Brazil’s Raizen Combustiveis SA agreed to buy downstream assets in Argentina from Royal Dutch Shell for US$ 950 million, according to a securities filing on Tuesday. Raízen Combustiveis, a joint venture between Brazil´s Cosan SA Indústria e Comércio and Shell, will have a 20% market share in fuel distribution in Argentina.
Italian energy group Edison, part of French utility EDF, is preparing the sale of its oil and gas unit, the latest power producer to abandon fossil fuels to focus on its retail business, four industry sources said, and quoted by Reuters. Its oil and gas unit includes interests in the Falkland Islands.
Big Oil is due for a disruption.
The pre-sale of Petro began early on Tuesday, the cryptocurrency proposed by the Venezuelan government in recent weeks and backed by the country's natural resources. According to experts, it is “ridiculous”, arguing that the creation of a new currency would aggravate the economic crisis in the Caribbean country.
By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com <br />
<br />
Shale companies continue to drill at a frenzied pace, adding rigs and breaking U.S. oil production levels with each passing week. Yet, the oil production is becoming increasingly geographically concentrated. Not only is the Permian basin accounting for much of the new oil production in the U.S., but a relatively small number of counties within the Permian are home to most of that action.
For the sixth time Exxon and partners at the Stabroek block offshore Guyana are celebrating another major find in northern South American waters. In effect, Ranger-1 exploration well, the sixth find since discovering Liza in 2015, hit approximately 70m of high-quality, oil-bearing carbonate reservoirs some 60mi northwest of the Liza development.
It is paradoxical how a country with the largest oil reserves in the world has a shortage of gasoline. Of course, Venezuela does not produce gasoline as such, but sells crude oil and imports gasoline, so with the sanctions imposed by various nations and the very crisis that PDVSA (State Company) suffers - which according to the unions works approximately 13% of its capacity- complicate the problem.
Brazil has produced 3.3 million barrels per day (b/d) of petroleum and other liquids so far in 2017, according to data through August, up from 3.2 million b/d in 2016, making it the ninth-largest producer of petroleum and other liquids in the world. Production of crude oil in Brazil increased in recent years as producers targeted large, offshore, pre-salt oil deposits. Brazil’s pre-salt oil production in 2016 reached a record 1.02 million b/d, surpassing the 2015 production level by 33%.
Petrobras' business and management plan for 2018 through 2022, approved by the Brazilian state-owned oil company's board of directors, foresees investments of US$ 74.5 billion, slightly higher than the US$ 74.1 billion projected in the previous 2017-2021 program.
Venezuela has pulled out of a partnership with Cuba in its Cienfuegos oil refinery and the Caribbean island has taken full ownership of the plant, Cuban state media said. Venezuela is grappling with an economic crisis that already forced it to slash cheap oil shipments to Cuba, which has had a knock-on effect on the island’s ailing economy.