Category: Highlights

Pakistan is not the only country in the region going through political turmoil. Sri Lanka, too, is facing a political impasse. Last week, all 26 members of the Sri Lankan cabinet (including the brother and nephew of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa) resigned en-masse amidst widespread protests in the country over the state of the economy. Mr Rajapaksa’s government no longer enjoys a simple majority of 113, as over 40 members of parliament from his party and its coalition partners have distanced themselves from him. The economic crisis has become so grave…

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Be it the retail fuels or the fuel for power generation; the petroleum crisis has been brewing. The populist moves are always at the core of such problems. One of them is the subsidy provided on petroleum prices by the (previous) government that had frozen petroleum prices. It happened when international crude oil prices went through the roof amid the Russia and Ukraine war. At the same time, recent figures for petroleum product sales by the oil marketing companies – released by the OCAC – show that demand for petroleum…

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razil’s state-run oil company Petrobras is once again in crisis: caught in a political tug of war over rising fuel costs. Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, seeking re-election in October, is widely blamed by voters for double-digit inflation, polls show, on the back of skyrocketing fuel prices. Feeling the heat, Bolsonaro last week fired Petrobras CEO Joaquim Silva e Luna, saying the petrol price was “unaffordable” and amounted to a “crime” against Brazilians. Tied to international market movement, fuel prices in Brazil rose 33 percent in the past year even as…

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It has been exactly six weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine, with no end in sight to one of humanity’s biggest existential crises in modern times. In response to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war, the United States and the West have hit the rogue nation with a plethora of sanctions, with the latest announced just days ago mostly targeting Russia’s financial sector. But so far, Russia’s pivotal energy sector has largely been spared. With the exception of Lithuania and Poland as well as self-sanctioning by refiners and bankers, no country has…

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Iraq can ensure crude oil exports of more than 3.3 million barrels per day from its southern terminals, as the country looks to leverage higher energy prices to support its economy, Iraq’s oil minister said on Friday. The second-largest producer of oil in Opec, Iraq is making an effort to maximise its oil exports and revenue, and the government is supporting these initiatives, Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar told the Iraqi News Agency. “The expected financial returns according to the scenarios presented by international energy agencies and researchers will be in excess of…

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