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By David Gaffen, Editor, Energy Markets

Hello Power Up readers! A lot of corporate to-and-froing happening this week, as Exxon Mobil tries to recover its investment in Colombia, and solar and electric battery makers get testy about the Republican plan to play games with the U.S. debt ceiling, while Woodside faces grouchy investors in Australia over its climate plans. That and Russia (again), so here we go… 

Today’s top headlines:

• IEA should be ‘very careful’ about undermining key oil investments – OPEC
• Chile’s lithium push emerges as a test for Latin American resource nationalism
• Ship insurers warn of Russian oil price cap evasion, risks of ‘dark fleet’

Russia Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak says there’s no need for OPEC to cut more. That may change, of course.

OPEC and its allies may not need to cut output any further, Russian Deputy Prime Alexander Novak said on Thursday, as Olesya Astakhova reports here. OPEC+, as it is known, has been throttling back its output in response to slowed economic growth worldwide – helping put a floor under the price of crude, even if the commodity hasn’t rallied as much as some have expected. 

Instead of pushing the $90 or $100-per-barrel level, Brent crude has been mired in the low $80s, a high price to be sure, but not stratospheric. Analysts attribute that to the somewhat lower recovery of demand out of China than some expected. Others, like the International Energy Agency, have warned that OPEC’s recent cuts could result in a supply crisis somewhere down the road, but it has not yet materialized.  

Russia’s oil and gas condensate production is expected to fall to about 515 million tonnes (10.3 million bpd) this year from 535 million tonnes in 2022, Novak said.  

Exhuming McCarthy: House Speaker’s debt ceiling bill is dead on arrival, and solar and EV companies don’t like it either. REUTERS/Julia Nikhinson

Big solar and EV companies are set for big incentives that would be jeopardized if a Republican plan to cut those breaks ends up making it through the U.S. debt-ceiling battle, and they’re telling them to cut it out, as Andy Sullivan and Valerie Volcovici report here. The measure has very little chance of getting through the Senate, let alone getting President Biden’s signature, but the fact that this passed the Republican-controlled House is alarming enough to some. 

“What I am concerned about is why this type of thinking is coming from the party that is supposed to be for American working people and small businesses and energy security,” said Tony Frisone, a Republican who is CEO of CZAR-Power, an Ohio-based startup that is developing devices that can fast-charge electric cars.  

The House on Wednesday passed a bill that would revoke tax breaks and other clean-energy and manufacturing incentives included in 2022 legislation – which has spurred investment in battery plants, electric vehicles and other businesses. The industry has announced enough projects to fill 141,000 jobs since the bill passed – but lately it’s part of the GOP’s turn against renewable investment; Texas is moving ahead on legislation that would raise hurdles for solar and wind company development even though that state is a big producer of both. 

That’s Scott Sheffield, CEO of Pioneer Resources, a few years back. He’s retiring. REUTERS/Daniel Kramer

Scott Sheffield has long been one of the most prominent faces of the shale industry – a leader at big U.S. independent producer Pioneer Natural Resources and a frequent commenter on the industry’s challenges and successes. But Sheffield will retire at the end of the year, as Liz Hampton reports here, and while the industry won’t be hearing from him as much, the chatter will instead shift to whether Pioneer will now be acquired. 

Sheffield founded Pioneer in 1997; he has been engaged in the industry through that time and also pulled together several major acquisitions including DoublePoint Energy and Parsley Energy in the last few years. But the company, valued at $52 billion, making it one of the largest shale names, has long been thought a possible target of major Exxon Mobil. 

His departure will kick those talks into high gear; Exxon has continued to invest in the Permian basin in Texas, where Pioneer is; the company overall produces about 360,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. 

Woodside’s logo! Okay, not that interesting. But still. 

Woodside Energy Group is facing backlash from investors who want the company to remove three directors over what they say is an inadequate climate strategy, as Sameer Manekar reports here. A similar fate befell Exxon Mobil in 2021, when two board members were appointed under pressure from a small hedge fund. 

Woodside is Australia’s biggest independent oil and gas company, and investors want a comprehensive climate strategy after its 2022 plan was considered too similar to the 2021 plan that was voted against by nearly 49% of investors for falling short of what investors wanted in terms of emission reduction targets. Woodside’s response has brought “genuine governance concerns”, said Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, an investor group, along with Vision Super and Betashares, two other investors. 

“I just told them throw the meat away. Don’t even feed it to your dog.” 

Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in northern Alberta, responding to community members after it was revealed that toxic wastewater from an Imperial Oil mine had been leaking downstream.  

Exxon Mobil is talking with Colombia’s government to try to recover its investment in a fracking pilot project in that country, as the nation is pushing a fracking ban, Luis Jaime Acosta, Oliver Griffin and Sabrina Valle report here. Exxon wants to find a way to recover its investment, as its eight exploration and production contracts in Colombia have been ended, suspended or liquidated.  

The company had a pilot project to develop with plans to invest as much as $53 million but Colombia’s congress has teed up a fracking ban backed by leftist President Gustavo Petro – so it doesn’t leave Exxon a lot of options but to get out of the investment entirely. 

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