Polish special services are currently investigating whether Orlen Trading Switzerland, a subsidiary of Polish refiner Orlen (PKN.WA), may have violated sanctions regarding the import of oil from Russia or Iran, broadcaster Radio Zet reported on Thursday. This investigation represents just the latest inquiry directed at the state-controlled company, following allegations of artificially lowering prices ahead of the 2023 election and selling assets below fair value for the purposes of acquiring a smaller peer. Читать дальше...
The United States has big plans to expand its nuclear energy industry. The country already boasts the biggest nuclear fleet in the world and is solely responsible for about a third of the world’s total nuclear energy output, and the Biden administration is set on dramatically increasing output over the next decade or so. However, the United States nuclear energy sector has been neglected and underfunded for decades now, and many of the nation’s reactors are scheduled to be retired in the near future. Читать дальше...
Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are strengthening their trans-Caspian relationship. Closer bilateral ties can provide a big boost to the development of the Middle Corridor trade route. Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, has sought to reinforce relations with Central Asia’s Turkic states, likely as part of an overall strategy to minimize Baku’s susceptibility to pressure from the United States and European Union over its poor rights record. In a speech shortly after he secured another presidential term in February... Читать дальше...
Researchers at The University of Manchester have achieved a groundbreaking advancement in catalyst technology by developing a new catalyst which has been shown to have a wide variety of uses and the potential to streamline catalyzed optimization processes in industry and support new scientific discoveries. The paper titled An air- and moisture-stable ruthenium precatalyst for diverse reactivity has been published in Nature Chemistry. Catalysts, often considered the unsung heroes of chemistry, are instrumental in accelerating chemical reactions... Читать дальше...
China’s Sinochem Energy Technology Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of state-owned multinational conglomerate Sinochem Corp., has successfully completed the shipment of gasoline from China’s Quanzhou City to Singapore using blockchain technology. According to Sinochecm, this marks “the first time that blockchain applications have been applied to all key participants in the commodity trading process.” However, the company points out its first blockchain shipment was carried out in Dec. 2017 whereby it imported... Читать дальше...
German airline Lufthansa canceled flights to Tehran, and Russia advised its citizens not to travel to the Middle East on Thursday as Israel prepares for what it sees as an imminent attack in retaliation for the leveling of its embassy in Syria on April 1, Russian and Western news agencies reported. On the first day of the month, an airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in the Syrian capital of Damascus leveled a building and killed a top Iranian general and six other diplomats. Iran blamed the attack on Israel... Читать дальше...
The mergers and acquisitions (M&A) wave sweeping through the U.S. oil and gas industry has reached Canada, which could see a megamerger in the coming months. Smaller deals are already taking place as 2023 saw an increase in the value of transactions in Canada's oil and gas sector. Unlike in the United States, most Canadian firms are not in an urgent need to add future drilling inventory as the oil sands have years of crude yet to be produced. The Groundwork for Canadian Oil & Gas Deals... Читать дальше...
Natural gas prices at the Waha hub in the Permian basin in Texas slumped to a negative value of -$2.00 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) this week as the recent rise in oil prices prompts producers to bring drilled but uncompleted wells online. As the U.S. benchmark oil price, West Texas Intermediate, hit $85 per barrel—the highest level in nearly six months, Texas producers keep pumping crude, but their wells also produce gas, which basically has nowhere to go. While producers are chasing... Читать дальше...
The UK’s gas transmission and electricity system operators are confident that Britain will have sufficient natural gas and power supply to meet demand at all times during the period from April to September. There is more than enough gas to meet demand this summer, National Gas said in its Summer Outlook 2024 report on Thursday, while National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) said in a separate report today that “We expect there to be sufficient available supply to meet demand at all times this... Читать дальше...
Global oil demand in the summer is expected to be strong as consumption of transportation fuels is set to rise across the board and across regions with summer and holiday travel picking up, OPEC said on Thursday. The group sees a “robust oil demand outlook for the summer months.” Strong oil demand in the second and third quarters of this year could further tighten the market, especially if the OPEC+ group doesn’t begin to ease the current production cuts in July. In its closely-watched Monthly Oil... Читать дальше...
A new analysis by the energy think tank Ember has found that several countries in Europe could soon face bottlenecks in their national transmission energy grids, as more solar and wind power will be generated than these networks have capacity for. As Statista's Anna Fleck shows in the following chart , Spain, France and Poland are just some of the countries that will have energy grids that undershoot their country’s respective 2030 policy targets for wind and solar capacity. Out of the 26 countries studied by Ember in this comparison... Читать дальше...
OPEC’s crude oil production edged up by 3,000 barrels per day (bpd) in March compared to February as Iran and Saudi Arabia slightly boosted output while Iraq continued to produce more than it is expected to. Crude oil production from all 12 OPEC members – including Iran, Libya, and Venezuela which are exempted from the OPEC+ cuts – averaged 26.60 million bpd in March, up by 3,000 bpd from February, OPEC’s Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) showed on Thursday. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Gabon, and Kuwait slightly... Читать дальше...
As Mexico is slashing oil exports, U.S. imports of Mexican crude slumped last week to the lowest level on record, data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed this week. Weekly U.S. crude oil imports from Mexico fell to 209,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the week to April 5, the data from the EIA showed, as Mexican state oil firm Pemex is cutting exports to divert more crude to domestic refineries. To compare, U.S. imports of Mexican crude averaged more than 730,000 bpd last year. Читать дальше...
Australia’s government has joined the United States and the European Union in a race to lure in more business from abroad, with a focus on transition-related industries such as solar power and hydrogen. While the size of the subsidy pie has not been detailed, Reuters reports that the Future Made in Australia Act will allocate at least A$18 billion, or about $12 billion, for the effort. “Securing jobs, attracting investment, and building prosperity has never been a polite and gentle process where... Читать дальше...
Global coal power capacity hit a record last year driven by China, which built the most new capacity, but also helped by a slowdown in coal power plant retirements across the world. This is according to data from Global Energy Monitor, a transition outlet that tracks energy trends. The data also showed that coal power plant retirement has been slowing down since 2020 when total retirements globally exceeded 40 GW. In 2023, this had fallen to a little over 20 GW. Meanwhile, China added 47 GW of new... Читать дальше...
Proposals for new power generation capacity in the United States have increased by an impressive 90% over the last three years, Bloomberg has reported, in anticipation of a surge in demand for electricity. Notably, some 80% of the proposed capacity is solar plus batteries, with only 3% of proposed power plants to run on natural gas or coal. The total proposed capacity stands at close to 2,600 GW, according to the data, which comes from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. This does not mean... Читать дальше...
The OPEC+ group is firmly back in control of the oil market and has the power to have it extremely tight in the second half of the year should it choose to do so, industry executives and hedge fund managers say. The market is growing increasingly bullish on oil, expecting robust global demand growth and supply constraints, including OPEC and Russia’s production cuts, to push prices even higher in the summer. With Brent oil prices breaking above $90 a barrel, there is room for further upside amid... Читать дальше...
Artificial intelligence is helping the oil and gas industry boost output by accelerating drilling and boosting efficiency. It offers similar gains to other industries as well and online platforms and websites with AI-powered chatbots are multiplying fast. But there is a problem. AI consumes massive amounts of electricity. A New Yorker article from last month cited the number half a million kilowatt-hours. Per day. That's the electricity consumption of ChatGPT to handle the two hundred million requests it gets daily. Читать дальше...
Back in January of this year, the Biden administration announced a controversial decision to pause approvals of new licenses to export liquefied natural gas (LNG). President Biden announced that during the pause the U.S. Department of Energy will review and assess whether the nation’s considerable LNG exports are “undermining domestic energy security, raising consumer costs and damaging the environment.” As the single biggest exporter of LNG in the world, this decision greatly impacts the global... Читать дальше...
Dark days ahead in São Paulo, the industrial and commercial hub of Brazil. They noticed last month, after a three day blackout hit the city’s center and its poorer neighborhoods, although a previous power outage in November was a portent of things to come. Consultants contend that the electric company has underinvested for years and that the city’s grid will collapse within three years unless corrective action is taken—which sounds a lot like Thames Water. The electric company declared that it was... Читать дальше...
