Asian liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices slumped this week on a flood of spot volumes amid subdued demand. Prices for delivery into northeast Asia in July are estimated at $4.50 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), the lowest level in seven weeks. The August price is in a slight contango but is also below $5.00 per mmBtu. Price spreads between Europe and Asia shrank to below 50 cents from over $1 earlier in May, reducing opportunities for spot trade between the Pacific and Atlantic basins. Cargo offers came from a ...

The global push for cleaner-burning ship fuel is threatening to drive the value of Middle East crude to a record low even as supplies are squeezed. The discount of Middle East’s Dubai crude to London’s Brent could widen beyond $8 a barrel from current levels around $4, according to Citigroup Inc. That would be the largest discount on record in data back to 2006, according to PVM Oil Associates. The spread is growing even as physical demand for Gulf grades rises as buyers try to replace barrels lost to Iranian ...

In 2018, non-OPEC oil supply experienced a robust growth of 2.91 mb/d, amounting to more than three times the increase seen in the previous year, and was led by the y-o-y gains of 2.26 mb/d in the US. In addition to the US, other non-OPEC countries, such as Canada, Russia and UK contributed to the gains. Indeed, the recovery in oil supply in 2017 and 2018, following the contraction in 2016, was driven by improving oil market conditions and rising oil prices, with NYMEX WTI increasing by around $14/b, or ...

Crude oil futures closed lower Friday on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange. The most active crude oil contract for July delivery was down 26 yuan (about 3.77 U.S. dollars) to close at 472.5 yuan a barrel. On Friday the total trading volume for 13 listed crude oil futures contracts on the exchange was 424,224 lots, with a turnover of about 200.4 billion yuan. China launched the crude oil futures trading, which is open to overseas investment, on March 26 last year. Source: Xinhua

National Oil Corporation (NOC) is keen to develop the North Hamada oil field, operated by Nafusa Oil Operations. This field is located in concession 47 of the Ghadames basin in the Northwest of Libya. A technical team held a workshop on May 20, 2019, to discuss proposals submitted for the development of the field. Discussions focussed on the use of early production facilities, and the most appropriate ways to deal with associated produced gas. The team further considered other production challenges related to the field’s complicated geology, as well as ...

Although prices were down 6% today to below $58 per barrel, upside geopolitical risks have been dominating the oil market for a while now. Crude though is down more than 8% from the monthly highs registered last week. Farther out, the 2020 IMO sulfur rule could push prices to above $90 per barrel, while an all out U.S.-China trade war could drop them to $50 or below. As we move into the more immediate summer months, Bulls are banking on higher demand as the travel season enters full swing U.S. ...

Oil traders from Kazakhstan have been seeking big discounts from producers for Urals crude oil that has been tainted in a Russian pipeline, trading and industry sources said. One of Kazakhstan’s oil exporting routes goes via the Atyrau-Samara pipeline and further through the Russian pipeline network to the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga. Russia’s oil exports have been disrupted since April after high levels of organic chloride were found in crude pumped via a large pipeline. Six tankers with 600,000 tonnes of tainted oil were loaded at Ust-Luga, Kazakh Deputy ...

A string of potential closures of Japanese reactors starting in March 2020 is unlikely to trigger a tightening of the supply of LNG for the country’s utilities, industry officials and analysts said. Japanese utilities would shift to natural gas-fired generation in the event of reactor closures, Satoru Katsuno, chairman of Japan’s Federation of Electric Power Companies, said at a press conference May 17. “But we’re not concerned much about tight supply” of LNG, he added. Katsuno and two analysts said that power companies’ long-term purchase contracts with LNG suppliers and ...

US natural gas in storage rose 100 Bcf to 1.753 Tcf for the week that ended Friday, the Energy Information Administration reported Thursday. The injection was less than an S&P Global Platts’ survey of analysts calling for a 103 Bcf injection. It was more than the 93 Bcf build reported during the corresponding week in 2018 as well as the five-year average injection of 88 Bcf, according to EIA data. It was also the third triple-digit build of the year and the 10th straight bearish injection. As a result, stocks ...

Oil prices climbed more than 1% on Friday ahead of long U.S. and UK holiday weekends, but posted the biggest weekly drop of the year, pressured by rising inventories and worries about the global economy. Brent crude rose 93 cents, or 1.4%, to settle at $68.69 a barrel, but the global benchmark notched a weekly decline of about 4.5%. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 72 cents, or 1.2%, to end at $58.63 a barrel. It notched a weekly decline of about 6.4%, its steepest since December. U.S. crude was ...

The Brent/Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps spread jumped to a near 1-year high in Asian morning trade Friday, on what trade sources said was active bidding in the ICE Brent crude futures market amid ongoing geopolitical tensions between the US and China. The EFS was notionally valued by S&P Global Platts at $3.97/b as of 10 am Singapore time Friday (0200 GMT), up more than $1/b from the start of the week; it was assessed at $2.93/b at 4:30 pm Singapore time Tuesday. There was no Asian assessment Monday ...

A Trump administration plan to expand offshore oil and natural gas leasing to nearly all federal waters will likely be scrapped and redrawn, with the industry instead pushing for more favorable leasing terms and drilling approval in the eastern Gulf of Mexico over a larger opening of US waters, sources told S&P Global Platts this week. “We would like to see a concerted effort to make the Gulf of Mexico really economical,” said Randall Luthi, president of the National Ocean Industries Association. “We want [the Trump administration] to look at ...

Heading into the 2019 Memorial Day weekend, regular gasoline prices averaged $2.85 per gallon (gal) nationally on May 20, slightly lower than last year’s price of $2.92/gal before the holiday weekend. EIA expects U.S. regular retail gasoline prices will increase in the coming months and average $2.92/gal during the 2019 summer season (April through September), 7 cents/gal higher than last summer, according to EIA’s May Short-Term Energy Outlook. Although crude oil spot prices are expected to remain lower than price levels from last year, higher gasoline demand, lower gasoline inventories, ...

Oil rose, paring its biggest weekly loss of the year, as signs that global crude markets are tightening jostled with fears that the U.S.-China trade feud will hurt fuel demand. Futures plunged 5.7% in New York on Thursday as investors fled riskier assets following the White House’s blacklisting of Huawei Technologies Co. and several Chinese surveillance companies, moves that have been met with defiance by Beijing. But on Friday, prices in London increased by 1.1% as tightening spreads between monthly crude contracts reinforced expectations that U.S. sanctions on Iran, and ...

US oil and natural gas rigs totaled 1,074 for the week ended May 22, according to data by S&P Global Platts Analytics. This represents a net increase of nine from the prior week’s 1,065 and down 89 from the same week a year ago. US oil and gas rigs permits, an indicator of future activity, totaled 965 for the week ended May 22, down five from the prior week and up 17 from the same week a year ago. While the rig count is up versus the prior week, one-third ...