Новости за 08.05.2024

Companies worldwide are increasingly opting to use carbon credit schemes to offset their emissions, as governments urge them to decarbonise operations. While this might seem the obvious solution for hard-to-abate industries, many are failing to monitor and assess the schemes to ensure that they are working as expected and offsetting the necessary quantity of carbon to decarbonise operations.  Carbon offsetting schemes are programmes introduced by a wide range of companies aimed at reducing carbon emissions through various projects... Читать дальше...

Increased adoption of electric vehicles in the United States and China is expected to put a major dent in gasoline demand growth this year. In one of the most telling statistics about the penetration of EVs into the global market we’ve seen yet, global consultancy Wood Mackenzie projects that gasoline demand growth will reduce by half over the course of 2024.  China is on a stratospheric growth trajectory in terms of EV production. 60% of all EV sales in the world are made in China, and EVs are expected... Читать дальше...

Demand for gasoline and diesel in the United States has plunged to its lowest seasonally since the onset of the COVID pandemic, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), sparking concern that economic activity is now becoming stagnant as refining margins hit news lows not seen in months, Reuters reported.  Monthly averages for the week ended May 3 show gasoline demand at 8.63 million barrels per day–a figure not seen since May 2020, at the start of the pandemic, based on EIA data. Читать дальше...

Via Metal Miner ThyssenKrupp recently announced plans to create a 50/50 joint steel manufacturing venture with the Czech Republic’s EP Corporate Group and ThyssenKrupp Steel (TKS). According to the German group, talks are now ongoing between the two parties for the sale of an additional 30% stake in the steelmaker, following an April 26 announcement that EP would initially acquire a 20% stake in TKS. However, ThyssenKrupp did not indicate a prospective timeline for a planned sale of the additional stake. Читать дальше...

Canadian Utilities Ltd has announced it will build a billion-dollar pipeline in Alberta to transport natural gas as demand soars amid industrial expansion in the province, Reuters reports.  Construction is expected to begin on the new Yellowhead Mainline natural gas pipeline, which will feed a provincial petrochemicals plant and other industrial facilities, in 2026, with completion the following year, according to Reuters. The project requires regulatory approval and a final investment decision before proceeding. Читать дальше...

The world is experiencing a nuclear renaissance. Uranium prices are soaring as the world snaps up nuclear fuel, public favor for nuclear power is at a 10-year high in the United States, Russia is busily expanding its own nuclear energy empire in emerging economies in Africa, and even Japan is moving back to the carbon-free energy source 13 years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. All told, approximately 60 new nuclear reactors are currently under construction around the globe, and another 110... Читать дальше...

In what appears to be just the latest 'lawfare' angle of attack against Elon Musk (and his freedom of speech enabling platform), President Biden's Department of Justice is examining whether Tesla committed securities or wire fraud by misleading investors and consumers about its electric vehicles’ self-driving capabilities. Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems assist with steering, braking and lane changes - but are not fully autonomous - and Reuters reports that, according to three people familiar with the matter... Читать дальше...

Norway is expanding the acreage in the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea, for which companies vying for licenses in mature areas can bid this year, the energy ministry of Western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer said on Wednesday.       Following the ministry’s announcement, the annual rounds of awards in predefined areas (APA), which give oil companies the opportunity to gain access to attractive acreage in the mature areas of the Norwegian shelf, will include a further 37 blocks—three…

Crude oil prices recovered lost territory today after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported an inventory draw of 1.4 million barrels for the week to May 3. This compared with a build of 7.3 million barrels estimated for the previous week that pressured prices last week. On Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute estimated crude oil inventories had added a modest half a million barrels in the week to May 3. The EIA, for its part, also reported small inventory builds in gasoline and... Читать дальше...

Nigeria launched this week a new oil and gas licensing round, inviting bids for as many as 12 onshore and offshore blocks and promising transparency in the bidding process. At the ongoing Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Texas, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) announced the start of the 2024 Licensing Round. During his speech at OTC to announce the bidding round, the commission’s chief executive Gbenga Komolafe “reiterated Nigeria’s commitment to advancing... Читать дальше...

The Chinese authorities have issued draft guidance on new rules for the domestic battery industry, which appear to be targeting to address the current overcapacity in the sector. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology unveiled on Wednesday a new set of draft rules that lay out minimum energy density standards and stricter battery specifications, as well as advise that companies should refrain from the construction of new plants that “simply expand production capacity,” Bloomberg reports. Читать дальше...

As BP looks to please shareholders with higher returns and stock valuations, the UK-based supermajor is suggesting that a previous goal to reduce its oil and gas production by 2030 is now flexible and would depend more on returns rather than on volumes.   BP has to decide in the coming years whether to proceed with more than 30 planned projects across its businesses, new CEO Murray Auchincloss told Reuters this week. “And as we make those decisions on a returns-based approach, that will help inform... Читать дальше...

Abu Dhabi’s national oil company ADNOC has signed a new deal to supply LNG from a planned large export facility to a German firm. ADNOC announced on Wednesday the signing of a 15-year LNG agreement with EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG (EnBW), one of the largest energy companies in Germany, for the delivery of 0.6 million metric tons per annum (mmtpa) of LNG from the Ruwais LNG project, which is currently under development in Al Ruwais Industrial City, Abu Dhabi. Deliveries from the project are expected to begin in 2028... Читать дальше...

The biggest state utilities in Poland are preparing for a surge in clean energy investments in 2025, hoping that the government would move ahead with a plan to spin off coal assets that have been restricting the companies’ access to financial markets, executives told Bloomberg this week. “My dream is to agree on the whole carve-out model this year and carry it out the next year,” Grzegorz Lot, CEO at one of these utilities, Tauron Polska Energia SA, told Bloomberg in an interview. The government... Читать дальше...

Renewable energy accounted for a record 30% share of electricity generation globally last year, driven by growth in solar and wind power, clean energy think tank Ember said in a report on Wednesday. “With record construction of solar and wind in 2023, a new era of falling fossil generation is imminent,” Ember said.   Renewable energy growth in 2023 would have been enough to push global power sector emissions down, were it not for a rise in coal-fired generation due to shortages in hydropower because... Читать дальше...

Suncor has become the latest oil major to report forecast-beating figures for the first quarter, benefiting from robust demand for refined oil products and record-breaking production from the oil sands. Suncor reported daily average production of 835,300 barrels over the three-month period, of which 785,000 bpd came from the oil sands—a record high. The total daily average for the quarter represented a 12.6% increase in the first quarter of 2023. Another record was broken in oil refining, where the... Читать дальше...

Iran is using the help of service providers based in Malaysia to sell its oil abroad circumventing U.S. sanctions, according to a U.S. government official. “The capacity of Iran to move its oil has relied on... these types of service providers that are based in Malaysia. We want to have a direct conversation with Malaysians about that,” he added, as quoted by the AFP. “Stopping these oil shipments will deal a critical blow to Iran’s ability to fund these attacks around the world including the Houthi... Читать дальше...

Oil prices slumped by $10 per barrel in a month, from above $90 Brent in early April to the low $80s, as tensions in the Middle East subsided and prompted money managers to shift their focus on the upcoming OPEC+ decisions and the path to lower interest rates. In early April, the Iran-Israel standoff and the rising tensions in the most important region for oil supply led to a spike in prices to over $90 per barrel amid higher risk premium in the market. A month later, fears of escalation and potential disruption to oil supply have faded... Читать дальше...

Meeting global climate goals will require an unprecedented buildout of energy infrastructure in terms of both speed and scale. And while the energies themselves may be renewable, their construction, production, and maintenance requires a whole lot of finite resources, from rare Earth minerals and metals to the very land they are built on. This last issue regarding mass-scale land use and acquisition, in particular, is already one of the biggest hurdles facing the global decarbonization transition. Читать дальше...

An international team including researchers from the University of Würzburg has succeeded in creating a special state of superconductivity. The discovery could advance the development of quantum computers. The paper discussing the research has been published in Nature Physics titled “Magnetically tunable supercurrent in a dilute magnetic topological insulator based Josephson junctions.” Superconductors are materials that can conduct electricity without electrical resistance – making them the ideal... Читать дальше...