Good morning, here's what the Oilman has for you today:

• Billionaire of the Week: Trevor Rees-Jones

• West Wants To Ban Coal Investments

• Upcoming Oil and Gas Events

• Tweet of the Day

Billionaire of the Week: Trevor Rees-Jones

Trevor Rees-Jones did not start his professional life in the oil industry.

In fact, he was a bankruptcy attorney.

Until he decided that it was too depressing a field and it would be better to make deals than to pick up the pieces after the bad ones.

An early entry into the coming boom

Rees-Jones went into oil and gas exploration in the mid-1980s.

He had $4,000 in savings, to which he added a $48,000 credit line.

The first decade was nothing to write home about.

In fact, Rees-Jones’ family barely scraped by most of the time.

And then, in 1994, he set up Chief Oil & Gas.

The company bought drilling rights in the Barnett Shale and in the Marcellus Play.

Both turned into gold mines during the 2000s shale revolution.

Exit in style

By 2006, Chief Oil & Gas was the second-largest producer in the Barnett shale.

In the same year, Rees-Jones sold the company’s gas production business for $2.6 billion.

More sales followed over the next few years, generating over $10 billion in proceeds.

These contributed to Rees-Jones’ net worth of over $4 billion.

Despite his exit from Chief Oil & Gas, which was sold last year to Chesapeake Energy,

Rees-Jones is still active in the industry.

He has a number of companies active in both oil and gas and mining.

Perhaps he’s already looking for the next boom.

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West Wants To Ban Coal Investments

More than a dozen countries, led by the UK, Canada, and Germany, are pushing for a ban in coal investments.

The U.S. is also supporting the move, which also includes private investment.

The desperate moves come amid the failure to reduce global reliance on fossil fuels.

Totalitarian much?

Coal is arguably the biggest enemy of pro-transition governments.

There have been multiple attempts to stifle the industry, but it has proved resilient.

Probably because coal is still cheap and delivers reliable power.

So now they are calling on the presidency of COP28 to take more aggressive measures.

Apparently, this includes effectively banning private companies from financing coal generation.

And this is coming from the leaders of the world’s biggest democracies.

The fun part? Germany relies on coal for a third of its electricity generation.

It used to be less, but then Germany closed down its nuclear plants and had to find a replacement quickly.

The easiest replacement? Local coal.

Coal is still king

In the U.S., coal supplies close to 20% of total electricity output.

The UK is doing better in the phase-out because it replaced coal generation with gas.

It still keeps coal plants on stand-by, and it recently needed to start one amid a wind drought.

But forget about these: China and India are building tons of new coal generation.

Does anyone in Europe or North America really believe they can tell them to stop doing it?

It’s ridiculous.

And this means that China and India will get more cheap energy to power their industries.

While Europe and North America continue compromising their competitiveness.

Upcoming Oil & Gas Events

• November 28: TIPRO/IPAA Leaders in Industry Luncheon, Petroleum Club of Houston, Houston, TX

• November 28: NDPC Christmas Gala, Lumen Vitae University Center, Bismarck, N.D.

• November 28-29: UTA Oil and Gas Conference, Hilton Americas, Houston, TX

• November 29: DUG Appalachia Conference & Exhibition, David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Pittsburgh, PA

• November 30: IPAA Texas Hold’Em Tournament, The Post Oak Hotel, Houston, TX

Around the Global Patch

🇻🇪 Venezuelan oil production surges to 850,000 Bpd as sanctions ease.
🇨🇦 Imperial Canada addresses Kearl Facility issue with water release repairs.
🇷🇺 Russia, China: fuelling concerns in Europe.

Tweet of the Day

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