KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 27): Drilling activity in the US and international markets has continued to pick up, according to Baker Hughes Tool Company. Baker Hughes is an industrial service company and one of the world's largest oilfield service companies. Since 1944, it began weekly counts of US and Canadian drilling activity, and initiated its monthly international rig count in 1975. As of Wednesday (Nov 24), the US had added six rigs from the prior week to 569, up from 249 a year earlier. Canada added 69 rigs to 800 from a week before, up from 171 rigs from a year ago.

MIKE TAYLOR: "I don't even know where to begin to start. Here in New York, my family, we're a propane gas and heating oil company. We've been in business for over 54 years and I've never seen consumers put in the crunch they're in right now. We're seeing home heating oil prices, gasoline and diesel are up 50% to 60% since last year. Propane gas is up over 70. Natural gas futures for next winter are trading at 117% of where they were a year ago. A year ago, we were energy independent. Now we're asking OPEC to please drill more. It's absolute lunacy what we've done here in this country."

LONDON/MOSCOW, Nov 26 (Reuters) - OPEC+ is monitoring developments around the new coronavirus variant, sources said on Friday, with some expressing concern that it may worsen the oil market outlook less than a week before a meeting to set policy. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, known as OPEC+, is already facing a release of oil stocks led by the United States to try to cool prices. Still, a source said Russia, a key OPEC+ member, was not concerned about the virus variant yet.

The US-led proposal to release strategic oil reserves in a bid to lower oil prices, which was backed by South Korea, China, Japan, India, and the United Kingdom, was met with opposition from major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, suggesting a move to phase down oil production. Concerns about a probable oil price increase are mounting as global oil prices continue to rise despite plans to release strategic oil reserves and major oil producers launch a counterattack. According to the Wall Street Journal, Saudi Arabia and Russia, the world's two largest oil producers, are considering a shift in oil policy by reducing production in reaction to the US-led proposal to release strategic oil reserves in an effort to lower oil prices. OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, and OPEC+, made up of OPEC members and non-oil producing countries, were also mentioned in the publication.

Because of value concerns, an agreement between Dependence Industries and Saudi Aramco to purchase a stake in the Indian aggregate's oil-to-synthetic chemicals business has been scrapped, according to persons with knowledge of the subject. As the world strives to disassociate itself from petroleum derivatives and reduce emissions, they added, disagreements over the amount Reliances oil-to-synthetics (O2C) business should be valued. According to one of the sources, Reliance will now focus on signing different agreements with organisations to generate claim to fame synthetic substances for higher edges, assuming all other factors are equal. Aramco, the world's largest oil exporter, agreed to a non-binding agreement to buy a 20% stake in Reliance's O2C business for $15 billion in 2019. After two years of dealings, the companies said this week that they would review the agreement. The arrangement's disintegration reflects the changing global energy landscape.

Petrol and diesel prices remained unchanged for the 22nd consecutive day on November 26 after the Central government cut the excise duty on the two fuels to bring down retail rates from record highs, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers. The government cut excise duty on petrol by Rs 5 per litre and that on diesel by Rs 10 a litre on November 3 to give relief to consumers battered by record-high retail fuel prices. The November 4 decline took the price of petrol in Delhi to Rs 103.97 a litre. The price remained the same on November 26. Diesel price also stayed unchanged at Rs 86.67 per litre on the day.

The United States uses more gasoline than any other nation in the world, and lately Americans have grown concerned about the swift rise in costs at the pump. The White House on Tuesday, November 23, announced plans to release millions of barrels of oil from strategic reserves in coordination with other nations in hopes of lowering costs.

WTI prints mild gains above $78.00, near $78.20 during Thursday’s Asian session on the hawkish hopes from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The black gold took a U-turn from the weekly high to snap a two-day uptrend the previous day after supply concerns escalated. Also adding to the upside filter was the weekly official oil inventories from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). It should be noted that the EIA Crude Oil Stocks Change rose to +1.017M versus -0.481M forecasts and -2.101M prior.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs offer their take on the US oil release from the Strategic Petroleum Release (SPR) and any ban of oil exports from the US. “Both the release of oil from reserves and any ban of oil exports from the US are ineffective.” “At present, the US exports around 3m barrels of crude a day. If this export stopped domestic pipelines would be unable to reroute that crude to US refiners. The refiners do not have enough capacity to process it.”

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), has outlined action plans to deal with the recent oil spill in Santa Barbara, Nembe, Bayelsa at an AITEO facility, as investigations into the cause of the spill continues.

Gas prices are breaking the bank in the U.S. and next door in Canada, with the country putting gas restrictions in place and prompting panicked stockpiling. The questions many have are: Why are gas prices so high, what would help them come down and when will that happen?

Joint action by major economies is comparatively rare. So the decision of big oil consumers – the US, China, India, Japan, South Korea and Britain – to challenge OPEC and Russia is a signal moment. Past coordinated actions include the rebuilding of the global economy by the G20 after the financial crisis and emergency interest rate cuts by the US, Britain and the European Central Bank at the start of Covid-19.

Crude oil and natural gas production in the Eagle Ford shale play, situated in southeast Texas, dropped by almost 35% and 20%, respectively, in May 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to GlobalData. The data and analytics company notes that, despite a recent sustained upswing in WTI crude oil prices, with prices hovering over US$70 per barrel, production of both crude oil and natural gas is failing to show signs of a major increase. In order to reverse the production trend, it is estimated that an additional US$1.5 billion of investment is required to increase production by 10% by the end of next year.

MELBOURNE :Oil prices fell on Tuesday, reversing gains in the previous session, on growing talk the United States, Japan and India will release crude reserves to tame prices despite the threat of demand faltering as COVID-19 cases flare up in Europe. The United States is expected to announce a loan of crude oil from its emergency stockpile on Tuesday as part of a plan it hashed out with major Asian energy consumers to lower energy prices, a Biden administration source familiar with the situation said.

It began amicably, with a request from President Biden to OPEC countries to consider boosting their crude oil production because U.S. retail fuel prices were rising fast. Things escalated quickly, with the request becoming a demand and later a veiled threat that unless OPEC did what the White House wanted it to do, there would be consequences.

High oil prices are a symptom of economic and monetary imbalances, not just a consequence of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decisions. Throughout history, we have seen how OPEC cuts have done little to elevate prices when diversification and technology added to rising efficiency. Likewise, OPEC output increases do not necessarily mean lower prices, let alone reasonable ones. Increased OPEC output helps but does not solve price issues, even if they would probably like to.

SINGAPORE (ICIS)--Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and Saudi Aramco have decided to re-evaluate the energy giant's proposed $15bn investment to acquire a 20% stake in RIL's oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business, the Indian chemicals major said late on Friday. The two companies in August 2019 signed a non-binding letter of intent that proposes that Aramco would acquire the stake in Reliance’s refining, petrochemicals and fuels marketing businesses.

Japan is considering the unprecedented release of state oil reserves after a request from Washington for coordinated action to combat soaring energy prices, three government sources with knowledge of the possible plan told Reuters. One of the sources said the government was looking into releasing from the portion exceeding the minimum amount required as a legal workaround. Japanese law permits the release of oil reserves in cases of a shortage or natural disasters but makes no mention of doing so to counter rising prices.