If last week was all about accusations, this week was about action - deals and projects.

Multiple countries have finally got into action to mitigate supply issues, and inflation, there has been a frenzy of political travel back and forth, and countries are striking oil, distillate, and natural gas deals across the globe:

Russian oil flows to Asian countries have increased

India is considering purchasing oil from Brazil

Iraq is striking an LNG deal with Qatar

Korea has struck a natural gas deal with BP

Europe to buy more diesel from the Middle East

Multiple new exploration projects are being kicked off as well. New ideas are being devised, e.g. use of nuclear (small module reactors) for oil sands is being considered.

Countries such as China are also kicking off new infrastructure projects to re-energize their economies. The infrastructure pill is also being prescribed to countries such as Sri Lanka that are already bankrupt or are on the brink of bankruptcy.

Let us hope that these actions, and any more to come, will revive the global economy in the following few months.

Russia's war on Ukraine is spurring an exploration boom, says Schlumberger. “The dislocation of supply flows from Russia will result in increased global investment across geographies and the entire energy value chain to ensure the diversification and security of the world’s energy supply,” Chief Executive Officer Olivier Le Peuch said in a statement. 

The Saudis also seem to be upping their upstream exploration and production game. 

Read more at:

US crude oil production declined by 242 kbd in January.  It declined again by 50 kbd in February. 

The US Permian basin is faced with multiple challenges including labor, materials supply chain crunches, and cash. 

(See the previous edition for how this does not align with Biden administration statements that everything is hunky dory) 

For the first time, US renewable energy output exceeds nuclear generation. 

Meanwhile, US February oil demand was at 20.436mbp, the highest February level since 2007. This is in addition to the current opportunity to export to the world thirsty for oil, and cheaper oil at that.