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MORNING ENERGY NEWS  |  03/23/2020
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They're not even trying to hide it anymore.


Bloomberg (3/23/20) reports: "The Senate’s failure to clear a procedural hurdle on a $1.6 trillion coronavirus rescue package, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement that her caucus will write its own legislation, could give the renewable energy industry another chance to make its case for including its priorities in the measure. Senators have deadlocked over provisions for oil and gas producers and other corporations getting federal aid. Pelosi told reporters that House Democrats didn’t support the Senate bill, which renewable energy backers criticized for severely shortchanging the industry. 'As the Senate continues to talk, we must continue to act For The People,' she said in a letter to colleagues yesterday. Representatives of several renewable energy groups—including the American Council on Renewable Energy, American Wind Energy Association, Business Network for Offshore Wind, and the Solar Energy Industries Association—have asked Congress for 'the prompt repair and extension of critically important tax incentives to help the clean energy sector surmount the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.' Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, told a climate-change news site last week he has been telling world governments 'we can use the current situation to step up our ambition to tackle climate change.'"

"We have two curves we need to quickly bend downward. One is the coronavirus infections, and the second is global emissions — neither of them will be easy."

 

– Faith Birol,
International Energy Agency

Always remember that people solve problems, not governments.


Human Progress (3/22/20) blog: "The human struggle against viruses resembles Lewis Carroll’s Red Queen, who has to run ever faster just to remain in the same place. The better defenses we erect against them, the more ingenious will viruses and bacteria become at achieving their chief goal of survival. That’s evolution. That’s nature. But the state of nature, as Rosie Thayer notes in the 1951 movie The African Queen, is what humans have to rise above. That’s civilization. That’s progress...Life comes and goes, and there is nothing that anyone can do about it. The best that can be done is to have some fun and laugh at the futility of it all. That is how humanity saw itself since the dawn of time. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (pestilence, war, famine and death) were omnipresent and omnipotent. The plague that Boccaccio witnessed, to give just one example, is estimated to have killed between 30 percent and 60 percent of all Europeans and reduced the world’s population from about 475 million to between 350 and 375 million...The global division of labor has enriched the world to an unprecedented degree. It is these riches that allow us to combat coronavirus today. A poorer world would be a sicker world. Let us hope that we have the wisdom to recognize that."

A big thank you to EVERYONE making life possible during this challenge. 


Energy In Depth (3/20/20) blog: "The world is changing daily as we respond to the threat of COVID-19. The need to 'flatten the curve' has meant tough decisions about letting certain businesses stay open while requesting or even requiring that others close down. But as Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf (D) made clear in his recent mandate, there are several 'life-sustaining' industries that are still hard at work to provide the energy, care and supplies Americans need to make it through these trying times – including the oil and natural gas industry. Gov. Wolf had issued guidance for 'non-essential' businesses to close. But this week he upgraded that to a mandate that all 'non-life-sustaining' businesses will need to close their offices for the time being. The list of businesses that may continue operating includes health care providers, grocery stores and the trucking industry. A great debt of gratitude needs to be given to these individuals that are working overtime to keep the country fed and healthy – even as they face the risks and anxiety that the rest of us are staying home to avoid. Also included on the governor’s list is oil and natural gas extraction, pipelines, utilities and manufacturing. Gov. Wolf’s mandate is a stark reminder of how important American oil and natural gas truly are to our well-being and livelihoods." 

Bernie talks about a revolution.  We've had one.  And the results are rippling around the world.

Reuters (3/22/20) reports: "Russia did not seek an end to cooperation with OPEC or a sharp drop in oil prices, a senior Russian official told the TASS news agency, saying the Gulf nations are to blame for the crisis on global oil markets. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia this month failed to agree how their deal to cut oil output should work. With global oil demand slumping because of the coronavirus, OPEC wanted to deepen supply cuts but Moscow said it would agree only to an extension to the existing pact. Oil prices fell from nearly $50 a barrel on March 6, when the deal collapsed, to less than $27 on Friday after Russia and Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of OPEC, said the world’s two biggest oil exporters would open the taps from April 1. '(The) Russian position was never about triggering an oil prices fall. This is purely our Arab partners’ initiative,' Andrei Belousov, Russian first deputy prime minister, was quoted as saying by TASS late on Saturday. 'Even oil companies who are obviously interested to maintain their markets did not have a stance that the (OPEC+) deal should be dissolved.'"

Energy Markets

 
WTI Crude Oil: ↓ $22.19
Natural Gas: ↓ $1.55
Gasoline: ↓ $2.12
Diesel: ↓ $2.66
Heating Oil: ↓ $98.50
Brent Crude Oil: ↓ $25.43
US Rig Count: ↓ 778

 
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