Tag: oil

The US accused North Korea of breaching the UN sanctions on refined petroleum, as illegal transfers between ships at sea took place. As a result, the US demanded an immediate stop to all sales of the fuel. The US said that these transfers, are breaching the UN sanctions. 

Libya's National Oil Corporation announced that it re-opened four oil terminals after General Khalifa Haftar handed over control of the ports. These ports are Ras Lanuf, Es Sider, Zueitina and Hariga. During this month, NOC had declared force majeure in the said ports, but now they started operations again.

As China's domestic energy consumption has grown, the country has become a significant destination for US energy exports. Namely, China has been among the largest importers of US exports of crude oil, propane, and LNG. In 2017, more US crude oil was sent to China than any other destination except Canada.

A second crude oil tank was set on fire Sunday at the Libyan port of Ras Lanuf, during fighting between rival factions for control of two key export terminals. As a result, storage capacity at Ras Lanuf has been cut by 400,000 barrels, according to Libya’s National Oil Corporation.

In 2017, oil demand grew by 1.7 Mb/d, similar with 2016 and significantly greater than the 10-year average of around 1.2 Mb/d, according to BP. The 2017 demand continued to be driven by oil importers benefitting from the windfall of low prices, with both Europe and the US posting notable increases, compared with average declines over the previous 10 years.

The Port of Corpus Christi, which is US's largest oil export port will attempt to raise $300 million, in order to conduct work which will make the Port ready to handle the US shale export increase. A decision to raise fees for dredging, which could begin as of September, would be a rare move among US Gulf Coast ports.

In its June 2018 update of the Short-Term Energy Outlook, EIA predicts that crude oil prices will average $71 per barrel in 2018 and $68/b in 2019. The 2019 forecast price is also $2/b higher than in the May STEO.  Crude oil prices have increased greatly as global oil inventories have generally declined from January 2017 through April 2018.

Venezuela started testing ship-to-ship oil transfers to ease the delays of crude deliveries from its main terminals. Tankers waiting to load more than 24 million barrels of crude, are sitting off the country’s main oil port. These delays could damage the state-run PDVSA’s supply contracts if they are not cleared as soon as possible.

Venezuela has stayed behind in delivering crude to customers from its oil export terminals, as delays and production declines could damage the state-run PDVSA’s supply contracts if they are not cleared as soon as possible. Tankers are waiting to load more than 24 million barrels of crude.

Shell informed that it made a large, deep-water, exploration discovery in the Norphlet geologic play in the US Gulf of Mexico with its Dover well. The Dover discovery is Shell’s sixth in the Norphlet and encountered more than 800 net feet of pay. The discovery was made 13 miles from the Appomattox host.