GLOBAL OFFSHORE UPDATE

Russia, the world’s biggest energy producer, is “on board” with an OPEC agreement to limit crude oil production to help re-balance the market , according to OPEC Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo. OPEC producers remain committed to an agreement reached last month in Algiers to trim output, and cooperation from non-OPEC producers will help bring the oil market back into balance, Barkindo told reporters at an energy conference in Abu Dhabi. Russia is due to join OPEC for talks later this month in Vienna, where OPEC will convene for its bi-annual meeting.

The forward curve for U.S. crude oil futures has steepened in recent days as worries that proposed OPEC supply cuts won't hold, or even materialize, turned the market's outlook for 2017 deliveries more bearish relative to longer-term contracts. With the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries dragging out negotiating the terms of a production cap, traders are now betting that a supply glut that has depressed crude prices this year will take longer to alleviate than previously anticipated, due to disagreements among OPEC members.

After the worst week for oil since January, crude prices firmed up on Monday ahead of Tuesday’s historic election. Oil dropped 10 percent last week, in large part due to lowering expectations that OPEC could succeed in working out a production cut at the end of the month and also because the EIA reported a record high build up in oil inventories. Oil dropped below $45 per barrel, hitting nearly two-month lows. Of course, the elephant in the room is the U.S. presidential election. While not directly related to oil prices, the financial markets have been reacting in dramatic fashion to recent movements in the polls. And as Bloomberg reports, they have a clear preference for who they want to win: Hillary Clinton. The former Secretary of State is seen as a known quantity, while Donald Trump as a wildcard. When Trump moved up in the polls global stock markets dipped, and the markets gained as Clinton’s fortunes improved. The dynamic played out again on Monday when the FBI cleared C...

The boss of French oil and gas company Total said on Monday that it would be happy to be the first Western oil company to reach an agreement with Iran, but he said a deal had not yet been signed. "Discussions are going on and we'll see if we can sign in the coming days," Patrick Pouyanne told CNN Money on the sidelines of an Abu Dhabi petroleum conference. Asked about the estimated $6 billion value of the potential deal, Pouyanne said: "...developing a phase of South Pars (gas field) is more in the range of $2 billion dollars than $6 billion." Iran's SHANA news agency said on Monday that Total and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) would sign new contracts on Tuesday with National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) on the second phase of the South Pars gas field. Total has had a previous involvement in South Pars, one of the largest natural gas deposits in the world, which is located in the middle of the Persian Gulf. In 1997, Iranian authorities awarde...

The global gas output is expected to increase from current 9.91 billion cubic meters per day (bcm/d) to about 16.7 bcm/d by 2040, Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo, OPEC Secretary General said on November 7. Looking to the future, the 2016 World Oil Outlook sees global oil demand increasing from around 93 million barrels a day in 2015 to over 109 million barrels a day by 2040, Barkindo said during the 2016 Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference, OPEC’s official website reported. “Estimated oil-related investment requirements are close to $10 trillion in the period to 2040. And from the perspective of gas, the number is around $6 trillion”. He added that oil and gas are still expected to contribute 53 percent to the global energy mix by 2040. “At the global level, however, the situation that has evolved over the past two years or so, is putting this future at risk given the dramatic drop off in investments. Global oil and gas exploration and production s...