France’s Total sold 500,000 barrels of Abu Dhabi’s Murban crude oil for loading in January to Royal Dutch Shell after a sharp price cut, three trade sources said. The French producer sold the cargo at $2 a barrel above Platts Dubai quotes during the price reporting agency’s Market on Close (MOC) process, down from its initial offer of a premium of $2.50 a barrel, they said. There are surplus supplies of the Abu Dhabi flagship grade, traders said, adding that sellers were still offering to deliver cargoes that will load ...

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. will supply the first cargo into Bahrain’s new floating LNG import and re-gasification terminal in February or March, the country’s oil minister said Monday. “The commissioning cargo for Bahrain LNG [will] come from ADNOC. [They] offered the best price for Bahrain’s commissioning cargo,” Bahrain’s Mohammed bin Khalifa al-Khalifa told reporters on the sidelines of the ADIPEC conference in Abu Dhabi. The Bahrain LNG project, which has a capacity of 0.8 Bcf/d, lies within the Khalifa bin Salman Port facility. The country currently consumes about 1.5 ...

India’s coal imports rose 7.9 percent year-on-year to 134.46 million tonnes in the first seven months of the ongoing financial year, according to mjunction services. The country imported 124.57 million tonnes of coal in corresponding period of the previous financial year. There was, however, a 6.8 percent drop in coal and coke imports in October compared to 19.77 million tonnes imported a year ago. “India’s thermal coal demand remained buoyant due to the coal shortage in the power sector. However, there was an expectation of further corrections in spot coal ...

China’s state-owned CNOOC received an LNG cargo from the US into its Ningbo terminal Sunday, the first such delivery since China imposed a 10% retaliatory tariff on US LNG imports effective September 24, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics. The delivery comes amid weaker-than-expected demand for spot cargoes in east Asia, despite the region having entered the peak of its winter demand purchasing season. The Platts JKM has been in decline since hitting a multi-year high of more than $12/MMBtu in mid-September. The spot benchmark for December deliveries was assessed ...

Tenders for January-loading cargoes were expected this week from Vietnam for the Asian sweet crude oil market, Oceania loading programs for January were finalized and traders watched for the impact of US waivers on Iranian crude barrels, market sources said Monday. The previous week had seen muted trading activity, particularly for condensate grades, with most December-loading cargoes placed and buyers unwilling to take further volumes due to poor naphtha margins, sources said. The supply of heavy crude grades was tight compared to light crudes, which was supportive for heavy crude ...

A liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo from the United States has arrived in China, the first such cargo since Beijing imposed a tariff on U.S. imports, shipping data from Refinitiv Eikon showed on Monday. China, the second-biggest importer of LNG globally after Japan, announced in September a 10 percent tariff on U.S. LNG imports as part of an escalating trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. Since the tariffs were announced, Chinese companies have largely been diverting U.S. shipments to other countries, trade sources said. This is the first ...

Royal Dutch Shell is currently exporting about 300m cubic feet of gas per day (cfpd) from the Borollos and Rashid fields through its Idku LNG plant, compared to 250m cfpd last month. A source from the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) told Daily News Egypt that the quantities of gas destined for exportation through Idku facility increased by about 50m cfpd, after the decline in local consumption affected by the decrease of gas quantities destined for power plants in winter. He added that Shell exports only one LNG shipment ...

Malaysia’s palm oil exports were down 3% on month at 1.57 million metric tons in October, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board said. The following are details of the October crop data and revised numbers for September, issued by MPOB: October September Change On Month Crude Palm Oil Output 1,964,954 1,853,602 Up 6% Palm Oil Exports 1,571,169 1,619,317 Dn 2.97% Palm Kernel Oil Exports 77,385 62,901 Up 23.03% Palm Oil Imports 117,269 61,599 Up 90.37% Closing Stocks 2,722,391 2,541,152 Up 7.6% Crude Palm Oil 1,613,802 1,416,394 Up 13.9% Processed Palm Oil ...

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) will from 2019 reduce its exports of a type of fuel oil prized by the market as a refining feedstock, adding to tightening global supplies of the oil product, said three trade sources on Monday. Exports of straight-run fuel oil (SRFO), the residue oil left after initial crude refining, will stop next year as ADNOC has nearly finished repairs to the 127,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) residue fluid catalytic cracker (RFCC) at its Ruwais refinery that processed the SRFO into higher-value products such as gasoline and ...

Iran sold 700,000 barrels of crude oil to private companies for export in a second round of sales aimed at countering U.S. sanctions on the country’s exports, oil ministry news website SHANA reported. Three unnamed companies paid $64.97 per barrel for two crude shipments of 245,000 barrels each and one shipment of 210,000 barrels, which were traded on Iran’s energy bourse, SHANA reported. Iran began selling crude oil to private companies for export in late October, just ahead of U.S. sanctions on sectors including oil which came into effect on ...

China signed accords with Kenya that will allow access for farm produce from the East African nation, a presidential aide said. “After a week of delicate negotiations, formal sanitary and phytosanitary agreements have been signed between Kenya and China for Kenya’s agricultural produce to enter the Chinese market,” the president’s chief of staff, Nzioka Waita, said on Twitter. Kenya can now ship its biggest farm produce: flowers, vegetables such as green beans and fruits including avocado and mangoes, to the world’s most populous nation. Other produce with approval to enter ...

Brazil wheat imports are expected to increase 11 percent in 2019 to 7 million tonnes as the country grapples with crop failures this year, a senior manager for commodities trading firm Bunge Ltd said. In Brazil, weather problems including rainfall during the harvest have contributed to the forecast for Brazil’s 2018 wheat crop being cut to 5.3 million tonnes from the 6 million tonnes projected originally, said Edson Csipai, Bunge’s manager of grain origination. Brazil may also face higher prices in meeting demand with wheat from Argentina, the largest exporter ...

Sweden has joined the ever-growing list of countries to have taken US crude since the latter lifted export restrictions nearly three years ago, with an Aframax arriving this week at Gothenburg after having loaded crude at Houston in mid-October, according to S&P Global Platts trade-flow software cFlow. The Aframax Matterhorn Spirit arrived in Gothenburg on Thursday after a three-week voyage from Houston. The vessel was loaded in Houston with some 523,000 barrels at the Stolthaven Houston docks on the Houston Ship Channel. It set sail October 18. According to an ...

China is likely to open its doors to soyabean from India after allowing the import of non-basmati rice and raw sugar to address the worsening trade imbalance between the two countries, according to senior government officials. “With China no longer willing to purchase soyabean from the US due to the on-going trade discord between the two, there is a big opportunity for Indian soyabean in the Chinese market. Senior trade officials from both countries discussed the steps to start imports from India during a recent meeting in Shanghai,” an official ...

Iran’s oil exports could halve by the middle of next year from their October level as the US tightens the noose on Tehran through sanctions that will now focus on restricting crude revenue rather than imports by energy-hungry countries, analysts said. The Donald Trump administration re-imposed midnight November 4 oil sanctions against Iran after pulling out in May from the nuclear agreement struck between the West and Tehran in 2015. However, the White House has granted waivers to eight countries to keep importing Iranian oil at reduced rates, reversing the ...