China’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports rose 4.3 percent in April from a month earlier to 3.39 million tonnes, Chinese customs data showed. LNG imports for the first four months were 15.75 million tonnes, the data showed, an increase of 58 percent from the same period a year ago as state refiners stepped up purchases to cover expected strong growth in demand. China exported 1.82 million tonnes of diesel in April, compared with 2.37 million tonnes recorded for March. April kerosene exports were at 1.2 million tonnes, versus 1.34 million ...

China’s Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday published the names of 11 private refineries with a plan to allow them to directly import crude oil. The ministry said it has examined the firms’ applications and found them in accordance with requirements. The refineries are located in the provinces of Liaoning, Shaanxi, Shandong, Henan and Hubei. China is one of the world’s largest oil buyers. Over 60 percent of its oil comes from imports. Crude imports are dominated by state-run giants Sinopec, China National Petroleum Corporation and China National Offshore Oil Corporation. ...

Asian flour millers are set to buy record volumes of wheat from Black Sea producers in 2018 as traditional supplier Australia faces a second year of drought and as demand continues to grow around the region, traders said. Millers in Asia have in the past month or so booked up to 1 million tonnes of new-crop Black Sea wheat for shipments starting in August, two of the traders said, with a wave of similar deals expected to follow. Surging Black Sea wheat sales to Asia threaten to curb Australia’s dominance ...

Iran’s LPG shipments lifted or due for lifting in May fell almost 100,000 mt from April to 400,700 mt, after rising for the past two months, as some refineries in the country were shut for spring maintenance, shipping sources said this week. Ahead of the maintenance during the Iranian spring, which started around late-March till end-June, Iran’s LPG exports had hit 520,000 mt in January, the most since the previous Western sanctions were removed in January 2016. Exports eased to 400,000 mt in February, before rebounding to 440,000 mt in ...

Osaka Gas may sign new long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) contracts as Japan’s second-biggest city gas supplier boosts its trading operations amid a shake-up in the Asian market for the fuel, a senior official said. The comment signals there may be a willing buyer of long-term supplies in Japan, where utilities have been spurning such contracts because of a ready availability of the fuel on a short-term, or spot, basis, excess supplies and falling demand. The resistance to long-term contracts among buyers in Japan, the world’s biggest importer of LNG, ...

China will import record volumes of U.S. oil and is likely to ship more U.S. soy after Beijing signalled to state-run refiners and grains purchasers they should buy more to help ease tensions between the two top economies, trade sources said on Wednesday. China pledged at the weekend to increase imports from its top trading partner to avert a trade war that could damage the global economy. Energy and commodities were high on Washington’s list of products for sale. As the two sides stepped back from a full-blown trade war, ...

Europe’s hunger for corn is giving South Africa a surprising destination to sell more of its record crop. Africa’s top corn grower typically doesn’t export much to the European Union due to the long shipping distance and uncompetitive cost. But last year’s big harvest has cut prices, and should help South Africa ship more to the EU than in the previous six years combined, according to Strategie Grains. The increased trade comes as EU imports surged 41 percent this season amid strong demand for animal feed and cheap grain from ...

China’s state grain stockpiler has returned this week to the U.S. soybean market for the first time since early April, a sign Beijing is preparing to resume purchases as trade tensions between the world’s top two economies ease, two sources said. The renewed interest in the oilseed, used in animal feed, follows Beijing’s pledge at the weekend to buy more U.S. goods from its top trading partner, including agricultural products. China made the pledge to avert a trade war that could damage the global economy. As the two sides stepped ...

Sinopec, Asia’s largest refiner, will boost U.S. crude oil imports to an all-time high as part of efforts by China to reduce its trade deficit with the United States, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday. The company’s trading arm Unipec has bought 16 million barrels, or about 533,000 barrels per day, of U.S. crude to load in June, they said, the largest volume ever to be lifted in a month by the company. “The government has encouraged us to lift more U.S. crude,” one of the ...

Canada is the largest energy trading partner of the United States, based on the combined value of energy exports and imports. Although the value of bilateral energy trade with Canada has varied over the past decade, driven primarily by changes in the prices of oil and natural gas, the overall structure of bilateral energy trade flows has changed relatively little, with the value of U.S. energy imports from Canada consistently exceeding the value of U.S. energy exports to Canada by a large margin. Increasing energy commodity prices in 2017 led ...

Vietnam is considering raising the environment tax levied on oil product imports from July 1, industry sources said Wednesday. The Ministry of Finance has proposed the hike to the country’s prime minister, and it is currently under review, market sources said. “There is a proposal [by the ministry] to raise taxes on the import of all oil products, but it is not confirmed yet,” one source in Vietnam said. Further details of the tax proposal could not be immediately confirmed. Vietnam’s current tax on oil imports is Dong 3,000(13 cents)/liter. ...

Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture said it would import 2,490 tonnes of feed-quality wheat and 415 tonnes of barley for livestock use, via a simultaneous buy and sell (SBS) auction that closed late on Wednesday. The ministry had sought 120,000 tonnes of feed wheat and 200,000 tonnes of feed barley to be loaded by Aug. 31 and arrive in Japan by Oct. 31 in the tender that is usually conducted weekly. It is seeking the same amounts for each grain to be loaded and shipped during the same period in a ...

Venezuelan state-owned PdV is preparing to resume oil supply to Curacao’s fuel distributor Curoil as early as today in the first sign of a breakthrough in a protracted debt-related dispute with US independent ConocoPhillips. Lawyers for PdV and ConocoPhillips met yesterday in the Dutch-controlled island to hammer out execution of an 18 May local court order that partially lifted liens that the US firm had levied on PdV’s local assets in a bid to collect a $2bn arbitration award. The court decision and a parallel ruling in the Dutch island ...

Mozambique Imopetro has received up to nine offers in response to its buy tender for 685,500 mt of 50 ppm gasoil, 31,500 mt of jet fuel and 212,000 mt of 93 RON gasoline for delivery over July-December 2018, traders said Wednesday. The offers ranged from as low as $30.70/mt to $65.70/mt to the weighted average premium of the Mean of Platts Arab Gulf assessments. The lowest offers came from European trader Trafigura, followed by Sahara, Totsa and August Energy. The next lowest offer was at the weighted average premium of ...

Poland’s state-run gas firm PGNiG expects to double imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) this year from the 1.7 billion cubic metres (bcm) imported in 2017, PGNiG deputy head Maciej Wozniak said on Wednesday. PGNiG, the dominant gas firm in Poland, still imports most of the gas it sells from the Russia’s Gazprom, via pipeline. But it is seeking to reduce reliance on Russia. The company signed long-term agreement in 2009 with Qatargas for LNG supplies that will run until 2034 and signed a mid-term deal in November for LNG ...