Australia’s Woodside said Jan. 18 it has expanded an LNG supply deal with Germany’ Uniper, which strengthens the expected schedule for a final investment decision on the company’s Scarborough/ Pluto Train 2 project set for the second half of this year. The volume of Woodside LNG to be supplied under the expanded supply purchase agreement has doubled to an initial supply of up to 1 million mt/year from 2021 before increasing to around 2 million mt/year from 2026, Woodside said in a statement. Woodside CEO Peter Coleman said the company ...

The Asian middle distillate complex opened the week of Jan. 18 on a mixed note. The jet fuel/kerosene market remained supported by seasonal kerosene demand from Northeast Asia, but lackluster requirements from the downstream aviation sector capped gains. Meanwhile in the gasoil market, the middle distillate shrugged off healthy regional supply balances to remain steady-to-firmer, with regional demand providing support. ICE March Brent crude futures fell $1.07/b at $54.66/b at 0300 GMT Jan. 18 from the 0430 GMT Asian close on Jan. 15. Jet fuel/Kerosene ** The front-month February/March jet ...

China’s refineries posted record throughput in 2020, processing 3% more crude oil than a year ago, as they took advantage of low prices and healthy margins on a quick rebound in domestic fuel demand from the coronavirus pandemic. Annual throughput stood at 674.41 milion tonnes in 2020, or about 13.45 million barrels per day, up roughly 410,000 bpd from 2019, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed. December output rose 2.1% on the year to a monthly record at 60 million tonnes, or about 14.13 million bpd, a touch ...

Northeast Asia has been hit by a midwinter energy crisis as an extended period of much lower than normal temperatures across the region has strained supplies of coal, gas and electricity to breaking point. China has been forced to restrict power in multiple provinces, Japan has appealed for voluntary restraint, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices have hit record highs as generators and utilities scramble for spot cargoes. While freezing temperatures triggered the crisis, they have also exposed an underlying lack of resilience in regional energy systems caused by the ...

Pakistan and Bangladesh are rationing gas and buyers across South Asia are seeking alternative fuels after spot liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices surged to record highs, government and industry officials told Reuters. Spot LNG prices LNG-AS have nearly tripled since early November as freezing temperatures across North Asia boosted demand and depleted inventories. Since July, prices are up a dizzying 1,000%. Gas-fired power plants and industries across the region are scrimping on gas, with the scramble for other fuels driving up demand for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and residue oil. ...

What are the key trends for global gas and LNG in the year ahead? 2021 will be a milestone year for the gas and LNG industry. Not only because record high LNG prices will prompt buyers to evaluate their portfolio positioning, but also because the role of gas in the energy transition will really start to take shape. Policy-makers will need to provide clarity on how they intend to decarbonise their economies – including their vision of the role of natural gas – in line with pledges to achieve climate ...

Asia’s jet fuel cash differentials dipped on Friday, posting a second consecutive weekly decline, as aviation demand slowed after a slight increase during the year-end holidays and as several countries renewed travel restrictions to battle a resurgence in coronavirus cases. Cash discounts for jet fuel JET-SIN-DIF widened by 6 cents to 31 cents per barrel to Singapore quotes on Friday. The differentials have fallen 158% this week on muted buying interest for physical cargoes. Refining margins for jet fuel, however, rose 20 cents to $4.37 per barrel over Dubai crude ...

The Russia-led Nord Stream 2 consortium will not yet resume the work to complete the subsea gas pipeline to Germany on Friday, daily Handelsblatt reported, citing a spokesman. “We have permission from the Danish energy agency to start work from Friday. However, this does not mean that we will also resume laying pipes on Friday,” he was quoted as saying. The consortium can probably tell at the end of January or in early February when the work will resume, the spokesman said. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Kirsti Knolle; editing by ...

The recent rally in liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices in Asia is being driven by various supply problems and cold weather, the boss of oil trader Vitol told an industry event. “Asia was short LNG; there were various production problems, this has been going all winter,” Russel Hardy told the Gulf Intelligence forum. He added that a cold snap in the region left inventories “a bit short”. “We’ve reached a point really where we have a largely illiquid market – not many sellers or buyers – so putting a fair ...

U.S.-based New Fortress Energy Inc said on Wednesday it would buy natural gas company Hygo Energy Transition Ltd for $2.18 billion to expand its presence in Brazil, a frontier for growth in the burgeoning liquefied natural gas market. New Fortress, an energy infrastructure company, is among the private industry players setting their sights on Brazil, where demand for super-cooled LNG is rising, though the market is smaller than in India and China, where power generators are shifting from dirtier coal to natural gas. With Brazil opening its natural gas industry ...

South Korean state-owned Korea Gas Corp.’s LNG sales in December rose 7.7% from a year earlier on stronger demand for power production with the shut down of dozens of coal-fire power plants to help reduce winter air pollution. The state utility’s LNG sales are expected to keep rising in January when the country was hit by the week-long cold spell, which marked the worst in decades, a Kogas official said Jan. 14. Kogas, which has a monopoly in domestic natural gas sales, sold 4.536 million mt last month, compared with ...

Substantially higher natural gas prices helped boost wholesale power prices in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator footprint this December, compared with December 2019, but a mild first-quarter weather forecast and pandemic-surge concerns appear to have weakened February on-peak forwards. Another factor in forward prices, at least in the MISO South region, may have been Entergy’s 993-MW Montgomery County Power Station, a new combined-cycle gas turbine facility that started commercial operation on Jan. 1, according to a Jan. 13 news release from McDermott International, the general contractor. In an Oct. 5 ...

Goldman Sachs raised its forecasts for key natural gas price benchmarks, saying falling supplies and colder weather in Asia and Europe made for a “perfect bullish storm”. It sees European balances even tighter on colder weather revisions in North-Western Europe and a deeper-than-expected drop in NW European Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) deliveries. Goldman lifted its Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) gas price forecasts for the rest of the winter, and calendar years 2021 and 2022, to $8.30 per one million British thermal units (mmBtu), $6.72/mmBtu and $6.48/mmBtu from $6.65, $5.63 ...

Asian refining margins for 10 ppm gasoil rose on Thursday, to their strongest in over a week, partly helped by weaker feedstock crude prices, while Singapore middle distillate inventories climbed to a two-week high. Refining profit margins, or cracks, for 10 ppm gasoil climbed to $6.29 a barrel over Dubai crude during Asian trading hours, a level not seen since Jan. 4. They were at $5.67 per barrel on Wednesday. Cash differentials for gasoil with 10 ppm sulphur content GO10-SIN-DIF were at a discount of 18 cents a barrel to ...

Several large-scale offshore wind farms are planned in the next five years in the North Sea. The area not only has plenty of ageing platforms and pipelines that could host production and transmission of hydrogen cheaply, but also salt caverns to store it at low cost. Rystad Energy has therefore looked at the economics of blending green hydrogen production with offshore wind development. This hybrid approach offers promising elements, but the high costs – at least for now – remain a show-stopper. Rystad Energy’s modelling is based on combining a ...