Germany installed a record-high power capacity from solar and wind in 2023, but only solar additions met government targets, while wind power installations fell short of goals. Booming residential demand resulted in the installation of over a million new solar power systems with a combined capacity of 14 GW in 2023, an 85% surge year-over-year, according to data from solar power association BSW cited by Reuters. The new solar capacity is on track to meet the government’s 2030 goals. Wind power also... Читать дальше...
OPEC+ will hold a Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee meeting sometime in early February, three sources said on Tuesday, according to media. OPEC+ typically holds JMMC meetings every other month, although volatile market conditions and member unrest have sometimes prompted the group to schedule meetings outside the every-other-month schedule. OPEC+ members collectively decided to voluntarily cut 2.2 million bpd from the group’s production this quarter, although much of that was production cuts that were already in effect... Читать дальше...
In the last five years, Tesla stock has exploded upwards more than 800%. From a company that was perpetually on the verge of bankruptcy, Tesla has emerged as the EV manufacturer to beat in the automotive market. A huge part of the success comes from Tesla’s sales which jumped 30x in the same time period. Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu and Bhabna Banerkjee take a look at the numbers, as well as the sales share between the different Tesla models from 2016-2023 using data from CleanTechnica, an archive... Читать дальше...
Saudi Aramco is expected to finalize soon the selection of contractors to build part of the onshore infrastructure in the expansion of Saudi Arabian field Safaniya, the world’s biggest offshore oilfield. The Saudi state oil giant is expected to complete the selection process of the preferred bidders for two large onshore engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contracts at Safaniya, worth a total of up to $5 billion, ChemAnalyst reports, citing sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Читать дальше...
The last week of the year may have seen gasoline prices rise for U.S. drivers, but the new year has kicked off another price slide, GasBuddy said on Tuesday morning. U.S. average gasoline prices have retreated to $3.06 per gallon on Monday, according to GasBuddy data. This is a 1.6-cent decline from a week ago today. GasBuddy data is based on 12 million individual price reports from more than 150,000 gas stations across the United States. The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the United States... Читать дальше...
The tougher enforcement of the G7 sanctions and related payment issues have been holding up Indian purchases of some cargoes of Russian crude oil, with tankers previously headed to India now turning back eastwards, tanker-tracking data monitored by Bloomberg showed on Tuesday. At the end of last year, the United States took a tougher stance on the sanctions against Russia and sanctioned several vessels for violating the G7 price cap of $60 per barrel, above which cargoes cannot use Western insurance and financing. Читать дальше...
China has allocated a massive batch of crude oil import quotas to refiners, raising the allowances from early last year by around 60% and allocating full-year quotas to some, according to consultancies and traders. The early allocation of a large volume of import allowances would help refiners better plan their crude purchases in 2024, the experts told media on Tuesday. For 2024, China released a total of 179.01 million metric tons of crude import quotas, compared to a quota of 111.82 million... Читать дальше...
Crude erased gains in the morning of the first trading session of 2024 despite mostly bullish news. China Might Become the Swing Factor for Oil Sentiment - The Chinese economy has been sending mixed signals to the oil markets as Caixin manufacturing PMI indicated a strong recovery in industrial sentiment with the index rising to 50.8 in December, the strongest since August.- The problem with that is that Beijing’s official data paint the exact opposite, dropping to the weakest level since June at 49.0... Читать дальше...
China has reinstated tariffs on coal imports from the start of this year in what could be a blow to Russian exporters. The levies, Bloomberg notes in a report, were removed in May 2022 to avoid a supply crunch amid a surge in coal demand. Russia, as one of the biggest suppliers of the commodity benefited from the tariff-free regime thanks to China’s appetite for coal. Following the tariff removal, Russian grew to become China’s number-two coal supplier with the two countries planning annual imports to reach 100 million tons... Читать дальше...
Tesla could become the world’s most valuable company, surpassing Apple and Aramco combined, as long as it “executes well” over the next five years. This is a prediction that its chief executive Elon Musk first made on Tesla’s third-quarter earnings call but confirmed at the end of the year. “I stand by my prediction that, if Tesla executes extremely well over the next 5 years, that the long term value could exceed Apple and Aramco combined,” Musk wrote in an X post. Apple’s market capitalization... Читать дальше...
Iran has sent a warship to the Red Sea following a Houthi attack on a container ship over the weekend, to which the U.S. responded by sinking three Houthi vessels and killing 10. According to unconfirmed reports from social media, as cited by Reuters, the Alborz warship may have entered the Red Sea via the Bab el-Mandeb strait a day before the latest attack of the Houthis, which took place on Sunday. Am Al-Jazeera reporter covering the region noted that Iranian ships in the Red Sea were not an unusual occurrence. Читать дальше...
At their latest meeting in early December, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners, led by Russia, agreed to reduce their combined production of crude oil to some 2.2 million barrels daily. This was the latest in a series of cuts, the bulk of them shouldered by Saudi Arabia, that the cartel made in a bid to push international oil prices further. It is pretty much standard practice for OPEC. But this year, the cuts didn't work. Reports of OPEC's waning relevance came back into the spotlight. Читать дальше...
Despite a late Santa rally in the oilpatch this week, it's probably time to recognize that we are on the verge of a reset of expectations for the oil sector in the developing, likely 2024 price environment for WTI and Brent. We are about one inventory build away from a trip back into the $60's for WTI and the low $70's for Brent. Do we stay there for long? I doubt it, and will discuss why in this article, but it could happen. In this article I will discuss what I see as the most likely scenario for 2024. Читать дальше...
