Category: Highlights

Recovering fuel demand and additional demand for oil products amid record-high coal and natural gas prices have pushed up global oil refining margins to their pre-pandemic levels. For the first time since COVID crippled fuel demand and margins in early 2020, refining margins in the key regions Asia, Europe, and North America have rebounded strongly in recent weeks, according to analysts and company officials who spoke to Reuters. Globally, refinery activity continued to disappoint in the third quarter, with lower throughputs in China and India in August only partially offset…

Read More

Kazakhstan’s national grid operator has begun rationing electricity to the country’s biggest consumers, likely targeting cryptocurrency mining farms. Facing a sudden energy shortage, officials must be regretting their recent embrace of the crypto industry. Nur-Sultan has struggled to land on a consistent policy toward cryptocurrencies and mining – the series of electricity-hungry calculations made by networked computers to verify and record cryptocurrency transactions. Only three years ago, the National Bank called for a ban on trading cryptocurrencies and mining them. Then, in 2020, parliament passed a law legalizing mining and creating welcoming conditions for…

Read More

Ever since the arrival of the ESG craze, we have discussed the change in “optics” that Exxon has been trying to pull off in order to placate some of the most vocal activist shareholders, some of whom now happen to be on the company’s board. But now, instead of just purely superficial changes, Exxon may be on the cusp of making fundamental changes as well as the oil and gas major is considering whether or not to shutter “several major oil and gas projects”, according to a new report from…

Read More

he ongoing energy crunch has put a lid on what seemed to be the ideal bull run for this year’s autumn season – OPEC+ has maintained rigorous discipline even after it concluded a new supply cut agreement until end-2022, whilst demand for energy was growing much more robustly than anyone anticipated. Power consumption mandates, production cuts and electricity shortages have, however, become the new reality of October 2021, reshaping the overall market fundamentals of crude. Chinese buying, always presumed to restart at some point later this year, is now off…

Read More

Modelling shows the future of fossil fuel exports that drive regional economies is grim, complicating the Prime Minister’s message to the Nationals that regional Australia will be shielded from losses under his push to commit to net zero emissions by 2050. The Reserve Bank of Australia’s recent analysis of coal and gas exports shows the industries would at least halve if major customers China, Japan and South Korea met their climate commitments. The Nationals are baulking at endorsing the 2050 target, which Prime Minister Scott Morrison is aiming to commit…

Read More