Tag: oil

Saras will construct new bunkering terminal at its plant in Sardinia in order to market a cleaner marine fuel with even lower sulphur content which will be compliant with the IMO 2020 global sulphur limit. The Italian energy provider is investing in infrastructure that will allow ships to dock outside its 300,000-barrels-per-day Sarroch refinery in Sardinia to directly load ultra-low-sulphur marine fuel oil.

The oil market is about to face a difficult few months, after the US imposed secondary sanctions on Iranian exports. This led Brent to over US$80 a barrel in October. However, currently there is enough supply to meet demand this winter, but the margin for error is little, Woodmac said.

The Australian Commonwealth Changes announced changes to the petroleum resource rent tax, in order to collect increased taxes from oil and gas operators. The PRRT is a tax generally on profits generated from the sale of marketable petroleum commodities.

The Port of Corpus Christi entered into an agreement with Carlyle to develop a crude oil export terminal on Harbor Island, to connect the increasing crude oil production in the US with global markets. The terminal will be the first onshore location in the US able of providing export service to fully-laden VLCCs.

During the past decade, the US trade gap for energy products has narrowed, as from 2003 to 2007, the value of energy imports was about 10 times greater than the value of exports, US EIA informed. By 2017, imports were only about 1.5 times greater than exports, according to data from the US Census Bureau.

A large amount of Iranian crude oil will arrive at China's Dalian port during October and the beginning of November, right before US sanctions on Iran apply. Namely, the National Iranian Tanker Company will ship more than 20 million barrels of oil to Dalian.

According to Wood Mackenzie Asia-Pacific's oil and gas sector is ready for recovery during the next 12 months, as increasing demand, stronger commodity prices and an increase in M&A activity bring more confidence to the region. 2018 has showed a big growth in new upstream project investments as well.

According to IEA, global oil demand and supply are close to historically significant peaks at 100 mb/d, and neither show signs of ceasing to grow. Production has increased, driven by the US shale revolution, and supported by big increases in Brazil, Canada and elsewhere.

As domestic production continues to increase, the average density of crude oil that the US produces continues to become lighter. The average API gravity (a measure of a crude oil’s density where higher numbers mean lower density) of US crude oil increased in 2017 and through the first half of 2018, EIA reports.

In August there were zero US seaborne exports of crude oil to China. On the other hand, US crude exports to all destinations except from China hit a new all-time high in September at 6.96 million tonnes. The zero US crude oil exports to China is a massive change to the export pattern seen since early 2017, BIMCO said.