Hydrocarbons Daily Record Report

HYDROCARBONS DAILY RECORD REPORT

By J. Brock (FINN)

At 1800hrs LMT on Tuesday, 25 April 2005 Light Sweet Crude was $72.88 and Brent Crude was $73.21 per barrel. 

At present the trend seems to be fluctuating upwards with one or two days of decline.  Excuses for this are OPEC’s refusal to increase supply and rumours that oil reserves in the Middle East are past peak.  Further fears are that trouble in the Niger Delta could hot up and that President Chavez of Venezuela could increase his anti-American rhetoric with respect to his country’s oil industry.

On Tuesday, U.S. President Bush took aim at the high crude price by targeting crude deliveries to the reserves and relaxing federal environmental fuel standards.  This helped to bring crude prices down but it is expected that this measure will not have a huge affect on crude prices.

LOCAL IMPLICATIONS:

Much of what was written was substantiated by a report to a public meeting given by Cllr. Andrea Clausen.  She along with Mrs. Phyl Rendell, Director of Mineral Resources and Dr. Phil Richards of British Geological Survey, FIG’s Geological Consultants, went to the Association of American Petroleum Geologists annual convention in Huston Texas recently where they met with representatives from large and small hydrocarbons companies at their stand in the international section of the convention hall.

All visiting the stand were interested in the data but advice from some was that oil companies would want to get every drop out of known reserves before doing any hydrocarbons extraction from frontier areas.

At present companies wanting to bring a rig to the Falklands are looking for a partner who could help fund their project.  The per diem rate for a rig now-a-days is around $350,000.00 with some reports of $750,000.00 to $800,000.00.  In comparison Borgny Dolphin was $45,000.00 per day.  This means a significant cash outlay for any potential partner.