Oil & Gas Analyst, focused on emerging Europe & MENA, especially downstream and natural gas. Worked for two decades in Turkish downstream sector.
London, England
Joined July 2013
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Wow its all solved then. $150m released to invest in refining
You might get a small spec related investment for that, and it will take three years to build if you start today.
If you generously assume 1 barrel of capacity cost $30k, $150m would get you a 5,000 bpd refinery 🤣
🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨
@POTUS is using the Defense Production Act to increase American refining capacity to produce more diesel and more gasoline.
How to be technically correct and irrelevant at the same time
Our gas displaces LNG, which has a much higher carbon footprint, not Norwegian which has a lower one.
The single biggest one of these has not produced a drop because it still awaits permission.
Restrict licences, conduct lawfare and then point to the small impact of new projects.
Set the sector free and we will check back in 10 years.
Whilst some uninformed may exaggerate, most of us are simply saying:
More oil and gas will improve energy security, employment opportunities & tax revenues.
Less oil & gas will make ~zero impact on climate and is therefore illogical.
Rosebank would also contribute to energy security. As long as we import refined products, access to crude oil supply for our neighbours is important for us.
The very basic answer as to why refined product prices have risen much more than oil.
Imagine being a country where 2 refineries have recently closed due to our artificially high cost base.
Globally, refineries are currently processing around 3.3 million barrels per day less than they were at the same time last year.
What we lost:
(-2.5 mb/d) Disruptions to refineries and difficulties exporting the diesel, gasoline, and jet fuel results in Middle East refinery runs lower.
(-1.1 mb/d) Disruptions to Russia's refinery operations as a result of Ukrainian attacks
(-1 mb/d) Reduced runs by Chinese refineries
On the flip side:
(+0.3 mb/d) U.S refiners have increased runs
(+1 mb/d) All other refineries in the ROW
But this still leaves us, on net, 3.3 million b/d short in terms of refinery runs.
How can people be this credulous?
We have decided to invest in chickens and the fox has kindly offered to look after them.
Our politicians regardless of party have never seen a pound they don't want to spend twice.
NEW
Britain’s missing sovereign wealth fund… Treasury officials have modelled that had the UK done what Norway did with North Sea revenues, there would be a £1 trillion fund…
As Chancellor sets up Energy Wealth Fund, a look at the long historical argument about where the oil windfall went, including from interviews with those who have run Norways $2.4 trillion fund, now the biggest in the world, filled from the proceeds of the same North Sea.
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm4g…
Our politicians have the fiscal continence of drunken sailors on shore leave. The idea that we could have at any time set up a fund that nobody would have touched is preposterous.
They regularly spend billions that we don't have, how would they not spend wealth fund money?
‘We'd have a British sovereign wealth fund now that will be worth probably a trillion pounds’
Chancellor @JohnHealey_MP suggests what Britain could have gained if it had set up an energy wealth fund like Norway’s back in the 1980s
#Peston
I have just found the most extreme version of the Schrodingers gas field
Small enough to create just 27 jobs, big enough to 8,000 people.
Do these people live on a diet of just waccy baccy?
How can you confidently pronounce such illogical rubbish in public?
As we all get excited/enraged by the Jackdaw decision, I thought it is worth reiterating a basic truth about commodity markets.
Each unit of additional domestic production, replaces the most expensive marginal supply (LNG).
So by definition, it will have an impact on prices.
Excellent news. There was no need to wait this long, but we got there in the end.
Now add Rosebank.
Bankrupting the country for the sake of virtue signaling was never the responsible option.
Energy Secretary @Miatsf has agreed that the regulator can grant consent for gas to be produced at the licensed Jackdaw field.
Gas from Jackdaw is expected to start reaching British homes and businesses as early as the end of this month.
ALT Jackdaw gas field gets green light to begin production
Domestic Oil & Gas doesn't improve energy security: Today's update
"Oil refineries in Europe and Asia could
start reducing run rates this q as soaring freight rates.." IEA
Having more oil in our corner of the world would mean more refined products, even if the oil is exported
Perhaps a fixed price structure was not the best idea.
Although a single train with 600,000 bpd was an "interesting" choice as well.
Nigeria's Dangote oil refinery IPO to be extended by 10 days, executive and adviser say reuters.com/business/energy/…
Schrodingers oil and gas fields again.
Too small to move prices, but big enough to end life on earth
World risks being ‘unliveable’ if new oil and gas fields approved say all the worlds climate scientists and anyone who isn’t corrupted by this insidious industry bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6zx…
Who knew that the size of the refineries was the problem?
The problem is that we added additional costs that forced refineries to close and stopped sensible upgrades. Not that someone else has a bigger one.
🇪🇺Europe has zero of the world's 15 biggest refineries.
In a diesel crisis, that leaves it with no bargaining power.
🇮🇳India's Jamnagar (Reliance) leads at 1.36M b/d.
9 of the top 15 are in Asia and the Gulf, and 3 of those are in 🇰🇷South Korea.
🇺🇸US has 4.
🇻🇪Venezuela has 1.
🇳🇬Nigeria has 1 (Dangote).
Europe has none....
Refining capacity decides who exports diesel and jet fuel, and who has to buy them.
In the past few weeks, the exporters have used that power.
🇨🇳China paused fuel exports for October.
🇷🇺Russia's export ban is still in place.
🇺🇸Washington threatened a diesel export ban before the G7 stock release deal.
Europe has spent a decade closing refineries and making up the shortfall with imports, some of it from Jamnagar.
Since January, the EU has also banned fuel refined from Russian crude, which shrinks the pool of suppliers again.
Meanwhile Dangote is taking the West African gasoline market that European refiners used to supply.
Europe's refining gap has become a strategic weakness, much as gas dependence was in 2022.
Capacity isn't output: Paraguaná runs far below its 955k b/d, and Russian refinery runs are down 14%.
And the G7 release only covers about four months.
Should Europe pay to keep its refineries open as strategic assets, or accept depending on Asia, the Gulf and the US for diesel?
themerchantsnews.substack.co…
Despite shortages, there is a refinery in Romania that has been shut down since December 2025. It belongs to Lukoil and is subject to sanctions.
@OneCarlyle has been trying to buy it (along with all the other Lukoil assets) all year. Why is OFAC dragging it's feet?
For this post to make sense, you need to believe that so many EV trucks were sold in China that on aggregate they were 12% more of the fleet in 1H 2026. This is obviously impossible.
The real reason for the fall must be that China used up diesel inventory.
China's diesel consumption fell ~12% in H1 2026.
Gasoline demand dropped ~8%.
EV truck sales grow faster than EV auto sales in China!
US diesel truck pays ~$101 to go 200 kilometers, while an EV truck in China pays $21!
Energy security drives EV.
bloomberg.com/news/features/…
This is one of the most misleading ideas doing the rounds.
How do you ensure power production if the marginal supply doesn't get it's cost covered?
+wholesale prices are not driving consumer prices, when subsided production is more expensive.
I wish someone would explain to me how price gouging works in the oil business?
Selling a commodity, you are a price taker, you have no pricing power. The only way to manipulate a market is through restricting supply, which for the global oil products market is impossible
Gas went over $4 a gallon for the first time in July of 2008.
Oil was around $140 a barrel, eventually going up to $148 in July of 2008.
Today, gas was 4.47 a gallon.
Today, oil was at $92.60 a gallon.
This isn't the war with Iran.
We are being gouged. @timburchett @RepTimBurchett