Two days ahead of the OPEC+ virtual meeting, US President Joe Biden is pointing fingers: "If you take a look at gas prices and you take a look at oil prices that's a consequence of thus far the refusal of Russia or the OPEC nations to pump more oil" #OOTT
The White House is, in some ways, boxing itself in a corner. If Saudi Arabia and Russia call the threats a bluff, President Biden will have two options: quickly counteract (SPR release?) or retreat and look weak. Both options have a lot of downside for the White House | #OOTT
The very public American pressure on OPEC+ keeps building up, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken asking his UAE counterpart also for an oil production increase on the sidelines of the #COP26 meeting in Glasgow | #OOTT
One element here is that the US State Dept when as far as singling out the UAE by name. That's rather unusual (for Abu Dhabi). And raises the temperature significantly. The White House is effectively asking the UAE to take sides: Washington or Riyadh | #OOTT
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My favorite commodity index has hit an **all-time high**. This is the CRB / BLS US spot raw industrials index, a measure of some really old fashioned commodities. If you are on @TheTerminal, the ticker is CRB RIND Index [GO]. If you want to know more, see the nerd thread 🤓🧵 1/6
The CRB / BLS US spot raw industrials index excludes energy and foodstuff, and focuses on, well, yes, industrial stuff. Its current 13 components are: burlap, print cloth, tin, copper scrap, rosin, wool, cotton, rubber, zinc, hides, steel scrap, lead scrap, and tallow 2/6
It is the oldest of all indices measuring commodities prices. It tracks its origins to Jan 1934, when the U.S. Department of the Treasury asked the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to prepare a commodity price index. The data was released publicly first in 1940 3/6
DO WE NEED TO INVEST IN OIL? Each year, the @IEA offers some answers. I'm going to focus on the first 10 years, as beyond 2030 the uncertainties are so large there's little point. The IEA tries to answer the question with 3 scenarios (no forecasts)🧵 1/6 #OOTT
Under two of its three scenarios (see below), @IEA sees a need for a huge oil and gas investment surge for the next 10 years (from the 2020 investment level). Even using the 2018-19 baseline, before the impact of low prices on capex, the investment increase is pretty large 2/6
Under IEA middle-ground scenario (APS, which includes current policy and stated net-zero pledges), oil and gas investment needs to increase >70% from $330bn in 2020 to ~$572bn from 2021-2030. That's a scenario in which oil demand has already peaked, and starts to fall 3/6
EUROPEAN ENERGY CRUNCH: While Western Europe worries, the real crisis is the east, particularly in the Balkans. In Kosovo, for example, the country’s largest exporter (Ferronikeli) has shutdown all production sine die. In Albania, the gov has declared a state of emergency 1/2
And the Albanian government is expected to announce a raft of energy emergency measures on Saturday. Earlier this week, in Serbia, the gov warned it might ban electricity exports this winter to keep domestic power prices lower 2/2
And in Eastern Europe, look at the Czech Republic, where one of the country's largest utilities, Bohemia Energy Group with nearly one million households as customers, has just collapsed. Company's statement here: bohemiaenergy.cz
TURNING POINT: Big Oil has suffered a huge defeat today on its climate change strategy, with Exxon, Chevron and Shell (by far the 3 largest Western oil majors) enduring either big shareholder rebellions or losing important legal fights | #OOTT $XOM $CVX $RDSB #ClimateAction
THE LIKELY CONSEQUENCES: 1) Activists and climate change campaigners will be embolden by their victories (if Engine 1, with a ~$50 million stake in Exxon, can get 2 board directors, imagine what a bigger activist can do?), so expect more pressure and more legal fights. 1/5
2) Big Oil will likely have to reduce capex even further. Exxon is likely to have to abandon even its attempt to keep oil production flat (the growth plans were already gone). Exxon and Chevron will follow Shell / BP into managed oil output decline. That's bullish oil price 2/5
Iron ore prices have surged to a RECORD HIGH. And that's a great excuse to tell you about how the market has changed over the last 75 years.
Iron ore is the main raw material to make steel (and that's why steel prices are surging too). And it's a cash cow for big miners 🧵1/15
For decades, iron ore prices were set in secretive annual talks between steelmakers and miners that created a "benchmark price". Once a benchmark was established, the price for iron ore was fixed at that level for the rest of the year for everyone else in the industry🧵2/15
Because the cost of iron ore affects steel prices and, ultimately, the cost of everyday goods, the iron ore benchmark talks were for many years (until 2010) one of the most important commodity price negotiations for the global economy🧵3/15
BIG OIL 1Q EARNINGS: BP delivered a gas trading windfall, making a killing both in Asia LNG and in the Texas freeze, allowing the company to try to win back investors with share buybacks (initially, just $500 million) | #OOTT $BP with @lc_hurstbloomberg.com/news/articles/…
If you want to understand the massive (and super profitable) oil and gas trading business hidden inside BP, Shell and Total, you can take a look at this long-read that @jfarchy and I wrote last month | #OOTT $BP $RDSB $TOT bloomberg.com/news/features/…
BP CEO Bernard Looney refused to disclose how much money the company made from gas trading in 1Q, other than describing the quarter as "exceptional". In the past, BP provided some numeric guidance of the extra profit from trading, as we wrote on our TOPLive Blog this morning $BP