Exxon evacuates staff from Iraqi oilfield

Exxon Evacuates All Foreign Staff From Iraqi Oilfield On Security Concerns

Zero Hedge,
18 May, 2019

At the end of a week that's witnessed a dangerous US military build-up in the Persian Gulf amid anti-Iran war rhetoric, Exxon Mobil has evacuated all of its foreign staff from Iraq's West Qurna 1 oilfield, flying them to Dubai until "the situation is secure," according to a company statement. 

Total staff evacuated is about 60, cites Reuters, and comes days after the US ordered all non-emergency personnel to leave the US embassy in Baghdad in an extremely rare security move, claiming intelligence that shows Americans are under immediate threat from Shia milias backed by Iran. 

Iraq’s state-owned South Oil Company, which owns the oil field from which the Exxon Mobil employees have been evacuated, announced Saturday that production is continuing without disruption at 440,000 barrels per day (bpd) under the operation of Iraqi engineers. 

“Exxon Mobil’s evacuation is a precautionary and temporary measure. We have no indication over any dangers, the situation is secure and very stable at the oilfield which is running at full capacity and producing 440,000 bpd,” a South Oil spokesman said.

And Exxon Mobile in a separate company press release said, “ExxonMobil has programs and measures in place to provide security to protect its people, operations and facilities. We are committed to ensuring the safety of our employees and contractors at all of our facilities around the world.”

The evacuation was reportedly completed early on Saturday in phases which had started on Friday: “Last night 28 employees were evacuated to the airport and the rest were sent to the camp. This morning they were evacuated to the airport and no (foreign) staff remain in the field,” according to a security firm which oversaw their emergency departure.

South Oil company in a separate statement noted Iraq's oil exports through its southern ports stood at 3.5 million bpd by Saturday, amid fears that a conflict between Iranian and US warships could choke global shipping through the vital Strait of Hormuz.

Corporate crime against Humanity: Exxon knew about climate change from 1977

Exxon Researched Climate Change in 1977

Leaked 1977 Memo Reveals ExxonMobil Knew They’d Cause Climate Change 38 YEARS AGO

Occupy Democrats,

16 September, 2015

It is absolutely astonishing that our nation is still wasting precious time debating the rapidly worsening threat of climate change. Fossil fuel companies have spent millions of dollars buying Republican politicians and distorting the discourse with misinformation and straight up lies about climate change. To add insult to the incredible injury, startling new revelations indicate that Exxon Mobil, the fifth-largest multinational corporation in the world, was warned by their own internal scientists about the dangers of global warming – all the way back in 1977.

The Daily Kos reports that senior company scientist James F. Black told executives that “in the first place, there is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels.”

Another report, from 1982, “marked ‘not to be distributed externally,’ the company’s environmental affairs office wrote that preventing global warming would require sharp cuts in fossil fuel use. Failure to do so, the document said, could result in ‘some potentially catastrophic events’ that ‘might not be reversible.'” However, Exxon hid this information from the public and fought for years to keep it confirmed.

This represents one of the biggest cases of what should be considered criminal negligence on behalf of the public at large. Exxon-Mobil, one of the world’s biggest polluters, has spent countless dollars fighting the truth that they themselves discovered more than thirty years ago. The Guardian reported that Exxon has given “more than $2.3m to members of Congress and a corporate lobbying group that deny climate change and block efforts to fight climate change – eight years after pledging to stop its funding of climate denial.”

The blatant disregard for the very fate of our planet and, potentially, human civilization as we know it in favor of greed and short-term profit margins is just mind-blowing. These men must be brought to justice for the harm that they have caused and continue to cause every day. The fact that they and the rest of their fossil fuel cronies receive some $7 billion in tax breaks every year to pollute our atmosphere and extort the American consumer makes their crime so much worse. It unfortunately comes as no surprise, but it is a damning indictment of the greed and selfishness of American fossil fuel companies.

h/t to Daily Kos

Oil field find in Russian Arctic

“Good news”,maybe for Vladimir Putin and the Russian economy. Disastrous news for the Living Planet

Russia Discovers Massive Arctic Oil Field Which May Be Larger Than Gulf Of Mexico

The oil production platform at the Sakhalin-I field in Russia,
partly owned by ONGC Videsh Ltd., Rosneft Oil Co., Exxon Mobil
Corp. and Japan's Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development Co. on June 9, 2009.

Zero Hedge,

27 September, 2014

In a dramatic stroke of luck for the Kremlin, this morning there is hardly a person in the world who is happier than Russian president Vladimir Putin because overnight state-run run OAO Rosneft announced it has discovered what may be a treasure trove of black oil, one which could boost Russia's coffers by hundreds of billions if not more, when a vast pool of crude was discovered in the Kara Sea region of the Arctic Ocean, showing the region has the potential to become one of the world’s most important crude-producing areas, arguably bigger than the Gulf Of Mexico. The announcement was made by Igor Sechin, Rosneft’s chief executive officer, who spent two days sailing on a Russian research ship to the drilling rig where the find was unveiled today.

Well, one person who may have been as happy as Putin is the CEO of Exxon Mobil, since the well was discovered with the help of America's biggest energy company (and second largest by market cap after AAPL). Then again, maybe not: as Bloomberg explains "the well was drilled before the Oct. 10 deadline Exxon was granted by the U.S. government under sanctions barring American companies from working in Russia’s Arctic offshore. Rosneft and Exxon won’t be able to do more drilling, putting the exploration and development of the area on hold despite the find announced today."

Which means instead of generating billions in E&P revenue, XOM could end up with, well, nothing. And that would be quite a shock to the US company because the unveiled Arctic field may hold about 1 billion barrels of oil and similar geology nearby means the surrounding area may hold more than the U.S. part of the Gulf or Mexico, he said.

For a sense of how big the spoils are we go to another piece by Bloomberg, which tells us that "Universitetskaya, the geological structure being drilled, is the size of the city of Moscow and large enough to contain more than 9 billion barrels, a trove worth more than $900 billion at today’s prices."

The only way to reach the prospect is a four-day voyage from Murmansk, the largest city north of the Arctic circle. Everything will have to shipped in — workers, supplies, equipment — for a few months of drilling, then evacuated before winter renders the sea icebound. Even in the short Arctic summer, a flotilla is needed to keep drifting ice from the rig.

Sadly, said bonanza may be non-recourse to Exxon after Obama made it quite clear that all western companies will have to wind down operations in Russia or else feel the wrath of the DOJ against sanctions breakers. Which leaves XOM two options: ignore Obama's orders (something which many have been doing of late), or throw in the towel on what may be the largest oil discovery in years. 

And while the Exxon C-suite contemplates its choices, here is some more on today's finding from Bloomberg:

“It exceeded our expectations,” Sechin said in an interview. This discovery is of “exceptional significance in showing the presence of hydrocarbons in the Arctic.”

The development of Arctic oil reserves, an undertaking that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars and take decades, is one of Putin’s grandest ambitions. As Russia’s existing fields in Siberia run dry, the country needs to develop new reserves as it vies with the U.S. to be the world’s largest oil and gas producer.

Output from the Kara Sea field could begin within five to seven years, Sechin said, adding the field discovered today would be named “Victory.”

Duh.

The Kara Sea well -- the most expensive in Russian history -- targeted a subsea structure named Universitetskaya and its success has been seen as pivotal to that strategy. The start of drilling, which reached a depth of more than 2,000 meters (6,500 feet), was marked with a ceremony involving Putin and Sechin.

The importance of Arctic drilling was one reason that offshore oil exploration was included in the most recent round of U.S. sanctions. Exxon and Rosneft have a venture to explore millions of acres of the Arctic Ocean.

But what's worse for Exxon is that now that the hard work is done, Rosneft may not need its Western partner much longer:

“Once the well is plugged, there will be a lot of work to do in interpreting the results and this is probably something that Rosneft can do,” Julian Lee, an oil strategist at Bloomberg First Word in London, said before today’s announcement. “Both parties are probably hoping that by the time they are ready to start the next well the sanctions will have been lifted.”

And here is why there is nothing Exxon would like more than to put all the western sanctions against Moscow in the rearview mirror: "The stakes are high for Exxon, whose $408 billion market valuation makes it the world’s largest energy producer. Russia represents the second-biggest exploration prospect worldwide. The Irving, Texas-based company holds drilling rights across 11.4 million acres in Russia, only eclipsed by its 15.1 million U.S. acres."

Proving just how major this finding is, and how it may have tipped the balance of power that much more in Russia's favor is the emergence of paid experts, desperate to talk down the relevance of the Russian discovery:

More drilling and geological analysis will be needed before a reliable estimate can be tallied for the size of the oil resources in the Universitetskaya area and the Russian Arctic as a whole, said Frances Hudson, a global thematic strategist who helps manage $305 billion at Standard Life Investments Ltd. in Edinburgh. Sanctions forbidding U.S. and European cooperation with Russian entities mean that country’s nascent Arctic exploration will be stillborn because Rosneft and its state-controlled sister companies don’t know how to drill in cold offshore conditions alone, she said.

“Extrapolating from a small data sample is perhaps not going to give you the best information,” Hudson said in a telephone interview. “And because of sanctions, it looks like there’s going to be less exploration rather than more.” In addition, the expense and difficulty of operating in such a remote part of the world, where hazards include icebergs and sub-zero temperatures, mean that the developing discoveries may not be economic at today’s oil prices.

Maybe. Then again perhaps the experts' time is better suited to estimating just how much longer the US shale miracle has left before the US is once again at the mercy of offshore sellers of crude.

In any event one country is sure to have a big smile on its face: China, since today's finding simply means that as Russia has to ultimately sell the final product to someone, that someone will almost certainly be the Middle Kingdom, which if the "Holy Gas Grail" deal is any indication, will be done at whatever terms Beijing chooses.