Crude oil inventories in the United States fell this week by 5.521 million barrels for the week ending March 8, according to The American Petroleum Institute (API), largely contradicting analysts, who had predicted a 0.4 million barrel build. The API reported an 423,000-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 0.6 million barrels as of March 8. Inventories are... Читать дальше...
Energy efficiency is essential for meeting climate goals and studies show that they will save consumers money on heating and electric bills in the long run – so why do standards for energy-efficient housing get so much pushback? One big reason is a nationwide coordinated defensive effort by the National Association of Home Builders, the United States housing industry’s largest lobbying group. There’s no denying that government mandates that require more stringent energy efficiency standards in newly... Читать дальше...
Driving activity in the United States will reach all-time highs this year and next, the Energy Administration said on Tuesday in its latest editing of the Short Term Energy Outlook. Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) will increase in 2024 and 2025 to new highs in the United States, the EIA said, with trends in population, economic growth, and especially employment all increasing. The EIA changed is employment growth forecast for this year by 1% compared to the previous month’s STEO forecast—an increase... Читать дальше...
To start the week, Ehsan Khoman, the Head of Commodities at MUFG Bank, points out that iron ore ended the session in Asia as one of the weakest major commodities. This downturn was primarily due to the lack of enthusiasm from China's National People's Congress event on Monday amid mounting concerns about worsening macroeconomic headwinds. Futures in the critical steelmaking ingredient are down 25% year-to-date in Singapore, and they fell nearly 7% on Monday to around the $107 a ton level. The 7%... Читать дальше...
The Energy Information Administration lifted its outlook for Brent crude oil prices for this year and next, the agency said in a Tuesday report. The EIA now sees the spot price for Brent crude oil averaging $87 per barrel, according to the latest edition of the Short-Term Energy Outlook published on Tuesday. That’s up 5.6% from the previous month’s forecast of $82, and up from the current price of just over $82 per barrel. For next year, the EIA sees the crude oil benchmark averaging $85 per barrel—a... Читать дальше...
Via Metal Miner One of India’s fastest-growing steel companies JSW Steel, recently announced the next step in its growth plan. In a major steel news event, JSW Steel Italy SRL inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Italian government to re-start production operations at the Piombino plant via a €140 million investment. According to JSW Steel, the initiative entails a doubling of the Piombino facility’s current rail-making capacity to 6 lakh tons per annum. Analysts anticipate that this... Читать дальше...
Starling Bank has appointed Ovo boss Raman Bhatia to be its permanent chief executive, taking over from interim CEO John Mountain ahead of a planned public listing. Bhatia is set to join the digital challenger bank in the early summer, subject to regulatory approval. Mountain was named interim CEO after the bank’s founder Anne Boden stepped down as chief executive last June. She cited a desire to split up her role as a major shareholder and the chief executive. The firm has rebuffed reports of a... Читать дальше...
UK-based supermajor Shell has been updating its strategy on climate targets and could announce a slower pace of its emissions reductions later this week, anonymous sources with knowledge of the discussions have told Bloomberg. Shell is set to announce an update to its energy transition strategy on Thursday, March 14. The oil and gas major has been considering slowing the pace of carbon emission reductions for some time, as part of an update to its strategy in which a team has been tasked to analyze... Читать дальше...
The tech world is currently living through the Fourth Industrial Revolution as Artificial Intelligence (AI), cryptocurrencies and clean energy have emerged as some of the biggest secular megatrends of our time. AI and Machine Learning ("ML") have become the biggest consumer tech buzzwords thanks in large part thanks to ChatGPT, OpenAI’s generative AI chatbot. ChatGPT has become AI’s poster child, managing to garner 100 million users 60 days after its November 2022 launch. Energy companies are increasingly... Читать дальше...
In the intricate world of commodities, volatility is a double-edged sword: it presents both significant risk and potential reward. Commodities, by their very nature, are susceptible to wide price fluctuations due to a variety of factors including supply and demand dynamics, geopolitical tensions, environmental conditions, and economic indicators. This article delves into the most volatile commodities in the market, providing examples and insights into the factors that contribute to their unpredictability. Читать дальше...
OPEC remains optimistic that the world will see robust oil demand growth this year and next amid improving economies and further upside potential in global economic growth. In its closely-watched Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) published on Tuesday, OPEC revised up slightly its global economic growth forecast for this year to 2.8%, up by 0.1 percentage point compared to its report from last month. The cartel left its 2025 economic growth projection unchanged at 2.9%. “While some downside risks persist... Читать дальше...
Despite multiple bullish catalysts, oil prices remained stubbornly rangebound at the start of this week, with markets awaiting a notable shift in sentiment. - US gasoline futures have jumped sharply in the past two weeks, up more than 20% since the beginning of the year, as Red Sea disruptions, refinery force majeure events, and resurgent demand put the heat on fuel prices.- With US gasoline prices now 60% higher than at the time of the 2020 presidential election, the Biden administration will be... Читать дальше...
Despite the voluntary production cuts of several major producers of the OPEC+ alliance, OPEC’s oil production rose in February by more than 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) compared to January, driven by higher production in Libya, which is exempted from the OPEC+ supply cuts. Crude oil production from all OPEC members jumped by 203,000 bpd from January to 26.57 million bpd in February, OPEC’s Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) showed on Tuesday. The biggest increase in output came from Libya, which... Читать дальше...
The lower prices of coal from major exporters Indonesia, South Africa, and Australia are weighing on Russia’s capacity to sell more of its coal to Asia, which has become Moscow’s primary export market after the West slapped embargoes on its coal in 2022. Russian exports of both thermal and metallurgical coal to Asia slumped in February by 21.6% year-over-year, to around 8.48 million metric tons, according to data from Kpler reported by Reuters’ columnist Clyde Russell. Despite the fact that Kpler... Читать дальше...
Russia exported last week the highest weekly crude oil volumes so far this year, at 3.7 million barrels per day (bpd), up by nearly 600,000 bpd from the previous week and 420,000 bpd more than its pledged export cut this quarter, tanker-tracking data monitored by Bloomberg showed on Tuesday. The jump in the weekly exports in the week to March 10 was likely the result of the return of normal operations at the Far East port of Kozmino, where exports were hampered by a storm in the week to March 3. Читать дальше...
Stranded cargoes of Russia’s Sokol crude, previously headed to India but idled off South Korea and Singapore since the U.S. stepped up sanctions enforcement, have started to make their way to China, beginning to clear a backlog of more than 10 million barrels of the grade sitting on tankers at sea. China has increased purchases of Sokol in recent weeks and its independent refiners are expected to take several such shipments this month, traders have told Bloomberg, which also notes that tankers... Читать дальше...
China’s Sinopec has begun production at a natural gas field that has an annual capacity estimated at 2 billion cubic meters. The field, in the province of Sichuan, has reserves estimated at around 100 billion cubic meters, which makes it an important contributor to China’s domestic natural gas output, Reuters reported, citing a statement by Sinopec. It is also the company’s third field with reserves of over 100 billion cubic meters, the statement said, putting Sinopec’s total reserves in the Sichuan... Читать дальше...
Nigeria is facing mounting opposition from neighbors and other countries to its bid for the headquarters of the Africa Energy Bank, a proposed initiative to support investments in the continent's hydrocarbon system. The final decision on the location of the new institution is due to be made by the end of this month and some fierce lobbying has been going on in the run-up to that decision, Nigerian media report. The concept of an African energy bank originated with the African Petroleum Producers’ Organization... Читать дальше...
The UK will need more gas-fired power plants in the future to avoid blackouts, Energy Security Secretary Claire Coutinho warned today, as older facilities get retired. The warning comes amid a review of the country’s energy system that the Conservative government is currently conducting. The review, it seems, has revealed that this system needs baseload generation backup to wind and solar to avoid power outages when wind and solar do not generate. The BBC quotes critics of the plan as saying that... Читать дальше...
China’s stunning economic growth was almost single-handedly responsible for the commodities supercycle from the late 1990s to the onset of the 2014-2016 Oil Price War, as analysed in full in my new book on the new global oil market order. This was characterized by consistently rising prices of the key commodities that the country required in its dramatic economic expansion. In 2013, China became the world’s largest net importer of total petroleum and other liquid fuels and, as late as 2017, its still... Читать дальше...
LIVE DRILLING UPDATE: 03/11/2024 - MCF Energy has just confirmed an active petroleum system at the Welchau-1 well site. The well successfully reached a depth of 1155 meters on March 10 and drilling to the main target is underway with completion anticipated by month end. CEO of MCF Energy James Hill said, "The drilling results so far are very promising, and the indications of gas and heavier hydrocarbons are particularly encouraging for us." Read the full release here.If Germany fails to make up for... Читать дальше...
Investments in new oil production have been stalling since about 2014. This has led many to suggest that higher prices for longer are on the cards, supported by anti-oil industry energy policies in key jurisdictions that are home to the largest private producers. Yet a case might be made that although lower, the oil industry's investments over the past decade have become better targeted at prospects with a good chance of a discovery. Either that, or they have become luckier than usual. Nowhere is this clearer than in Africa. Читать дальше...
Kazakhstan increased oil exports by volume last year, but flagging prices meant this translated into diminished earnings. The plan for 2024 is to keep expanding sales abroad, although complications are looming on the horizon. One route that should see more traffic is the trans-Caspian corridor running through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. The Energy Ministry said on March 6 that oil deliveries made through that channel will rise to 1.5 million tons, which is 1.4 times as much as in 2023. On the same day... Читать дальше...
