The price of Uzbekistan's most sought-after automobile gasoline, AI-80, has significantly risen since January 1 after the temporary suspension of excises on the fuel was allowed to expire. Prices at private gas stations currently stand at around 8,800 sums ($0.71) per liter. The zero-excise tax rate on local and imported AI-80 was introduced in December 2022 amid restrictions on the operations of gas stations selling methane, which is periodically in short supply in peak consumption periods. Many... Читать дальше...
In the race for key raw materials for lithium-ion batteries, China now appears to be leading the cobalt push, with its CMOC Group boosting production up over 170% in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and propelling it past Swiss-based Glencore. According to CMOC in a Thursday report, cobalt production rose 174% in 2023 to reach 55,526 metric tons, compared to the most recent third-quarter 2023 data showing Glencore cobalt output guidance at a maximum of 42,000 tons, according to Reuters. CMOC... Читать дальше...
Mexico’s state-run oil company Pemex said on Thursday that its newest refinery—with a nameplate processing capacity of 340,000 bpd, will process 243,000 bpd this year before achieving full capacity in 2025. The country’s newest refinery has been hailed as one of Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s critical achievements on the country’s quest to sever the yoke of imported fuels—a large chunk of which comes from the United States. According to a presentation given by Pemex CEO Octavio... Читать дальше...
Via Metal Miner Overall, 2023 proved volatile for the Rare Earths MMI, with the sector experiencing sharp declines at the beginning of the year. This mainly stemmed from decreased Chinese production, supply chain disruptions, and the numerous nations seeking non-Chinese sources of rare earth metals. During Q2 and Q3, price action remained sideways, but global supply dynamics continued to witness further strain. Meanwhile, Australia, the U.S., and several other nations continued to push their rare... Читать дальше...
Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions dropped in 2023 to their lowest levels since the 1950s, but Europe’s biggest economy is off track on its climate goals as most of the emission reductions were short-term effects from an industrial slowdown, think tank Agora Energiewende said on Thursday. German emissions fell to 673 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) last year—down by 46% compared to the reference year 1990, and settling at their lowest level since the 1950s. Emissions were about 49 million tons of CO? Читать дальше...
A joint research effort from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the National Energy Technology Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has shown how coal can play a vital role in next-generation electronic devices. Coal is an abundant resource in the United States that has, unfortunately, contributed to air pollution through its use as a combustible fossil fuel. As the country transitions to other means of energy production, it will be... Читать дальше...
Following a warm autumn and a milder start to the winter, a prolonged cold snap will grip most of northwestern Europe later this week to last for most of January and to test Europe’s natural gas supply and energy infrastructure. Some of the biggest gas-consuming countries, Germany, the UK, and France, will see later this week temperatures plunging to below seasonal averages as freezing weather will settle on most of Europe for most of January, according to weather forecasters polled by Bloomberg. Читать дальше...
Record-high natural gas production, flat demand, and high inventories resulted in U.S. benchmark natural gas prices averaging $2.57 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2023, down by around 62% compared to the 2022 average, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Thursday. The monthly average Henry Hub price was below $3.00 per MMBtu in every month last year, except January, with the lowest monthly average in May at $2.19 per MMBtu, according to the data from Refinitiv Eikon cited by the EIA. Читать дальше...
China is moving forward with a variety of investment and infrastructure projects in Central Asia designed to boost exports to the region and beyond. In Uzbekistan, Chinese executives are seeking to tighten their grip on the electric vehicle market. The Chinese firm Henan Suda signed a deal earlier in December with Uzbekistan’s Energy Ministry to build upwards of 50,000 electric vehicle charging stations around the country by 2033. Already in 2024, 2,500 charging stations are to be constructed. The... Читать дальше...
Germany imported the equivalent of 968 terawatt hours (TWh) of natural gas in 2023, down by 32.6% from the 1.437 TWh imports in 2022, as consumption also dropped, the country’s energy regulator Bundesnetzagentur said on Thursday. Norway was Germany’s top natural gas supplier last year, delivering as much as 43% of the imported gas, followed by the Netherlands with 26% and Belgium, 22%, the Federal Network Agency Bundesnetzagentur said. Germany’s now four operational LNG import terminals – started…
Crude oil prices moved lower today after the Energy Information Administration reported substantial fuel inventory builds for the week to December 29. In crude oil, the authority estimated an inventory decline of 5.5 million barrels for the last week of 2023. This compared with a weekly inventory draw of 6.9 million barrels for the previous week, when fuel inventories posted mixed inventory changes with gasoline stocks falling and middle distillate inventories swelling. A day before the EIA released its report... Читать дальше...
APA Corporation will buy Permian oil and gas producer Callon Petroleum Company in an all-stock transaction valued at around $4.5 billion, including Callon’s net debt, as the merger and acquisition activity in the U.S. shale patch continues. Callon’s assets will provide additional scale to APA’s operations across the Permian Basin, most notably in the Delaware Basin, where Callon has nearly 120,000 acres, the companies said in a joint statement on Thursday. On a pro forma basis, total company production... Читать дальше...
The United States has become the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, surpassing Qatar and Australia for the first time. This development is at odds with the Biden administration's goal of becoming the world's climate leader. Bloomberg data compiled through Dec. 31 shows the US exported 91.2 million metric tons of LNG in 2023. This is a record for the Western country and was made possible by the restart of the Freeport LNG export terminal in Texas, which was closed for months after an explosion rocked the facility in June 2022. Читать дальше...
The energy and mining sectors are set to drive a rebound in Canada’s mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity in 2024 after a lackluster 2023 in which rising interest rates hampered deal-making, banking industry executives told Reuters. Last year, deal-making activity in North America and globally dropped amid uncertainties about the economy. Canadian deal-making was off to the slowest start since the same period in 2020, PwC said in the middle of last year. “The slow start in 2020 was largely... Читать дальше...
Short sellers have raised their positions on BYD, China’s—and the world’s—largest manufacturer of electric vehicles amid expectations of weakening sales. BYD recently dethroned Tesla from the top spot among global EV sellers after it closed the final quarter of 2023 with higher sales than the U.S. major. It sold more than 526,000 cars in the last three months of the year, while Tesla delivered a little over 484,500. BYD, which is backed by Warren Buffett, can boast a 60% sales increase for 2023,... Читать дальше...
China returned to the number-one spot among LNG importers last year, with shipments rising 12% to almost 71 million tons, Bloomberg has reported, after analyzing tanker tracking data. The rebound in LNG shipments follows a weak 2022 when high LNG prices driven by Europe’s gas crunch dampened demand and made China seek more affordable alternatives to the liquefied fuel. China is seen remaining the biggest driver of LNG demand globally in the longer term, too. According to Rystad Energy, the country... Читать дальше...
Oil prices, which had averaged above $100 per barrel in 2022, were significantly lower in 2023 and averaged just above $80 a barrel—despite another war breaking out in the world. The Hamas-Israel conflict, which began in early October, lifted oil prices, but only briefly. In less than a month, prices had given up all the gains from the new geopolitical risk in the most important oil-producing and oil cargo transit region in the world. Brent Crude, the international benchmark, reached its highest... Читать дальше...
At the COP28 conference last month, climate activists were perhaps the most numerous demographic. Normally, this demographic focuses either on oil and coal or all three hydrocarbons, including gas. This time, a group of activists had a much more specific target: liquefied natural gas. Even more specifically, the target for 250 activist organizations was U.S. LNG. Last year, the United States became the world's largest LNG exporter, dethroning Qatar and Australia. It took the U.S. a little over a decade to do that... Читать дальше...
U.S. and European equity markets have kicked off the new year on the backfoot, with both pulling back slightly on the second trading day of 2024 from 2023 record high closes. The S&P 500 was down 60 points to 4,714 from its 2023 close at 1130 hrs ET on Wednesday while the Stoxx Europe 600 was also down marginally. Yields on 10-year US bonds and German bunds have also started creeping up, with the U.S. rate quoted at 3.956% as money markets wagered on the Federal Reserve cutting rates by fewer... Читать дальше...
Via Metal Miner Neither China nor rising global steel player Vietnam had a very good 2023 due to fluctuating steel prices and demand. Like some other steel-producing countries, both have primarily resorted to flooding foreign markets with cheap steel products to remain in the black. This has led to massive protests from countries where these imports land, including India. Some importing nations have already imposed steep tariffs on such imports to protect their domestic players. Recently joining this growing list is Mexico. Читать дальше...
Crude oil inventories in the United States fell this week by 7.418 million barrels for the week ending December 29, according to The American Petroleum Institute (API), after analysts predicted a draw of 2.967 million barrels. The API reported a 1.837-million-barrel build in crude inventories in the week prior. API data shows a net build in crude oil inventories in the United States of just over 13 million barrels throughout 2023. On Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude oil... Читать дальше...
The UK’s manufacturing sector fell deeper into contraction in December, while business optimism fell to its lowest level in a year, a closely watched survey suggested. S&P’s global UK manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) slipped back to 46.2 in December, lower than the 46.4 recorded in the ‘flash’ estimate in mid-December. December’s reading also marked a downturn from November’s reading of 47.2, which was a seven-month high. The 50-mark separates growth from contraction. The deterioration…
