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Shell has loaded the first condensate cargo from Australia’s Prelude FLNG project, the company said. “We can confirm that the first shipment of condensate has sailed from the Shell-operated Prelude FLNG facility. This is another step towards steady state operations,” a Shell spokesperson said in an emailed response. The Shell-controlled Aframax tanker, Advantage Atom, departed from Prelude FLNG on March 20, S&P Global Platts vessel tracking software cFlow showed. The vessel indicated Singapore as a destination for the cargo, cFlow showed. Trade sources said the cargo will be used within ...

India may increase oil imports from Brazil and Mexico to offset the loss of Venezuelan oil in the wake of US sanctions on that country. Venezuela is the fourth largest oil supplier to India after Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. It accounted for about 11 per cent of India’s oil supplies in 2017-18, supplying close to 18 million tonnes (mt). But the oil imports from Venezuela have come under threat following the US sanctions, forcing Indian companies to scout for alternate markets. Diplomatic sources said that both Brazil and Mexico ...

China’s dependence on imported crude oil has climbed to about 70 percent with Russia remaining the country’s largest supplier for three consecutive years from 2016 to 2018, said an industry report. With total import volume standing at 71.49 million tons in 2018, up 19.7 percent on a yearly basis, Russia’s share was about 15.7 percent, ahead of Saudi Arabia and Angola, according to a report jointly released on Saturday by the China Petroleum Enterprise Association and a research center of the University of International Business and Economics. Over the past ...

China’s gasoline exports will likely fall in the second quarter as a slew of state-owned refineries are scheduled to undergo heavy maintenance in the coming months, while the recovery in domestic auto fuel demand has encouraged local producers to keep more barrels at home. According to a survey of state-run refiners, including Sinopec, PetroChina, CNOOC and Sinochem, conducted by S&P Global Platts, the major auto fuel producers together plan to export around 600,000 mt of gasoline in April, around 45% lower than around 1.1 million mt expected to be shipped ...

Francisco Santillan, 55, a grains farmer from the heart of Argentina’s soybean country, has two things on his mind: the rains and twists and turns in a bitter trade war between the United States and China that has hurt prices. The weather-worn farmer, who rides a Harley-Davidson around the 4,500 hectares of farmland he manages, is expecting a bumper soybean crop when he begins harvesting this month, but he and his neighbors are holding off from sealing deals with buyers in the hope a trade war breakthrough will bolster prices. ...

Price hikes of €30 per tonne were proposed, in mid-February, for domestic sales of strip mill products. This followed a similar announcement, in late January. The steelmakers cited strengthening raw material costs, and the limited availability and increased price of imported steel. However, European basis values were largely static in Northern Europe, in March. The producers secured small rises in Italy and Spain – reducing the differential between selling values in the north and south of the region. The implementation of the price initiative was constrained by a number of ...

Oil rose further above $67 a barrel on Tuesday as OPEC supply cuts and expectations of lower U.S. inventories outweighed concern about weaker demand due to an economic slowdown. The price of global benchmark Brent crude has risen about 25 percent in 2019, supported by supply curbs by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries plus allies, and involuntary losses due to U.S. sanctions on Iran and Venezuela. Brent was up 50 cents at $67.71 a barrel at 1003 GMT, not far from its 2019 high of $68.69 reached on ...

Global commodities trader Trafigura Group sees Brent oil staying around current levels, about $66-$67 a barrel, or slightly higher for the rest of the year, and rising to the $70s in 2020, its co-head of oil trading Ben Luckock said. “We’re gently bullish. We have a more stable and almost sensible market. We traded between $50 and $87 a barrel last year. $87 was probably too much … The Iranian oil waivers caught many people by surprise,” Luckock told a briefing for journalists at the company’s Geneva headquarters. “We’re now ...

The Middle East will have a “quieter” year in terms of new upstream oil and gas projects than it did in 2018, with Iraq and the UAE likely to make more final investment decisions this year, according to Wood Mackenzie. The total of 11 major projects approved in the Middle East last year was a “one-off” and likely won’t be repeated this year, according to Jessica Brewer, a principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie in Dubai. “There’s just so much they’re working on from last year,” she said. “I think it ...

One oil bull sees a “big, looming” risk bubbling up in the energy market. RBC Capital Markets’ Helima Croft, the firm’s global head of commodity strategy, is generally bullish on oil prices. She sees OPEC’s commitment to productions cuts, the United States’ sanctions on Iran and Venezuela and overall demand for crude as healthy drivers of the oil rally, which has taken per-barrel prices up by nearly a third so far this year. But there’s one major risk that could threaten this recent surge, Croft told CNBC in an interview ...

The persistent downtrend of spot JKM LNG prices has been creating uncertainty over the pricing and risk management of cargo strip deals,industry sources said this week. The ratio of spot LNG prices relative to crude oil prices — or “oil slope” — for May delivery cargoes Thursday was at 6.71%, the lowest in nearly nine years. The Brent slope equivalent was last lower at 6.62% on May 6, 2010, Platts data showed. Asian LNG prices are languishing at over a 34-month low, with strong supply and muted demand in Asia. ...

Global stocks ticked up Tuesday, extending their rallies after a sharp selloff late last week. The Stoxx Europe 600 was up 0.1% in early trading, with energy sector stocks among those staging shallow gains. Oil prices have recently recovered from early-year weakness, with Brent crude oil futures, the global benchmark, last up 0.6% at $67.18 a barrel. Still, investors and strategists have recently signaled doubts over the prospects for global growth, amid a slew of downbeat economic data. Germany’s DAX index underperformed other European benchmarks, falling 0.2% after a German ...

The euro steadied on Tuesday after economic surveys showed tentative signs of a recovery in the euro zone economy but warning signs from bond markets continued to unnerve investors. The euro held around $1.13 and analysts said a stronger-than-forecast German business confidence survey on Monday was buoying the single currency. But German 10-year bund yields remained below zero and that worried global stock markets despite some steadying on Tuesday. The euro has remained in a fairly narrow range of $1.12-$1.16 in 2019 despite a marked slowdown in the euro zone ...

The chance of a recession in the United States is “not extraordinary”, according to the president of the Chicago Federal Reserve, conveying a more benign outlook for the world’s largest economy than the fear that has roiled stock markets from New York to Sydney. Growth in “the US economy has slowed but is still robust”, said Charles Evans, with the United States’ US$21 trillion economy expected to grow by about 2 per cent this year, which is “pretty good”, putting the probability of a recession at no more than 25 ...

Mills tentatively bid lower given steel prices keep declining though few traders