In the context of a challenging few months for the energy industry, Dr Hooman Peimani examines Australasia's oil and gas sector, and the fate of the region's ongoing midstream projects. 2020 is certainly the most difficult year since the 1990s for the global economy and, by default, the global energy sector. Against a background of a few years of poor economic performance, a growing trade war affecting the world's largest economies, including China, the US, Japan, India, Canada and the European Union members, and further shrinkage of the global markets as a result of various types of economic sanctions on, particularly, Iran, Libya, Russia and Venezuela, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has phenomenally contracted the global economy. The worldwide lockdowns and the resulting decrease in economic and non-economic activities have sharply reduced demand for energy, prompting a further fall in oil and gas prices already suffering from a low trend caused by over supplies in the pre-pandemic era. The gradual and, in some cases, hasty (e.g. the US) lifting of restrictions to reignite the economies and push them out of recession will not likely reverse the current undesirable reality in a meaningful and sustainable manner in the remaining months of 2020, and most probably not even in 1Q21, exceptions aside.
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