all. [00:13:30][39.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:13:31] Absolutely. You have to remember, guys, Mr.. Uh, the chairman Kaiser or Mr. Kaeser, he’s a Siemens lifer, joined the company in 1980, was also the CEO from 2013 to 2021. He’s got his hand in all of he’s got his hand in this. So what’s funny is now that he’s the chairman, he’s not in the big top dog anymore. He’s in the you know, the chairman is the top dog, but he’s also not really the top dog. You can get moved around. Oh, now there’s a problem with renewables. Where was that the last eight years? It’s hilarious. He’s the guy that put him in this situation I know. [00:14:03][31.1]

Stuart Turley: [00:14:03] And and so. [00:14:04][0.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:14:04] That government money was coming in. All that debt was being finite. But they had their money and money. Please. Money, please. [00:14:09][4.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:14:10] But I think this is coming around because I had been on the podcast and I believe it was Ben that I was interviewing in 2022. And I said, there is going to be a great awakening in 2023. I said it, I’ve got the tape now. I’m sitting here going, how come we’re in 2024? And I was wrong. Well, no. One 2023 was really the year it was coming around and everything else. Let’s talk about the realistic last article here. Scores dead as frigid conditions ravage the US. This is from CBS, so we know it has to be true. If it’s from CBS, uh, 89 people have died in weather related incidents across the U.S. in the last few days. Wow. Tens of millions, tens of millions across the U.S again, bitterly cold. Um. How cold? Uh, Chicago, -30. Um, Texas. Alabama, 20 degrees. Uh, where is it? Deaths have been reported in Illinois and Pennsylvania. Mississippi, Washington. When you sit back and take a look. People can print money. Coal kills. There’s so much more death from cold weather than there is hot weather anyway. So if you keep printing money, people are going to die. [00:15:29][79.4]

Michael Tanner: [00:15:30] Well, and the big issue with the cold, we know, is the EVs. They want to move us all to an electric vehicle. Everybody’s got to have an electric vehicle. You know, not because it’s saving the environment, but because there’s a chip in it that’ll it’ll drive you to the gas at the police station when you’re, you know, when your social credit score drops to low. It’ll just drive. [00:15:49][19.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:15:49] You. You put something on Twitter, you know, and says, hey, uh, did Joe Biden just say this. [00:15:54][4.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:15:55] Winter will be fine? It’s everywhere. It’s, uh, threads is where you don’t want to be posted on Facebook threads. Oh, okay. Uh, but don’t worry if you’re posted on threads. Nobody’s seeing it, so you’re good. If you’re actually posting on threads, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. But I saw multiple articles. Charging stations stop working. You know, nobody knows how to operate. You know, these EVs in the cold. You know, part of what these manufacturers have done is kind of they make you kind of like, I was reading the article where nobody knows that you need to kind of like it’s almost like half turn your key into an EV to, like, warm it up. You have to do that for ten minutes before you can actually turn the car on. Oh, yeah. There’s like these. Well, cause they’ve got these batteries that are they’re encased in. If you, if you got almost like turn it on to warm it up and then once it’s there, then you can so imagine having to wait ten, 20 minutes just to do from the time you quote, turn your car on until you can actually turn your car on. But nobody’s going to do that because we live in a world where you can just stick your key in a gas car, fire it up. [00:16:52][56.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:16:52] It sounds like my wife. [00:16:53][0.7]

Michael Tanner: [00:16:54] Hey, she was. [00:16:56][1.5]

Stuart Turley: [00:16:57] Bit. Yeah. You better take me to dinner for that. [00:17:00][3.2]

Michael Tanner: [00:17:03] But no, it’s it’s it’s pretty crazy. And, you know, they, you know, again, they had 45,000 people left without power’s result of these storms. And it’s places like Tennessee where they’re not used to this type of weather where you saw most of the fatalities. [00:17:17][13.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:17:18] Oh, yeah. I mean, the whole thing is the grid. And I get to talk to Meredith Angwin today. So this is really a cool thing. Again, I just love, uh, talking grid with all these great people. So, anyway, after you do. That was a lot of fun. [00:17:35][17.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:17:35] Yeah. And, uh, before we dive into finance, guys, we’ll go ahead and pay the bills here. All the news, as always, the news and analysis, um, that you hear is brought to you by the world’s greatest website, dot Energy News beat.com. You can go ahead and hit the description below for all of the timestamps, all of the links, uh, to the articles, stupid. The team do a tremendous job making sure that website stays up to speed with everything you need to know to be at the tip of the spear when it comes to the energy and the oil and gas business. Check us out. Dashboard dot energy news.com for our data news combo product. Uh, really pushing that hard. Um, here in the net here this quarter and and Q2. So we’re really excited about things there. You can email the show [email protected] and as www.EnergyNewsBeat.Com. [00:18:17][41.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:18:20] As far as you know overall markets on on Friday stew we saw you know Nasdaq. You know we saw S&P 500 actually up about 1.2 percentage points. Um Nasdaq uh up about 1.5 percentage points. Um us uh US 30 year yields down about a quarter of a percentage point. Ten year yield down about half a percentage. Uh point. Dollar index stays fairly flat. We saw crude oil down about a full percentage point, or about $0.70 currently. Check. Uh, currently settling 73, 25. We saw Brant Oil down about a quarter of a or three quarters of a percentage point 79 zero. Sick. Um, couldn’t quite finish up below that 80 mark. We saw about, uh, $0.17 drop off natural gas, which is about 6.6 percentage points, all the way back down at $2.55. You know, in the natural to stay on the natural gas trend, that’s mainly due to, uh, warmer weather that’s expected later this week. Throughout all of those places that we talked about to kind of go back to what that article that CBS talked about, it is to note that as the freeze happened and rapid warming then happens, there’s an increased chance of floods. So be careful out there. But, um, that’s part of the reason why, again, we’ve seen natural gas prices, uh, continue to stumble here. We did see the IEA lift its demand growth forecast. Um, they do expect a well-supplied market or the reason why we probably will see oil. We probably will see oil prices up a little bit is mainly due to, um, that cold weather that flew last week, I expect kind of a Monday, Tuesday, a little bit of a support because we saw about 30%, um, of North Dakota oil output dropped, mainly due to that coal, that 280, 300,000 barrels a day. So we’ll probably see a small tick there. But, you know, good to see a weekly gain. Um, we also did see rig counts. Do we saw rig counts up, um, in the United States, plus one to uh, 200, uh, 620, but that’s still down about 151 from the prior year. Canada saw an increase of ten rig. Internationally, they continued to shed rigs 955. That’s down 23 from the week over week. So you know rig counts are you know, mainly hanging out, uh, you know at that. Six 2625 low. It’s going to be interesting to see where things go from here. Um, you know, as we look ahead to this week’s do I think, you know, from an oil price perspective, you know, all it takes is something in the Middle East and for things to go haywire. You know, I think with these, you know, with the things that the, you know, our, our favorite friends over at, you know, favorite analysts over at the IEA, you know, they continue to, you know, push, you know, Well-supplied market, well-supplied market. We will see how that data continues to roll out. What are you watching for next week specifically? [00:20:57][156.5]

Stuart Turley: [00:20:58] Well, uh, a couple of things. Uh, Iran has started, a few things, uh, even without having to go through the Judys and the Blowfish. Uh, so they’re even, uh, just pushing their, uh, delegates, uh, aside and doing it. So I got I got a call with Lindsey Graham here in a little bit to just see how bad he is, but just kidding. [00:21:20][22.7]

Michael Tanner: [00:21:21] Uh, yeah. He’s lobotomized. Has gone. [00:21:22][1.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:21:23] Oh, man, I hope so. Yeah, that is one squirrel. But, you know, when you sit back and think, you know, uh, there is so much and you and I have always been saying, why is oil $200 a year right now? I mean, I don’t get it. I can’t even begin to. [00:21:38][15.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:21:39] I know why oil is not $200. I know you’re wondering because you thought it would be. [00:21:42][3.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:21:43] No, I never said 201. [00:21:45][1.7]

Michael Tanner: [00:21:47] Sorry. One 5150 so. [00:21:48][1.5]

Stuart Turley: [00:21:49] 99. But. [00:21:52][2.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:21:52] Uh, I’d also be failed to promise that we are. We’re getting geared up for nape. Um, if any of you oil and gas folks are headed down to nape. Um, February 7th through the ninth, come check us out. Booth 1957. We’ll get that, um, in the comments below. Booth 1957. We’re going to be doing podcast. We’re going to be doing all sorts of stuff, some live deal evaluations with some of our sponsors, uh, specifically. Well, database, John Farrell, their CEO. We’re going to be sitting down, breaking down live deals. Um, we’ll, we’ll we’ll figure out kind of how that all works. Actually. Got to get some stuff ready for that tonight. So, um, really looking forward to that. But check us out. Go ahead and email us. Um, [email protected] or [email protected]. It’ll all be in the description below if you guys want to get hooked up. But we’re really looking forward to that. That’ll be yeah it’s going to be really fun. [00:22:39][46.4]

Stuart Turley: [00:22:39] That’ll be a big time. I’m looking forward to got lots of great things coming around the corner. [00:22:43][3.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:22:43] Yeah absolutely guys. But with that we’ll let you get out of here. Start your week. We hopefully there’s only, you know 1 or 2 meetings you know you know hopefully it’s not too bad. Hopefully you know you got your reports ready to go. You’re ready to get just blasted by whatever happened over the weekend. Because we know you know you know something happened over the weekend. So stay strong guys. We’ll see you through the end of the week. Uh, you’ll stay with us. Energy news beekeeper Stuart Turley I’m Michael Taylor. We’ll see you tomorrow, folks. [00:22:43][0.0][1309.5]

The post Daily Energy Standup Episode #291 – Evolving Energy Landscape: Renewables Bubble Burst, California Solar Woes, and the Chilling Impact on Net Zero Goals appeared first on Energy News Beat.

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​

Left-wing MP Mary Carmen Bernal presented an initiative before the Mexican Parliament to make prior consultation mandatory in the new Mining Law.

In detail, Bernal proposed that if the Ministry Economy plans to grant mining concessions on Indigenous land, an informed, culturally appropriate and good-faith consultation must be carried out with its residents.

Even though prior consultation is not included in the existing Mining Law, the Labour Party MP pointed out that it should incorporate this principle, which is contemplated in the International Labour Organization’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, which came into force in Mexico in 1991.

According to the Convention, whenever legislative or administrative measures taken by signatory countries may affect Indigenous peoples, they must be consulted through appropriate procedures.

Back in May 2023, Mexican Senators approved a new mining law in an accelerated process without opposition legislators present.

Even though it doesn’t include the prior consultation process, the new law did reform the scheme for obtaining mining concessions, which are now granted only through public competitions or tenders carried out by the Ministry of Economy.

The law also reduced the concession length to 30 years from the previous 50 years, although they may be extended for another 25 years.

An example

As an example of prior consultation, Bernal noted that the Nation’s Supreme Court evaluated, via Amparo Trial number 134/2021, whether the Ministry of Economy had the obligation to conduct a prior, free and informed consultation with the Tecoltemi Indigenous community, located in the southeastern Puebla state, before considering granting Almaden Minerals a concession in the area.

She recalled that the Supreme Court determined that, although the Mining Law does not regulate the procedure to be followed for prior consultation, there is a conventional obligation for all Mexican authorities to carry out necessary mechanisms that uphold the right to consultation of Indigenous peoples when their actions may harm the legal rights of such communities.

“In this context, the objective of the initiative is to include, within the Mining Law, the obligation that, when the concessions granted by the Ministry of Economy are in the territory of Indigenous peoples or communities, they must be consulted in advance,” Bernal said.

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​A lack of a comprehensive inventory of the world’s mines and the absence of robust data on various aspects of mining operations is hampering sustainability efforts, a recent commentary in the journal Nature states.

In the article, Victor Maus, a researcher in the Novel Data Ecosystems for Sustainability Research Group of the IIASA Advancing Systems Analysis Program, and Tim Werner from the University of Melbourne, point out that even though in recent decades there has been increased exploitation of lithium for batteries, cobalt for smartphones, or neodymium for wind turbines, scientists, policymakers and even industry leaders know very little about what’s going on in the mining sector on a global basis and the extent to which the activity is causing deforestation, biodiversity loss, air, water and soil pollution, human health hazards, community displacement and the loss of land and livelihoods.

“Independent research is essential to decipher the extent of risks posed by mining and its impacts on the environment and communities all over the globe, as well as to help identify major challenges and build public trust,” Maus said in a media statement.

The reasons for such data scarcity, which the researchers say has meant that about half of the world’s mining impacts remain undocumented, range from limited corporate reporting to disused, informal, or illegal sites.

Maus and Werner, thus, propose four steps to address this challenge. This includes acknowledging and addressing the underestimation of mining impacts and risks worldwide; improving data gathering and sharing practices among scientists; enhancing corporate transparency in the mining sector; and utilizing advanced techniques like remote sensing and artificial intelligence to fill data gaps.

“The urgency and scale of this problem cannot be overstated. With the global appetite for minerals expected to rise sharply in the coming decades, especially for clean energy technologies, comprehensive and transparent data on mining impacts is critical,” the paper’s authors said. “We can’t manage what we can’t measure.”

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​Glencore’s (LON: GLEN) Minera Lomas Bayas in Chile signed an agreement – deemed as ‘historic’ by the company – with the Calama Farmers Association (ASAC) transferring water rights on the Loa River and also the land corresponding to Plot 12 in the Progreso Campesino area.

Through a dialogue process that started in August 2022, the company and ASAC members negotiated the deal following the approval of a series of initiatives aimed at the conservation of the Calama Oasis, located in the northern Antofagasta region.

The Loa River is a U-shaped river that extends for 440 kilometres. It is Chile’s longest river and the main watercourse in the Atacama Desert.

“This is a historic milestone that reflects our commitment to sustainable development,” Pablo Carvallo, general manager of Minera Lomas Bayas, said in a statement made public on social media. “Our goal is to increase the efficiency and innovation of our production processes, responsibly and in harmony with communities and the environment. With this agreement, we hope to improve the living conditions in the Calama Oasis and contribute to the preservation of vital ecosystems in our areas of influence.”

Carvallo pointed out that the decision to renounce the water rights implies that the company is working on deploying environmentally friendlier alternatives that support the sustainable development of the land it shares with ASAC.

The executive also said that in the next three years, Glencore’s subsidiary will focus on using treated wastewater to fulfill its water needs.

Lomas Bayas is a low-grade, open-pit operation where oxidized minerals are extracted and processed in a solvent-leaching and electrowinning plant. Its average annual production is 72,700 tonnes of high-purity copper cathodes.

Given the conditions of its productivity, Lomas Bayas has started concentrating on mining innovation and sustainability initiatives.

Late in 2023, its Lomas Lab introduced a full set of autonomous haul trucks – the first of their kind in Glencore’s global operations – fostering what the firm calls “mining 4.0,” which is powered by digital and autonomous technologies.

The trucks are expected to decrease fuel consumption by up to 4%, run for longer hours and decrease the frequency of safety incidents. If this pilot succeeds, Glencore plans to make the entire Lomas Bayas 27-truck fleet autonomous by 2025.

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Weather-related fatalities have been reported in at least nine US states in recent days

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The German boss of Britain’s biggest wind turbine maker has warned energy bills will have to keep rising to pay for the green transition as he attacked “fairytale” thinking about net zero.

Joe Kaeser, chairman of Siemens Energy, suggested higher energy bills were inevitable as turbine makers grapple with huge losses, forcing them to pass on costs to their customers.

The company is the owner of the UK’s biggest wind turbine manufacturing site, in Hull, and employs thousands of British workers.

Mr Kaeser said manufacturers had become locked in a harmful “rat race” to build ever-bigger turbines and claimed developers and governments were in denial about the costs this entailed.

He also warned that inflation is battering industry balance sheets and warned of separate growing problems with faults and breakdowns in the sector.

Mr Kaeser told The Telegraph: “Every transformation comes at a cost and every transformation is painful. And that’s something which the energy industry and the public sector – governments – don’t really want to hear.

“I believe that for a while [customers] need to accept higher pricing.

“And then there might be innovation – about the weight of the blades, other efficiency methods, technology – so the cost can then go down again.

“But the point is, if there is no profit pool in an industry, why should that industry innovate?”

His comments come after the UK Government bowed to industry pressure in November and increased the power prices offered in future renewable energy auctions, after a competition in the summer received no bids from offshore wind developers.

The earlier auction flop triggered serious doubts that the UK would be able to meet its target of 50 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr Kaeser criticised what he described as “a lot of big mouths but little action” that had gone on for years in the wind industry.

Governments and developers are failing to follow through on their own green transition promises quickly enough, he said, while many are reluctant to admit the full costs of their plans to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Wind turbine manufacturers have faced surging prices for materials such as concrete and steel as well as labour and specialist ships used to move large components such as blades and towers.

These rising costs were not factored into many contracts with wind farm developers, pushing turbine makers into the red as a result. Some, including Siemens Energy, have also had to set aside large sums to fix faulty equipment.

After crashing to a €4.6bn (£3.9bn) annual loss last year – blamed mainly on Siemens Gamesa, its offshore wind unit – bosses at the company had to go cap in hand to the German government for support. Gamesa announced 6,000 job cuts in November.

Inflation has also led to the cancellation of many offshore wind projects. 15 gigawatts’ worth of projects were cancelled or postponed last year in the UK and US alone, which would have provided enough electricity to power 12m homes.

As well as inflation, Mr Kaeser, who took over as chairman in 2021, argued that the problems are also down to foot-dragging by developers and governments.

“One of the shortcomings of the wind industry in the last five years is that there were a lot of announcements, a lot of plans,” he explained. “But they took four, five or six years sometimes to go from the order to execution.

“Now, if you have five years in between, you have a massive risk of inflation, which has hit us really, really hard. Not just Siemens Energy, but also others.

“We need to have a long-term energy plan, that this is what we’re going to do in the next three years, five years.”

Mr Kaeser, 66, also criticised a “bigger is better” mentality in the industry that has seen turbine heights more than double in the past 20 years. For example, General Electric’s Haliade-Xs stand at 853 feet each – two and a half times as tall as Big Ben – compared to a typical turbine height of around 300 feet at the turn of the century.

A dash to build bigger and bigger turbines has in some cases proved counterproductive, Mr Kaeser said, by forcing manufacturers to spend large sums of money upfront with too little time to recoup their investments.

“Industry was in quite a rat race. It was 3 gigawatts and then somebody would come out with 3.5 and then someone else 4 and on and on. They hadn’t even tested the old one yet but announced a new one.”

At the same time, flip-flopping on projects or delays caused by slow planning processes have left manufacturers without the certainty they need to invest in even bigger factories, let alone research and development that could bring costs down.

He said: “It’s up and down and up and down, and promise here and promise there and then, ‘Oh, well, renewables are too expensive’. Well, the cost of energy doesn’t go down on renewables if you don’t innovate.

“And if you’re making all the losses, why should you innovate? So you have a sort of a Catch 22, which you can only break if you have a long term energy agenda.”

Ultimately, money talks. If countries and developers are not prepared to put their money where their mouths are, they should rethink their plans for net zero altogether, he suggested.

“I think [the net zero targets] are realistic, but they come at a cost,” Mr Kaeser said. “You need to stick by the facts at some point, even though facts sometimes may not be liked.”

He added that energy supplies are governed by a triangle of “reliability, affordability and sustainability”, but “sustainability and affordability may conflict”.

“If you want to have cheap energy, you need to be gas fired. That’s the cheapest way, the most secure way if you calculate the whole thing, from the beginning to the end.

“I believe people need to become reasonable about the energy transition.

“The matter of renewables being volatile – if there is a windless night, it could get complicated if you don’t have storage. So you need to think: what is my energy agenda? How much do I want to have on renewables? How do we deal with the fact that sometimes availability and demand don’t match?

“So you say, okay, maybe we do baseload nuclear. Then maybe gas fired or even hydrogen-fired gas turbines for peaks [in demand].”

But he added: “Where does the hydrogen come from? That story of green hydrogen is another fairytale. If you believe in the next five years, in industry it’s a feasible option – it’s not.”

Mr Kaeser seemed faintly exasperated by the state of the industry.

“There’s just now, every week, every month, another debate about something. Do you bring nuclear back, or that or this? And this is what causes friction,” he sighed. “Uncertainty is great, but I have enough uncertainty already.”

Mr Kaeser is a Siemens lifer who joined the company after graduating in 1980. He was chief executive from 2013 to 2021, during which time Siemens Energy was spun-off as part of a split. Siemens retains a 25pc stake in the energy business, while the company’s pension fund owns a further 30pc.

Source: Yahoo Finance

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