reduced its exports. In early 2020, as gathering economic headwinds slowed demand growth, Saudi Arabia sough to extend the production cuts, but Russia walked away. Saudi Arabia responded by increasing its exports and the price crashed. All of this on the eve of the pandemic. The rest is history, an unprecedented shutdown in economic activity resulted in a 30 per cent fall in oil demand in April and forced OPEC+, plus a few others back to the table in early April to agree even deeper cuts. The situation is now in the balance, the price has recovered, but there is a growing recognition there will be no quick ‘bounce’ back, and there is speculation that oil demand has now passed its peak. Even before the pandemic, there was recognition that natural gas faced a somewhat different trajectory through the low carbon transition. The industry has sold itself as the ‘greenest fossil fuel,’ somewhat of an oxymoron; but its green credentials have been tarnished by the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing and the acknowledgement that fugitive emissions along the supply chain undermine the lower carbon intensity when combusted. Furthermore, the energy of intensity of liquified natural gas (LNG)
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production has also called its benefits as a solution to decarbonisation into question. The global gas market suffered from oversupply as new LNG production, in Australia and the United States, outstripped demand growth. This would have happened earlier had China not embarked on a dash for gas. Initially, gas markets were less exposed to the impact of the lockdown, but summer in the northern hemisphere and already filling storage capacity have resulted in very low prices. So much so that it is no longer economic for US LNG terminals to liquefy gas for export to Europe and cargoes are being cancelled. Having weathered the lockdown, the question is ‘what happens next’? No one really knows; the pandemic is running riot across the global south and threatening to re-emerge in Europe. The IMF has lowered it expectations for economic output in 2020. It is clear that while social distancing and quarantine remain a requirement, economic activity will be depressed. Already, some oil and gas companies slashed their dividends, some have cut their workforces and the majority are cutting back investment. But there is a very real prospect that what happens next