Tag Archives: oil sector

Latin American Oil: Beijing Still Lending, But for How Long? – I’m quoted by Energy Compass

Posted on 14.May.2022 | Comments Off on Latin American Oil: Beijing Still Lending, But for How Long? – I’m quoted by Energy Compass

energy_intelligence_tom_od2_13may16

Last week, Energy Intelligence (EI) quoted me on China’s continued appetite for oil and gas investments in Latin America even with its own  economic slowdown and LatAm’s many political upheavals. (Sincere thanks to EI for a PDF of their proprietary Energy Compass to share on my blog. You can access it below here.)

Some thoughts on China’s strategy: In the case of Venezuela, as the price of oil fell, Beijing quickly eased up on PDVSA’s repayment terms for its huge outstanding loans which are repayable in oil. This shows some willingness to help Venezuela cope with the falling market value of oil. Why? Because, mainly, it is the oil that China has always been laser-focused on – not making interest on these loans.

Generally, it is clear that new Chinese investments or loans are still possible in Latin America. In Venezuela however, Continue reading →

Comments Off on Latin American Oil: Beijing Still Lending, But for How Long? – I’m quoted by Energy Compass

Posted in Brazil, Chavez, China, Economic Crisis, Energy and Geopolitics, Faja of the Orinoco, Global Oil Market, Global Oil system, heavy oil, Hugo Chávez, Latin America, Oil prices, OPEC, PDVSA, PDVSA weakness, Rosneft, Russia, Sechin, shale oil, The USA, Uncategorized, Venezuela oil

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Wikistrat Report “Saudi Arabia & the Future of Oil” cites my views

Posted on 14.May.2022 | Leave a comment

Wikistrat - my quote on US continued interestThis Wikistrat Report on the Saudi kingdom’s “reform” plans and the future of oil is from a press webinar I did on 17 May together with Dr. Ariel Cohen (Atlantic Council, Washington) and Prof. Shaul Mishal (Middle East Division, IDC Herzliya & Tel Aviv U.).  A nicely done report on oil market and geopolitical hot topics.

30May16 note: A couple typos I had found have been fixed by Wikistrat since I initially posted this Report.  The latest version is now linked here. – T.O’D.

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Posted in AICGS, Energy and Geopolitics, Energy and Geostrategy, Enhanced oil production, Global Oil Market, Global Oil system, international relations, Iran nuclear, Iraqi oil, Obama, Oil prices, Oil supply, OPEC, Persian Gulf, Russia, Saudi Arabia, shale oil, The USA, Tight oil, U.S. oil, Uncategorized, Venezuela oil

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Falling oil price & Saudi strategy: My Sky News interview (London)

Posted on 14.Feb.2022 | 4 comments

Here’s my live interview recently on Sky News – the all-news UK channel. It just went up.

Here’s the gist: Years-long high prices brought the US shale revolution and other new higher-cost oil online like offshore of Brazil and Africa. This glut was already dropping prices when the Saudi’s decided in November 2014 that OPEC alone could not cut enough production to reverse the slide. So what to do if Russia and Mexico won’t join an OPEC cut? Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy and Geopolitics, Global Oil Market, Global Oil system, Mexico, Oil prices, Oil supply, OPEC, PDVSA, Russia, Saudi Arabia, The USA, Tight oil, Trade and Commerce, Uncategorized

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My AQ piece: “Russia Is Beating China to Venezuela’s Oil Fields”

Posted on 14.Feb.2022 | 5 comments
map_aq_russia-pdvsa_oil_a

Russian Production & Stakes in Venezuelan Oil Projects (40% stake is limit)

Last October & November I succeeded in interviewing several people in the Venezuelan private sector directly knowledgeable of Russian oil projects with PDVSA. Many Venezuelans wonder what all the Russians-known for their secrecy-are up to there.  Some of my key findings are in Americas Quarterly‘s Winter 2016 edition. Read on … 

Russia Is Beating China to Venezuela’s Oil Fields – By THOMAS W. O’DONNELL

The profits, politics and luck behind Russia’s growing footprint.

Russian companies produce more oil in joint projects with PDVSA than their Chinese counterparts This article is adapted from our 1st print issue of 2016. 

The late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, had long envisioned China becoming Venezuela’s biggest oil-sector production partner. So when Rafael Ramírez, then president of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), announced in January 2013 that Russia would produce enough oil with PDVSA by 2021 to become “the biggest petroleum partner of our country,” very few people believed him. It sounded like empty hype.

Yet it turns out that Ramírez was serious. Three years later, Russian companies are already producing more oil in joint projects with PDVSA than their Chinese counterparts. Official figures are either unreliable or unavailable, but according to field data provided by Global Business Consultants (GBC), a Caracas-based energy consulting firm, Russia-Venezuela production as of late 2015 was 209,000 barrels per day (bpd), compared to China-Venezuela’s at a bit over 171,000 bpd.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Chavez, Chavez lagacy, China, Energy and Geopolitics, Energy and Geostrategy, Faja of the Orinoco, Global Oil Market, heavy oil, Hugo Chávez, international relations, PDVSA, PDVSA weakness, Putin, Rosneft, Russia, Sanctions, Sechin, Uncategorized, Venezuela oil, Zulia

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Venezuela: Default risks grow (I’m quoted in Platts)

Posted on 14.Sep.2022 | 2 comments
PDVSA president, Eulogio Del Pino, leads a meeting to

PDVSA president, Eulogio Del Pino, meets to “consolidate the new PDVSA.” (‏@delpinoeulogio Aug 11)

Mery Mogollon quotes me several times on PDVSA’s trajectory in Platt’s September Energy Economist.  Here it is:

Venezuela, South America’s biggest oil producer, has seen the value of its oil exports fall to its lowest level since 2004. The economy faces hyperinflation and increasing shortages of basic goods. Debt default seems highly likely. State oil company PDVSA has neither the institutional capacity nor the funds to expand oil production. It is a downward spiral that will lead to political change.  Continue reading →

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Posted in Faja of the Orinoco, Global Oil Market, heavy oil, Oil prices, OPEC, PDVSA, PDVSA weakness, Venezuela oil

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The EU-US “Oil Weapon”: Putin’s overtures to OPEC, China & Iran reveal desperation

Posted on 14.Apr.2022 | 1 comment

Foto: Presidents Rouhani of Iran and Putin of Russia holding discussions Presidents Rouhani of Iran and Putin of Russia holding discussions

(AICGS Analysis, by Tom O’Donnell)  Since Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, decided to annex Crimea and back east Ukrainian separatists with troops, many have worried he might use his “energy weapon” to counter U.S.-EU sanctions, as Russia supplies around a third of the EU’s natural gas imports.  But what about Russian retaliation in the oil sector?

That’s hard to imagine. While gas is marketed in bi-lateral, pipeline-mediated relationships, oil is not. It’s liquid, fungible, and marketed in a unified open market—“the global barrel” [and name of this blog, T.O’D.]—which means there are no bi-lateral oil dependencies.

So, when EU leaders were cajoled by Germany’s Angela Merkel into joining the United States in applying sanctions, Russia could do little to retaliate from within the oil sector.  In reality, it is the EU and the U.S., not Russia, that have an “oil weapon” in hand.  And, the flurry of Russian oil diplomacy with OPEC, Iran and China over the past couple of weeks has a distinct whiff of desperation to it. Continue reading →

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Posted in AICGS, Aramco, China, Energy and Geopolitics, Energy and Geostrategy, Euroepen Union, Gas globalization, gas internationalization, Germany, Global Oil Market, Global Oil system, international relations, Iran nuclear, Iran sanctions, negotiations, Obama, Oil prices, OPEC, Putin, Rouhani, Russia, Sanctions, Saudi Arabia, shale oil, The USA, Ukraine, Venezuela oil

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Paralyzed on Economic Reforms, Venezuela Will Mortgage Citgo [My Americas Quarterly analysis]

Posted on 14.Feb.2022 | Leave a comment
listverse.com-28jan15-178789073

Photo:: Listverse.com

[My post at Americas Quarterly, 5 Feb 2015]  Since before the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in March 2013, his successor, Nicolás Maduro, has remained paralyzed to enact reforms needed to escape the economic dysfunction Chávez left behind.

In his latest national address on the economy on January 21, Maduro finally acknowledged the recession and shortages faced by Venezuelan citizens. Yet, he failed again to clearly implement any of the pragmatic economic reforms[1] advocated by Rafael Ramírez, the former minister of energy and former president of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (Petroleum of Venezuela—PDVSA)— such as a de facto bolívar-to-dollar devaluation via unification of Venezuela’s multi-tier foreign exchange (FX) system, measures to attract more foreign financing for oil production, and removing internal price controls, especially for gasoline.  Meanwhile, in September 2014, Ramírez was demoted to foreign minister, and then to UN ambassador several months later.

According to insiders, Maduro’s failure to implement pragmatic reforms stems principally from two sources.
Continue reading →

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Posted in Chavez, Chavez lagacy, Faja of the Orinoco, Global Oil Market, heavy oil, Oil prices, PDVSA, Uncategorized, Venezuela oil

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Oil Price Collaterals: Saudi strategy shakes Russia, Iran & Venezuela, but they’re not targets

Posted on 14.Feb.2022 | Leave a comment
Obama and Saudi King in Saudi Arabia after the death of previous king

Falling oil prices are not a US-EU-Saudi plot against Russia, Iran and Venezuela… though their effect is certainly not unwelcomed..Foto: REUTERS/Jim Bourg

 

[Printed in IP Journal, German Council on Foreign Affairs] Pin-pointing the reason for the dramatic – and continuing – fall in the price of oil is relatively easy: OPEC held its 166th conference in late-November 2014 to decide on a strategy to address oil prices, which had been falling at five to ten percent per month since July. Rather than pursue a production cut

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Posted in Chavez, Energy and Geopolitics, Euroepen Union, Global Oil system, international relations, Iran nuclear, Oil prices, Oil supply, OPEC, PDVSA, Persian Gulf, Putin, Resource conflicts, Russia, Sanctions, Saudi Arabia, The USA

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[Spanish] Mi opinión en Petroquía: China se involucra en los principales proyectos de América Latina

Posted on 14.Jan.2022 | 2 comments

Here’s my piece [in Spanish] in Petroguía 2015, the oil-&-gas sector catalog for Latin America  Note: Hemispheric integration (e.g., energy infrastructure) was endlessly promoted by Hugo Chavez.  In the end, he built none. The region’s resources continue going mainly to develop other regions, such as China. Continue reading →

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Posted in Brazil, Chavez, China, Colombia, Ecopetrol, Gas globalization, Global Oil Market, Latin America, Latin America and Caribbean, LNG, PDVSA, Petrobras, The USA, Trade policy, Uncategorized

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Watch: Falling Oil Price & Geopolitics – Saudis & OPEC, Russia, USA, .. | My Real News Network interview

Posted on 14.Dec.2022 | Leave a comment

A wide-ranging interview on the “perfect storm” of low prices from low demand plus rising production, the Saudi market strategy and some geopolitical implications.

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Posted in Aramco, Energy and Geopolitics, Energy and Geostrategy, Global Oil Market, Global Oil system, international relations, Iran sanctions, Iraqi oil, Libya, Oil prices, Oil supply, OPEC, Resource conflicts, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabit, shale oil, U.S. oil, Uncategorized

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“Venezuela: Petroleum, Politics & Economics in the Post-Chavez Era”–My Columbia U. talk, with Luiz Pinto, 9 October

Posted on 14.Oct.2022 | Leave a comment

If you’re in New York:  Luiz Pinto and I speak at Columbia University’s Institute for Latin American Studies (ILAS) on post-Chavez Venezuela, 12-noon, Thursday, 9 October: ilas_venezuela_columbia_talk_09oct14

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Posted in Chavez, Chavez lagacy, Chavez legacy, heavy oil, Hugo Chávez, Latin America, Leopoldo López, Maracaibo, PDVSA, PDVSA weakness, Uncategorized, Venezuela oil, Venezuela update, Venezuelan Democracy

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Estoy citado en “Dinero”: La caída en la acción de Ecopetrol de Colombia no se debe únicamente a los ataques guerrilleros

Posted on 14.Sep.2022 | 4 comments
Javier Gutiérrez Presidente de Ecopetrol - La compañía tiene la meta de alcanzar el millón de barriles diarios de producción en 2015. Es claro que esa cifra está lejos de ser cumplida.

Javier Gutiérrez Presidente de Ecopetrol – La compañía tiene la meta de alcanzar el millón de barriles diarios de producción en 2015. Es claro que esa cifra está lejos de ser cumplida. (Dinero)

English Summary (Resumen en Inglés): I am quoted at length by Dinero  (Publicaciones Semana,  Bogotá) on the steep fall in value of the stocks of Colombia’s national oil company and largest corporation, Ecopetrol.  This had been blamed on FARC and ELN guerrilla attacks on pipelines this year. However, while attacks are up versus 2013, they are significantly below the numbers in several prior years.  Others blame the fall on a failure to expand reserves. Indeed, Ecopetrol has a very low exploration-drilling success rate. However,  I stressed that discovery of new reserves is not so much the problem as is the need to begin employing enhanced oil production (EOP) methods to Ecopetrol’s existing fields.  The percentage of oil Ecopetrol extracts is low.  To get more oil out of existing reserves, Ecopetrol needs to learn how to do EOP.  And, in certain formations, it has to learn how to drill much deeper.  Here is the article …

DINERO | 8/21/2014:   No solo violencia

La caída en la acción de Ecopetrol no se debe únicamente a los ataques guerrilleros. El principal problema de la compañía es operativo: no ha podido encontrar nuevas reservas.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Colombia, Dinero, Ecopetrol, ELN, Enhanced oil production, FARC, heavy oil, High technology, Latin America, Pacific Rubiales, Semana Publications

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Aside

Last week, I was quoted in the Wall Street Journal on why Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) is looking to sell its Citgo refining affiliate in the USA. The key motivation, in my estimation, is to finance projects critical to … Continue reading →

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Posted on 14.Aug.2022

My talk on Iran, NYC | After an Iran-USA deal: A Mideast without democracy, run by Iran & Saudi Arabia?

Posted on 14.May.2022 | 1 comment
Figure 1. Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani (R) exchanges greetings with the new Saudi Arabian ambassador to Iran, Abdulrahman Bin Groman Shahri in Tehran, April 22, 2014. (photo by Twitter/ISNA) Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/04/rafsanjani-saudi-ambassador-kiss-controversy.html#ixzz32ktJuoKR

Kiss between Rafsanjani and Saudi ambassador stirs controversy   Former Iranian President, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani (R) exchanges greetings with the new Saudi Arabian ambassador to Iran, Abdulrahman Bin Groman Shahri in Tehran, Al Monitor, April 22, 2014. (photo by Twitter/ISNA)

Appreciation: I am honored to again be invited by my Iranian colleagues in New York, Professors Reza Ghorashi, Hamidah Zangeneh and Hamid Sedghi, to join this panel and discuss the geopolitics of US-Iranian relations.  And, my thanks to Prof. Sedghi for reading my paper as I am teaching in Berlin and cannot be with you today. I only ask that those who dislike my message, kindly refrain from shooting the messenger.

Introduction

The US-Iran nuclear confrontation finally appears close to resolution.  This is because both Presidents Obama and Rouhani desire a diplomatic solution, and both countries need to move on. With such an agreement, it is possible that relations will slowly become normalized.

Of particular note—as a direct consequence—are the recent secret negotiations between Iran and Saudi Arabia towards a rapprochement.  These were initially facilitated by Oman (e.g. see reports here, here, and here). Until very recently the Saudis had remained fiercely opposed to any US deal with Iran.  However, the Saudi’s are realists, and know when it is time to adapt.  Figure 1. is a photo of kisses exchanged on 22 April between ex-President Rafsanjani of Iran and King Abdullah’s ambassador to Iran, which caused quite a stir in the region. Agreements reached in these recently revealed negotiations have already significantly affected the presidential-succession crisis in Lebanon, sectarian conflicts in Iraq, and the conflict in Yemen. Next the two sides are expected to negotiate regarding their interests in the Syrian conflict.

In addition, the nature of the US-Saudi relationship is changing, transferring much more responsibility on the Kingdom and its Gulf partners for their own defense–albeit strongly supported with US weapons and logistics. This is part of the US disengagement from direct regional interventions, which will be significantly furthered by a successful US-Iran agreement (e.g., see here and here, and this report on Saudi defense buildup from Balfour at Harvard).

How are these new developments to be understood? Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy and Geopolitics, Energy and Geostrategy, Global Oil Market, Global Oil system, international relations, Iran nuclear, Iran sanctions, Iraq, Iraqi oil, negotiations, Obama, OPEC, P5+1, Persian Gulf, Rouhani, Sanctions, Saudi Arabia, Syria, The USA, U.S. oil, Uncategorized

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USA Oil Seminar 5.0 | USA as Rising Energy Superpower?

Posted on 14.May.2022 | 1 comment

us_air_force_jets_oil_buring_iraqNote: These “USA Oil Seminar” posts are extra readings for my students to better understand how US energy policy is developed and to hear the views of US experts.  The seminar is: “The Global Oil System & US Policy” at JFK Institute of FU-Berlin. 

RECOMMENDATIONS:

  1. This Friday, watch live (or the recording later on): Is the U.S. a Rising Energy Superpower? Implications for Global Markets and Asia, the Middle East, Russia, and Europe.  CSIS upcoming talk by Fereidun Fesharaki.  FRIDAY, MAY 16, 2014 | 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM .  Moderated by David Pumphrey.
  2. Read the paper: Fueling a New Order? The New Geopolitical and Security Consequences of Energy |April 15, 2014. By: Bruce Jones, David Steven and Emily O’Brien.  Brookings Institute; Washington, DC.

BACKGROUND:  This week, the class reading assignments are a couple conference papers I wrote a few years ago on the history and structure of today’s global oil system, and how it grew to replace the neo-colonial oil system. Continue reading →

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Posted in China, Energy and Geopolitics, Energy and Geostrategy, Euroepen Union, Gas globalization, Global Oil Market, Global Oil system, international relations, Latin America, LNG, Oil course, Oil prices, Oil supply, OPEC, Persian Gulf, Resource conflicts, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Seminar, shale gas, shale oil, The USA, Tight oil, Trade and Commerce, U.S. oil, unconventional energy

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