Top Stories
Refinery wars: China, India win; South Korea, Japan, Singapore lose
There is little doubt that China’s surging exports of refined fuels have cut profit margins for Asia’s refiners, but the pain is unlikely to be shared equally across all the region’s exporters of oil products. Given the scarcity of detailed official data on oil product imports and exports among many Asian countries, it’s nigh impossible to build a completely accurate picture of the likely winners and losers. However, detailed data is provided by China on the export destinations of its product exports, and Australia, the region’s biggest importer of refined fuels, also gives a country-by-country breakdown of its imports. The overall picture for Asia’s refiners is that profit margins appear to have shifted structurally lower as a result of China’s massive exports of diesel and gasoline. China’s exports of 370,000 barrels per day […]
Chinese banks braced over industrial restructuring
China’s banks are set to be the biggest losers in the sweeping bailouts of the country’s steel and coal industries. Local governments hoping to save their steel mills and coal miners have announced a series of restructuring plans, enlisting the banks to take the hit by improving the terms of the loans or swapping them for bonds or equity in the struggling groups. The reliance on the banking system to shoulder the burden comes at an inopportune moment, with China’s banks already mired in bad debt — about Rmb15tn ($2.25tn), or 19 percent of total commercial lending by some accounts. Profit growth at the banks has also fallen over the past two years and could deteriorate further as many of the country’s largest industrial players renege on loans for better state-brokered deals.
Has The Gulf Of Mexico Fallen Out Of Favor With The Oil Majors?
A glitch interrupted the first-ever U.S. livestream of an oil lease sale on Wednesday, and although it didn’t affect the bidding, this epic fail provided just the right metaphor to describe the flop of the latest auction in the Gulf of Mexico, which saw a record low number of companies offering record-low money for leases in the western parts of the Gulf. Upon announcing in July the first-ever federal livestream of a lease sale , the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) had said that the 23.8-million-acre area offshore Texas was estimated to have economically recoverable hydrocarbons of between 116 million and 200 million barrels of oil and between 538 billion and 938 billion cubic feet of natural gas. So far, so good. This week’s lease sale, however, showed the dismal stark reality: just three companies bid for 24 tracts covering 138,240 acres, with all bids […]
Why Electric Cars Will Be Here Sooner Than You Think
In 2015, about one in every 150 cars sold in the U.S. had a plug and a battery. But mass adoption of electric vehicles is coming, and much sooner than most people realize. In part, this is because electric cars are gadgets, and technological change in gadgets is rapid. One big leap is in batteries. A typical electric vehicle today costs $30,000 and will go about 100 miles on a charge, if that. Within a year, you’ll be able to get double that range for just a little more money. Tesla Motors Inc. TSLA -0.44 % is the standard-bearer, promising a Model 3 vehicle meant to appeal to the masses at $35,000 without incentives and more than 200 miles of range. By comparison, the average new car in the U.S. today sells for about $33,000 . But Tesla is hardly alone. Later this year, Chevrolet will roll out its […]
Wind Power Finally Getting Out From Solar’s Shadow
Wind power Solar power has been getting all of the proverbial sunlight for the last few years. Most of the focus and attention from environmentalists, regulators, and others has been on solar. There are numerous pure-play solar companies from SolarCity to First Solar. Solar is commonly used in residential applications today, and economic pundits fall all over themselves to talk about the falling cost of solar panels and the changing economics that entails. All of that attention has probably left wind power advocates feeling a little steamed. While there are many pure-play public solar companies, there are few publicly-traded firms investing directly in wind farms or producing wind turbine equipment. Yet wind power is every bit as viable a technology as solar, and in some respects is a natural complement to solar – wind often blows hardest at night and on stormy days – exactly when solar is the […]
