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Related Fitch Ratings Content: U.S. and Canadian Ports – Peer Review (Attribute Assessments, Metrics and Ratings) Fitch Ratings-New York-17 March 2022: Pandemic pressures are receding for U.S. and Canadian ports, according to Fitch Ratings in its latest sector peer review. Fitch has revised its Rating Outlook for several North American ports to Stable from Negative over the last year. Cargo ports have been particularly resilient, with preliminary 2021 throughput figures showing performance at or surpassing pre-pandemic levels for container cargo at Fitch-rated ports. Even cruise ports, which were harder hit ...

Japan is poised to suspend signing any new Russian energy deals, including spot purchase of Russian crude oil and LNG, as part of its commitments to reduce energy supply dependency on Russia, industry sources and experts told S&P Global Commodity Insights. The move would mean that Japan is effectively suspending its spot crude and LNG purchases from Russia, with an increasing number of Japanese companies reluctant to take any spot cargoes from Russia amid fear of reputational risk, industry sources said. ENEOS, Japan’s largest refiner and a buyer of Russian ...

The United States and its European allies are drawing up plans to gradually reduce and ban imports of Russian crude oil and natural gas in response to the military operation in Ukraine. To put ever greater economic pain on Moscow and offset some of the effects of full-blown sanctions, they are also considering oil and gas supplies from Iran. It’s a big gamble to recoil from Russian energy. In this new Cold War dreamscape, Europe can’t simply hope to normalize relations with Iran to import oil and gas, or to ...

Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji said in televised remarks on Saturday that he will try to raise Iran’s oil and condensates exports to 1.4 million barrels per day as set out in an annual state budget. “In parliament, lawmakers decided to raise the ceiling of exports of oil and condensates from 1.2 million barrels (per day) to 1.4 million barrels. The Oil Ministry will do everything in its power to realise the level set in the budget,” Owji told state television. Iran, facing U.S. sanctions on its crude oil exports, ...

Qatar is in discussions over the long-term supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Germany, QatarEnergy said in a statement. Germany told Qatar it was fast tracking two terminals to facilitate LNG shipments, the state-owned company added. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Andrew Mills; Writing by Ahmad Elhamy; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Traders have had a lot to deal with since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as sanctions ramp up and threaten the global flow of commodities, including wheat and oil, raising the risk of shortages and wreaking havoc on day-to-day trades that have seen some explosive moves. “We’re in a very ‘headline driven’ market right now that makes managing risk of extreme importance,” John Caruso, senior asset manager at RJO Futures told MarketWatch. There was a lot of “hot money” chasing the recent rallies in energies and metals on the Russia/Ukraine and ...

Russian troops in Ukraine are seizing and destroying agricultural machinery, fertilizer, seeds and fuel stocks, according to several farmers in Ukraine, putting in danger the new crops from one of the world’s most important suppliers of wheat, corn and sunflower oil. The actions of the Russian troops are also putting at risk the spring planting campaign and the yields of winter crops — wheat, barley, rapeseed etc — which were planted at the end of summer and autumn 2021. The agricultural production of Ukraine during the 2022/23 marketing year (July-August) ...

Energy Despite a strong end to the week, Brent settled lower for the second consecutive week. The market is struggling to balance the impact of self-sanctioning of Russian oil and the potential demand hit we are seeing in China due to the latest Covid outbreak. On top of this, the market is still waiting to see how Iranian nuclear talks will play out. If this wasn’t enough uncertainty for the market, over the weekend, Iranian backed Houthi rebels attacked multiple targets in Saudi Arabia with drones. These targets also included ...

China’s output of natural gas increased by 6.7 percent year on year in the first two months of the year, official data showed. From January to February, the country’s total natural gas output reached 37.2 billion cubic meters, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics(NBS). The growth rate was 4.4 percentage points higher than that in December 2021, the NBS said. The country had imported less natural gas in the period, which went down 3.8 percent from a year earlier to 19.86 million tonnes, the data showed. Source: ...

Saudi Arabian state oil giant Aramco on Sunday reported a more than doubling of annual net profit in 2021, boosted by higher energy prices. Net profit rose to $110 billion for the year that ended December 31, from $49 billion a year earlier. Analysts had expected a net profit of $106 billion in 2021, according to the mean estimate of analysts in Refinitiv’s Eikon. Brent crude futures ended 2021 up 50.5%, its biggest gain since 2016. Oil prices surged past $100 a barrel last month after Russia invaded Ukraine, which ...

The sharp rise in energy prices on the back of Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine has accelerated the push to achieve net-zero goals and invest in oil and transition fuels to ensure global energy security. Although it is an uphill task and governments and private companies from across sectors need to rally around the cause, the world has the resources and the technology and is moving in the right direction, panellists told Bloomberg’s UAE Capital Markets Forum on Thursday. “We have the tech, we have the capital and we have ...

The European Union’s southern countries called for the bloc to adopt common energy policies in the face of surging prices and the need to reduce dependency on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. “We want to push the European Commission and the other member states to take incisive measures in a sector that is decisive for our future,” Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi told reporters. He was speaking after a meeting with the leaders of Spain, Portugal and Greece which Draghi said had focused mainly on energy. With European energy ...

Wall Street stormed back this week after absorbing a long-awaited rate hike from the Federal Reserve, leaving investors to determine whether stocks are set for a sustained rebound or more turbulence. Following a months-long drubbing, the S&P 500 delivered its best weekly gain since November 2020 as investors cheered increased clarity on monetary policy and an encouraging assessment of the U.S. economy from the Fed. The surge cut the index’s year-to-date losses by nearly half, though it is still down 6.7% for 2022 after falling into a correction last month. ...

Generation Z shows the most concern for the planet’s well-being and influences others to make sustainability-first buying decisions, according to new research. GenZ are people born between the nineties and the noughties – roughly spanning 1995 to 2010 – and three-quarters of them prefer to buy sustainably rather than to go for brand names. That’s according to respondents in a survey of US consumer attitudes on sustainable shopping by First Insight and the Baker Retailing Center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Labelled the first “digital natives” ...

Germany’s finance minister has called for fresh talks over a free trade agreement between the European Union and the United States, a newspaper reported on Sunday, aiming to revive discussions halted by former U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump ended negotiations over the so-called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and instead pressed a number of trade disputes with the EU. “We should resume negotiations on a transatlantic free trade agreement. Especially now in the (Ukraine) crisis, it is becoming clear how important free trade is with partners around the world ...