Welcome to the Fuel Matters Blog

Make no mistake, winter plays a big part of our daily lives.  When you are involved in the transportation industry, it can have a huge impact!  Icy roads can cause accidents and delays, increasing the demand for carriers.  Here in Southwestern Pennsylvania, with our first snowfall on record books, we can say that winter is coming.

After the recent attacks on the oil processing facilities in Saudi Arabia, demand for spot crude oil has risen.  Russian oil demand has been very strong in the Asian market as a result of it. With recent U.S. sanctions on Chinese cargo ships, freight rates have spiked on tankers in the Pacific.  This has prompted the Asian market to bid on freight that ship shorter distances, making the option of Russian crude oil more desirable.

After more than one hundred years of production experience in Norway, Exxon Mobil has agreed to sell its assets for an estimated $4 billion. Exxon’s Norwegian portfolio consisted of more than twenty oil fields operated by producers Equinor and Royal Dutch Shell. In 2017, the average net production of these fields was about 170,000 barrels per day. By 2019, Exxon had controlled more than 530 million barrels of oil on the Norwegian continental shelf. Just the control that they have in the Snorre field alone is valued at around $700 million.

As global terrorism increases, the attacks on oil and gas facilities are at an increase as well. Cyber-attacks on the Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are on the rise. ICS’s can be anything from computer software all the way to the control system that regulates the valves on a pipeline. If a system is compromised, it has the ability to delay operations causing a significant loss for the company.