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Today’s Take: Changing Course
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm heaped praise on the oil industry Wednesday for boosting output and making the US “a global energy powerhouse.”
What a difference five months makes. It was only October when President Joe Biden was accusing the oil industry of war profiteering by steering revenues to shareholders instead of new drilling.
In her address to the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston, Granholm even appealed to “creative visionaries” in the oil industry to help transform the energy sector by putting drilling, fracking and gas transportation know-how to work advancing offshore wind farms, geothermal projects and hydrogen.
It’s yet more evidence of how the Biden administration is grappling with a new energy dynamic — one exposed by the war in Ukraine and intensified by the ensuing clamor for US natural gas. The president who campaigned on promises to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels has helped European allies to keep burning them.
On Thursday, the Energy Department is due to meet with industry executives at CERAWeek to examine the role for so-called responsibly sourced natural gas. And that may help win over more European buyers who are still wary of the planet-warming methane emissions associated with US supplies.
There’s another reason for the White House to be less adversarial. Integrated oil and gas companies are poised to be big beneficiaries of the Inflation Reduction Act and infrastructure incentives designed to propel the green energy transition. They are lessees of offshore wind rights along the US East Coast. And many of them are the muscle behind ventures vying for some $8 billion in federal funding for at least six hydrogen hubs around the country.
If that relationship creates discomfort for the Biden administration, it’s an outright affront to climate activists, including the small clutch of protesters rallying outside the conference venue in Houston on Wednesday.
“Enough is enough,” said James Hiatt, of campaign group For a Better Bayou, who hails from Lake Charles in Louisiana, a US energy hub. Rather than prolonging the addiction to oil and gas, he said, “the solution is to get off the sauce.”
— Jennifer A. Dlouhy, senior energy reporter
Chart of the Day
US exports of crude in the largest supertankers are poised to jump in March as China’s reopening sees it import more American oil. It’s putting upward pressure on oil tanker rates.
Today’s Top News
The crucial grain deal that revived Ukraine’s crop exports and helped bring down global prices is up for renewal again, and the market is betting on another extension.
The global market for internal combustion engines has peaked with big implications for the future of oil demand and emissions, says BNEF analyst Colin McKerracher
The British government is in talks with the United States and European Union to prevent potential trade barriers from harming its position in the green-energy race.
Shell Plc’s former Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden was paid £9.7 million last year, a jump of 53%, as the company made record profits from soaring fossil fuel prices.
One year since a runaway short squeeze that transfixed the financial world, the London Metal Exchange’s nickel market is still struggling to get back on its feet.
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