Category: Highlights

The recent $3 billion sale of Chile’s Compañía General de Electricidad to China’s State Grid Corporation brought total Chinese control of electricity transmission in Chile up to 57%. Similar PRC acquisitions and projects are currently being advanced in Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Honduras, Peru, and Columbia, where corporations are building hydropower, wind, and solar power stations. But China’s energy push into Latin America is not limited to infrastructure. This is fast becoming a multi-pronged approach that also includes the securing of critical minerals, particularly rare earth elements (REEs). The United States, meanwhile,…

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Eni SPA E is planning to purchase oil and gas assets of BP plc BP in Algeria as part of efforts to realign their businesses to address the burdensome debt plaguing the companies amid climate pressures, per Reuters. Energy companies, which use carbon-intensive techniques for oil and gas exploration and production, are facing immense pressure from investors and activists to reduce emissions. Importantly, most companies believe that offloading carbon-intensive assets would result in actual emission cuts to meet the concerns regarding climate change. As a result, both companies are considering the transfer of their assets…

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Half a century ago, in March 1971, Bangladesh’s founders declared their independence from richer and more powerful Pakistan. The country was born amid famine and war; millions fled to India or were killed by Pakistani soldiers. To the Pakistani military’s American backers, the new country seemed destined to fail: Henry Kissinger, then Secretary of State, famously called it a “basketcase.” George Harrison and Ravi Shankar organized the first-ever super-benefit to raise money for UNICEF relief work in the struggling country. This month, Bangladesh’s Cabinet Secretary told reporters that GDP per…

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The United States recently seized a ship and then sold off the Iranian oil it was carrying, according to reports over the weekend. Source: msn.comU.S. authorities in February seized the Liberian-flagged tanker Achilleas off the coast of the United Arab Emirates as it was transporting Iranian oil, the Associated Pressreported Monday.The U.S. government brought the cargo to Houston, Texas, where it sold the oil.The oil sold from the cargo showed up in data released this weekend by the Energy Information Administration, an arm of the Department of Energy, confirming the U.S. imported just over…

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Qatar could become the swing LNG (liquefied natural gas) producer and its LNG expansion plans are slated to boost real economic growth and fiscal surpluses to high-single digits and mid-single digits on average over 2021-27, according to Bank of America report. “Qatar’s LNG strategy appears to be focused on defending and, in due course, growing its market share. Qatar’s structural cost advantage makes it well positioned to retain its pre-eminent supplier position, while allowing for greater flexibility in contract pricing,” the report said. Qatar’s structurally low production costs provide key…

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