Nine shale gas producers in the US Appalachian Basin have spent half a billion dollars more during Q3-2020 on drilling and new projects than they earned. According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), eight of these nine fracking companies cut Capex substantially but still incurred losses.
In a trading update today, Rolls-Royce said it will carry out at least £1 billion of cash cost mitigations before year-end and is on track to deliver its targeted £1.3 billion cost savings by 2022. The Power System end market is recovering from a drastic fall in demand, supported by China’s swift recovery.
DNV GL’s 2020 Energy Transition Outlook forecasts global electricity demand will more than double from 26 PWh/yr today to 56 PWh/yr in 2050. Progressive electrification will make industrial and transport sectors, that previously used various energy carriers, increasingly compete for the same sources of renewable energy.
British utility ContourGlobal enters the US energy market by acquiring gas power plants in Texas and New Mexico as part of an $837 million deal. ContourGlobal said it was buying the assets, including a 1,502 MW combined-cycle plant in Trinidad, from Western Generation Partners on a debt and cash-free basis.
Japanese and Korean investors need to reassess the financial risk of gas-fired power projects in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) system, where wind and solar gain competitiveness against natural gas. Analysts say Japan’s exposure to such projects in PJM amounts to several billion U.S. dollars, and several plants face delays.
South Africa’s state utility Eskom needs to reconfigure its fleet given that 10,000 MW of thermal capacity will retire by 2030. Bhavtik Vallabhjee, Head of Power Utilities at Absa Bank pointed out a renewables rollout would still be cheaper than retrofitting ageing coal power plants to clean coal units.
Gazprom has made a loss due to a weak Russian currency and 40% plunge in sales to Europe as the pandemic depressed demand and prices. For the nine months ended Sept. 30, Gazprom booked a net loss of 218.38 billion Rubles ($2.85 billion) compared with a 1.048 trillion Rubles profit in the pre-year period.