Free Republic

The Federal Reserve made some changes to its Main Street Lending Program according to a Thursday press release by the central bank that will now extend a much-needed lifeline to the U.S. oil industry. As bankruptcies, capex cuts, and unfavorable financial reports from Q1 start to trickle into the US shale patch, more oil companies in peril will now be able to tap the Main Street fund that was set up to render aid to small and medium sized businesses. Prior to today, those funds were not available to companies who had more than 10,000 employees and $2.5 billion in...

Oil prices spiked on Thursday morning after U.S. President Donald Trump said that he spoke with the Saudi Crown Prince, and hoped and expected that Saudi Arabia and Russia would “cut back approximately 10 Million Barrels, and maybe substantially more,” sending oil prices soaring by 20%.

After having crashed nearly 70 percent in the first three months of 2020, benchmark WTI prices are trying to form a bottom around $20 per barrel. But this psychological threshold is looking increasingly shaky as global crude storage facilities are filling up at an unprecedented pace. OPEC and its partners officially ended their output cut deal today, following the words of Russian Energy Minister Novak that every producer is ‘’free to pump at will’’.

Oil prices plunged on Monday to their lowest levels in eighteen years, below $20 per barrel, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to cripple global oil demand with no signs of Saudi Arabia backing down on its promised supply surge.

Oil prices continued to rise for the third day in a row, recovering earlier losses as U.S. lawmakers pressure Saudi Arabia to end the oil war. The ongoing oil war, in which Saudi Arabia and Russia are the key players, has exacerbated the already tremendous glut in oil markets, and demand destruction could end up reaching 15-20 million bpd in April. According to Russell Hardy, Vitol’s chief executive, the supply overhang could end up filling storage tanks at a very high pace as India, with the world’s fastest-growing oil consumer now facing a nationwide lockdown. Oilprice.com’s Julianne Geiger wrote yesterday...

As markets brace for yet another week of total liquidation (even gold fell below $1500), oil drillers are preparing for the worst. Last time crude traded this low, back in 2016, U.S. oil firms entered survival mode, slashing costs, cutting jobs and optimizing drilling processes. But this time, there’s not a whole lot left to cut. The 2014-2016 oil price crash happened gradually, over the course of several months. 2020’s crash happened in just a few weeks and could end up being a lot more destructive. IHS Markit expects the ‘largest-ever oil glut’ to be between two and four times...

If it’s not green, it’s not millennial--and that’s a big problem for a company like Uber, or Lyft. Millennials love ride-sharing, but they don’t appreciate the CO2 footprint that comes with it. The immediate problem for Uber is this: The next-generation of ride-sharing is already here--born out of massive millennial demand. It’s green through and through, and it’s set to command some serious market share. Millennials are driving a new mega-trend: impact-investing. Facedrive, the first ride-sharing company that lets you plant a tree while you drive, and choose exactly what kind of footprint you want to leave behind, is leading...

Oil prices crashed after Russia and Saudi Arabia announced that they will abandon OPEC production quotas and open the taps, and while drillers and oilfield service companies are feeling the pain, the world’s largest oil traders are eyeing huge profits. After all, volatility is a trader’s best friend.

The oil price war that Saudi Arabia and Russia started will hurt the fiscal revenues of the oil producers in the Persian Gulf, including the Saudis, OPEC’s top producer and the world’s top oil exporter, according to credit rating agency Fitch. “The collapse in oil prices will clearly be seen in fiscal numbers for the Gulf,” Jan Friedrich, the senior sovereign analyst for the Middle East and Africa, said on Monday, as carried by Reuters.

Well, it happened once again. Sales of electricity in the US declined in 2019 by a significant 2.8%, despite solid domestic economic growth with real GDP increasing 2.3%. Sales across all categories of users—residential, commercial and industrial— all fell. To put this in context electricity sales have fallen in five of the past ten years. From 2010-2019 electricity sales actually declined by a slight 0.1% while real GDP rose 22%, the population increased 7% and industrial production rose 17%. Note especially the last number. It has been an easy (and we believe lazy) claim to attribute every slackening period of...

Uber transformed transportation when it spent a fortune turning ride-sharing into a mainstream mode of transportation. But the 2.0 version of ride-sharing is where the real disruption begins. It fixes everything that’s wrong and latches onto a mega-trend the giants shouldn’t have ignored: ethical investing. This is where drivers get a boost, riders get a choice, and CO2 goes neutral.

Oil prices sank for a sixth consecutive day early on Friday and were on track for their biggest weekly drop in more than four years as the coronavirus outbreak continues to roil global equity and oil markets. At 10:53 a.m. EST on Friday, WTI Crude was plunging by 5.92 percent at $44.30, and Brent Crude was down 4.58 percent at $49.36, after falling briefly below $50 earlier today. The sell-off on the oil market has continued for more than a week as the coronavirus spread quickly outside China—to Europe, the Middle East, and as of recently—Africa.

You know that the oil markets have truly gone to the dogs when they are suddenly riskier than one of the world’s most volatile commodities: bitcoin.

Oil prices plummeted by 4 percent early on Monday as the coronavirus spread outside China and Asia, rekindling fears that a protracted global outbreak would impact economic growth and oil demand around the world.

Crude oil production in North Dakota could peak over the next five years as producers will have drilled up the core production areas and will have to move to less prolific corners of the oil patch, North Dakota’s Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms told state lawmakers.

The year 2020 could emerge as the start of the era of relative global chaos or major upheaval. It is the era we have been anticipating, as the impact of core population decline meets economic dislocation, and security and structural uncertainty. Changes in the fundamental sociological framework of global society, due to the end of the population growth cycle - and with it the end of the economic growth cycle based on expanding market size - were beginning to become evident by the beginning of 2020. It was apparent that 2020 was likely to see a major evolution in this...

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus in China, oil prices have lost more than 10 percent, and are now at their lowest levels since early October 2019. Even with Libya’s oil production plummeting by nearly 1 million barrels per day (bpd) due to the port blockade by forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar, oil prices have seen downward pressure over the past week and a half as fears of oil demand destruction currently outweigh supply outages.

Nothing quite tickles the fancy of energy investors like a giant oil or gas find. But here’s the secret sauce: stocks of small-cap companies tend to enjoy serious leverage whenever they strike oil, whereas the heavyweights, well, not so much. You don’t have to look very far for an example: shares of ExxonMobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM) are down more than 20% since the company announced a 14-strong string of good discoveries off the coast of Guyana in 2015, one of its best finds ever. That’s because companies like Exxon have their fingers in too many pies, and their share prices depend...

Reports of new rocket fire surfaced late on Wednesday afternoon, landing in Iraq’s Green Zone, home to the US Embassy and other foreign missions, just hours after US President Donald Trump announced that Iran was standing down after a series of escalations in the region.

This is what the bears don’t get about oil stocks: These are no longer the reckless, wasteful, binge years of the shale boom. The smart companies have adapted to a new reality. close [x] Pause Unmute Remaining Time -1:33 Fullscreen Now, it’s about dramatic new offshore discoveries that are being brought online in record speed. It’s about brilliant new well-completion designs that enhance productivity. It’s about integrated giants who win, either way. It’s about extremely ambitious small-caps that slip into new venues and scoop up massive basins when no one’s looking. It’s about ingenuity on multiple levels that translates into...