Karachi — Pakistan’s apex court has allowed the government to collect a pending gas infrastructure development tax amounting to billions of dollars from fertilizer, power, chemicals and cement companies, according to the court’s verdict Aug. 13, a move that would help policymakers to use the funds to develop gas projects. The government in 2011 had imposed a gas infrastructure development tax aimed at collecting funds to develop pipelines connecting different parts of the country as well to other countries to plug the energy deficit. But in 2016, the companies took the ...

Heavy rains and flash floods across various regions in South Korea could put the brakes on the country’s auto fuel demand recovery since the peak of the COVID-19 cases in March-April, with refinery and industry officials expecting domestic gasoline consumption in the third-quarter to fall at least 12% from the second-quarter and year on year. South Korea has suffered from heavy downpours that continued for more than 50 days since late-June, marking the country’s longest ever monsoon season. The heavy rains triggered numerous cases of river overflows, small to medium-scale ...

Tellurian will build only one of four proposed pipelines during the first phase of its Driftwood LNG export project if it decides to sanction the US facility, according to an investor presentation the company issued Aug. 12. The sharply scaled back midstream ambitions, combined with a focus on lower cost feedgas supplies, will allow Tellurian to reduce total initial project capital costs by 30%. The moves come amid global market conditions that have led to widespread cargo cancellations at existing US liquefaction terminals this summer and prompted multiple developers of ...

Phillips 66 will convert its 120,200 b/d Rodeo, California, refinery to produce renewable fuels, becoming the latest US oil refiner to announce plans to reconfigure and repurpose an existing plant to make more environmentally friendly fuels. The plant will no longer produce fuels from crude oil, but instead will process used cooking oil, fats, greases and soybean oils, according to the company’s Aug. 12 statement. Named the Phillips 66 Rodeo Renewed project, the reconfigured refinery will produce 680 million gallons annually of renewable diesel, renewable gasoline and “sustainable” jet fuel. ...

US LPG cargoes slated to arrive in Asia in September are estimated around 2.05 million mt, traders said in the week of Aug. 9, adding to comfortable volumes from the Middle East. This comes as demand from China and Indian is showing initial signs of recovery, while Indonesia is seeking term cargoes. The balanced market is keeping CFR North Asia propane price for front-cycle H1 September delivery cargoes around one-week lows at $353/mt on Aug. 11, according to S&P Global Platts data, though exporters and traders hope for even stronger ...

Mexico’s president has given officials until late September to craft a plan to reassert state control over the energy industry as an alternative to constitutional change to achieve the same goals, according to three people familiar with the matter. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on July 22 set out his plan for bolstering national oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos, known as Pemex, and state power utility the Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) in a memorandum presented at his offices. According to the sources, Lopez Obrador read out the memorandum to some ...

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Tuesday it was his country’s sovereign right to decide on its energy sources, as the U.S. worries a natural gas pipeline extension could increase Russia’s political and economic grip on Europe. “Sanctions between partners are definitely the wrong way to go”, Maas said at a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. “Ultimately, it remains our sovereign decision where we get our energy from. No country has the right to dictate Europe’s energy policy with threats. That won’t be ...

Vietnam’s Dung Quat oil refinery has processed its first batch of Russian Sokol crude oil on a trial basis, as it seeks a replacement for shrinking domestic Bach Ho output, its operator Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical said on Monday. The 130,000-barrel-per-day refinery imported more than 710,000 barrels of Sokol crude oil last month to mix with other types of crude oil for the test run, Binh Son said in a statement, adding that Sokol accounted for 20% of the mix and Bach Ho crude 29%. The processing of Sokol ...

US operators demonstrated the ability to be nimble during the second quarter of 2020, quickly curtailing production while facing multiple hurdles such as the commodity price collapse and reining in natural gas flaring volumes in oil-rich plays such as the Permian and Bakken. “Second quarter results show EOG’s ability to quickly adapt to an unprecedented commodity price drop,” said EOG Resources CEO Bill Thomas during an earnings call on Aug. 7. “EOG employees rose to the challenge. Compared to our aggressive plan and guidance we produced 7% more oil with ...

Natural gas volumes in US underground storage facilities increased in line with the five-year average while the Henry Hub prompt month contract continues to push above prices not seen since early January as the final three months of injection season commence. US underground natural gas storage inventories increased by 33 Bcf to 3.274 Tcf in the week that ended July 31, according to US Energy Information Administration data released Aug. 6. The injection was larger than the consensus expectations of analysts surveyed by S&P Global Platts, which called for a ...

Asian spot liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices jumped to a more than four-month high this week, tracking firmer gas prices in Europe and the United States, and as major cities in North Asia face warmer-than-usual weather potentially boosting demand. The average LNG price for September delivery into northeast Asia LNG-AS was estimated at about $3.10 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) this week, up 40 cents from the previous week. Prices for cargoes to be delivered in October were estimated at about $3.50 per mmBtu. “Market is bullish due to ...

China’s independent refineries ramped up US crude imports in July, picking up 1.37 million mt in the month, while at least 965,000 mt of North American crude cargoes are waiting to be discharged for the private companies in August, according to market information collected by S&P Global Platts. The US crude shipments in July consisted of 545,000 mt of Alaskan North Slope crude, 392,000 mt of WTI, 270,00 mt of WTI Midland, and 125,000 mt of West Texas Light. About half of the July US crude barrels could have counted ...

The coronavirus pandemic will cut global natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) demand by about 4% in 2020 from record highs in 2019, according to a study by the International Gas Union, an industry lobby group, and others. Still, demand can recover to pre-Covid-19 levels in the next two years as the world economy regains momentum, the study said, citing abundant supply and continued low prices. The report projected global LNG demand will fall about 4.2% in 2020 after soaring 13% in 2019 to a record 482 billion cubic ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked chaos across global commodity markets, disrupting trade and supply and demand dynamics and creating major uncertainty over the pace of recovery. The global growth outlook has been slashed for years as the economy braces for a multi-year recovery and the prospect of long-term changes in consumption. The S&P GCSI commodity index is down 34% since the start of the year but commodities have experienced widely different impacts from the pandemic and their recovery paths are still on multi-track trajectories. Crude prices crashed to four-decade lows ...

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is stepping up efforts to transform Ukraine’s energy sector. A €51.9 million sovereign loan to Ukrgasvydobuvannya (UGV), Ukraine’s largest natural gas producer, will increase domestic natural gas production, reduce the country’s dependency on imports and improve the efficiency and transparency of the sector. UGV, a fully owned subsidiary of the national joint stock company Naftogaz of Ukraine (Naftogaz) and responsible for 75 per cent of domestic gas production, will receive the EBRD loan in two tranches. Up to €36.4 million will be ...