Category: Highlights

Oil rose towards $116 a barrel on Tuesday, adding to a 7% surge the previous day, supported by supply risks from a potential European Union oil embargo on Russia and concern about attacks on Saudi oil facilities. European Union foreign ministers are split on whether to join the United States in banning Russian oil. Some countries, including Germany, say the bloc is too dependent on Russia’s fossil fuels to withstand such a step.   “It is still not clear whether this will really happen,” wrote Carsten Fritsch of Commerzbank in…

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The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that there was a surprise draw this week for crude oil of 4.28 million barrels, compared to analyst predictions of a 25,000 barrels build. U.S. crude inventories have shed some 77 million barrels since the start of 2021 and about 20 million barrels since the start of 2020. In the week prior, the API reported a build in crude oil inventories of 3.754 million barrels after analysts had predicted a draw of 1.867 million barrels. Oil prices were trading down on Tuesday as it…

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The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $300 million loan to further develop Pakistan’s capital markets, promote private investment in the country, and help to mobilise domestic resources to finance sustainable growth.The second subprogramme of ADB’s Third Capital Market Development Programme builds on institutional and regulatory reforms put in place under the first subprogramme approved in 2020. It aims to catalyse institutional investor demand and increase the range of alternative financial instruments such as derivatives and commodity futures that are available to investors.Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Omar Ayub…

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The UK prime minister said last week that he may consider shifting to nuclear power to offset rising prices of natural gas, which have spurted up by about 150% in Europe since the start of the war in Ukraine. This price increase is more than double. This would also support UK’s strong climate stance of net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions — because nuclear power delivers green energy. However, it’s not so clean in other respects – see below. But high-energy countries have been shifting away from nuclear and toward natural…

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Canada’s oil producers have been struggling to grow for years. Lack of export routes outside the United States and pressure from the government and regulators have combined to stifle any serious growth ambitions in the oil sands. All this changed earlier this month as oil prices soared to over $100 and the U.S. ban on Russian oil imports automatically triggered a surge in demand for heavy Canadian crude. Bloomberg reported this week that demand for drilling rigs in Canada has jumped to the highest in years. Before the pandemic, Canadian…

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