Coal import from India’s Meghalaya state to Bangladesh has stopped following an order of the Supreme Court in the neighbouring country. The coal import was supposed to continue till January 31 but came to a halt suddenly on January 15, according to Paritosh Ghosh, assistant director for traffic at Tamabil land port. “This has created a huge trouble for the coal importers.” The SC of India on Tuesday banned the transportation of coal in the state until the next hearing on February 19. Bangladesh imports coal from India through Barchhara, ...

South Korea received on Saturday its first Iranian oil cargo in four months, data on Refinitiv Eikon showed on Monday. NITC tanker Silvia 1 discharged close to 1 million barrels of condensate, a light oil typically produced in association with natural gas, on Jan. 19 at Incheon port, it showed. Another NITC tanker Sana carrying the same volume of condensate is expected to arrive in South Korea on Jan. 31, according to Refinitiv data. The cargo marks the first Iranian oil import by South Korea in four months after the ...

China, the world’s top importer of natural gas and second-largest buyer of liquified natural gas (LNG), just announced plans to increase its intake capacity of the seaborne fuel four-fold over the next two decades. Burgeoning demand for natural gas in the People’s Republic is driven by a number of factors, not least of which is the country’s still impressive economic growth. But popular demand for better air quality has spurred an aggressive national ‘fuel-switching’ policy, which favors cleaner burning gas over ‘king coal’ in China’s power sector. Roughly 7 percent ...

Europe’s natural gas market is tanking and it’s hard to see why prices should stop falling now. Storage levels are above average for the time of year because of the mild winter – curbing demand at a time sales should delight the region’s utilities. And with liquefied natural gas cargoes arriving at Europe’s ports in record numbers, the market looks saturated, according to Julius Baer Group Ltd. The mild winter in the Northern Hemisphere has not only hit Europe’s energy markets. Asian LNG prices have slumped for eight straight weeks ...

The volume of US crude oil arriving into Europe, which has been rising of late, will pick up sharply in February, pressuring values for North Sea and Mediterranean grades. “There are a lot of US barrels coming over and landing in February, more than [has been seen in the past couple of months] due to Asia not pulling as much in the near future due to turnarounds,” a crude trader said. “It is going to massively affect the balance of crude and affect North Sea and Urals.” Trading and shipping ...

Saudi Arabia along with other major crude oil producing nations in the Middle East will fulfill Asia’s crude requirements for February, sparing the region from any impact of OPEC production cuts, an S&P Global survey of nine refiners across Asia showed on Friday. Several refiners and term customers of Saudi Aramco from Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan and Thailand confirmed they had not received any notice of allocation cuts for contractually termed monthly crude volumes from the OPEC kingpin. “They [Aramco] seemed very confident to supply what we needed,” said a ...

Russia’s state agriculture watchdog is considering plans to strengthen controls on grain exports, Russian news agencies reported on Saturday. There has been speculation that the world’s largest wheat exporter could limit grain exports later in the 2018/19 season which started on July 1, to keep a lid on domestic prices. Proposals include issuing export licenses for some markets, which should see state-controlled entities such as United Grain Company play a bigger role, Rosselkhoznadzor head Sergei Dankvert was quoted by Interfax and RIA as saying. “We have informed vice premier (Alexei) ...

Pakistan imported 1.06 million tons of Malaysian palm oil till November 2018, higher than 1.02 million tons imported in 2017, Shamsul Iskandar bin Mohd Akin, deputy minister of Primary Industries in Malaysia said on Saturday. The deputy minister, who is heading a delegation of officials from the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) and Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC), attended the 4th Pakistan Edible Oil Conference at a local hotel. He said over the years, the oils and fats trade between these two countries has expanded to products like oleo-chemicals, palm ...

Bangladesh has scrapped a liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply deal with Swiss energy trader AOT Energy, which had been close to being finalised, an official said. Bangladesh and AOT agreed a deal in February 2018 for the supply of 1.25 million tonnes per year (mtpa) for 15 years but it was not signed. Since then, the country has installed its first import terminal and received its first cargoes, while prices seesawed. “The deal with AOT will not be signed,” said Mohammad Quamruzzaman, managing director of the Rupantarita Prakritik Gas Co., ...

Mining giant Rio Tinto ramped up its shipments of iron ore from the Western Australian Pilbara region in 2018, and expects to export even larger quantities of the steel-making commodity in the year ahead. The Anglo-Australian miner, one of the world’s biggest exporters of iron ore, told shareholders on Friday that its iron ore shipments had risen 2 per cent last year to 338 million tonnes, in line with the company’s forecasts of between 330 and 340 million tonnes. It also flagged a further hike in shipments in 2019, “subject ...

Russia’s Rosneft has issued a tender to sell Urals and CPC Blend crude oil from Russian ports in April-September 2019, according to tender documents published on Rosneft’s website. Rosneft offered buyers 2.52 million tonnes – 10.68 million tonnes of Urals crude oil to be loaded from Primorsk, Ust-Luga and Novorossiisk, unchanged from the volumes it offered buyers for loading in October 2018 – March 2019. Rosneft also offered buyers 0.48 million tonnes – 1.35 million tonnes of CPC Blend in March-September 2019, unchanged from the previous tender offer, the document ...

Pakistan’s oil import bill jumped nearly 15 per cent year-on-year to $7.6 billion during 1HFY19 from $6.675bn in same period last year, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics reported on Thursday. The country’s petroleum bill is steadily on the rise despite the fall in international prices. The government has taken several measures to cut import bill in a bid to ease pressure on the dwindling foreign exchange reserves. Pakistan has already finalised agreements with Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates for a deferred oil facility which will allow the country to receive ...

South Korea overtook Mexico last month as the biggest importer to date of LNG produced at Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass terminal, even as netbacks from the US Gulf Coast to Europe strengthened compared with Asia, data compiled from S&P Global Platts Analytics’ vessel-tracking tool cFlow showed. Since the first LNG cargo left the Louisiana facility in February 2016, Mexico had been the biggest buyer, given its heavy reliance on US supplies of the fuel to heat homes and run electricity generating plants. While it continues to bring in shipments, new ...

The Philippine government wants to ease sugar import restrictions this year, on the back of record inflation in 2018, the country’s Budget Secretary, Benjamin Diokno said. The raw sugar mill-site composite price in the Philippines surged by about 49% from January 2018 to hit a record high of Philippine Pesos 1,952.67/kg or $745/mt in July 2018, before ending the year at Pesos 1,548.16/kg, Sugar Regulatory Administration data showed. Meanwhile, the Metro Manila retail price of white sugar increased by 21% from the beginning of last year to peak at Pesos ...

The US is again considering sanctions on Venezuelan crude, an action which would likely boost demand for heavy Saudi and Canadian crude grades currently subject to output cuts, cause medium and heavy prices to strengthen further and, potentially, force US Gulf Coast refiners to run more domestic sweet grades. The impact of the sanctions may also have unintended impacts as Venezuela redirects barrels to Asian markets in need of heavy crudes, leaving US Gulf Coast refiners to scramble for barrels from Colombia, Mexico, Iraq and other sources to fill a ...