Month: January 2022

The world’s biggest independent oil trader said crude prices, already up more than 10% this year, could rise even further because of tight supplies. “These prices are justified,” Mike Muller, head of Asia for Vitol Group, said Sunday. “Strong backwardation is very much justified,” he said, referring to a bullish pattern whereby near-term futures are more expensive than later ones. Oil posted a fourth-straight gain last week, its longest rising streak since October, amid signs consumption will hold up despite the spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus. At…

Pakistan’s oil and food import bill surged 73 per cent to $14.97 billion in the July-December period compared to $8.67bn a year ago owing to higher international prices and massive depreciation of the rupee. The share of these products in the total import bill also rose to 37pc during the six-month period, data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) showed on Monday. A steady increase in the import bill of these two sectors has widened the trade deficit and raised fears about the country’s food security. The total…

The Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) natural gas pipeline has been long aborning, but its prospects recently got a shot in the arm. The 1100-mile, $10 billion project has seen numerous delays since the pipeline consortium was announced in late 2014, though the project was first mooted in 1991. Construction started in early 2018 with a projected in-service date of 2021, but halted later that year after workers clearing the route were killed by unknown assailants. Also, the project’s $10 billion cost estimate is a decade old, and an update may cause further…