Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide, Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and International Shipping

Oil climbed as the U.S. and China were said to near a deal on trade that would underpin the outlook for crude demand, while supplies around the world showed signs of tightening. Futures in New York rose as much as 1.1 percent after a drop of 2.6 percent last week. The world’s two biggest economies are approaching an accord that could lift most or all U.S. tariffs, according to people familiar with the talks. Prices were also supported by Baker Hughes data that showed working oil rigs in America fell ...

Saudi Aramco dropped a bombshell this week that could transform the oil market. A short Financial Times news report revealed that the Saudi national oil company is building an oil trading unit in London and intends to become one of the top three oil traders in the world. This raises all sorts of questions and issues, because Aramco and the Saudi oil ministry, while distinct, have close connections. On top of this, the Saudis are the dominant player in OPEC. Aramco’s information advantage could be excessive. It is not unusual ...

A lthough China will continue to raise its liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports this year, the 2019 rise in the world’s key LNG demand growth market may not be enough to absorb all the new supply coming on stream over the next months. According to analysts at this week’s LNGgc Asia conference in Singapore, new demand this year would be lower than the expected new supply, Oil Price reported. Jason Feer, head of business intelligence at Poten & Partners, said that the company expected 33 million tons of new global ...

Oil’s sudden slump seems to have caught optimists by surprise. Hedge funds increased wagers on rising Brent crude prices for an eighth straight week, the longest streak since 2012, according to ICE Futures Europe data for the seven days through February 26. But the enthusiasm has proved to be misplaced, at least for now. The international benchmark posted a weekly loss for the first time since early February as President Donald Trump warned Opec to “take it easy’ in cutting supplies and US economic data fell short of expectations. Brent ...

Congress has been debating the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act, or “NOPEC,” which would make international oil cartels illegal, exposing countries that coordinate on the price of oil to the risk of litigation in US courts. The odds are pretty good that anti-OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) legislation could eventually win the approval of Congress, given rising anti-Russian and Saudi Arabia sentiment, including anger over President Trump’s response to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the subsequent resurgence of progressive Democrats in the House of ...

Crude-oil-to-chemicals (COTC) technologies might be the next development step for refiners faced with diminishing returns on the production of petroleum products. “COTC represents the ultimate integration stream”, panel experts said at the ME-TECH 2019 conference in Abu Dhabi this week. Refined products constitute a mature market where the opportunities for growth are mostly limited to the mobility needs of a rising middle class in emerging economies. Consensus estimates for the cumulative growth in refined fuels until 2030 stand at 0.6%. The main threat comes from electric vehicles and improvement in ...

U.S. stocks were poised to open higher Monday in tandem with global markets on signs of progress in U.S.-China trade negotiations. Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.3%. The Dow has risen for nine of the past 10 weeks. In Europe, the Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.4%, following broad gains across Asia where Chinese stocks hit a nine-month high. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the U.S. and China were in the final stages of completing a trade deal after months of ...

Global funds recommended a bigger safety buffer in February, with cash holdings raised to their highest in more than three years and equity allocations cut to the lowest in nearly two, a Reuters poll showed. Many top equity indexes posted their best start to a year in decades, but a slowdown is underway in several major economies and the still-unresolved trade war between the U.S. and China has kept investors cautious. A monthly Reuters poll of 43 fund managers around the globe, taken Feb 14-27, showed cash holdings – a ...

As Europe’s economic outlook darkens, more funds are turning against the euro. Manulife Asset Management, which oversees $364 billion globally, is shorting the currency in one of its funds on worsening economic data, growing political fault lines and the European Central Bank looking increasingly likely to engage in more easing. The risk in holding European assets means M&G Investments portfolio manager Wolfgang Bauer is short the euro as a hedge. “We are short the euro against the dollar in our fund,” said Grant Peterkin, a senior managing director at Manulife’s ...

U.S. manufacturers are accelerating their shift out of China, coming to terms with a new reality: the Trump administration’s tariffs will not go away any time soon. President Donald Trump’s lead trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, warned lawmakers on Wednesday that the United States would need to keep the threat of stiff tariffs on China in place for years, even if a trade deal is inked, as part of an enforcement mechanism that would include frequent reviews of whether China was abiding by any agreement. That confirms what many companies have ...

The following are the key moves taken by policymakers in the past week to enhance China’s economic strength and sustainability. — MORE DETAILS ABOUT NEW TECH BOARD China’s top securities regulator on Wednesday unveiled more details about the new science and technology innovation board designed to boost financial reform and development of the high-tech sector. The tech board will ease the listing criteria, such as allowing firms that have yet to make a profit to list, but adopt higher requirements for information disclosure, according to the China Securities Regulatory Commission. ...

Faced with a serious slowdown in euro zone economic growth, the European Central Bank is set to delay hiking interest rates from record lows until next year and will soon re-launch its offer of long-term loans to banks, a Reuters poll found. But over 60 percent of economists said there would be no change to rate guidance at its March 7 policy meeting or any official announcement yet of long-term loans. That conclusion comes despite the fact that markets have now completely priced out ECB rate hikes and a new ...

President Trump set his sights on reducing mammoth U.S. trade deficits. In the coming week, the Census Bureau will report the U.S. last year registered the largest trade deficit in its history. How that happened is a lesson in the economics of imbalances. In this case, the president’s tax policies were as much in play as his trade policies. Large fiscal deficits had the side effect of enabling businesses and consumers to purchase more goods from abroad, driving down overall U.S. saving and driving up the trade imbalance. “The evolution ...

US President Donald Trump has delayed the application of additional tariffs on Chinese imports citing “substantial progress” in addressing the US demands for structural reform in the Chinese economy. This is the second article in a five-part series looking into these demands, which are the conditions for ending the trade war. 1. The US demand: market access The Office of US Trade Representative (USTR) said in its Section 301 investigation report, which provided the legal grounds for Washington to start the trade war, that China has been discriminating against US ...

The Chinese economy is shifting toward more sustainable and high-quality growth, Jane Golley, associate professor at the Australian National University and acting director of the Australian Center on China in the World, said. Inevitable economic slowdown is actually positive for the Chinese economy, shifting it toward a more sustainable and high-quality growth, Golley told Xinhua in an interview. “Six percent or even 5 percent of growth is … not only acceptable, but places China as one of the highest growing countries in the world,” she said. Golley also gave positive ...