219 - How much electricity storage do we have?

No OPEC ministerial meeting, but the Saudi oil minister gets his 2-cents in

Saudi energy minister cautious on oil production, warns on investment outlook and geopoliticshttps://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/oil/020423-saudi-energy-minister-cautious-on-oil-production-warns-on-investment-outlook-and-geopolitics- ABS says: "With all due respect, forecasters are good forecasters. They do their best but not necessarily what they forecast happens as a reality. So, if people can adapt it to my other mode, which is, 'I will believe it when I see it, and then take action' -- it's a much more profound, self-assuring, cautious approach,"- OPEC no longer meeting monthly- According to AbS, the market should trust the OPEC+ alliance's stewardship of the market- AbS: "All of these so-called sanctions, embargoes, lack of investments…will all convolute into one thing and one thing only -- lack of energy supplies of all kinds when it is most needed. That is my worry, and that is something I don't want to be responsible for." - He may not want to be blamed for it, but you can be sure that he will be.Saudi Arabia unexpectedly raises oil prices for Marchhttps://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/oil-gas/saudi-arabia-raises-oil-prices-marchRough start to the week for global oil suppliesNorway's Sverdrup oil production suffers outagehttps://www.reuters.com/business/energy/norways-sverdrup-oil-production-suffers-outage-2023-02-06- The outage is expected to last for 2-3 days, with a preliminary restart set for mid-day on Feb. 8Turkey halts oil exports after earthquakes: https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2416752-turkey-halts-oil-exports-after-earthquakes-update- about 1 million bpd is exported from Ceyhan port which is now offline.- don't know how long it will take to come back online. Will Northern Iraqi oil go south or will they hold off?Special Guest Prof. James Coleman @EnergyLawProfPresentation here:https://www.energylawprof.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/StrategicEnergyReserve.pdf- For the first time in 50 years our SPR is half empty. We are less prepared for an oil disruption than any time in the past- Basically we are trying to move our entire economy and civilization to dependence on source of energy were we have NO strategic reserve whatsoever.- We basically have 30 minutes of electricity storage- Argument: if we want to move to more dependence on these sources we need to ramp up our ability to provide strategic reserves of it. e.g. reserves of natural gas to make sure that our power plants can always have a source of electricity. - much easier to store natgas- bulk of our storage is hydro- can do gravity storage basically by pushing rocks up a mountain.- companies won't be incentivized to put in storage and transportation for natural gas stores needed because financially it doesn't make sense for them to invest in decades of infrastructure for a return that will only come when/if there's a big storm maybe every 5 years. - heat pumps work to save electricity when temperatures are moderate but when temps drop below 40F its not effective and you end up getting getting heat that uses twice as much energy to produce- in some places it's easier to have the hydro storageNote: Ellen will be speaking at the Atlantic Council event "Improving  sanctions enforcement against Russia: The challenge of 2023"Register here: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/event/improving-sanctions-enforcement-against-russia/

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