Syria needs to import more than 1.5 million tonnes of wheat a year, with majority from Russia, Interfax news agency reported Syrian economy minister Mohamed Samer al-Khalil as saying. Syria’s crop was hit by low rainfall last year…, adding pressure on an economy already hit by ten years of internal conflict, U.S. sanctions, a lack of funds to finance imports and the COVID-19 pandemic. “Syria has to buy about 1.5 million tonnes of wheat, even more. Of course, Russia plays the main role in this,” the Syrian minister was quoted ...

China’s combined exports of gasoline, gasoil and jet fuel in 2021 fell by 11.9% year on year to 40.31 million mt, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Jan. 18, setting the stage for further cuts in 2022 as the country’s tight quota allocation targets loom. The country’s oil product exports have shown a persistent decline, dropping by 17.4% in 2020 from the peak of 55.36 million mt in 2019 due to better domestic demand as the coronavirus pandemic engulfed countries worldwide. The plunge in China’s 2021 oil ...

The world’s top palm oil exporter Indonesia will require exporters of the vegetable oil to obtain export permits from the Trade Ministry for their shipments starting Jan. 24, ministry officials said. Palm oil producers are also required to declare how much of their production has been supplied to domestic buyers to obtain export papers, Trade Ministry senior official Indrasari Wisnu Wardhana said, as the government ramps up efforts to control domestic cooking oil prices. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Bernadette Christina Munthe, Fransiska Nangoy, Gayatri Suroyo; Editing by Martin Petty)

Russia’s exports of oil, natural gas and coal, a key source of revenue for the Kremlin’s coffers, have been in the spotlight in recent months against the backdrop of Moscow’s broader standoff with the West over military alliance NATO’s expansion. Political tensions between the West and Russia have boosted oil and gas prices. Following are the key elements of Russia’s commodity exports: OIL Russia’s annual oil production C-RU-OUT rose by more than 2% last year to 10.52 million barrels per day (bpd) thanks to the easing of output cuts by ...

Jordan’s state grain buyer the trade ministry is believed to have made no purchase in an international tender to buy 120,000 tonnes of milling wheat which closed on Tuesday, traders said. Participants were believed to be trading houses CHS, Cargill and Ameropa, they said. Prices offered were not revealed. A new tender is expected to be issued in coming days closing on Feb. 1. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Michael Hogan)

The European Union has awarded 69,597 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat imports for January under its tariff-rate quota (TRQ) scheme, data published by the European Commission showed. The award leaves a little more than 930,403 tonnes available for the rest of 2022 in the 1 million tonne tranche for Ukrainian wheat, the data showed. The bloc also granted 19,570 tonnes of imports of Ukrainian barley for January out of an annual tranche of 350,000 tonnes. The Commission made smaller awards totalling 2,616 tonnes for wheat import tranches open to various origins. ...

Scarce slot availability in Europe and tepid demand in Asia pushed down US Gulf Coast FOB daily export cargo values for the fourth straight week Jan. 11-18. The drop was tempered by a further decline in shipping rates, which was supportive of netbacks. Traders said volatility in delivered prices was making it difficult to determine fair value for FOB cargoes. “No one would buy FOB now if you do not have a slot in Europe,” said an Atlantic-based trader. S&P Global Platts assessed the Gulf Coast Marker for March at ...

Iraq has resumed pumping of crude exports via Turkey on the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline following an explosion in southern Turkey which temporarily shut the key export route, Iraq’s oil ministry said Jan. 19. The ministry said exports initially resumed at 75,000 b/d but a source from the Kurdistan Regional Government later told Platts that exports “are ongoing” at the same rate as prior to the incident. In December, exports of Kirkuk crude through the route rose 29% to 87,100 b/d while Kurdish exports increased to 406,000 b/d, according to Iraqi federal ...

China’s Sinopec Corp received its first cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) under a new term supply deal signed last year with Qatar Petroleum, local state media reported. The tanker Al Sahla, carrying 94,000 tonnes of Qatari gas, was discharged into Sinopec’s Tianjin terminal earlier this week, state-run Tianjin Daily reported. This is part of a deal signed with Qatar Petroleum in March for an annual supply of 2 million tonnes for 10 years, with supply starting this month. Source: Reuters

Qatar’s LNG exports competed with Australia’s for the first place in 2020, although it ranked second, QEO said. According to the annual World LNG Report 2021 issued by the International Gas Union (IGU), Qatar ranked second in LNG exports in 2020, with 105bn cubic metres LNG or 77.1mn metric tonnes LNG equivalent, or 21.65% of the total global exports of about 356.1mn metric tonnes LNG. “It is expected that Qatar will gain a position as the pre-eminent and largest exporter by 2026, when the production of the North Gas Field ...

Indonesia is considering “limited restrictions” on palm oil exports and is also hiking cooking oil subsidies as part of attempts to contain surging domestic cooking oil prices and control inflation pressures, senior officials said. Authorities have been trying to bring down cooking oil prices, which have risen about 40per cent from a year earlier in line with high global palm oil prices. Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer and exporter of palm oil, will introduce a single price for cooking oil sold in the local market and bring in rules to ...

China’s 2021 corn imports almost tripled in volume from the previous year, hitting a new record, customs data showed on Tuesday, as buyers turned to cheaper alternatives overseas amid soaring prices and a domestic supply crunch. The world’s top grains market brought in 28.35 million tonnes of corn in all of 2021, up 151% from an annual record figure of 11.3 million in 2020, data from the General Administration of Customs showed. Imports of wheat in the first 12 months of the year also hit a record at 9.77 million ...

China’s diesel exports in December sank to their lowest monthly level since March 2015, bringing the 2021 total to the lowest since 2016 at 17.21 million tonnes, data showed on Tuesday. December exports of diesel slumped to 330,000 tonnes, down 78per cent from a year earlier, amid diminishing export quotas and as refiners curbed runs in response to a slowdown in domestic demand, data from the General Administration of Customs showed. Total refined fuel, including diesel, gasoline, aviation fuel and low-sulphur fuel oil, fell 45per cent from a year earlier ...

Russian energy giant Gazprom GAZP.M said on Monday that natural gas exports outside ex-Soviet Union countries fell by 41.1% year-on-year in the January 1-15 period to 5.4 billion cubic metres (bcm). It also said that its gas output for the period edged up by 2.1% to 23.1 bcm. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin and Maxim Rodionov; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

Mining giant Rio Tinto is forecasting its iron ore shipments to rise in 2022 after a dip in 2021, while the schedule for first production at its Gudai-Darri project in Western Australia has been pushed back due to issues related to the pandemic, the company said Jan. 18 in its fourth quarter production results. The company’s iron ore shipments from the Pilbara region of Western Australia fell 5% year on year to 84.1 million mt in October-December, and edged up 1% from the previous quarter, the company said. That took ...