TOPIC PAGE: Coronavirus, oil price direction – impact on chemicals

In Asia, latest official data showed Singapore’s petrochemical exports surged by 51.4% year on year to Singapore dollar ($) 1.59bn in March, supporting the increase in overall non-oil domestic exports (NODX). The city-state’s NODX rose by 12.1% year on year in March to S$17.8bn, accelerating from the 4.2% expansion in February, according to Enterprise Singapore. Singapore’s non-electronic NODX, which includes petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, rose by 9.4% year on year to $14.3bn in March. Separately, Singapore’s economy grew by 0.2% year on year in the first quarter, the country’s first economic…

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Energy projects: Pakistan will have to place competitive market to fix problems, says USAID

ISLAMABAD: With the current portfolio of $300 million for undertaking energy projects in Pakistan, USAID’s energy experts have said Pakistan would have to place a competitive market to fix problems of this important sector.https://e3fa250c3a490d9bbd8f7708d1127630.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html “USAID had so far invested over $800 million in the energy sector in Pakistan during the last 10 years. Our existing portfolio stands at $300 million, including $250 million for energy infrastructure and remaining $50 million for other remaining sector requirements,” USAID’s Energy Office Director in Pakistan Don McCubbin and Energy Project Management Specialist Nadeem Habib…

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Pakistan to Rein in $14 Billion Government Owes to Energy Firms

Pakistan is finalizing a plan to address about 2.2 trillion rupees ($14.4 billion) of debt the government owes to the energy sector, a liability that’s doubled in the past two years as power purchases outstripped demand. Islamabad aims to pay 400 billion rupees in late fees to several electricity producers by June in a deal to cut power costs, and will ask banks to restructure the remaining debt, according to Tabish Gauhar, special assistant to Prime Minister Imran Khan for the energy sector. The government had previously pledged to make these payments…

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WAPDA executing projects worth US $ 26 billion

Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) has been executing various projects with an estimated cost of around US $ 26 billion to harness cheap hydel electricity potential besides ensuring water security. Few of these projects included Diamer Basha Dam, Mohmand Dam and Dasu, official sources told APP. These projects, scheduled to be completed one by one from 2022 to 2028-29, would cumulatively add 11 million acre feet to gross water storage capacity, mitigate floods, irrigate 1.6 million acres of land and generate 9000 megawatt of hydel electricity, they said. They…

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World Bank urges governments to stop spending on LNG bunkering infrastructure

The World Bank has a new report out this week on decarbonising maritime transport in which it specifically recommends countries pull back from investing in further LNG bunkering infrastructure. The World Bank has concluded that green ammonia closely followed by green hydrogen strike the advantageous balance of favourable features among a range of different candidate bunker fuels for ships. These features relate to the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions, broader environmental factors, the scalability, the economics, and the technical and safety implications of each fuel. Ammonia or hydrogen also have the…

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