FT Energy News 26th October

Green bank plan to make spring debut (Page 2)

Full details of the coalition’s plan for a green investment bank will be set out in the spring of next year. Additional funds to the £1bn will be made available to the bank from asset sales.

Go-ahead for wind energy to generate 70,000 jobs (Page 2)

David Cameron has said £60m of spending earmarked for upgrading British ports to make them suitable for handling large offshore turbines would go ahead, resulting in 70,000 ‘green jobs’.

BP to sell four Gulf of Mexico fields (Page 20)

BP has agreed to sell its interests in four deepwater fields in the Gulf of Mexico to Japan’s Marubeni Oil for $650m as part of a move to cut its capital spending and rebalance its portfolio of assets in the wake of the Macondo oil spill disaster.

FT Energy News 22nd October

Chevron to develop in Gulf of Mexico (Page 21)

Chevron is going ahead with a $7.5bn development of two large fields in the Gulf of Mexico, representing the largest investment in the area since the BP disaster in April. Despite tighter regulations the area still remains attractive to western oil companies excluded from exploiting many of the world’s most geologically accessible oil reserves in the Middle East and Russia.

FT Energy News 20th October

Cooling ambitions (Page 11)

Delays, cost over-runs and foreign competition have dimmed French hopes for its new-generation nuclear reactor as a significant source of diplomatic and economic power.

China: The world’s biggest market but in need of nuclear know-how (Page 11)

The Chinese government plans to build 70GW-100GW of nuclear capacity by 2020, 23 reactors are under construction and another 120 have been proposed.

Market bulls set target of $100 a barrel for crude oil (Page 33)

Goldman-Sachs forecast oil will reach $100 a barrel by the end of next year, helped by a weak dollar and a stronger than expected growth in oil demand.

Financial Times Energy News 19th October

BP fourth-quarter bonus tied to safety (Page 1)

Health and safety will be the sole measure used to judge all 80,000 staff for their bonuses in the fourth quarter according to Bob Dudley, new chief executive.

Green investment divides ministers (Page 4)

Details of a green investment bank are likely to be left out of Wednesday’s comprehensive spending review as ministers cannot agree whether to grant the bank power to raise finance from the private sector, for instance by issuing bonds, green Isas, raising loans and other measures.

Subsidy for eight nuclear reactors rejected (Page 4)

“There will be no levy, direct payment or market support for electricity supplied or capacity provided by a private sector new nuclear operator, unless similar support is also made available more widely to other types of generation” said Chris Huhne, secretary of state for energy and climate change.

China feels the strain in rush to save energy (Page 7)

China is rushing to meet its energy saving target of 20% reduction in energy use per unit of gross domestic product. China’s energy intensity fell by 15.6% from 2005-2009, but rose 3.2% in the first quarter of this year.

Wave of closures set to hit US coal stations (Page 8)

Closures ot US coal fired power plants are set to accelerate sharply during the coming decade as a wave of environmental regulations hits the industry. Ageing plants are threatened by the cost of investment needed to cut pollution, as well as by competition from cheap gas supplies created by the boom in US production from previously uneconomic shale rocks.

Rockhopper seeks to extend Falklands drilling (Page 21)

Rockhopper, the Falklands Islands-focused oil explorer, is hoping to raise £200m through an accelerated bookbuilding to extend its drilling programme just days after cutting its resource estimates.

TNK-BP looks abroad with Venezuela and Vietnam deal (Page 21)

TNK-BP, the Russian venture half-owned by BP, will pay $1.8bn to buy BP’s production and pipeline assets in Venezuela and Vietnam, in a move that marks its most significant diversification outside Russia. The move puts TNK-BP on the path of international expansion as opportunities for growth in Russia diminish due to increasing resource nationalism and a burdensome tax regime.

Financial Times Energy News 18th October

Huhne backs nuclear power surge (Page 2)

The way will be cleared for the next generation of nuclear power stations on Monday with the publication of a revised list of suitable sites and clearer guidelines on how they can be used. The proposed new plants are not expected to be operational before 2018. Funding is expected to be cut for a 10-mile barrage across the SDevern that could have generated about 5% of the UK’s electricity.

Low gas prices to reshape industry (Page 24)

Low US natural gas prices intensify pressure on producers, with analysts expecting many to form joint ventures and to sell off assets to raise cash. Prices have been trading at about $3-$4/mBtu down from the record $13.69/mBtu reached in 2008.

IPO for Enel’s renewables unit to test investor appetite (Page 24)

Enel, the partially privatised Italian utility, plans to sell as much as €3.4bn worth of shares in its diversified renewables business, which is present in 16 countries and includes geothermal, hydro, solar and photovoltaic, biomass and wind energy. Enel Green Power (EGP) hopes to reverse the trend of falling renewables prices by offering a more diversified portfolio.

Big subsidies for wind lead to four-year investment plan (Page 24)

EGP plans to invest 90% of its projected capital expenditure in wind over the next four years. UBS expects subsidies for wind and solar across Europe could surge from €11bn in 2010 to €13bn in 2015.

Financial Times Energy News 15th October

Opec to keep oil quotas as prices hold up (Page 10)

Opec oil ministers have decided to keep their production quotas unchanged, declaring the world market remains “well supplied” and prices are at a satisfactory level. Members are generally failing to comply with a total quota of 24.85m barrels per day, with current output some 2m b/d above this ceiling.

Financial Times Energy News 14th October

Topland expands into green energy (Page 22)

Topland, the investment company managed by property entrepreneurs Sol and Eddie Zakay, has invested in a solar energy technology business that will use its retail estate portfolio to generate and trade power. The company has taken an undisclosed financial stake in Esco NRG, a renewable energy service company, and has agreed to open certain properties for use as future sites for PV arrays. Esco NRG was established in February 2010 and will this week launch the UK’s largest solar PV array, 745 sq m.

Sale of Cairn unit to be test case for India (Page 23)

Vedanta, the Indian-focused mining company, who have become a global mining group, mainly by buying under performing state-owned Indian mining firms and strengthening their operations, is now launching into oil and gas productions and wants to buy a $9.6bn controlling stake in Cairn Energy’s Indian subsidiary.

Financial Times Energy News 13th October

Curbs on deepwater drilling lifted early (Page 6)

The Obama administration lifted its moratorium on deepwater drilling ahead of schedule, saying new environmental and safety regulations had significantly reduced the risks of a big accident; however some cautioned it was a meaningless gesture, oil groups still faced a long process before oil production could be ramped up as they wait for drilling permits.

Soco shares hit Vietnam setback (Page 19)

Shares in Soco International, the Asia-focused oil and gas explorer, fell sharply yesterday after it said it would abandon an appraisal well off the coast of Vietnam. Although drilling tests had showed oil and gas in commercial quantities, a lack of reservoir pressure meant it flowed at “sub-commercial” rates.

Google heads the search for offbeat tech investments (Page 25)

Google have invested hundreds of millions of dollars behind companies working on driverless cars, wind turbines, lunar robots, genetic profiling and human-powered monorails. Google this week annou8nced it was joining a multibillion-dollar venture in wind power off the US east coast. Google said this midatlantic “backbone transmission” project offers “a solid financial return while helping to accelerate offshore wind development – so it’s both good business and good for the environment”.

Financial Times Energy News 12th October

Shell sees key natural gas role (Page 20)

Peter Voser, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, will today tell the Oil and Money conference in London that natural gas offers great potential for providing a low-cost pathway to secure, clean electricity. Natural gas is important to the UK for three reasons: supplies are more abundantly available; new gas power plants are less costly and easier to build; the environmental benefits of natural gas as a source of electricity are substantial and immediate.

Cnooc to buy stake in US shale gas (Page 24)

Cnooc, the state-owned Chinese energy company, has agreed to pay $1.08bn for a 33% stake in a large shale gas project in Texas. It has agreed to pay 75% of Chesapeake Energy’s drilling and well completion costs, up to a further $1.08bn. New techniques have cut the cost of extracting unconventional oil and gas resources. Cnooc has spent over $7bn this year in unconventional assets reflecting it’s ambitions to develop it’s own unconventional resources.

Loan terms generate obstacles to nuclear construction in US (Page 26)

Uncertainty over the long-term outlook for electricity prices and problems with the regulatory system have led to unfavourable loan terms being offered under the US governments loan guarantees for nuclear power plants. The US production of natural gas from unconventional sources has raised the prospect that electricity prices will be held down, and that gas generation could be competitively advantaged, for many years to come. Imposing a carbon price through a cap-and-trade system or a tax is off the political agenda for the foreseeable future.

EDF’s Maryland setback not all bad news (Page 26)

EDF’s Us partner Constellation Energy has withdrawn from their project to build a French designed EPR reactor on its Calvert Cliffs site in Marlyland. Already some analysts estimate the Constellation partnership sealed by a 2008 rescue deal has destroyed roughly 2% of the group’s equity value.

Financial Times Energy News 11th October

Companies warn on carbon fund risk (Page 4)
 
Support for carbon capture and storage at coal-fired power stations is in doubt under a government spending review in the UK. A scheme set up under the last administration had four plants receiving billions of funding but this may be in doubt. A group of 19 organisations have written in today’s Financial Times to urge the government to retain the support programmes for CCS.
 
CSR threatens good intentions for carbon capture and storage (Page 12)
 
Letter to the editor mentioned above from 19 companies, including Siemens and Shell, regarding funding for CCS.
 
Shell offers new spill system to drill in Alaska (Page 20)
 
Shell have offered to spend millions building an oil spill containment system for Arctic conditions if the US government permits it to drill offshore Alaska. Shell are five years into a 10 year lease but has been held up by environmental lawsuits and government permit issues.
 
Statoil in $1.3bn shale deal with Talisman (Page 23)
 
Statoil have formed a joint venture with Talisman Energy of Canada to buy $1.3bn of shale gas properties, 134,000 acres, in Texas.
 
Renewables trend clouds EGP float (Page 24)
 
Europe’s three largest renewable energy generators have delivered mixed performances since they listed, with two of them trading at half their original valuations. This could affect the upcoming float of Enel Green Power, the renewables business of Italy’s Enel.