Ten months after the Kurdish oil export route was shut over disputes, Kurdistan’s oil continues to be held back from the market due to disagreements over payments to the oil companies, Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani told Bloomberg in an interview this week. Talks are being held, but no solution has been reached yet with the oil companies operating in Iraq’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, al-Sudani told Bloomberg in Davos, noting that the oil firms “have an issue with the cost... Читать дальше...
Iran carried out a missile attack in the western part of its neighbor, nuclear-armed Pakistan, targeting sites linked to militant group Jaysh al-Adl, and adding another flare-up to the already tense situation in the Middle East. Jaysh al-Adl is considered the “most active and influential” Sunni militant group in Sistan-Baluchestan, according to the office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence. The group is designated as a terrorist group by Washington and Tehran. This is the third strike... Читать дальше...
Higher power demand and efforts to boost energy security pushed China’s coal production to a record-high level in 2023, according to official statistics data published on Wednesday. Chinese coal output rose by 2.9% year-over-year to 4.66 billion metric tons in 2023, per data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported by Reuters. Coal imports also rose last year, as some domestic mining operations were suspended for some time in 2023 due to safety inspections and concerns. Higher demand after... Читать дальше...
More companies exporting goods from Asia to Europe are sending them by air rather than ships amid the series of Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea. Normally, producers strongly prefer shipping their goods because it is much cheaper but right now the price difference has shrunk as container ship operators reroute their vessels from the Red Sea to the Cape of Good Hope. As a result, demand for air transport on Asia-Europe routes has increased and so have airfares: Reuters reported today that the... Читать дальше...
Refineries in China processed record volumes of crude oil last year, with the average at 14.7 million barrels per day, which was a 9.3% increase on the year. In 2022, a year when refinery throughputs registered a rare decline, the daily average stood at 13.5 million bpd, Reuters noted in a report citing official data from the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics. In December alone, the annual increase in throughput was 11%, the data also showed, despite reports arguing that China’s record crude... Читать дальше...
Crude oil production in the United States is set to decline for the fifth month in a row in February, according to the Energy Information Administration. In its latest Drilling Productivity Report, the EIA said that production across the shale patch in February was set to be 2,000 barrels daily lower than it was in January, at 9.68 million bpd. The only play where production is set to continue growing next month is the Permian, where output is seen rising to 5.974 million bpd from a forecast 5.97 million bpd this month. Читать дальше...
With the Middle East conflict now past the 100-day mark, the Israeli military has launched a barrage of strikes deep within southern Lebanon while Iran has attacked a site in Iraq it has alleged is being used by Israel’s Mossad, stoking fears that the conflict could escalate into a full-blown regional conflict. Israel has, however, declared that it has ended its "intensive" phase of operations in northern Gaza and plans to do the same in southern Gaza. Japanese shipping operator Nippon Yusen has... Читать дальше...
Watching China for a sense of where oil prices are heading has become standard practice among analysts in the past decade—and with a good reason. The Asian powerhouse has become a weathervane for global oil demand as it has become the top importer and second-largest consumer of the most traded commodity in the world. And despite nagging doubts, last year was another when China did not disappoint. Earlier this month, customs authorities reported that oil imports had broken the previous record, reaching... Читать дальше...
A major Japanese corporation is planning a massive investment in what would be the world’s biggest green hydrogen project. The move is a sign that the industry is persevering and pursuing the construction of clean energy projects even as costs have increased. Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation, a giant trading house, plans to invest around $690 million (over 100 billion Japanese yen) in a green hydrogen production plant planned in Rotterdam’s Europoort industrial area, Nikkei Asia reported this week. Читать дальше...
We live in an information-abundant digital world, where data is the new currency, and data centers are the vaults that protect and power it. The amount of data created each year has skyrocketed from 2 zettabytes in 2010 to 44 zettabytes (44 trillion gigabytes) in 2020. This has surged demand for data storage and processing, leading to the construction of massive data centers around the world. So, where are the biggest data centers? In this graphic,Visual Capitalist's Julie Peasley uses 2023 data... Читать дальше...
