Energy

Bloomberg The coronavirus and cheap oil are hitting the fuel business so hard that ethanol plants are shutting down. Some may never come back. The entire biofuel industry is facing a reckoning. Long before the pandemic emptied roads and exacerbated oil price war, producers were battling chronic oversupply and trade upheaval. Now slumping demand and prices mean smaller producers and …

Bloomberg US retail gasoline dropped below $2 a gallon for the first time since March 2016, before President Trump was elected. The average pump price fell to $1.99 per gallon on March 27, retail tracker GasBuddy said. The nation followed Texas and upper-Midwest states that went under the $2 threshold earlier in March. The decline comes as coronavirus-related lockdowns halt …

Bloomberg The closures of schools, factories and offices to prevent spread of the coronavirus will “profoundly impact” the US power sector, according to BloombergNEF. Already in New York, electricity use dropped about 7% during the week ending on March 25, and prices are down about 10% as the state has ordered nonessential businesses to close, BNEF said in a report. …

Bloomberg Cnooc Ltd, one of China’s three state-owned oil giants, said it will cut capital expenditure target this year, a signal that the government’s push to boost domestic production can’t withstand the collapse in crude prices. The 2020 plan is under review and the company didn’t give a new spending estimate. It will provide an update to investors at a …

Bloomberg India’s renewables installations are set to slow after the country enforced a three-week lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus, according to BloombergNEF. Wind power installations in 2020 by independent power producers could decline almost 18% from the prior year to 1.95 gigawatts, according to BNEF, which cut its estimate for the year by 24%. Solar power installations are …

Bloomberg As the US finds itself in the unfamiliar position of lobbying for higher oil prices, China’s enjoying what amounts to a major rebate from crude’s crash just as it tries to recover from the coronavirus. The world’s biggest oil importer is saving about $250 million a day after crude prices crashed this year amid dual demand and supply shocks. …

Bloomberg Record low prices for heavy Canadian crude have prompted one of the biggest operators in the oil sands to take the rare step of shutting production. Motivated by the “extremely low” prices, Suncor Energy Inc. announced on March 24 that it will shut in one of its two so-called trains at its two-year-old, 194,000 barrel a day Fort Hills …

Bloomberg Green forms of liquefied methane could be a viable fuel for ships to help the industry meet greenhouse-gas emission reduction targets, a study showed. Bio-methane, produced from biomass, and synthetic methane made using renewable energy could emulate liquefied natural gas as a marine fuel, according to a study conducted by Dutch researcher CE Delft and commissioned by industry group …

Bloomberg Oil refiners across the US are being forced to throttle back operations amid a historic plunge in gasoline demand and prices. Plants representing more than 10% of US fuel-making capacity have cut back. Exxon Mobil Corp has slowed rates at facilities in Texas and Louisiana, while others around Los Angeles and Philadelphia are taking similar action to stem a …

Bloomberg The global slump in oil prices amid the coronavirus outbreak will push Indian state-owned firms to sell some assets, according to Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets, and the world’s biggest infrastructure investor is already in line. “There is a fair bit of opportunity for the government to divest non-core oil and gas assets, like oil storage facilities, pipelines, transmission …