Nigeria is the latest OPEC member to urge the producer group to consider the economic implications of steep production cuts on its members ahead of the OPEC+ formal meeting next week. “On the peculiar challenges facing the country amid its large population and immense deficit in infrastructure, the president [Muhammadu Buhari] urged OPEC to consider the weight of the responsibility of the nation with 200 million poor people, with severe deficit in infrastructure when sharing oil production cuts,” a spokesman from Nigeria’s president’s office said late Nov. 26. This statement ...

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is set to sign a deal with state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp. on Dec. 1 to lease out 500,000 kiloliter (3.14 million barrels) of storage capacity, a METI source told S&P Global Platts on Nov. 27. The deal will give Kuwait flexibility to meet prompt demand from Japan and other Asian markets as regional consumption gradually recovers from the coronavirus pandemic. The latest deal with KPC will come as METI has been looking to increase the number of oil producing countries, along with Saudi ...

U.S. stocks of distillate fuel oil are rapidly returning to normal, reversing the prodigious glut that built up earlier in the year during the first wave of the coronavirus epidemic and lockdowns. The absorption of excess distillates has been made possible because U.S. refiners sharply lowered refinery crude processing and operated their equipment to maximise the production of gasoline. But now stocks are nearing normal levels, crude processing is likely to accelerate and the extreme tilt towards gasoline is likely to be replaced by a normal balance of refined product ...

European international oil companies (IOCs) are leading the way in terms of progressing strategies for renewable power growth, ahead of US players that have not, so far, made the same switch. The top six European firms have over 28GW of renewables capacity in the pipeline, with BP, Total and Equinor making up over 70% of this. However, the scale of these companies’ developments still lags behind major power sector incumbents, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company. Will Scargill, Managing Oil and Gas Analyst at GlobalData, commented: ‘‘IOCs’ current ...

Oil prices were mixed on Friday but posted a fourth straight week of gains ahead of an OPEC+ meeting early next week. Brent crude January futures rose 38 cents to settle at $48.18 a barrel, while the more active February contract gained 46 cents to $48.25. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 18 cents to settle at $45.53 a barrel. Brent rose 7.2% over the week, while WTI gained 8% for the week. Encouraging news on potential COVID-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca and others have lifted the markets. However, ...

What seemed to be shaping up as a smooth OPEC+ meeting, with traders largely expecting a rollover of production quotas, has hit some turbulence with an airing of grievances. The UAE may be considering splitting from the group, while Iraq and Nigeria are appealing to pump more, and the recent vaccine-propelled rally in crude prices will test everyone’s resolve to see through their landmark supply accord. As a result, OPEC+ watchers and some delegates say they expect talks could get tense when ministers convene online Nov. 30-Dec. 1. An extension ...

Brazilian state-led oil company Petrobras plans to spend $55 billion over the next five years to develop subsalt fields that will boost the company’s crude oil output nearly 20% to 2.7 million b/d by 2025, the company said in a regulatory filing Nov. 25. “The capital allocation adheres to our strategic position, with a focus on world-class assets in deep and ultradeep waters,” Petrobras said. Petrobras’ latest five-year investment plan, which covers 2021-25, continued the company’s strategic shift toward Brazil’s subsalt region, where a single record-setting well at the Buzios ...

Crude throughput at China’s refineries is slightly higher in November, with state-owned oil companies lifting their average run rates by one percentage point month on month to 79.8% of capacity, data collected by S&P Global Platts showed on Nov. 27. According to the data, 39 refineries of state-owned oil giants Sinopec, PetroChina, CNOOC and Sinochem planned to process 7.07 million b/d of crude in November, accounting for 79.8% of their nameplate capacity of 8.86 million b/d. They include 20 Sinopec refineries, 17 PetroChina refineries, CNOOC’s Huizhou Petrochemical and Sinochem’s Quanzhou ...

A Rystad Energy analysis of Europe’s real time traffic data has revealed that the road fuel demand destruction during the prevailing second wave of Covid-19-related lockdowns will be limited to just 900,000 barrels per day (bpd) for November 2020, when compared to the same period of 2019. The impact is weaker compared to April, as this lockdown is less extensive and as Europeans show lower compliance to restrictions than before. A third contributing factor is that people are more hesitant to use public transportation due to inherent infection risks, preferring ...

Canada’s domestic consumption of fossil fuels may have peaked in 2019 and could decline in coming years assuming efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are maintained, the country’s energy regulator said this week. In its long-term 2050 supply/demand projection, Canada Energy Regulator (CER) said however that oil and gas production is expected to keep rising on the back of strong exports. By 2030, CER projects the country’s fossil fuel consumption down 12% from 2019, and as much as 35% down by 2035. Meanwhile, renewables and nuclear energy consumption will ...

Mexican oil giant Pemex is about to start the process of contracting an oil hedge for 2021, a senior source at the company told Reuters, after the previous two hedges delivered bumper payouts for the highly-indebted company. Pemex’s hedge is separate and much smaller than the one contracted annually by Mexico’s finance ministry. The government every year buys about $1 billion in financial contracts, the world’s largest oil hedge program, to protect revenues. Pemex has received about $377.3 million from its 2020 hedge amid falling oil prices and another $369 ...

A panel of OPEC+, a group of leading oil producing countries, will hold informal online talks on Saturday prior to meetings scheduled for next week, a letter seen by Reuters showed and source with the knowledge of the matter said. OPEC+ is debating whether to ease oil output cuts from Jan.1, as it previously agreed, or to continue producing at the same rate amid sluggish oil demand and fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. The letter from the OPEC, seen by Reuters, said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak will attend ...

Crude oil processed by Indian refiners rose to its highest in seven months in October as fuel demand picked up although throughput remained lower than a year earlier, hurt by the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on industrial and transport activity. Crude oil throughput in October dropped 16.1% from a year earlier to 4.35 million barrels per day (18.39 million tonnes), but was the highest since March when the country went into a nationwide lockdown, provisional data issued by the government showed on Wednesday. Pointing to a recovery in economic activity, India’s ...

The US natural gas storage withdrawal season started one week later than normal with a below-average draw of 18 Bcf for the week ended Nov. 20 as the Henry Hub winter strip shows slight declines with demand somewhat muted for the week in progress. US natural gas storage inventories decreased to 3.940 Tcf for the week ended Nov. 20, the US Energy Information Administration said Nov. 25. The report was issued one day earlier than normal this week to accommodate the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. The withdrawal was less ...

Oil prices were lower on Friday in quiet trade due to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, dropping amid concerns about oversupply and doubts about a vaccine to end the coronavirus pandemic. Brent crude was down by 31 cents, or 0.7%, at $47.49 by 0758 GMT, having fallen 1.7% overnight. West Texas Intermediate was down by $1.02, or 2.2%, at $44.69. U.S. crude prices did not settle on Thursday due to the holiday. Both benchmarks have risen about 6% this week after AstraZeneca said that its COVID-19 vaccine could be up to ...