The Grangemouth refinery, Scotland’s only crude processing facility, is set to close in the second quarter of 2025, its owners confirmed on Thursday, as the refinery has been struggling to compete with the new complex facilities in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The Grangemouth refinery, which was opened by …
Read More »Saudi Arabia Set to Boost Crude Oil Supply to China in October
Saudi Arabia is expected to increase its crude oil supply to China in October after the world’s top crude exporter cut the prices of the oil it sells in Asia, trade sources told Reuters on Thursday. The Kingdom is set to ship a total of 46 million barrels of its …
Read More »China Urges EV Makers to Keep Key Tech at Home
Chinese authorities have asked local carmaking companies to make sure key electric vehicle technology stays home even as they expand their manufacturing capacity across the world. The government is recommending carmakers to produce the key parts of the cars domestically and then export the so-called knock-down kits to the factories …
Read More »Russia’s Nuclear Ambitions in Central Asia
Hoping to drum up some much-needed cash to help fuel the Kremlin’s war effort in Ukraine, Rosatom, Russia’s state-controlled nuclear entity, is hyping atomic energy as a “green” solution to Central Asia’s power problems. But Rosatom’s efforts to assuage Central Asian citizens on the safety and greenness of Russian nuclear …
Read More »Oil Prices Inch up as Gulf Output Disruption Looms Large
Crude oil prices moved higher earlier today on anticipation that tropical storm Francine would disrupt oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico. News that Exxon was reportedly cutting production rates at its refinery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, helped prices move higher. Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources, …
Read More »China’s LNG Imports to Fall as Natural Gas Storage Nears Capacity
China’s natural gas in storage is nearing capacity, which could spell a decline in imports of liquefied natural gas, Bloomberg has reported, citing data releases from several regional gas storage hubs. If this year’s winter is cold, imports of LNG should remain strong because the gas in storage would be …
Read More »Can Saudi Arabia Actually Afford Vision 2030?
Saudi Arabia has long prided itself on being the lowest-cost oil producer in the world—and has taken maximum advantage of this fact. Now, with ambitious spending plans for a diversified economy, that lowest cost is becoming less relevant. It’s the breakeven cost of oil that matters. And that’s going up. …
Read More »OPEC+ to Begin Oil Production Increase in 2025
The OPEC+ group will begin adding supply to the market in 2025, for the first time since 2022, Jim Burkhard, vice president of research at S&P Global Commodity Insights, said at the Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference (APPEC) on Monday. “We think in 2025 for the first time in a couple …
Read More »Morgan Stanley Slashes its Oil Price Forecast again
Just two weeks after lowering its Brent oil price estimate to $80 per barrel for the fourth quarter, Morgan Stanley cut again its forecast, now expecting the international benchmark to average $75 a barrel in the last quarter of the year. Analysts at Morgan Stanley see rising headwinds on the …
Read More »China’s Energy Transition is Slowing its Oil Demand Growth
China’s oil demand growth has been slowing down due to weaker economic performance and a shift to electric vehicles and LNG-fueled trucks, oil industry executives said at the APPEC conference in Singapore on Monday. Right now, Chinese oil demand growth has slowed to about 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) each …
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