A plethora of ongoing events meant the Oilholic ditched the comforts of suburbia last week and camped out at London’s Park Lane, with its row of hotels playing host to some crude events.
For starters S&P Global Platts’ London Oil Forum 2018 made for an interesting Monday (19 Feb). Talk of the forum was, of course, the eastward direction of crude cargoes, as more and more oil tankers from the US head to Asian shores. There was tacit agreement among delegates at the Platts event that North American crude production will continue to grow, dominated by shale, leading to a relative surge in US exports.
Chris Midgley, Global Director of Analytics at Platts, noted: "Lot more US crude will move into Asia, primarily lighter crude for independent Asian refiners with less complex kit."
Platts' own observation, in tandem with those of rival data aggregators, also suggests that global production is growing a lot lighter. That's because the OPEC and non-OPEC production quota cut took heavy and medium crude exports to Asia into a net decline in 2017.
Additionally, Platts expects 2020 to be hugely disruptive from a crude cracking standpoint as nearly 3 million barrels per day (bpd) of fuel oil will have to "produced differently."
Right after the Platts LOF came the International Petroleum Week 2018, Tuesday through to Thursday, where yours truly also donned an event speaker’s hat. More on that later.
On the very first day of IPWeek, UAE oil minister Suhail Al Mazrouei, said plans for an OPEC and non-OPEC producers’ ‘super-group’ were well and truly underway, and that the producers, while satisfied with the reduction in global inventories, had not quite reached their end-goal of achieving the kind of market balance they were aspiring for yet.
The Oilholic joined Dr Carole Nakhle, CEO of Crystol Energy, in arguing against the motion, with Amrita Sen, Energy Aspects’ Chief Oil Analyst and David Sheppard, Energy Markets Editor of the Financial Times, supporting the motion.
In a nutshell, Dr Nakhle and this blogger’s argument against the motion was a simple one – as the demand mix evolves, and much of the incremental demand comes from Asia, there is in fact room for everyone, and the impact of US exports should not be exaggerated or oversimplified.
At the beginning, the audience was 61% in favour of the motion and 39% against. However, in a final vote upon the conclusion of the debate, the Nakhle-Sharma duo managed to sway audience opinion to 65% against the motion, with those in favour of it down to 35%!
Overall, a fun end to a crude week. That’s all for the moment folks! Next stop, Houston, Texas for IHS CERAWeek! Keep reading, keep it ‘crude’!
© Gaurav Sharma 2018. Photo1: Chris Midgley, S&P Global Platts’ Director of Analytics, speaks at the data aggregator’s London Oil Forum. Photo 2: UAE Oil Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei (left) talks to CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick at the International Petroleum Week, London, UK © Gaurav Sharma 2018. Photo 3: IPWeek Debate Participants at Middle East Energy Summit © Gulf Intelligence 2018.
For yet another year, the Oilholic was delighted to have spoken and moderated at the event as part of the Gulf Intelligence Middle East Energy Summit. Industry 4.0, investment climate, US shale and OPEC were all under the radar. Delegates were fairly evenly split on the direction of the oil price; but yours truly maintains that the phase of range-bound crude prices is here to stay. 
