Wärtsilä Exhaust Treatment and Solvang ASA, a Norwegian shipping company, have agreed on a full-scale pilot retrofit installation of a carbon capture and storage (CCS) system on one of Solvang’s ethylene carriers, the 21,000-cbm Clipper Eos. Wärtsilä Exhaust Treatment designs the retrofitted unit while it also completes a land-based 1MW test system at its Moss headquarters in Norway. The land-based unit will be completed in autumn 2021, and the companies expect to retrofit the pilot CCS system on the Clipper Eos by 2023. The agreement reinforces Wärtsilä’s continued research and ...

Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Co., Ltd., a part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Group, has successfully separated and captured carbon dioxide (CO2) from the exhaust gas emitted from the engines of a ship equipped with a small-scale CO2 capture demonstration plant, as part of the “Carbon Capture on the Ocean” (CC-Ocean) project(1) for verification testing of a marine-based CO2 capture system, conducted in cooperation with Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Ltd. (“K” Line) and Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK). The captured CO2 had a purity(2) of more than 99.9%, achieving performance in line with plan. ...

Oil product stockpiles at the Port of Fujairah on the UAE’s east coast climbed to a two-week high as middle distillates rebounded 36% after a slowdown in exports. The total inventory was 16.318 million barrels on Oct. 18, up 4% from a week earlier, according to Fujairah Oil Industry Zone data provided exclusively to S&P Global Platts on Oct. 20. Middle distillates jumped 36% to 3.529 million barrels, the biggest increase since November 2019 after hitting an 18-month low a week earlier. Some 160,000 barrels of middle distillates were set ...

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) buyers are entering talks with sellers to lock in long-term contracts so they can avoid record-high spot prices but face rising offers amid tight supply forecasts, several sources familiar with the discussions said. A synchronised global recovery in industrial activity after easing COVID-19 movement restrictions has boosted power demand while supplies of power generating fuels like natural gas and coal have been constrained, leading to output curbs and blackouts in parts of Asia and Europe in recent weeks. Power providers have stepped up spot market purchases ...

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, kept its ranking as China’s top crude supplier for a 10th month in September, increasing its volumes by 2% from a year earlier, customs data showed on Wednesday. Saudi oil arrivals totalled 7.96 million tonnes, or 1.94 million barrels per day (bpd), data from the General Administration of Customs showed. That was up from 1.89 million bpd in September last year, but just below 1.96 million bpd in August. Supplies from second-ranked Russia fell 18% year-on-year to 6.14 million tonnes last month, or ...

Some of China’s major coal producers have vowed to cap thermal coal prices this winter and next spring, after the government asked state-backed firms to ensure stable coal and power supply “regardless of costs”. China’s thermal coal prices have surged over 200% this year to record highs as mining safety inspections, anti-corruption probes and floods at major mining regions hurt supplies. China Energy Group and Shanxi Jinneng Holding Group SJAMG.UL, the No.1 and No.8 coal miners by production in the country, have said they will drive up output and guide ...

Anglo-Australian mining giants BHP Group and Rio Tinto cut iron ore production in the third quarter, hit by a worker shortage resulting from coronavirus travel restrictions. Western Australia, home to the iron ore mines for both industry behemoths, experienced a personnel squeeze as the travel restrictions kept mining workers from entering. Many of these employees fly in to the work sites from outside the state for a period of time. BHP’s iron ore output in Australia declined 5% to 70.6 million tons for the July-September term, the company reported Tuesday, ...

Energy The oil market received a further boost yesterday, which saw WTI trade briefly above US$84/bbl for the first time since 2014. The catalyst for the move was a constructive inventory report from the EIA. While the weekly numbers showed that commercial crude oil inventories declined by just 431Mbbls, total oil and product stocks fell by 9.81MMbbls over the week. In addition to this, crude oil inventories at Cushing fell by 2.32MMbbls, which leaves them at 31.23MMbbls – the lowest level since 2018. If this trend continues there will be ...

Oil hit a three-year high above $86 a barrel on Thursday driven by tight supply and a global energy crunch, although prices eased as some investors took profits on signs the rally is looking overstretched. Helping to drive the latest gain, a supply report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday showed crude and fuel inventories tightened, with crude inventories at the Cushing storage hub falling to a three-year low. Brent crude rose as high as $86.10, the highest since October 2018, but by 0815 GMT was down 79 ...

OPEC and its allies do not see any crude oil shortages in the market, Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said Oct. 20, dismissing calls from consuming countries to increase supplies to tame rising prices. “For the first time, we see our role limited,” Prince Abdulaziz said at the India Energy Forum by CERAWeek. “The issue is not the lack of crude oil. Even if we supply it, … where are the refineries that will convert it?” Dated Brent prices have more than doubled in the last year, with ...

Oil refiners are ramping up output to meet a synchronised uptick in demand across Asia, Europe and the United States, but plant maintenance and high natural gas prices will constrain supply in the fourth quarter, company officials and analysts said. This comes as profits for producing ground transportation fuels such as diesel and gasoline have rebounded globally for the first time since the start of the pandemic, as countries gradually emerge from COVID-19 movement restrictions. A coal and natural gas crunch across Europe and Asia, which has forced some power ...

How fast is the world really moving towards net-zero carbon? Not fast enough according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), although there are signs that a new green energy economy is starting to emerge. The problem, says the IEA in a landmark report, is that it’s proving harder than expected to ditch fossil fuels as economies recover from COVID-19, prompting the agency to warn that governments must move faster to implement the climate pledges they’ve already made. But even if all the pledges were implemented in full, they would only ...

US Atlantic Coast refinery margins for the week ended Oct. 15 rose on the back of higher global refinery margins, supported by increased refinery capacity offline despite the restart of some plants, an analysis from S&P Global Platts showed Oct. 19. Lack of regional refining capacity means the US Atlantic Coast needs to import a good portion of gasoline supply. This creates dependence outside sources, mostly pipeline flows from the US Gulf Coast and imported barrels from Europe, to meet the region’s gasoline demand, making it very sensitive to global ...

A surge in oil prices is drawing fund managers back into shares of oil and gas companies, even as some remain unsure that the price gains will stick. Energy stocks in the S&P 500 .SPNY are up 53.8% for the year to date compared with a 20.2% gain for the broader index, as rising demand from the global economic reopening collides with supply chain disruptions and inflation fears to boost energy prices to multi-year highs. The rally has caught many fund managers by surprise and some are scrambling to catch ...

A look at the day ahead from Karin Strohecker. Markets are in a somber mood on Thursday. There is little let up on the Chinese property sector front with investors wondering how much damage the Chinese economy might suffer from a potential default of embattled property giant China Evergrande Group – now possibly just days away. Evergrande shares suffered a double-digit tumble after it scrapped a deal to sell a stake in its property group, though it also secured an extension on a defaulted bond, according to media reports. Adding ...