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Vietnam exported roughly 2.4 million tons of coal worth 325 million U.S. dollars in 2018, mainly to Japan, South Korea, Thailand, India and Malaysia, posting respective year-on-year increases of 7.6 percent and 13.1 percent. Last month alone, Vietnam gained 30 million U.S. dollars from exporting 200,000 tons of coal, down 0.8 percent in value and down 22 percent in volume against December 2017, the Ministry of Industry and Trade said on Monday. Demand for coal in many Asian countries, including India, Indonesia, Pakistan and the Philippines will continue rising in ...

Pertamina to buy 2.5 million barrels of crude per month from Chevron Pacific Indonesia in January-June 2019 – joint statement. Pertamina crude purchases from Chevron and other companies to cut its crude imports to around 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 342,000 bpd. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Bernadette Christina Munthe and Wilda Asmarini Editing by Ed Davies)

The global aluminum market will remain short of supply despite bullish signs of demand and supply restrictions, market participants said Monday on a panel discussion at S&P Global Platts’ Aluminum Symposium in San Diego. Hydro Aluminum Metals USA expects demand to grow 2-3% this year because of continued growth in the transport segments being offset by a gradual slowdown in China and a moderated appetite in Europe and the US. On the other hand, supply should increase 3-4% based on the expected US restarts and Chinese ramp-ups. “This deficit situation ...

Russian wheat exports rose slightly in the first half of January on strong demand from a major buyer, an increase in global benchmarks and a stronger rouble, analysts said. Russia’s rouble has risen against the dollar in January, while Chicago benchmark wheat prices were driven higher by factors including expectations that thinning supplies in Russia would raise export opportunities for U.S. wheat. Black Sea prices for Russian wheat with 12.5 percent protein content and for delivery in January were $238 a tonne free on board (FOB) at the end of ...

Oil prices edged down on Wednesday having climbed about 3 percent in the previous session, with worries about the global economy and forecasts of swelling U.S. production hurting sentiment. Brent crude oil futures were at $60.37 per barrel at 1215 GMT, down 27 cents or 0.45 percent. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were down 43 cents, or 0.83 percent, at $51.68 a barrel. U.S. crude output is expected to rise to a new record of more than 12 million barrels per day this year, the Energy Information Administration said on ...

A visitor to one of BP’s natural gas fields in Wyoming a few years ago might have noticed an odd sight: smartphones in plastic bags tied to pumps with zip ties. This was an early test of a multistate initiative by the oil giant to link a network of Wi-Fi sensors to an artificial intelligence system—one that now operates the Wamsutter field in Wyoming with far less human oversight than before. Artificial intelligence has come to the oil patch, accelerating a technical change that is transforming the conditions for the ...

U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, primarily heading to Asian markets, will continue to experience an uptick in export volumes, thanks in no small part to production levels in the Haynesville Shale formation that underlies large parts of southwest Arkansas, northwest Louisiana and east Texas. The shale prospect is undergoing a bit of a renaissance and looks set to smash its historical natural gas output record dating back to 2011 sometime this year. Research conducted by Oslo, Norway-headquartered research outfit Rystad Energy suggests Haynesville Shale alone was able to add ...

The U.S. will make major strides towards energy independence in the next two years as oil production and exports hit new highs, according to the Department of Energy. U.S. oil production, already at an all-time high this year, will increase by another 2 million barrels per day by 2020, the agency’s statistics bureau projects. The same year, the nation will start exporting more crude oil and fuel than it imports, the Energy Information Administration said in in its latest forecast. American drillers pumped an average 10.9 million bpd in 2018, ...

Integrated oil companies’ refining margin data suggest little relief in the downstream segment when companies announce financial results for the fourth quarter of 2018. Refining was seen as a bright spot for oil companies after prices crashed in 2014, but updates from Austria’s OMV and France’s Total this week and data from BP earlier in the month suggested that cushion is not what it was following a period of weakness, particularly for Atlantic region gasoline margins. Total’s European Refining Margin Indicator, a snapshot of the European market published Tuesday, fell ...

World equity markets on Wednesday held their nerve after the heavy parliamentary defeat of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal as investors saw potential for legislative deadlock forcing London to delay its departure from the EU. May’s government faces a no confidence vote at 1900 GMT after the shattering rejection of her Brexit blueprint on Tuesday evening left Britain’s exit from the European Union in disarray. May is expected to survive the vote, sponsored by the main opposition Labour Party, but investors could see scant sign of a breakthrough ...

A day after Asian markets fell, investors found a reason to buy shares: China’s promised more measures to help support its slowing economy. That sent markets across the region higher, led by Hong Kong and Shenzhen bouncing back to recover from Monday’s losses. South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and India also posted solid gains, and Japan reopened in positive territory after a holiday. The benchmark MSCI Asia Pacific Index advanced as much as 1.1 percent to hit an almost six-week high, while S&P 500 Index futures climbed as much as 0.8 ...

United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer did not see any progress made on structural issues during U.S. talks with China last week, Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley said on Tuesday as plans emerged for higher-level discussions at the end of January. Grassley, who held a meeting with Lighthizer on Friday, said the top trade negotiator commented positively on China’s soybean purchases, which resumed in modest amounts last month after Washington and Beijing agreed to a 90-day truce in a trade war that has disrupted the flow of hundreds of billions ...

Donald Trump’s mission to decouple the United States and Chinese economies is doomed to fail, with former US trade chief and World Bank president Robert Zoellick warning: “You can’t contain China.” Fear of China’s potential dominance of future technologies is one of the primary drivers of the trade war, which is widely viewed as an attempt at countering this rise. The trade war is also seen as a way of forcing US companies to shift their supply chains out of China, thereby decreasing the integration of the two economic superpowers. ...

Mario Draghi broke his silence on Tuesday after sitting through a month of growing doubts over the durability of the region’s economic expansion. The European Central Bank president is making his first appearance of 2019 — and probably his final one before the Jan. 24 policy decision — at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Comments in the morning marked the 20th anniversary of the euro with a call for more reforms, though the focus is on a longer address and closing remarks in the afternoon. Draghi is in parliament on ...

News that the European Central Bank wants euro zone banks to set aside more money for their soured loans sank shares in Italian lenders and sparked a rebuke from one of the country’s top politicians. The ECB will set a target date for each of the banks it supervises to make a full provision for its bad debts, both existing and new, a source familiar with the matter said. The date may differ from bank to bank and will be an expectation for the medium term rather than a binding ...