All players on the global energy market need to act together to tackle the effects of the pandemic on oil demand, Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak said at a virtual meeting of G20 energy ministers this weekend. “Our task, as the leaders of the energy industry, is to show stamina and solidarity in the face of the challenges like that,” Reuters quoted him as saying.
Novak noted the pandemic has wiped out a tenth of oil demand this year, forcing energy companies to cut spending on production by 25 to 30 percent. Fuel demand, he added, was down by 28-30 percent, mostly on the back of a sharp decline in trucking activity. And recovery will be slow in coming, Novak said at the conference, as quoted by TASS.
"It is obvious that the structure of the energy sector will be transformed both from the point of view of demand and from the point of view of supply. Recovery will not be quick and it will take quite a long time to reach the pre-crisis indices," Russia’s top energy official said.
Related: Natural Gas Will Rule The US Energy Market For Decades
"Russia has undertaken unprecedented liabilities on market balancing, as a responsible energy market participant. We are doing our best to prevent a collapse on the energy market and, hence, in the global economy," he added.
OPEC’s president, Mohamed Barkindo, on the other hand, had an optimistic message for markets at the same conference. According to him, OECD oil inventories will fall below the five-year average in the second quarter of next year, Reuters reported. In the current quarter, OECD stocks will stay well above the five-year average, but then start declining in the final quarter of the year and continue declining over the first three months of 2021 until the excess is eliminated. Stocks, Barkindo said, will stay below the five-year average for the rest of 2021.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
- Oil Bulls Return As OPEC+ Reassures Markets
- Biden Fracking Ban Could Cripple New Mexico’s Oil Industry
- Gold Stocks Are Bracing For A Seasonal Plunge
That IS our goal in life. Less fossil fuels. More renewable energy.
This really warms my heart to hear that Russia has less money. This has only just begun.
We are preparing to really hit oil markets hard. New 4680 battery. New cheaper solar. Better EVs.
Another year or so it will be much different.
I guess you think EVs will be "hit markets hard" as you talk about 4680 battery? You know Musk was lying somehow, he said he would show things never seen before, every single of the major 4 points was researched, some for themself patented, but none was useful (like 4680 battery is something a small kid understands that larger batteries create less useless speed and best would be a few ultra-huge batteries, for the car the typical form of a normal AA (Mignon) or AAA (Micro) is not smart, but more the usual form we know from Smartphones... but ofc that would create problems... they did well to collect data and use this 4 ideas to create this "new" thing, new is even ok, but revolutionary is a lie since nothing is a new or tesla idea, some ideas are even in german or were described by famous institutes (Frauenhofer) in the 90's in paper form or already internet and can be found in its old version, for example a large cell, but the person who had this idea decades ago didn't solve the problems that the accumulator is like a "Sellotape", small size = only a few meters of sellotape, but using thousands of these because only they were available for the roadster production (the car was very high priced, limited to few to see if a car with enough power and range is possible, price and living-time being secondary, even range should be only enough to drive over 200 kilometer if driving very fast or 250 (a bit over 150 miles) more realistic in city, they reduced weight even if it did cost a lot, since no demand for large cells existed they used 6.831 cells sized 18650, for the ~2.450 completed cars they needed over 16.735 million of these standard laptop cells, they were not important enough but to take whats being offered, they just used a system of 11 in a line large plates, each "plate" was made of 9 in line parts with each line having 69(!) of them connected, totaling 6.831 average for the target of ~56 kWh net loaded, being one of the early variants already ~20% loss during loading had to be calculated, so 70 kWh were needed, important for first loaders without real or any infrastructure, the US was the main market with ~1800 cars sold here, with the rest being largely in Europe, Canada, Australia and the rest of the world the weight was extreme low,
dont get me wrong I loved tesla already in late 2009 when I followed this and since 2012 first plans for Model S, Nissan leaf was weak in the first generations, but especially first one had to use to little capacity leading to a too fast depletion, the problem is "solved" now by just selling a new car if the capacity goes below 70% of the original capacity, which in the 2nd generation is low and driving 5 days a week to work with not enough range to drive 2 days without loading only tesla remained and Musk made much money and invested it, but still 2020 only saw in Europe an increase in Ev's thanks to the new 2020 EU laws, alone germany giving subsidy and tax cuts worth billions, whole EU carmakers need a fleet with low emissions, only EVs and hybrids allow normal carmakers to reach the zero penalty per car area,
Tesla makes revenue here creating joint ventures with others and being paid, but you think 18 650 and a new LiFePo4 variant instead of the LiCoO² (using Cobalt) can solve everything? Its a great step forward without Cobalt, but energy density for them is a bit lower, at least Voltage is 3.2 - 3.3V per "cell" instead the typical 3.7 - 3.85V for smartphone/single small cells with a few WattHours... its not critical but Lithium coming from dry regions still is needed, also if others can't use it because the new cell in its form can be patented, and the production facts researched being a secret non-teslas will use cobalt