Top Stories
U.S. Energy Secretary sees oil supply, demand rebalancing in a year
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said he expects global oil supply and demand to rebalance in about a year’s time. Benchmark crude oil prices, which hit almost 13-year lows earlier in 2016, surged nearly 20 percent in April on a softer dollar and lower U.S. production. However, market participants remain skeptical about the sustainability of the rally given a persistent global supply overhang. “The recent rise in prices is not something I think that the companies are willing to reverse their investment trends on,” Moniz told reporters on Monday after the G7 energy ministers’ meeting in Kitakyushu, southwestern Japan. “Rig counts in the United States are quite low … a rebalancing of global supply and demand looks to be quite credible, roughly speaking on a one-year time scale. “That may change the dynamic but structurally we clearly continue to have a very very large inventory of oil,” he added.
“We are still unbalanced.” U.S. oil output is expected to drop by 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) this year from a year ago as producers respond to low crude prices, Moniz said, citing U.S. Department of Energy projections.
Iraq Oil Exports Near Record as Baghdad Protests Intensify
Iraq’s oil exports approached a record high in April, adding barrels to a worldwide supply glut, even as protests against public corruption threatened to paralyze the government of OPEC’s second-largest producer. Shipments rose to 3.36 million barrels a day, or 100.92 million barrels for the month, Asim Jihad, a spokesman at the oil ministry, said by text message Sunday. The figures don’t include Kurdistan Regional Government exports. The exports rose from 3.29 million barrels a day in March and were close to the November all-time high of 3.365 million barrels a day, according to oil ministry figures. Oil shipments and production were not affected Sunday after protesters stormed parliament in Baghdad, Falah Al-Amri, chairman of Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization, said by Facebook message. Government forces are struggling in the fight against Islamic State militants as a plunge in oil prices of more than 50 percent in the last […]
Tanker With Disputed Libyan Oil Returns to Country for Unloading
Libyan oil workers at the the Zawiya oil installation. A tanker with oil from eastern Libya returned with its cargo to the North African country after the United Nations blacklisted the shipment, amid an escalating struggle between the nation’s rival governments for control of its crude wealth. The Distya Ameya will discharge its cargo at the refinery of Zawiya in western Libya over the next few days, Mustafa Sanalla, chairman of the Tripoli-based National Oil Corp., said Saturday in an e-mailed statement. Unloading at Zawiya was delayed because of bad weather, Mansur Abdulla, an official at the refinery, said Sunday by phone. The UN Security Council added the vessel to its sanctions list on Wednesday after the Mediterranean island of Malta refused to let it dock there. The NOC in Tripoli called the shipment illegal and informed Libya’s newly formed UN-backed unity government about the eastern government’s attempt to […]
Why China Is Really Dictating the Oil Supply Glut
Ship tracking data from Bloomberg shows that 83 supertankers carrying around 166 million barrels of oil are headed to China, which has stockpiled an impressive 787,000 barrels a day in the first quarter of 2016—the highest stockpiling rate since 2014. While the world was speculating about oil prices plunging to $20 and $10 per barrel, China was busy stockpiling its reserves. The chart below shows an increase in imports as crude prices collapsed. Since the beginning of this year, China has imported a record quantity of oil. (Click to enlarge) Back in January 2015, Reuters had reported that China planned to increase its strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) from 30 days to 90 days. In January 2016, it was revealed that China was building underground storage to complement its above-ground storage tanks. The Chinese urgency points to two things. China believes that crude oil prices will not remain at the […]
World’s Biggest Windmills Now Make Jumbo Jets Look Tiny
Often derided as a blot on rural landscapes, wind turbines got bigger and stronger than ever anyway. The next generation are even larger and designed to withstand an Arctic battering. The granddaddy of them all is a machine with rotors that cut a 164 meter (538 foot) swath made by a Vestas Wind Systems venture with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. A single blade is 80 meters, about the entire wingspan of an Airbus A380 jumbo jet . In the intensely competitive wind turbine business, it’s rare for executives to allow a close-up look of what they’re developing, lest they tip off rivals. Vestas allowed Bloomberg News to visit and photograph the prototype units this month. As they got bigger, the units became more efficient, boosting global installations 23 […]
