A Mystery No More: Amount Of U.S. Debt Held By Saudi Is Now Known. As of March, the Royal Kingdom stockpiled $116.8 billion of U.S. Treasuries, down nearly 6% from a record in January, according to a statement from the Treasury Department provided in response to a Freedom of Information Act requested by Bloomberg. [Oilpro]
Saudi Oil Stockpiles Hit 18-Month Low in March As Output Capped. Saudi Arabia’s crude oil stockpiles fell in March for the fifth month in a row reaching the lowest level in 18 months as the kingdom kept shipping crude to meet customer demand while keeping a lid on production. [Bloomberg]
A Golf Clap, Not A Thunderous Applause. Brent prices eased early Wednesday, and WTI futures were flat, after both hitting 2016 highs Tuesday, as oversupply concerns weigh more heavily than supply disruptions in Canada & Nigeria. Volatility is still the name of the game. The recent price spikes merit a golf clap, not a round of applause. [Reuters, Oilpro]
Nearly $1bn Of Oil Sands Production Lost So Far Due To Fires, Report Estimates. A new assessment of the economic impact of the Fort McMurray wildfires says close to $1 billion of oilsands production has been lost. [Financial Post, Oilpro]
Eni Gas Pipeline In Niger Delta Attacked. Unknown attackers have blown up a gas pipeline belonging to Italy’s ENI in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, residents and the company said on Wednesday, the latest in a string of attacks on oil and gas facilities in the impoverished region. [Reuters]
Ensco Rigs And Job Losses Stack Up. UK-headquartered offshore driller Ensco is cutting another 350 jobs, the result of a move to stack three drillships and a semisubmersible which are out of work in the Gulf of Mexico. [Splash 247, Oilpro]
Light At End Of The Tunnel, Or Merely Glowing Emergency Signs? Oilpro Andre Wheeler provides an overview of the OSV market and shipyards over the last month. He focuses on emerging opportunities for redeployment of assets and suggests that there some flashlights on in the sector. [Oilpro]
Today’s Energy Sector Is Caught In An Avalanche Of Defaults. The U.S. energy sector isfacing $370 billion of debt, a number that has more than doubled in the past decade. But even as oil rebounds off 13-year lows, many energy companies are struggling to stay afloat. [Yahoo Finance, Oilpro]
Plains All American Indicted Over 2015 California Oil Spill. Plains All American Pipeline company is facing criminal charges after one of its pipelines ruptured last year, spilling about 140,000 gallons of crude oil that fouled miles of California coastline near Santa Barbara. [Oilpro, NPR]
Hotel CEOs Reflect On The Oil Industry’s Business Impact. Oil prices may be recovering now, inching closer toward $50 per barrel, (although that’s well below a record high of $145 a barrel in 2008), but that wasn’t enough to help weakened oil-producing markets — or the hotels that serve them — especially during the first quarter of 2016. [Skift.com]
Meet Paraffin Wax Specialist, Timothy Rogers, #HUMANSofOG. He writes, “My brother and I developed a non toxic chemical in 2008 for dissolving and dispersing paraffin to solve a range of oilfield production problems, but specifically paraffin wax and heavy oil deposits.” [Oilpro]
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