Category: Highlights

There are doomsday visions of supply chains – already under pressure due to the pandemic – collapsing altogether, businesses forced into bankruptcy, mass unemployment. Jörg Hoffmann, the head of IG Metall, a union that represents 1.2 million workers in the chemical, metal processing and food production, has warned of “a recession deeper than any of the recessions we have known until now.” BASF, the chemical giant, and one of Germany’s biggest single purchasers and consumers of energy, said the effect of its production downturn would soon be felt. “We would…

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The United States Congress voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to suspend normal trade relations with Russia and ban the importation of Russian oil, ratcheting up the US response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine amid reports of atrocities by Russian forces. The measures now go to President Joe Biden to be signed into law. Action by the House of Representatives came quickly after the Senate approved the two bills with unanimous 100-0 votes on Thursday. Lawmakers strongly supported the substance of the two bills. The House passed the trade measure by a…

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In 1973, after the Yom Kippur war between Israel and a coalition of Arab countries, Middle Eastern oil producers declared an embargo on oil exports to the United States as punishment for its support of Israel. What followed was an energy crisis of epic proportions.  According to Daniel Yergin, the current energy crisis could be worse. In the 1970s oil crisis, the price of oil soared fourfold over three months following the embargo. At the time, the United States had thought that the lost market share would hurt the producer states financially.…

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Japan plans to release 15 million barrels of oil from its petroleum reserves, including from the national oil reserves, as part of the International Energy Agency’s joint release, sources at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry told S&P Global Commodity Insights April 7. Register Now It was still not clear about the timing and duration of the additional oil release as it is still coordinating with the IEA, the sources said.METI’s confirmation comes after Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said earlier in the day that the country will release…

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Asian demand for LNG is being hampered by sky-high prices of LNG cargoes due to intensifying competition from Europe, which is working around the clock to reduce its dependence on Russian pipeline gas supply.   Europe is now the top destination of record-high U.S. LNG exports, while price-sensitive developing economies in the Asia Pacific are steering clear of the spot market and switching to coal and oil products as the price of LNG is unsustainable for them. The European resolve to cut reliance on Russian energy, starting with gas, will keep…

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