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Skilled labour shortages are increasingly afflicting numerous industries around the world and ports are feeling the same heat as countless others. The consequences are already being felt in docks through lengthened cargo turnarounds, vessel berthing window congestion and delays to infrastructure development. A senior executive from the Port of Corpus Christi (Texas) has gone on record to state that labour shortages have hampered efforts to develop beneficial local energy projects, such as petrochemical processing plants. The executive reportedly said there was sufficient natural gas supply in the state to warrant ...

Angola’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in West Africa has offered a spot cargo from its Soyo plant for delivery in late June, two traders said. The exact delivery date depends on the destination of the cargo and for some destinations it could be in early July, one of the sources said. The cargo could not be delivered further than the Malacca Strait, the traders said. The cargo is offered on a delivered-ex-ship basis, meaning Angola LNG will provide the vessel for it. The tender closes on June 5. Source: ...

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday said aluminum exporters are complying with the terms of a deal with the United States after the New York Times reported President Donald Trump had considered imposing tariffs on Canberra. The New York Times, citing unidentified sources, said Trump had been urged to impose tariffs on Australian steel and aluminum in response to an increase in exports of aluminum to the United States over the past year. Trump was persuaded to backtrack on the plan after advice that imposing tariffs on Australia would ...

The American energy system “allows for molecules of US freedom to be exported to the world”, its Department of Energy touted on the opening last week of the Freeport liquefied natural gas export (LNG) facility. But as the Trump administration’s trade war widens, George Orwell might have observed that one person’s freedom gas is another person’s slavery. The energy industry is now embroiled on four fronts in this mercantile struggle. Last January, the US imposed tariffs on solar panels, and in March 2018 added steel and aluminium, vital for pipelines ...

Record-slow corn planting in the United States has caused speculators to quickly erase their massive short bets in Chicago-traded corn, and they likely closed out last month with a bullish stance on the yellow grain. Only 58% of U.S. corn was planted by May 26, well behind the five-year average of 90%, and more wet weather and still-saturated fields likely kept farmers from making a huge push in the latest week. The next slowest May 26 planting pace in the last 40 years of records was 67% in 1995. In ...

Russia seems to be entering a new stage of sanctions adaptation, building on its growing technological capabilities in energy, as well as access to alternative sources of financing to become less dependent on cooperation deals with Western companies. The collapse of two major deals between Russian and western oil companies in 2019 may indicate that Moscow is now looking to reduce its exposure to Western financing and technology as it braces itself for expected tougher sanctions. Initial sanctions, imposed on Russia in 2014, forced western majors to leave some promising ...

Brent crude oil prices have risen by 34% in 2019, and U.S. orientated WTI oil price have also rallied significantly, up 39% year-to-date. The main driving factors for higher oil prices in 2019 have been rising geopolitical concerns in places such as the Middle East and Venezuela, causing worry that these political issues will disrupt their production. While spot prices might have risen, investors shouldn’t lose track of the longer-term fundamentals. The below chart highlights that the U.S. economy has become almost entirely self-sufficient in meeting its own oil needs. ...

The oil and gas industry already live on the edge when it comes to the remote and often inhospitable geographic locations that it operates in, but now it is moving its computing to the edge to gain valuable business insights that can increase operational efficiency and profitability. For any industry, downtime is an anathema, a situation that all process companies strive to avoid. It can be costly and disruptive in any industry, but for oil and gas companies, it can be particularly expensive. According to an MIT Sloan study, a ...

Oil prices fell on Tuesday to their lowest since January on signs that an economic slowdown is starting to dent energy demand and as Russia’s top oil producer said it opposed extending joint cuts with OPEC until the end of the year. Front-month Brent crude futures were at $60.78 at 1030 GMT, 50 cents, or 0.85%, below the last session’s close. Brent fell as low as $60.2 per barrel earlier, the lowest level since January 2019. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $52.80 per barrel, down 45 ...

The Appalachian basin has effectively become “de-bottlenecked” following a wave of pipeline project start-ups. But with virtually no new production-takeaway capacity expected to come online in the next year, the Northeast could be on a path to becoming “re-bottlenecked” as rising production fills existing capacity. In 2018 roughly 8 Bcf/d of producer-backed pipeline capacity was added to the Northeast region as a handful of high-volume expansion projects that had been years in the making finally came online. Last year saw the full start-up of the greenfield Rover Pipeline and Nexus ...

Chinese oil magnates weighed in on the trade war between China and the US by vowing to ensure stable oil and gasoline production, contain the outcome of possible suspension of vital services provided by foreign companies and boost control over financial risks. The announcement brought attention to China’s oil sector and the nation’s alarmingly high reliance on imported oil – about 70 percent of total use in recent years – which can affect sectors ranging from technology to energy. Originally an oil-poor country, the story of how China achieved self-sufficiency ...

Investors are overlooking the threat posed by the U.S.-China trade war, which could send the global economy into recession in less than a year, according to a research note published Sunday by Morgan Stanley. “Investors are generally of the view that the trade dispute could drag on for longer, but they appear to be overlooking its potential impact on the global macro outlook,” wrote Chetan Ahya, the investment bank’s chief economist. President Donald Trump last month raised the tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10% to 25%. ...

Three cheers for the strongest U.S. jobs market in decades: It’s the best hope for the U.S. to ride out one trade war with China and another conflict potentially looming with Mexico. If these were normal times, Wall Street would be gearing up this week for the latest snapshot on hiring. The U.S. is expected to add a solid 175,000 new jobs in May, keeping the unemployment rate at a 50-year low of 3.6%, according to a MarketWatch survey of economists. Instead Wall Street is sure to remain fixated on ...

China’s service trade has seen continuous expansion with a better structure, said an official at a trade forum. Ma Jiantang, secretary of the leading members’ group of the Communist Party of China at the Development Research Center of the State Council, made the remarks at the 2019 China International Fair for Trade in Services that concluded in Beijing on June 1. In 2018, the import and export volume of knowledge-intensive trade in services saw an increase of 20.7 percent year-on-year, much higher than the overall service trade growth, Ma said. ...

The European Commission is likely to begin disciplinary procedures against Italy on Wednesday over the country’s failure to reduce public debt as required by EU law. WHY IS THE COMMISSION TURNING ON ITALY? DEBT European Union rules say that governments must reduce public debt every year, calculated on average over three years, by 1/20 of the difference between its current level and the EU ceiling of 60 percent of gross domestic product. Italy’s debt has been rising: it went up to 132.2% of GDP in 2018 from 131.4% in 2017 ...