Category: Highlights

ISLAMABAD: A brief hiatus in oil smuggling due to the closure for a few days of the Pak-Iran border during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, badly affected the entire supply chain of petroleum products in Pakistan. The findings of an inquiry commission on the shortage of petroleum products states that the smuggling of Iranian oil is a reality. “The quantum of smuggling through the land route [is] approximated at Rs250 billion.” The report said the government must sensitise the concerned agency to take strict measures at the Pak-Iran…

Read More

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Petroleum Nadeem Babar has said that Pakistan would auction 20 new oil and gas exploration blocks during the next month as part of its strategy to achieve self-reliance in the energy sector. “Bids for the auction are expected to be held by mid-January to encourage exploration activities in the country,” he said in an interview with the Bloomberg, a US-based news agency. The SAPM said Pakistan, in collaboration with Russia, would start building a 1,100 kilometer (684 miles) gas pipeline to…

Read More

SINGAPORE: Surging spot prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) are exacerbating a gas supply crunch in key fast-growing emerging markets in Asia just as a cold spell in other parts of the region boosts demand for the fuel. Companies from Pakistan to China have cancelled a flurry of LNG tenders this week, several trade sources said, as lofty prices risk pushing up the input costs of industries, which could make energy more expensive for consumers. Benchmark Asia spot LNG prices LNG-AS have soared sevenfold since May to six-year highs, driven…

Read More

Saudi Arabia’s crude oil exports rose to 6.159 million barrels per day (bpd) in October, up by nearly 100,000 bpd from the 6.066 million bpd exports in September, data from the Joint Organisations Data Initiative (JODI) showed on Thursday. Total oil exports from Saudi Arabia, including crude oil and total oil products, increased again month over month by 281,000 bpd to 7.38 million bpd in October, according to the JODI database, which collects self-reported figures from 114 countries. In September, the world’s biggest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, exported more than…

Read More

Things are looking up for the Canadian oil sands. After years of strife and faltering profits, battered by environmental regulations and domestic pipeline shortages as well as the flood of cheap shale oil and gas coming out of the United States thanks to the West Texas shale revolution, 2021 is on track to be a much, much better year for Canadian oil. While pretty much any and every oil-producing nation in the world has had a less-than-stellar year, to put it mildly, few have had it as bad as Canada.…

Read More