It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Despite the mostly impressive top- and bottom-line growth, capital discipline and returning cash to shareholders have been consistent themes for oilfield services giants.
Wood Mac has reported that in 2022, the average cost of drilling and completing a well in the U.S. Lower 48 states rocketed 34%.
Oilfield services capacity in key markets, including North America, is a key determinant of the pace of growth in oil and gas production.
When the energy crisis hit a nadir two years ago, highly indebted E&P companies quickly changed their operational playbook, adopting stricter cost discipline, cutting back on expensive drilling programs and vowing to return more cash to shareholders in the form of dividends and buybacks.
But E&Ps are not the only ones pursuing this new strategy. Oilfield services (OFS) companies have also adopted greater cost discipline,prioritizing cash generation and distributions to shareholders. For instance, in their latest earnings season, OFS giants Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB), Baker Hughes (NASDAQ:BKR) and Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) announced significant dividend hikes and heightened share buybacks.
SLB reported full-year revenue of $28.1 billion, good for a 23% Y/Y increase while net income of $3.4 billion grew a robust 83%Y/Y. SLB raised its quarterly dividend by 43% and resumed share buybacks. The company says that it expects to distribute more than 50% of free cash flow to shareholders in dividends and buybacks in the current year. SLB has also been strengthening its balance sheet, managing to pay down $1.7B in debt during the year to bring it down to $9.3B.
BKR reported Q4 2022 revenue of $5.9 billion, up 10% sequentially and up 8% Y/Y. Non-GAAP net income clocked in at $692 million, up 38% sequentially and up 21% Y/Y while net income fell 38% Y/Y to $182 million. Despite the lower profit, BKR announced its first dividend hike for the first time since 2017.
Meanwhile, HAL reported full year revenue of $20.3 billion, up 33% Y/Y while full year operating income of $2.7 billion increased 50% Y/Y. The company announced a 33% divided hike and resumed its share buyback program.
Despite the mostly impressive top- and bottom-line growth, capital discipline and returning cash to shareholders have been consistent themes in these companies’ latest earnings calls while capex growth remains muted. But global research and consultancy group Wood Mackenzie says that this is not necessarily a good thing from an E&P perspective.
Limiting Growth
Indeed, Wood Mac says that services capacity in key markets, including North America, is a key determinant of the pace of growth in oil and gas production, noting that running equipment harder is likely to result in more frequent breakdowns and disruptions. The analysts have warned that execution risk has the potential to be an even more serious problem than cost inflation, one of the biggest concerns for these companies in recent years. The experts say that capacity utilization rates for frac spreads--the pressure pumps used for hydraulic fracturing--and super-spec high-quality rigs are already running high.
Wood Mac has reported that in 2022, the average cost of drilling and completing a well in the U.S. Lower 48 states rocketed 34% as prices for diesel, proppant, and steel pipe hit record highs. However, the analysts expect cost inflation to be moderate this year, with costs expected to only rise 10%.
OFS companies might also be negatively impacted by new exploration and drilling practices being adopted by oil and gas producers. According to Wood Mackenzie’s ‘Oil and gas exploration 2022 edition, exploration well numbers in 2022 were less than half the numbers during pre-pandemic years; luckily the total volume of 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent was comparable to the average in the 2013 – 2019 period, creating at least $S33 billion of value. In other words, E&P companies are unwilling to go back to their drill, baby, drill days and are instead focusing their energies on low-cost, lower-carbon but high-yield assets.
“2022 was a standout year for exploration,” says Julie Wilson, Director of global exploration research at Wood Mackenzie.
While volumes were good, Wilson says, they aren’t “stellar”.
Still, she says, “explorers were able to drive very high value through strategic selection and focusing on the best and largest prospects”.
The end result is that we’re seeing new discoveries with higher-quality hydrocarbons in portfolios. And it’s also better for the climate because these more strategic discoveries allow companies to “reduce carbon by displacing less advantaged oil and gas supplies while also meeting the world’s energy needs,” according to Wilson.
Wood Mac says that the highest value came from several new deepwater discoveries in Guyana and Brazil; world-class discoveries in a new deepwater play in Namibia; and resource additions in Algeria.
The average discovery last year was over 150 million boe, more than double the average of the previous decade. National oil companies (NOCs) and oil majors accounted for nearly 75% of new discoveries, with Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM), TotalEnergies (NYS: ETTE), Petrobras (NYSE: PBR) and QatarEnergy leading the way in net-new discovered resource.
Another interesting development: Liquids accounted for 60% of new discoveries, marking just the third time in two decades that liquids made up the majority of new discoveries.
By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com
Tuesday, January 24, 2023
Offshore Oil And Gas Is Back, Baby
Editor OilPrice.com Mon, January 23, 2023
At last week’s World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, several speakers had harsh words for the oil and gas industry, including UN head Antonio Guterres and the IEA’s chief Fatih Birol. Their message was clear: we need to stop producing oil and gas to solve the climate problem.
While this was happening, however, the world continued to need energy, and oil and gas continued to be the optimal form of energy for most of the things we need energy for. So, with demand forecast—including by the IEA—to surge this year above the growth rate of supply, new drilling is flourishing. Especially offshore.
In December last year, Oilprice reported that the stocks of offshore drilling contractors such as Transocean, Valaris, and Noble Corp were skyrocketing amid robust demand for their services, with day rates for drilling rigs surging as well.
Now, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that rates could top $500,000 per day, up from about $400,000 at the moment, with offshore drilling picking up everywhere as demand shows no signs it is about to start declining, no matter what apocalyptic visions climate speakers try to paint.
“Over the past year and a half, everyone started drilling again offshore, and they want to use the most efficient rigs and all of a sudden, bam!” Noble Corp chief executive Robert Eifler told the Wall Street Journal. “After eight years we basically have full utilization of the high-end drillship fleet.”
A roundup of the biggest deals signed in the offshore drilling industry last year reinforces the perception of a strong revival. The biggest deal was QatarEnergy’s contract with McDermott for expanding the production capacity at the North Field, which McDermott said is one of the largest single deals in its history.
Qatar was also involved in the second-largest offshore deal for 2022, with Italy’s Saipem, again for the North Field, which is understandable as the Qatari government plans to boost the country’s LNG production capacity from 77 million tons annually to 110 million tons. That means there will be a lot of work for offshore drilling contractors.
Adnoc is also boosting its production capacity with the help of Schlumberger and Halliburton, which got two contracts with the Emirati major last year worth some $4 billion. The same is true for Aramco, which has announced plans to increase its oil production capacity by 1 million barrels daily to a total of 13 million. According to Evercore, most of Saudi Arabia’s—and the UAE’s—new capacity will come from offshore developments. Norway is also eyeing strong expansion of its oil and gas drilling, all of which takes place offshore, despite previous government pledges for a gradual reduction in oil and gas production and a shift towards renewable energy. Earlier this month, Norway’s petroleum ministry awarded 47 new exploration licenses to 25 companies.
Offshore drilling is booming in Brazil, Guyana, and Suriname as well, per the Wall Street Journal. Brazil’s Petrobras said it will boost spending between 2023 and 2027, with most of the money going into exploration and production. Guyana is enjoying the results of a string of offshore discoveries that have boosted the tiny nation’s oil exports by 164 percent in 2022, with revenues hitting $1.1 billion. Suriname is seemingly on Guyana’s path to oil riches, although it is meeting some challenges.
Analyst expectations about the offshore drilling market appear to be upbeat. Oil prices are higher than they were in 2019, oil demand is strong, and offshore drilling contractors are turning a nice profit. Deepwater drilling is particularly attractive since that’s where most of the world’s untapped oil resources are. According to data from Westwood Global Energy Group, some 90 percent of the world’s offshore rigs were contracted to work or were already working as of last December. That’s up from about 60 percent five years earlier, the WSJ noted in its report.
This surge in demand for offshore drilling, especially in deep waters, has also revived demand for drillships that were put offline during the pandemic and the industry downturn it caused. Drillships cost about $100 million to put back online, and owners are demanding most of the money upfront.
And their clients are paying it: the WSJ notes a deal between Valaris and Equinor for a drillship that was sent to drill in the deep waters offshore Brazil. Of the total value of the deal—$327 million—$86 million was paid upfront, including for the reactivation of the vessel.
So, despite increasingly loud calls for what effectively amounts to shutting down the oil and gas industry, the real world is demanding more oil and gas, and the industry is delivering. From the shores of Brazil to the North Sea and the Persian Gulf, drilling contractors are putting up rigs to pump more oil and gas from underneath the seabed. Analysts are calling it a supercycle.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
Oil and gas companies moving into Permian Basin in $100M string of deals, as region expands
Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus Tue, January 24, 2023
An oil and gas producer based on the Texas side of the Permian Basin looked to capitalize on growth in the New Mexico portion of the region, looking to buy lands in the southeast corner of the state.
Permian Resources Corporation announced an agreement that will see it purchase about 4,000 leasehold acres and 3,300 royalty acres, mostly in Lea County for $98 million.
The lands were estimated to produce about 1,100 barrels of oil equivalent per day, at 73 percent oil, according to a company announcement.
The price reflected about $8,000 per leasehold acre and $7,000 per royalty acre, the release read, including operated and non-operated assets the company said it could include in future trading.
James Walter, co-chief executive officer at Permian Resources said the move was part of a broader effort by the company to manage its portfolio and shift its footprint to areas of the basin expected to bring higher production and revenue returns.
He said the deal included 45 operated locations and was expected to generate about $100 million in net cash proceeds.
The company also planned to divest in oil and gas properties on the Texas side of the basin in Reeves County, Texas, along the New Mexico border.
About 3,500 net leasehold acres were planned for sale for $60 million with about 1,800 barrels of oil equivalent per day at 44 percent oil, representing “the substantial majority,” the announcement read, of the company’s Texas assets.
Permian Resources also said it sold about 300 acres of non-operated leaseholds in Eddy County, at about $35,000 per acre and expected that deal to total about $10 million in proceeds.
“At Permian Resources, we believe our focus on portfolio management will continue to drive value for our shareholders,” Walter said in a statement.
International companies also showed interest recently in the Permian Basin, as Swiss international energy company Vitol’s U.S. upstream company VPX Energy Partners announced it plan to acquire Delaware Basin Resources (DBR), and its associated extraction and water infrastructure.
The sale included 35,000 net leasehold acres, and 46,000 surface acres in Reeves and Pecos counties in Texas within the Permian’s western Delaware sub-basin, with the company reporting production of about 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
VPX CEO Gene Shepherd said the acquisition will allow the company to target the southern region of one of the most productive oil plays in the U.S.
“The opportunity to go back to work in the southern Delaware Basin, combined with the opportunity to do so with the DBR asset base and team is very exciting,” Sheperd said. “With Vitol’s unique market insights, expertise and funding capabilities, we expect this transaction will serve as the foundation for growing a highly profitable US lower 48 focused upstream business over the next decade.”
Ben Marshall, Vitol head of Americas said the deal would help position the company to take advantage of the U.S. and Permian Basin’s growing role in supply fossil fuels to the rest of the world.
“We are pleased to announce the addition of DBR and its related businesses to our US upstream portfolio,” he said. “As we have said before, we are eager to continue growing our position in the US Lower 48 as we anticipate US oil to remain an important source of supply to global energy balances.”
The region’s oil production was expected to see more growth in the next month, as the Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecast the Permian would produce about 5.65 barrels of oil a day (bpd)in February, growing by 30,000 bpd from January.
The basin was also expected to increase natural gas production next month, rising by 466 million cubic feet per day in February to a total of 21.7 billion cubic feet per day, making the region the second-largest gas-producing basin in the U.S., according to the EIA report.
Adrian Hedden can be reached at achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on Twitter.
Samsung leads in U.S. patents as overall grants hit four-year low
Self-driving vehicles, fossil fuel drilling and AI among hottest areas for R&D activity; applications hit an all-time high, according to annual analysis by IFI CLAIMS Patent Services
IMAGE: HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE IFI CLAIMS 2022 PATENT RANKING AND TRENDS ANALYSIS.view more
CREDIT: DIGITAL SCIENCE / IFI CLAIMS.
U.S. patent grants issued in 2022 dropped to their lowest level since 2018, and South Korean electronics titan Samsung took the top spot from longtime leader IBM as East made gains on West among the Top 50 patent assignees during the past year. Nonetheless, patent applications hit an all-time high in 2022 as the United States emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic – a harbinger for a resurgence in innovation and grants over the next one to two years.
These are among the findings by IFI CLAIMS Patent Services, a Digital Science company which compiles and tracks data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and other patent-issuing agencies around the globe. The data can be found in the newly published 2022 U.S. Top 50 and IFI Global 250 patent rankings.
Samsung came in atop the annual IFI Top 50 patent earners with longtime leader IBM in second place. This is the first time a company other than IBM has been in the top slot since 1993. Based on the data, IBM’s U.S. patent grants decreased in 2022, going from 8,681 in 2021 to 4,398 last year, a nearly 50 percent regression. But even Samsung, with 6,248 grants, saw a moderate decline (2 percent) from the prior year.
Still with one of the strongest U.S. patent portfolios, IBM’s new placement on this year’s list is attributable, according to IBM’s blog, to its heightened focus since 2020 on prioritizing open source, collaboration and partnerships, and advancing the state of the art around the company’s key technology areas including hybrid cloud, AI, quantum computing, semiconductors and security.
Following Samsung and IBM, the top 10 patent earners were Taiwan Semiconductor, Huawei Technologies, Canon, LG Electronics, Qualcomm, Intel, Apple and Toyota Motor.
The past year marks the third straight to see declines in patent grants, since the start of the pandemic. Across the board, U.S. patent grants declined just over 1 percent from 2021, representing a vigorous rebound following a 7 percent dip the prior year. Grants dropped from 327,321 to 323,015. Published patent applications, meanwhile, hurtled from 410,092 in 2021 to a record 417,922 last year, a 2 percent increase and the continuation of a five-year run of rising USPTO requests. Highlights from the full analysis and an overview of trends appear on the IFI website.
“Everything was trending upward until COVID hit, but grants have been declining. This might be due to the fact the USPTO faces a growing backlog of applications, some 700,000 currently, up from 540,000 unexamined patents in 2018,” said Mike Baycroft, CEO of IFI CLAIMS Patent Services. “But the continued growth in applications is encouraging for innovation. First comes the filing, then typically 12-18 months later the application becomes public, then in another 18 months the grant is issued, so we expect to see a post-COVID upturn in the next couple of years.”
A West-to-East shift in the Top 50
Looking at the Top 50 alone, IFI’s data noted a shift from West to East. In addition to Samsung’s ascendance, Asian-based companies on the list earned 14 percent more patents than Western countries in 2022 (41,055 vs. 35,365), far eclipsing Asia’s edge in 2021 of just 1 percent. Japan, China and South Korea alone accounted for 40,114 patents, compared to 32,130 for United States companies.
A total of three Chinese companies made the Top 50: Huawei at #4, BOE Technology Corp. at #11, and Guangdong Oppo sliding into the #43 spot, formerly occupied by its national counterpart Advanced New Technologies, which fell off the list in 2022.
U.S. awards majority of patents outside America
A stunning 56 percent of U.S. grants in 2022 did not go to U.S. firms. American companies, however, led among patent grantees, earning 142,703 patents, or 44 percent of all patents issued by the USPTO (vs. 46 percent in 2021) and more than three times as many as its closest national competitor, Japan (46,504). Chinese firms were third, with 24,538 grants during the last 12 months. South Korea (22,359) and Germany (14,746) rounded out the top five countries represented. Of the five countries to see an uptick in patent grants in the past year, China was the only one with double-digit growth, standing head and shoulders above the rest with almost 19 percent more than in 2021.
U.S. stalwarts lose position
Among U.S. companies, GE (-11), Texas Instruments (-7), AT&T (-9), Boeing (-8), Ford (-4), Microsoft (-6), Intel (-2), and Apple (-2) fell lower on the Top 50 list, while Dell (+18), and Hewlett-Packard Development Co. (+12) gained considerably in the rankings. Applied Materials and Capital One both entered the top 50 at #44 and #45, respectively. Amazon and Halliburton Energy Services were the only American companies that held their positions from the prior year, with Amazon earning 1,863, down 4 percent, and Halliburton earning 906, up 4 percent. The biggest non-American risers in the Top 50 were Japan’s Murata Manufacturing Company (#38) and Brother Industries (#49), which both leaped 10 spots from 2021.
Autonomous vehicle tech is hot; earth drilling keeps rocking
Technology related to autonomous vehicles (e.g., self-driving cars) ascended to the No. 1 spot among IFI’s Fastest Growing Technologies list last year, despite failing to crack the top 10 classes the year before. “Drive Control Systems for Autonomous Road Vehicles” saw a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 64.3 percent for the period 2018-2022. Of note is that while “Computing Based on Biological Models” dropped to No. 4 from its perch at No. 1 last year, Artificial Intelligence research has pervaded multiple patent categories, including Earth Drilling, “Quantum Computers” and “Machine Learning.”
Rounding out the top Fastest Growing Technologies were “Electrical Digital Data Processing” (CAGR 33.9%); “Special Features Related to Earth Drilling Including AI and Simulation Models” (CAGR 32.5%); “Computing Based on Biological Models” (CAGR 32.1%); and “Electrically Operated Smoking Devices” (CAGR 31.3%). Interestingly, “Cigars, Cigarettes” also made the Top 10 (CAGR 28.3%). Who would have thought in 2022 that patents for Earth Drilling and Cigars/Cigarettes would be among the fastest growing categories?
IFI noted that “Special Features Related to Earth Drilling,” which focuses on helping improve earth drilling for oil and gas had moved up from 6th in 2021 to 3rd in 2022. This led IFI to look at U.S. grants for “Green” patents which appear to outpace Earth Drilling by more than 2 to 1. Upon closer inspection IFI found that the majority of grants (66%) in the Green class are for mitigating technologies needed to battle effects of fossil fuels. Only about one-third of Green patents are for truly renewable energies (solar, wind, green hydrogen, water, etc.) where 2022 data show that Earth Drilling grants actually outpaced them by 27 percent.
“As far as patent activity is concerned, we’re not yet seeing a shift toward renewable energy, and some of the fast growing sub-technology areas are focused on improving and more efficiently harvesting traditional fossil fuel sources,” said Baycroft.
Japan and Panasonic dominate total global patent holdings
As of January 3, 2023, Japanese companies owned more than one in three of all worldwide patent “families,” with 1.5 million or 40 percent of the Global 250. China is second with 25 percent and the U.S. is third with 16 percent. Panasonic leads the IFI Global 250 list with 94,341 patent families, and Samsung was just behind. Hitachi, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Canon rounded out the top five.
A patent family is a collection of global patent filings related to a single invention. As a result, a patent for the same invention filed in multiple jurisdictions is only counted once. The IFI Global 250 list is a look back at total active patent families owned by a single company, not just patents earned in any given year.
Japan also had 92 representative companies (37%) on the Global 250, well ahead of the U.S. (55 companies; 22%) and China (45 companies; 18%). Germany, France and South Korea had far fewer representative companies in the third, fourth and fifth positions.
IBM was the highest-ranking American company on this list, coming in at No. 16 with 43,014 patent families. Other U.S. concerns on this list included Microsoft (30th; 31,563 families), GE (38th; 27,008), Intel (44th; 23,758), Alphabet/Google (46th; 22,935) and Amazon (76th; 13,519).
Patent activity provides valuable insight into companies’ R&D activity for researchers, analysts, and investors. It speaks to productivity and IP strategy, and frequently reveals technology trends and the competitive landscape within various industries. Often the true value of a company lies with its intellectual properties, so examining patent assets is a key tool in gauging the intangible assets of publicly traded companies.
To create your own analysis, visit the IFI CLAIMS Live 1000, a free tool which uses data from the top 1000 companies that received patents across multiple countries and patent jurisdictions. The tool shows live data and offers interactive features that allow users to create and sort their own lists using a variety of filters.
About IFI CLAIMS Patent Services
IFI CLAIMS Patent Services uses proprietary data architecture to produce the industry’s most accurate patent database. The CLAIMS Direct platform allows for the easy integration of applications, other data sets, and analysis software. Headquartered in New Haven, Connecticut, with a satellite office in Barcelona, Spain, IFI CLAIMS is part of Digital Science, a digital research technology company based in London. For more information, visit www.ificlaims.com.
About Digital Science
Digital Science is a technology company working to make research more efficient. We invest in, nurture and support innovative businesses and technologies that make all parts of the research process more open and effective. Our portfolio includes admired brands including Altmetric, Dimensions, Figshare, ReadCube, Symplectic, IFI CLAIMS, Overleaf, Ripeta and Writefull. We believe that together, we can help researchers make a difference. Visit www.digital-science.com and follow @digitalsci on Twitter.
General Biomics and The Jackson Laboratory announce intellectual property licensing agreement
The agreement will aid in the understanding of the microbiome in human disease
Farmington, CONN. – General Biomics, Inc. and The Jackson Laboratory (JAX) announced an expansive and exclusive intellectual property licensing agreement across six areas of human health. The agreement will enable JAX to transfer hundreds of microbiome samples, as well as other materials, datasets and related know-how, accrued by researcher George Weinstock, Ph.D., formerly the director of microbial genomics and professor and Evnin Family Chair at The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine and professor of genetics and genome science at UConn Heath, to General Biomics. As part of this transaction, JAX will become a shareholder in General Biomics.
General Biomics,located in the UConn Technology Incubator in Farmington, was founded in 2020 by Dr. Weinstock and Dr. Yanjiao Zhou, an assistant professor at UConn Health researching human disease through the microbiome. General Biomics’ mission is to deliver novel multi-omic solutions to human healthcare through knowledge of the human microbiome. “The microbiome is a crucial key in our understanding of human disease. General Biomics is pleased to be able to utilize the materials and data we have collected and generated over many years at The Jackson Laboratory to assess and treat a variety of conditions,” said Weinstock, who will serve as executive vice president and chief scientific officer of the startup. “By obtaining these valuable materials and IP, we will be able to translate years of scientific research into therapies that could change lives for many individuals living with chronic conditions.”
During his career at JAX, Dr. Weinstock investigated the human microbiome in a wide variety of contexts, including how it contributes to human conditions and diseases such as aging, asthma, the immune response, cancer, substance use disorders, metabolic syndromes, and much more. He was named Evnin Family Chair at JAX in 2015. Before joining JAX, he served as associate director of The Genome Institute at Washington University in St. Louis, where he led the NIH effort to sequence the Human Microbiome. Previously, Dr. Weinstock was co-director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center (HGSC) at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and professor of molecular and human genetics.
“At JAX, we take very seriously our role helping to translate research into therapeutics and providing hope to families dealing with devastating medical conditions,” said Lon Cardon, Ph.D., FMedSci, JAX president and CEO. “We are pleased to collaborate with General Biomics to support its mission to use the microbiome as a key predictor of and solution to a variety of conditions and diseases as well as the biomedical research sector’s growth in the State of Connecticut.”
In its initial product development program, supported by samples, materials and data licensed from JAX, General Biomics will address medical disorders that affect newborns and young infants, especially premature infants who require hospitalization. Dr. Weinstock and Dr. Zhou have found considerable evidence exists that the gut microbiome plays an important role in the development of these maladies. A key component of the program will collaborate with a large childrens’ hospital, the details of which will be announced in an upcoming news release from General Biomics. The intention of the program is to develop novel, patentable tests, which will greatly reduce the costs of hospitalization and dramatically reduce the mortality and morbidity in these patients. Other areas of health and disease that are contained in the agreement include: asthma, oncology, immune and inflammatory responses, aging, and health and wellness.
General Biomics received seed financing in January 2022, which has been used to begin its scientific operations and create its business strategy. Steve Lombardi, a genomics industry leader with over forty years of experience, is the company’s executive chairman and is leading its business efforts and fundraising activities.
About General Biomics
General Biomics Inc. is an early stage, privately funded company headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut at the UConn technology Incubator. Its mission is to improve human health through the knowledge of the human microbiome. The company’s key asset is a multi-omic data analysis platform that can elucidate the microbiome’s impact of specific medical conditions.
About The Jackson Laboratory
The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution with a National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center and nearly 3,000 employees in locations across the United States (Maine, Connecticut, California), Japan and China. Its mission is to discover precise genomic solutions for disease and empower the global biomedical community in the shared quest to improve human health. For more information, please visit www.jax.org.
Thursday, December 29, 2022
Oil Industry Completes Sweep of Congressional Energy Committees
Cathy McMorris Rodgers will take control of the Energy and Commerce Committee after receiving more money from oil and gas PACs than any other House Republican.
The House Republican who received the most oil and gas PAC money in the last election cycle is set to be the next chair of the House committee that oversees national energy policy. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) is expected to be put in charge of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in January when control of the House flips from the Democrats to the Republicans, after serving as the committee’s ranking member in 2021 and 2022. In addition to energy policy, the Energy and Commerce Committee conducts oversight and crafts bills impacting the oil and gas industry through its wide-ranging jurisdiction over policy areas including “environmental protection,” “clean air and climate change,” “safe drinking water,” and “renewable energy and conservation.”
McMorris Rodgers did not face a competitive Democratic challenger and did not need a large campaign war chest, but the oil and gas industry still donated more to her campaign in 2021-2022 than it ever had before.
McMorris Rodgers’ ascension to chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee means that the two primary congressional committees in charge of energy policy will be controlled by oil industry allies. The Senate Energy Committee is chaired by Sen. Joe Manchin, who was the top recipient of oil and gas industry money of any federal candidate in 2021-2022, despite having not been up for re-election that cycle. Manchin, who took a shotgun to Obama’s climate bill in a 2010 campaign ad, has frequently sided with his fossil fuel industry donors, including killing President Biden’s clean energy program proposal that would have imposed fees on power companies that fail to meet emission reductions targets. Manchin and McMorris Rodgers will control Congress’ energy committees just years before the 2030 deadline that United Nations scientists have identified for the world to halve carbon emissions in order to avoid worse climate-related droughts, flooding, and species extinctions.
According to OpenSecrets, McMorris Rodgers received donations from at least 40 oil and gas industry PACs in the 2021-2022 cycle, totaling more than $240,000. PACs are limited to giving candidates a maximum of $5,000 per election. Some of the oil and gas PACs that donated to McMorris Rodgers’ campaign over the past two years include those affiliated with ExxonMobil, Chevron, Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, Transcanada USA, Energy Transfer Partners, Cheniere Energy, Halliburton, and HollyFrontier Corp. Several of these companies made additional PAC donations to McMorris Rodgers’ leadership PAC. Combined with donations from employees and lobbyists, the oil and gas industry donated $345,000 to McMorris Rodgers’ campaign and PAC over the past two years, according to OpenSecrets.
At an energy summit hosted by the Association of Washington Businesses days after the November midterms, McMorris Rodgers told attendees that she plans to pursue an “all of the above” energy policy approach, and that U.S. energy strategy needs to include fossil fuel production, according to Northwest Public Broadcasting.
One of the first bills McMorris Rodgers plans to call up before the Energy and Commerce Committee is a package that would authorize construction and operation of the Keystone XL pipeline and strip the president and federal agencies of their authority to restrict oil and gas permitting on federal lands. During the previous session of Congress, McMorris Rodgers was the chief sponsor of a bill with 146 Republican co-sponsors called the American Energy Independence From Russia Act that would achieve these objectives and more. McMorris Rodgers has also said that she plans to pursue legislation along the lines of the Manchin-Bennet energy infrastructure permitting reform proposal that would accelerate the construction of interstate energy projects by limiting environmental review procedures.
In recent interviews, McMorris Rodgers told reporters that with control of Congress divided and Republican legislation unlikely to become law, she plans to launch investigations of Democratic policies under her committee’s jurisdiction. She told the Washington Post in November that she will investigate the climate portions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), warning against “a political agenda that is forcing a green energy transition that jeopardizes our reliability and increases costs.” In August, she called the IRA’s new funding for Department of Energy loan guarantees of clean energy projects “Solyndra on steroids.”
The Energy and Commerce Committee does not just deal with energy policy. It has the broadest jurisdiction of any authorizing committee in Congress, and it conducts oversight and writes bills impacting health care, food, internet, and telecommunications sectors, as well as dealing with all legislation relating to consumer protections or affecting interstate commerce.
For example, the committee has jurisdiction over proposals around lowering prescription drug prices. McMorris Rodgers has been critical of the drug pricing reforms that the Democrats passed into law in the IRA. “There is no pricing floor for the so-called ‘negotiation’ price, meaning health care bureaucrats could force a drug company to accept a figure as low as $1 or face up to a 95 percent excise tax,” she said in August of the bill’s provision allowing Medicare to negotiate price with drug companies. She also echoed drug industry lobbying group PhRMA in arguing that the bill would lead to fewer new medicines being developed. Among the many pharmaceutical company PACs that donated to McMorris Rodgers this cycle are Merck, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, and Abbott Labs.
McMorris Rodgers received more than $3 million from business PACs in the 2022 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets, more than any other House candidate. Business PACs are controlled by their corporate sponsors, but they are not funded by corporate dollars due to a prohibition in campaign finance laws. Instead, the money they donate to politicians comes from voluntary contributions made by employees and board members. In addition to pharmaceutical and oil and gas companies, some of the other industries that provided major PAC funding to McMorris Rodgers last cycle were insurance, telecom services, and electric utilities.
Oil companies, fossil fuel industry trade associations, and wealthy donors in the energy industry helped Republicans retake the House with record donations to the super PACs aligned with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Senate GOP leaders, according to a Sludge analysis of contributions in the lead-up to Election Day.
Friday, September 23, 2022
How Texas' abortion ban hurts Big Oil's
effort to transform its workforce
CAPITALI$M REQUIRES A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE
By Liz Hampton and Sabrina Valle
DENVER/HOUSTON (Reuters) - As Texas officials moved to restrict abortion, promote Christianity in schools and the state's power grid teetered on collapse, oil worker Steven Beaman and his wife Hayley Hollands decided it was time to live elsewhere.
By April, Beaman had joined a communications firm in Colorado, leaving behind a more than decade-long career in oil and gas, and Hollands, an attorney, soon followed, forsaking the state over its increasingly strident politics and polarization.
"It is kind of the first time I've reckoned with the idea that I don't think I'm going to live in my home state ever again," said Hollands. She likened the climate contributing to the couple's decision to leave Texas to "death by a thousand paper cuts."
Oil companies have spent millions to counter the frayed image of fossil fuels and recruit a younger and more diverse workforce. But a flaring of political culture wars - around abortion, religion and LGBT+ rights - threaten to undo hiring and retention goals, according to interviews with more than two dozen workers and a national survey.
Over half of women between 18-44 years and 45% of college-educated male and female workers would not consider a job in a state that banned abortion, according to a survey of 2,020 U.S. adults last month by opinion researcher PerryUndem.
BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell and TotalEnergies did not comment on how abortion and cultural wars are affecting their hiring and employee retention when asked by Reuters.
GRAPHIC: Workers weight abortion bans in career decisions https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ABORTION/zjvqkrdrmvx/chart.png
RECRUITING HURDLE
"It has always been difficult to attract women into oil and gas," said Sherry Richard, a 40-year oil industry veteran most recently human resources chief at offshore driller Transocean Ltd. "When you create an environment that is unfriendly to women, it just makes it harder," she said.
Richard, 66, who now sits on the boards of two oilfield firms, said she does not plan to leave the state, but would support her son and his family if they moved.
The business risks to recruiting is especially high for oil companies, already unpopular with graduates of engineering programs, said Jonas Kron, chief advocacy officer at Trillium Asset Management. The Boston-based firm, which oversees $5.4 billion in investments outside of oil, is asking companies to take action to minimize the financial losses of a limited workforce.
"Lack of diversity is not only a problem to financial performance, which they are acutely aware of, but also one of company values," Kron said. "That is deeply concerning."
Some California members of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) have declined to attend the group's conference in Houston in October because of the state's anti-abortion law, which bans most abortions after about six weeks. The only exception is when a doctor certifies the mother's life is in immediate danger.
SWE after next year will not hold conferences for its 40,000 members in states with abortion bans due to "restricted access to women's healthcare," according to its website.
Trevor Best, chief executive of Syzygy Plasmonics, a Houston-based startup whose chemical reactors run on renewable electricity, recently had a woman job candidate from out-of-state say she would not consider relocating to Texas.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has acknowledged the state is losing workers, but does not regret the departures. "We have an exchange program going on,” Abbott said in August at a conservative political gathering. "We are getting California conservatives; we are sending them our liberals.”
SILENCE ON ABORTION
The five top oil majors have said they support travel for health treatments by employees in different states. But none named abortion in their responses, nor disclosed whether there is an internal guidance for abortion care, a concern for employees who have to administer the policies.
"The rules are not clear," said a Texas engineer who also does recruiting for an U.S. oil major in Houston and declined to be named. "Will (an employee) have to tell her manager the reason of the trip for instance? I have asked for clarity, but I received no reply."
Some workers want their employers to take a stand on abortion.
"Companies say they value employee's rights and yet finance politicians who violate my rights and wellbeing," said a 45-year-old engineer at oilfield service firm Halliburton who declined to be identified fearing reprimands. "This is hypocrisy," she said.
Oil companies contribute to politicians who advocate for free trade, tax and energy policies through political action committees (PACs). That criteria fits a majority of Republican politicians who also vote to restrict abortion rights.
A California-based Chevron engineer who is planning to have a child and also declined to have his name used said he told his boss that he could not go ahead with a relocation to Houston.
"We find it medically unsafe to carry a pregnancy in Texas," he said, adding his wife is at high risk for ectopic pregnancies. With doctors in Texas now only able to perform emergency abortions in event of immediate danger to the mother's life, "that is too close to call for me."
Dawn Seiffert, 52, and her husband, an oil company employee, returned to Texas in 2012 and planned to stay. But with Texas' anti-abortion law implemented, the mother of four is considering moving with her daughters to Maine while her husband remains to earn full retirement benefits.
Texas politics "even before Roe" were heading in the wrong direction, Seiffert said. "The public education, the grid... they're more consumed with personal freedoms versus any responsibility towards one another," she said.
(Reporting by Liz Hampton in Denver and Sabrina Valle in Houston; Editing by Gary McWilliams and Lisa Shumaker)
Friday, August 19, 2022
AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking about Intelligent Machines
Book:
AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking about Intelligent Machines edited by: Stephen Cave, Kanta Dihal, Sarah Dillon Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020, ISBN: 9780198846666; 448pp.; Price: £55.00
Reviewer:
Dr Leah Henrickson University of Leeds
Citation:
Dr Leah Henrickson, review of AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking about Intelligent Machines, (review no. 2433) DOI: 10.14296/RiH/2014/2433 Date accessed: 20 August, 2022
