On the 1st of each month, find a world tour of Energies. On the agenda:
– Qatar: With its gas and its football, the country at the center of the world
– Iran: Tehran manages to purify its uranium to 60% and heads for its bomb
– France: The Minister of Energy Transition is a daughter of oil
– China: COVID restrictions are creating a hell of a mess
– USA: Black Friday is a hit with more than $9 billion online
– Saudi Arabia: Saudi Aramco makes more than $40 billion in profits in the 3rd quarter
– Switzerland: To get elected minister, a politician hides his link with the oil companies
– Peak Oil: Geologist Colin Campbell, father of the word “peak oil” has died.
The price of a barrel of oil? One hell of a Bronx. Up, down, left, right. It goes all over the place except at gas stations which prefer to charge a max. On the side of diesel and fuel oil or heating oil, it is facing a shortage that is starting to hurt.
In London, Brent ended the month at $85.43 ($94.83 at the end of October). In the offices of Elon Musk, the barrel exceeds $8 and benefits from the blue stickers reserved for good students. Thus the WTI of New York awaits Santa Claus at $80.55 ($86.53 at the end of October)
This is an excerpt from the world review. To read it in full: 2000Watts.org
Chart of the Month
8 billion people on planet earth from 300 to 2022
Chart FT.com
Climate: COP 27
As the hammer fell to signify the end of COP27, the FIFA World Cup in Qatar began. Isn’t the coincidence delicious?
The American communication company Hill Knowlton Strategies represents the group Oil and Gas Climate Initiative which involves 12 of the biggest oil companies like ExxonMobil or Chevron. It is also the company that manages communication for COP27. The kind of detail that lends additional credibility to climate COPs.
In Switzerland, 2022 is shaping up to be the hottest year with +1.7 degrees compared to 1991-2021. The previous record was +1.1 degrees in 2020. The month of October 2022 explodes the counters with +4 degrees.
How the climate has changed since your birth ?
OPEC
With China’s zero-covid policy and businesses closed, the start of the EU embargo on Russian maritime crude oil imports arriving on December 5, and the arrival of Santa Claus 20 days later, the OPEC meeting on December 4 will have to put several variables in the Excel spreadsheets.
Will or won’t increase extractions?
There is an increasing shortage of diesel on the markets
Decryption
Finance
According to the latest global dividend index of Janus Hendersonthe energy crisis led to a sharp rise in dividends in the third quarter, as oil and gas companies distributed record profits to their shareholders.
Total worldwide paid out increased 7.0% on a global basis to $415.9 billion, a third quarter record.
Maritime Transport
The oil industry is holding back the transition to clean energy in global supply chains, according to Morten Bo Christiansen, head of decarbonization at Møller-Maersk. On the other hand, who would have thought that oil companies care about climate benefits rather than profits? Morten asked the maritime group’s suppliers to offer more affordable green fuels.
Sharp rise in Pellet prices
Germany, Austria, Switzerland
wind
Danish company Vestas Wind Systems, the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines, announced a loss of €147 million for the third quarter.
General Electric, another major producer of wind turbines, but this time in the United States, indicates that its unit in charge of renewable energies should record a loss of $2 billion at the end of the year.
Spanish company Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, headquartered in Madrid and one of the main producers of offshore wind turbines, declared an annual loss of €940 million and announced spending cuts which will lead to the elimination of 2,900 jobs, or approximately 11% of the company’s workforce.
The critical raw materials needed for batteries
electric cars by 2035
Electric cars
According Benchmark Mineral Intelligenceat least 384 new mines of critical minerals will be needed to meet global battery demand by 2035, with demand for lithium-ion batteries expected to increase sixfold by 2032.
It’s hard to predict the future of electric cars, but the numbers don’t match the statements of politicians.
From 10 million electric cars, the IEA predicts 140 million in 2030. Three categories of players are fighting in the charging sector:
1. Energy producers like BP, Shell, Total, Exxon or State Grid Corporation of China for survival from gasoline to electricity.
2. Manufacturers Tesla, BYD or Xiaoju Charging (Xpeng) rolling out their own charging networks to keep customers captive.
3. Pure players like Alfen, EVBox (Netherlands), Compleo Charging Solutions (Germany), Kempower (Finland), Connected Kerb (UK), Qingdao Tgood Electric and Star Charge (China), Blink Charging and Beam Global (United States).
The 3 countries in the Hit Parade of the Month
Qatar
Without a doubt, Qatar sits at the top of this hit parade.
Ten years ago, few people could put Qatar on the map. With the gas crisis and the football World Cup, the change is significant. It is amazing to compare the loneliness of Europe in its position vis-à-vis Qatar and its politico-energetic decline on the world stage.
Qatar has signed a liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply contract with China for 27 years. Qatar Energy will export 4 million tonnes of LNG annually from its new North Field project to Sinopec (China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation). North Field is at the center of Qatar’s strategy to increase its LNG production by more than 60% to reach 126 million tonnes per year by 2027.
The QatarEnergy investment fund, financed by gas revenues, is the country’s armed wing to cover the $220 billion of the football World Cup. During the first 6 months of the year, profits from the sale of gas amounted to $32 billion.
Drawing: the excellent Chappatte
Chine
With the Covid, the Chinese president is testing the concept of the steamer. If there isn’t a valve, boom. However, to control a person, it is enough to control his smartphone. The protests should stop. Here, controlling people via their smartphone, this concept is interesting. Quiet! it’s a secret.
In September 2020, Xi Jinping had raised China to the pinnacle of covid competence. Today, dumbfounded, the Chinese look at the images of the football world cup (when the images of the fans are not blurred) and discover that on planet earth, everything is back to normal.
What are Xi Jinping’s drawings? Why keep this state of fear and maximum control, the questions seek answers. In any case, it is no longer a question of health, but it is becoming more and more economic and the situation is creating a hell of a mess. More than 20% of young Chinese are unemployed. What will happen in the coming weeks and will the economy recover? In any case, oil does not like and falls, just like other commodities.
Quite surreal (by Swiss standards), RTS China correspondent Michael Peuker was briefly stopped after a live broadcast at 7:30 p.m.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz went to China to meet Xi Jinping, certainly to thank him for having gobbled up 24.9% of the port of Hamburg. Joe Biden met Xi at the G20. Left on the floor, it must itch Macron to go soon to Beijing for a photo shoot with a mask and a turtleneck.
Germany
While the Germans shun the World Cup, because it is not good what is happening in Doha, Berlin announces a 15-year contract for the purchase of gas in Qatar from 2026. As such, the drawing of Chappatte (see above) is a delight. For the record, the energy privatization plan demanded by Brussels prohibited long-term contracts.
The largest European energy company, UNIPER has passed the stage of bankruptcy. The German State will have to buy this too big to fail company with a check for €51 billion. Brussels had designated this system under the sweet name of “liberalization of the market”.
Qatar has taken shares in the German energy giant RWE.
As of November 23, gas storage in Germany was 98.95% full, according to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe. Gas withdrawals will now accelerate as winter progresses. If gas storage levels fall below 40% by February 1, this will be considered a critical level.
A first floating terminal to accommodate liquefied methane gas was inaugurated in Wilhelmshaven. It will be operated by Uniper and will be able to supply 8% of the country’s methane demand. Five other terminals are under construction to replace Russian gas. It will be up to Germany to find the gas.
BASF will “permanently” cut its workforce in Europe as high energy costs make the region increasingly uncompetitive. The largest chemical group in the world leaves for China. It has just opened a €10 billion plastics engineering site there.
The largest manufacturers of electric batteries for electric cars
Europe
Europe could have a relatively calm energy winter. Thanks to a very hot month of November, gas stocks could be enough to get through the winter. It remains to be seen whether there will be enough electricity.
The reductions in electricity and gas consumption come more from the slowdown in industry than from individuals. To be continued.
Suisse
Switzerland will elect a new minister. Candidate, Albert Rösti was for years the President of the Swiss oil companies in SwissOil. The small envelopes from SwissOil helped him tell the Swiss that we should continue to use heating oil for heating and gasoline, because we had enough for the next 100 years and that never, ever, prices would go up. In short, today, it’s the kind of thing that is staining his CV.
So brave Albert erased all mention of SwissOil from his website. The funniest is to go to the Net archive to go back in time and see the subterfuge.
While oil is falling on the markets, gasoline prices remain too high in the territory. The invisible hand of the Swiss Petroleum Union pushes the cork as high as possible. The TCS has just released a price comparison (ton-plein.ch) very useful$.
Solar installations are a hit, 24,000 +50% this year with 700 MW of installations. In 2023, the Confederation will support these facilities to the tune of Frs 600 million.
Geothermal energy could provide 30% of the heat needs of the canton of Geneva by 2050. Geneva is catching up with Vienna and Paris, which have already exploited this wealth of the subsoil.
Saudi Arabia took many shares sold at a discount by the bank Credit Suisse. Owned by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Credit Suisse is expected to increase its involvement in oil and gas.
Credit Suisse, UBS, the Swiss National Bank and some Cantonal Banks finance coal to the tune of $3 billion according to Public Eye. Coal is just as dangerous as methane gas for the climate.
The production and consumption of electricity in Switzerland live
To read the rest of the review: 2000Watts.org