Polish oil and gas firm Orlen has provisionally chartered a supertanker to load Venezuelan oil for China, according to a shipbroker and tracking data, following a temporary easing of US sanctions on the South American country.
WoodMac: as the energy transition progresses, refineries face an increasingly Darwinian battle for existence.
WTI crude futures shed more than 3% on Thursday morning
For decades, China has been the leading driver of global oil demand growth thanks to an economy that maintained a blistering growth clip for a long stretch. China’s economy managed to expand at nearly 10% annually ever since Beijing embarked on economic reforms in 1978, ballooning from $1.2 trillion by the turn of the century to nearly $18 trillion in 2021. But as the law of large numbers dictates, that era of exemplary growth could be in the rearview mirror. Economic pundits have predicted that China’s growth rate will slow down to between 2 and 5 percent in the coming years thanks to a declining population and slowing productivity.
Oil prices have nearly erased all year-to-date gains as shrinking refining margins signal weaker demand for oil.
In recent times, fears of a spillover in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, which could embroil Iran and its allies in the region, have offered considerable support to oil prices. Unfortunately for the bulls, the oil price momentum has fizzled out with the war risk premium that helped fuel an oil price rally in the early days of the Israel-Hamas war all but gone thanks to Israel’s ground incursion into Gaza proving to be less extensive than some investors expected.
Oil prices slipped more than 1% on Monday as investors adopted caution ahead of a U.S. Federal Reserve policy meeting and China’s manufacturing data due this week, offsetting support from tension in the Middle East.
In hosting its third Belt and Road Initiative Forum on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, China is welcoming representatives from around 130 countries for a diplomatic event focused on Xi Jinping’s now ten-year-old signature policy.
Will Russian President Vladimir Putin finally be able to secure a Chinese commitment on an ambitious natural gas pipeline project that could transform energy flows across Asia?
China imported in August record volumes of coal and the third-highest monthly amount of crude oil ever. But the recent surge in the imports of major commodities could be masking one-off temporary factors instead of a rebound in China’s economic growth in the second half of the year.