One must consider whether the radical left-wing eco-terrorist group that attacked the German power grid on Tuesday to paralyze Tesla's Gigafactory near Berlin, genuinely aims to save the planet through the shuttering of the plant, or if adversaries of Elon Musk orchestrated this attack to thrust Tesla into turmoil. Bloomberg reported that the attack suspended Model Y utility vehicle production at the Gigafactory plant in Gruenheide, Germany, for the second day. The factory turns out an average of 6,000 Model Ys per week... Читать дальше...
China has set its sights on achieving an economic growth target of approximately 5% for the current year, a goal that some economists consider ambitious. The aim comes amid various challenges confronting the nation’s economy, including a slowdown in the real estate market and waning investor confidence. “There was little surprise that the GDP growth target was set at around 5% again, as lowering the target would have further weakened confidence. With that said, it will be a more challenging path... Читать дальше...
Reuters on Wednesday cited unnamed sources as saying that giant Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) are in talks to invest in American liquefied natural gas (LNG) in a quest to compete with Qatar, which lost its ranking to the U.S. in January as the world’s largest LNG exporter. Citing “sources aware of the matter”, Reuters said Aramco and ADNOC are attempting to broaden competition with Qatar as demand for LNG is expected to grow by 50% by 2030. On the Aramco side, talks reportedly... Читать дальше...
The UK is extending the windfall tax on oil and gas operators in the UK North Sea by a year to March 2029, Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said in the spring budget statement, in a move expected by analysts and opposed by the industry. The initial windfall tax, officially known as the Energy Profits Levy, was implemented in May 2022, when the government of Rishi Sunak announced a temporary 25% tax intended to represent extraordinary profits as oil and gas prices surged. In November 2022... Читать дальше...
A National Institute for Materials Science, Japan research team has developed an AI technique capable of expediting the identification of materials with desirable characteristics. Using this technique, the team was able to discover high-performance water electrolyzer electrode materials free of platinum-group elements – substances previously thought to be indispensable in water electrolysis. These materials may be used to reduce the cost of large-scale production of green hydrogen – a next-generation energy source. Читать дальше...
Back in 2019, Brazil produced over 1 billion barrels of crude oil. It was the first time the national total had broken the billion-barrel mark, and more than half of that was pumped from the presalt zone offshore Brazil. Five years later, supermajors are returning presalt blocks to the government after failing to strike oil. But one supermajor is going the opposite way: BP is drilling a deepwater well in one of the fields where other oil companies came up empty. Back in 2019, everyone was flocking... Читать дальше...
Following days of falling prices, U.S. benchmark crude oil prices are trading up 3% on Wednesday on sentiments of tight supply and signals from the Federal Reserve that we can still anticipate interest rate cuts in 2024. At 11:40 a.m. ET on Wednesday, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was trading up 3.13% at $80.60, breaking the $80 threshold, while Brent crude was trading up 2.43% at $84.03. Earlier on Wednesday, Saudi Arabia announced it would raise prices of crude oil to Asia just days after OPEC+... Читать дальше...
TotalEnergies and QatarEnergy are expanding their efforts to explore for oil and gas in the Orange Basin offshore Namibia by acquiring a nearby license in the basin in South African waters. TotalEnergies and its partner QatarEnergy have signed an agreement to buy participating interests in Block 3B/4B offshore South Africa from the companies Africa Oil South Africa, Azinam, and Ricocure, the French supermajor said on Wednesday. Following completion of the transaction, TotalEnergies will hold... Читать дальше...
OPEC expects to claw back its share of the Indian oil market in the long term, due to the short distance Middle Eastern crude has to travel to the world’s third-largest oil importer, OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais has told Reuters. Over the past two years, the Middle East has lost a lot of its previous market share in India as record imports of cheap Russian crude into India have undermined OPEC’s share of supply so much that the cartel’s share of all Indian oil imports has hit the lowest... Читать дальше...
Crude oil prices moved higher today, after the Energy Information Administration reported estimated inventory draws across fuels. In crude, the EIA reported a build of 1.4 million barrels for the week to March 1. The EIA also estimated draws of over 4 million barrels each in gasoline and middle distillate stocks. The crude oil build compared with another, of 4.2 million barrels, for the previous week, which was accompanied by a draw across fuels. It also compared with an estimated crude inventory... Читать дальше...
Four months after India's government rejected demands from Russian oil companies to pay for Russia's crude exports in Chinese yuan, it appears India is now hoping for a similar arrangement with Gulf crude exporters. Bloomberg reports that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked the country’s major state-owned refiners to press Persian Gulf suppliers to accept at least 10% of oil payments in rupees in the next financial year, three executives at the processors said. The RBI is concerned that the... Читать дальше...
Utilization rates at electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in the United States have surged over the past year, making the Level 3 charging stations in many states profitable, a new report by start-up Stable Auto Corporation shows. Stable Auto, a San Francisco firm helping firms place charging EV infrastructure, says in the report on the EV charging utilization trends that 19 states in the west, south, southeast, and northeast reported for 2023 average charger utilization of over 15%, marking the achievement of profitability. Читать дальше...
China’s government should do more to back shale oil projects in the country through preferential tax treatment for the sector, one of the biggest state-owned oil and gas giants says. The authorities need to roll out financial support policies and preferential taxes for the shale industry in China, Ma Yongsheng, chairman of China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, or Sinopec, said on Wednesday, as quoted by Reuters. China has a lot of shale oil reserves, but their extraction is more complex than... Читать дальше...
Iran is set to unload the crude, worth about $50 million, from a tanker chartered by U.S. supermajor Chevron and seized by Iran in the Arab Gulf last year, according to the semi-official Iranian news agency Fars. The unloading of the tanker now appears to be a tit-for-tat for actions by the United States. In May 2023, Iran’s Navy seized the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker Advantage Sweet while it transited international waters in the Gulf of Oman. The oil tanker had departed the Mina Saud Port... Читать дальше...
China’s coking coal industry needs supply curbs and consolidation, the head of the largest miner in the segment said this week, as quoted by Bloomberg. The government needs to place limits on supply, consolidate smaller miners into large state-owned entities, and build strategic reserves of coking coal, Zhao Jianze, chairman of Shanxi Coal Energy Group told Chinese media. Coking coal is used in steelmaking and China’s domestic reserves of it are nowhere near its thermal coal resources, which has... Читать дальше...
Saudi Arabia raised the official selling prices of its crude for Asian buyers following the extension of the OPEC+ production cut agreement until the end of the first half of the year. The price for the country’s flagship Arab Light grade was raised by $0.20 per barrel over the Oman/Dubai average, Reuters reported, meaning April deliveries will cost $1.70 per barrel more than the Oman/Dubai average, up from $1.50 per barrel this month. At the same time, Aramco lowered its prices for European buyers... Читать дальше...
Despite continued weak economic performance, China's imports of major commodities in the first two months of 2024 held strong and exceeded last year's levels. Imports of crude oil, LNG, coal, and iron ore were all higher at the start of the year compared to the same period of 2023, although China's economic data still shows a weak recovery, problems in several key sectors, and low consumer confidence. There's a reason behind the robust commodity imports, and it's not Chinese economic growth. Rather... Читать дальше...
According to Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman last week, an extra 15 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas deposits has been proven at Saudi Aramco’s Jafurah gas field. If true, this would take the total reserves in the eastern Saudi field – which is the largest unconventional non-oil associated gas field in the country, and potentially the biggest shale gas development outside the U.S. – up to about 229 tcf, or about 6.5 trillion cubic metres (tcm). By comparison, total proven... Читать дальше...
Crude oil inventories in the United States rose this week, by 423,000 barrels for the week ending March 1, according to The American Petroleum Institute (API), after analysts had predicted a 2.6 million barrel build. The API reported an 8.428-million-barrel rise in crude inventories in the week prior. On Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude oil inventories in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) rose by 0.7 million barrels as of March 1. Inventories are now at 361 million barrels—the highest level since May 2023. Читать дальше...
Via Metal Miner The Rare Earths MMI (Monthly Metals Index) experienced a pretty significant drop month-on-month, falling 24.73%. Save for cerium oxide, all components of the index either fell or moved sideways. Weaker than anticipated downstream demand ended up hitting certain metals related to rare earth magnets particularly hard, causing a plummet in the index. Another significant factor impacting rare earths prices stems from nations continuing to source rare earths outside of China. Experts anticipate... Читать дальше...
An MIT comprehensive study of high-temperature superconducting magnets confirms they meet requirements for an economic, compact fusion power plant. A detailed report by researchers at PSFC and MIT spinout company Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), published in a collection of six peer-reviewed papers in a special edition of the March issue of IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity. Together, the papers describe the design and fabrication of the magnet and the diagnostic equipment needed to evaluate its performance... Читать дальше...
