Page 15 - ITAtube Journal 2 2022

The 1973 oil embargo led to a sudden four-fold increase in crude oil prices and ushered in the higher inflation and rising unemployment that ended the long post- war boom in the global economy.
The USA to soften the inflation and to sacrifice the crude oil demand enlarged its crude oil production almost linear from 12 Mio. Bbl./day in September 2023 to 13,4 Mio. Bbl./day in November 2023 (+12%) by increasing the number of drilling rigs.
The number of US drilling rigs was enlarged to about 800 by December 2022 (Figure 16). In 2023 due to declining oil prices, the number of rigs was reduced again to 618 rigs. Of these 618 rigs, 496 are dedicated for the extraction of oil and 118 for gas. Furthermore, the USA has relieved the oil export sanctions on Venezuela. Neverthe- less, the US oil exports have reached a new all-time high with about 5,5 million Bbl./ day.
Efforts to reduce dependence on fossil fuels can hardly be successful in the short term and can only contribute to decoupling in the medium term. For our pipe indus- try, however, this means that high energy prices can be expected in the future as well - prices around 80-90 USD/Bbl. are most probable. The investments to secure the energy supply will keep the demand and prices for tubular products high.
Another driving factor is the record high global LNG export rate. Katar, the USA and Australia have record high LNG production. Consequently, the demand for OCTG prod- ucts remain high and it eases the energy crisis especially in Europe to compensate the stopped Russian pipeline gas supplies.
Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) is an upcoming interesting market for higher alloyed tubes. In CO2 capture and sequestration, carbon dioxide is sep- arated from combustion gases and then stored indefinitely in deep underground layers of rock without a container. For deep drilling and transportation of CO2 into these deep underground layers of rock, increasing volumes tubes and pipes
ITAtube Journal December 2023
are required. USA, China and Middle East are the centres for developing following this technology (Figure 17). CCUS refers to a suite of technologies that can play an important and diverse role in meeting global energy and climate goals.
In addition to exploration activities, the need to build new pipeline routes has also increased since the ban on Russian pipe- lines to Europe and the strategy towards hydrogen to replace natural gas. In the wake of the attacks on the Northstream pipelines, which released very large quanti- ties of methane as an environmental load, it can be expected that the safety stand- ards for pipelines will become even more demanding. Globally a large quantity of pipelines is planned or announced to be built in the coming years up to 2027 Glob- ally a large quantity of pipelines is planned or announced to be built in the coming years up to 2027
A new market for hydrogen pipelines is upcoming (Figure 18). Particularly the US and Europe expect major growth in this segment. This development offers man- ufacturers of large-diameter pipes > 406 mm OD opportunities for interesting future business.
Market information
Figure 18: Global planned and announced hydrogen pipeline projects (2022- 2030) Source: Rystad Energy.com
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