Daily Energy Report
Crude Oil Futures for May 2020 settled up $0.73 @ $23.36/bbl trading in a $2.93 range including the overnight-RBOB settled down 19.36/cpg and Heating Oil settled up .98/cpg.
U.S. President Donald Trump is facing increasing calls from some U.S. Senators and Congressmen to pressure Saudi Arabia into ending the oil price war, with one of his own party – (R) Senator Kevin Cramer – last week urging him to impose an embargo on oil imports from Saudi Arabia, Russia and other OPEC nations. It is not because the U.S. shale producers cannot deal with a much lower sustained oil price environment as they can. It is because in order to cope with this environment, capital expenditure will have to be trimmed back to the sorts of ratios seen the last time that the Saudis tried the same thing from 2014 to 2016. The U.S. shale sector won last time and it will win this time.
Natural Gas Futures for April 2020 settled down $0.002 @ $1.602/mmbtu trading in a .109 cent range including the overnight session.
According to sources, Exxon Mobil is likely to delay its $30 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Mozambique as the Coronavirus disrupts early works and an already depressed gas market makes investors wary. The Coronavirus pandemic is forcing delays to projects worldwide. Qatar, the world’s largest producer of LNG, is delaying a big expansion in which Exxon is a major partner. The Rovuma LNG project, which will produce from a deepwater block off Mozambique containing more than 85 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, was expected to get the go-ahead in the first half of 2020.
