5 spunti per approfondire (49/2023)

La rubrica settimanale con i consigli di lettura di RivistaEnergia.it, dall’Europa e dal mondo. Forse non le notizie più eclatanti, ma proprio per questo interessanti da approfondire. Settimana 49/2023

Michael Sabel and his partner, both industry novices, have made a fortune virtually overnight by building from scratch one of the world’s largest gas exporters. They have also made some powerful enemies. Here at this sprawling facility spanning about 630 acres in the wetlands outside New Orleans, Sabel said his company, Venture Global LNG, is on pace to leapfrog competitors and to rival Qatar as one of the world’s top exporters of liquefied natural gas by 2030. But he must navigate a nasty feud with some of the industry’s biggest names.  Venture Global’s earliest customers, including the oil giants BP and Shell say the upstart company is ripping them off. In the process, they argue, Venture Global risks undermining the U.S. LNG industry’s reputation as a reliable contributor to the world’s energy supply. “The incumbents, if they can’t compete, say, ‘We have to stop them,’” said Sabel, the 56-year-old chief executive officer of Venture Global, adding that he isn’t losing sleep over the criticism. “We are so busy executing, and winning, and being successful.” The quarrel has become the industry’s ugliest in years and centers on a core question: Who has rights to Venture Global’s supercooled liquid gas? That prize is worth billions of dollars in sales, much of that to Europe, which depends largely on U.S. gas to fill the void left after Russian exports halted following the invasion of Ukraine.

The U.S. Gas Startup at the Center of an Epic Feud With Global Energy Giants
Articolo – The Wall Street Journal

Saudi Arabia is obstructing the UN’s flagship climate negotiations and pressuring their presidency, the United Arab Emirates, in a bid to shift the focus away from oil and gas producing nations, according to several people involved in the talks. Sultan al-Jaber, COP28 president and head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, is “under a lot of pressure” from Saudi Arabia, negotiators and European officials said. Speaking on Sunday, Jaber said: “The time has come for all parties to constructively engage and to come to me with that language [on the future of fossil fuels].  I want everyone to show flexibility, to act with urgency, and to find the common ground.”

Saudi Arabia piles pressure on UAE to shift COP28 focus away from oil and gas
Articolo – Financial Times

“China plans to launch transport rates for domestic pipeline natural gas (PNG) for the first time from 1 January 2024, China’s main economic planning agency the NDRC said on 5 December. These transport rates for PNG are inclusive of 9pc value-added tax. Total PNG transport prices are calculated based on the transport distance between the gas’ entry and exit points. There are two main variables in the formula — the volumes being sent through in km³, and the distance between the start and end points in km. So to obtain the transport price for a certain amount of PNG being sent through any of China’s pipelines, one would take the transport rate multiplied by volumes of gas sent in km³ and multiplied again by the distance between the start and end points in km.”

China to debut pipeline natural gas transport rates
Argus Media

“European gas balances look comfortable heading into the winter on the back of record storage levels. European hub prices have stabilized since April and absent a major supply outage, 100 Bcm of storage stocks at the start of December means there is no prospect of any physical shortage this winter. We expect gas demand to remain subdued through the winter, despite some apparent recovery in industrial and commercial consumption in the second half of 2023. The main drivers of this subdued demand will be low gas use in the power sector given the combined impacts of the weak macroeconomic outlook; a recovery in French nuclear output; and higher hydro and other renewables generation. But limited supply flexibility means there are risks to this outlook and most of those are bullish price. A surge in European gas demand driven by colder weather or curtailment of LNG supplies would spike storage withdrawals, lifting prompt gas prices and requiring higher storage fills in mid-2024.”

European Gas Market Supply & Demand: Winter Outlook 2023/24
Ricerca – The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies

“Economic costs are a central political obstacle to investing in climate change mitigation and adaptation measures. Several studies now demonstrate that as costs increase, voters are less likely to support green initiatives. In this paper we argue that opposition to government green investments is conditional on the method of financing. Notably, because public debt shifts the burden of investments into the future, it may face less public opposition than broad based taxes that require an immediate sacrifice. To test this proposition, we fielded a preregistered conjoint survey experiment on nationally representative samples in one highly indebted (Italy) and one fiscally sound country (The Netherlands). We find debt financing increases voter support for green financing by up to 10 percentage points relative to broad-based taxes. However, we find carbon taxes and wealth taxes are most preferred. These findings demonstrate that credit market tools, like green bonds and debt for climate swaps, are likely politically efficient and not just economically efficient. Where investments are already financed with debt, the findings suggest that political communication can limit a political backlash to green investments. Most importantly, the findings show that the political opposition to paying for green investments can be circumvented.”

How to finance green investments? The role of public debt
Ricerca – Energy Policy

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