PESA Australian business environment review 2019
Simon MolyneuxMolyneux Advisors Pty Ltd, 24 Stanley Street, Nedlands, WA 6009, Australia. Email: simon.molyneux@molyneuxadvisors.com
The APPEA Journal 60(2) 360-370 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ20009
Accepted: 3 April 2020 Published: 15 May 2020
Abstract
This Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia review looks at the major issues that impacted the Australian petroleum business environment in 2019. While the petroleum business in 2020 has been combating an oil price slump and a global economic slowdown driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, 2019 will be remembered as a pivotal year in the petroleum industry. At a global level, climate change moved centre-stage with global protests, extensive media coverage and clear commitments from global players in the resource industry to become net-zero emitters of carbon. Oil prices averaged US$64/barrel for Brent, liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices fell and global CO2 emissions from power generation were flat for the first time. In Australia, petroleum production also increased, driven by LNG production, and Australia became the world’s largest producer of LNG, the world’s largest CO2 injection plant became operational and the regulatory system was tested by current operations and future drilling. Meanwhile, society’s relationship with the petroleum industry was reframed with the linking of extensive bushfires to climate change. This paper will describe each of these issues and frame the issues facing the industry in 2020 and beyond.
Keywords: abandonment, bushfire, climate change, CO2, COVID, demand, development, exploration, gas, greenhouse, government, LNG, NOPSEMA, OPEC, oil, oil price, petroleum, regulation, society, supply.
Simon Molyneux is a Geoscientist with more than 20 years of experience acquired at Santos, Talisman Energy, Shell, Mobil and BP. He is currently Managing Director and Principal Geoscientist at Molyneux Advisors Pty Ltd, an integrated subsurface advisory. He was Santos’s Exploration Manager for offshore Australia and exploration and Subsurface Lead for Talisman Energy’s assets in Malaysia. Simon has a Master’s degree in Earth Sciences from Cambridge University, UK; a PhD in Structural Geology from Durham University, UK; and a Graduate Certificate in Strategic Decision and Risk Management from Stanford University, US. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of London, a member of PESA, The South East Asia Petroleum Society, the Petroleum Society of Great Britain and the Australian Institute of Co. Directors. |
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