07-24-2017, 11:50 PM
The U.S. government began stockpiling oil July 21, 1977. It started with just 412,000 bbl of Saudi Arabian light crude stashed in a Southeast Texas salt dome. In the wake of the Arab oil embargo in the first half of the 1970s, which sent prices through the roof and forced Americans to ration gasoline, creating a national reserve seemed like an obvious way to protect U.S. consumers from global supply shocks. “It’s hard to imagine if you weren’t there,’’ said John Herrington, the Energy secretary under President Ronald Reagan, who pushed to expand the reserve in the 1980s. “We were lining up at gas stations. We were turning down our thermostats.’’
U.S. owns 700 MMbbl of oil and Trump wants to sell it
Key OPEC and non-OPEC oil nations will discuss the situation involving producers Libya and Nigeria at a meeting on Monday, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters on Sunday. Speculation has been swirling in oil markets that the meeting might ask Libya and Nigeria to join a production cutting deal from which they are currently exempt. Six OPEC and non-OPEC ministers will meet on Monday in St. Petersburg to discuss the market outlook and compliance with output cuts.
OPEC, non-OPEC nations may ask Libya, Nigeria to join output cuts
Almost two years after the biggest gas leak in U.S. history sprung from a Sempra Energy natural gas storage field in Southern California, the state is ready for the complex to reopen. Sempra Energy’s Aliso Canyon field near Los Angeles is safe to operate at about 28% of capacity, with the ability to store as much as 23.6 Bcf, the state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources and Public Utilities Commission said Wednesday in a joint statement. The long-anticipated finding follows months of extensive inspections and well tests by engineers.
After biggest gas leak in U.S. history, Aliso Canyon field set to reopen
Conflict-torn Libya, divided between rival factions in the east and the west, recently reached 1 million bpd of crude oil output—for the first time since 2013. The oil production recovery has put in the spotlight the chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), Mustafa Sanalla, whom analysts see as a central figure in the oil sector, wearing the hats of both a diplomat and an oil minister. It will be Sanalla who will lead Libya’s delegation at the upcoming meeting of the Joint OPEC-Non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Russia, at which he will argue his country’s position and share production plans for the immediate future.