Kazakhstan is negotiating an increase in natural gas exports to China including via a new pipeline, Bloomberg has reported, noting this would put Kazakhstan in a competition with Turkmenistan and Russia. “Despite reports of an economic slowdown in China, the demand for gas continues to grow,” Sanzhar Zharkeshov, chief executive …
Read More »TotalEnergies Set to Make $10B Investment Decision Offshore Suriname
TotalEnergies is preparing to make a $10-billion-plus final investment decision for a massive oil and gas development project offshore Suriname, as the French giant eyes Exxon’s success in maritime neighbor Guyana, Reuters reported on Monday, exclusively, citing unnamed sources. Earlier this month, TotalEnergies announced the launch of development studies for …
Read More »Japan LNG Lobby Urges Government to Help Negotiate Better Contracts
Japan’s liquefied natural gas buyers — among the world’s biggest — are struggling to ensure supply contracts are flexible enough, and need the government to help negotiate better terms, according to the head of an industry lobby group. So-called destination clauses that limit the on-selling of shipments make it harder …
Read More »Libya’s Oil Production Set to Resume on October 1
After last week’s deal on the leadership of the Central Bank, Libya is set to resume crude oil production on October 1, Italian news agency Agenzia Nova reported on Monday, citing Libyan parliamentary sources. Crude production at most Libyan oilfields has been suspended for over a month after the country’s …
Read More »Dispute over Oil-Rich Islands Brings Two OPEC Producers to Court
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on Monday began hearings in a dispute between OPEC’s African members Equatorial Guinea and Gabon over several small islands in an area in the Gulf of Guinea thought to contain significant oil resources. The dispute, running for around 50 years, is …
Read More »Analysts Cut Oil Price Forecasts for Fifth Month in a Row
Despite the geopolitical risk premium, oil prices are set to remain under pressure, weighed down by slower-than-expected demand and uncertainty about OPEC+’s unwinding of the production cuts, according to the analysts in the monthly Reuters poll who cut their price forecasts for a fifth consecutive month. In last month’s poll, …
Read More »India’s Fuel Exports Surge as European Supply Drops
Petroleum product exports from India have soared to the highest level in two and a half years as maintenance season in Europe is stoking demand for fuels from other sources. Indian exports of fuels such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, soared by 39% in September compared to a year …
Read More »Analyzing the Risk of Nuclear Conflict in Europe
In the latest grim uptick of Russia’s nuclear weapons policy, President Vladimir Putin suggested on September 25 that the Kremlin could use nuclear weapons against any state attacking Russia if that country was supported by a nuclear power. If Russia were to launch a massive nuclear strike on Ukraine or …
Read More »U.S. Shale Faces Challenges in Electrifying Oilfield Operations
Costs and access to the grid are the main hurdles U.S. oil drillers and producers face as they seek to electrify operations, the latest Dallas Fed Energy Survey showed this week. More than half of the exploration and production firms operating in Texas, northern Louisiana, and southern New Mexico have …
Read More »U.S. Races towards Lithium Independence with Ambitious Mining Projects
Several countries around the globe are investing heavily in the extraction of lithium to support battery production for electric vehicles (EVs) and utility-scale storage. This has led to the enormous growth of mining projects in lithium hubs, such as the Lithium Triangle in South America. It has also encouraged greater …
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