Premier Jason Kenney is suggesting the provincial government may financially back an oil and gas project.

In a Tuesday speech to the Edmonton Business Association luncheon — days after Teck Resources withdrew its application to build the $20-billion Frontier oilsands mine — Kenney said “uncertainty” on federal regulations is to blame for some energy projects pulling out of Alberta.

“I’m here to tell you today, as the premier of this province, that we are prepared to do what is necessary to ensure a future for this province’s economy, including for women and men, Indigenous people and new Canadians, and everyone who depend upon, either directly or indirectly, our energy industry,” said the premier. “I just say, stay tuned on that. I’ll give you a hint.”

Kenney then spoke about how former Peter Lougheed created the Alberta Energy Corporation in the 1970s.That entity financed Syncrude Canada Ltd.

“A lack of access to capital was met by bold leadership and...

It’s 2020 – and it feels as though the pace of change and level of business uncertainty is increasing, with new challenges arising all the time.

After several years of a depressed oil price and cost-cutting measures, followed by “cautious optimism” and “green shoots”, not to mention the drawn-out negotiations of Brexit, 2019 saw significant levels of activity in upstream M&A, and some movement in service sector M&A.

Now, the conversation has moved on – climate change and energy transition hardly featured in our collective consciousness 12 months ago, yet this year discussions in the sector centre around this topic and what it means for oil and gas going forward. And specifically, what does it mean for the M&A market?

Looking back, 2019 saw significant upstream UKCS M&A activity, including a handful of huge deals involving stalwarts of the North Sea – Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Marathon, Total and BP. Marathon was sold to RockRose; a...

In the United States, the gas supply-demand balance should tighten in the coming years, providing some support to the market and producers. Due mainly to depressed pricing, gas production is expected to fall this year for the first time since the shale boom took off in the early 2010s. 

The U.S. Energy Information Administration is forecasting average output of 94.4 billion cubic feet a day by the end of 2020, compared to a peak of just over 95 billion cubic feet a day in the fourth quarter of 2019. That means that a growing lot of U.S. LNG producers should be competing for a more limited pool in domestic supply to meet global demand. A gas price that is fair to both upstream producers and LNG exporters would be ideal for the U.S. industry as it moves toward becoming the world’s biggest LNG exporter in the next five years. 

It is, therefore, essential that the Trump administration continue to open new markets for LNG. The administration’s most...

Treasury officials have been urged to avoid any abrupt tax changes in next month’s Budget which may disproportionately hit oil and gas workers.

Many workers could face higher bills if the IR35 rule is extended to the private sector from April.

IR35, which was introduced in 2000, is an anti-tax avoidance rule that applies to all contractors and freelancers who do not fall under HM Revenue and Customs’ definition of being self-employed.

If Chancellor Rishi Sunak sticks to the policy of his predecessor, Sajid Javid, from April 6 every medium and large private sector business in the UK will become responsible for setting the tax status – or IR35 – of any contract worker they use – forcing thousands to pay income tax, as well as a higher rate of National Insurance.

Australian-listed oil and gas producer Oil Search and its partners in a plan to dramatically expand Papua New Guinea's gas fields have flagged a desire to revive negotiations with the country's new government after talks were abruptly suspended this month.

Oil Search is involved in a $20 billion plan to double PNG's exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) including constructing and feeding three additional liquefaction units at the P'nyang and Papua LNG fields. But PNG Prime Minister James Marape "stopped negotiations" over the P'nyang project – an ExxonMobil-led joint venture involving Santos and Oil Search – saying the "gas belongs to PNG's people" and blasting Exxon's terms as unacceptable.

Oil futures fell sharply Monday, dropping 5% as the spread of COVID-19 outside China underlines worries about a potential hit to crude demand.

“For oil, the fear is we will see more demand destruction and turn a very tight global oil market into an oversupplied market,” said Phil Flynn, analyst at The Price Futures Group, in a note.

Feb 24, 2020 (MarketNewsVideo.com via COMTEX) --

In trading on Monday, oil & gas exploration & production shares were relative laggards, down on the day by about 6.1%. Helping drag down the group were shares of Kosmos Energy, down about 15.4% and shares of Valaris off about 12.5% on the day.

Also lagging the market Monday are airlines shares, down on the day by about 6.1% as a group, led down by Ryanair Holdings, trading lower by about 12.1% and Spirit Airlines, trading lower by about 10.4%.

The preceding is a transcript of the MarketNewsVideo.com video published at: http://www.marketnewsvideo.com/?id=20200220200224leaderslagKO&mv=1.