China’s biggest state-held energy firms are following the demand trends in the world’s top crude oil and natural gas importer.
After decades of growth, Chinese demand for transport fuels is peaking as electric vehicles and LNG-powered trucks are seizing market share from gasoline and diesel. But natural gas demand is only going up, and it’s expected to continue growing for decades.
About 2 million cubic meters a day will be sent via the Arab Gas Pipeline, eventually contributing a total of 400 megawatts to the power grid, Syrian state-run news agency Sana said. The supplies were approved by Washington, Reuters reported earlier, without providing numbers.
Qatar is set to supply Syria with natural gas via Jordan with Washington’s approval, Reuters has reported. Qatar was one of the fiercest opponents of the deposed Bashar al-Assad and one of the strongest supporters of the rebels-turned rulers currently in charge. The gas would be transferred from Jordan via a pipeline to the Deir Ali power plant in southern Syria, where it could boost power supply by up to 400 megawatts. According to the Qatari Charge d’affaires in Syria Khalifa Abdullah Al Sharif, the plan aims to increase power production by an initial 400 MW to the country’s power capacity range up to around 4,000 MW.
The latest data on money managers’ positioning in the WTI and Brent crude and U.S. natural gas futures showed two contrasting trends—speculators are betting that oil prices would remain low or go even lower while increasing the bets that natural gas prices would continue marching higher.
The US has made over 100 GW of data center land acquisition and construction announcements, with estimated commercial operation dates falling between 2024 and 2035. At a global level, this represents roughly 40% of total data center announcements as of 2023. Domestically, data centers are poised to require between 395 and 660 terawatt-hours (TWh) of power by 2035, representing at least 10% of current demand. The surge in announcements is driven by rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies from leading tech firms, alongside continued growth in cloud computing services.
Germany’s year-ahead power futures prices fell this week to the lowest level since the beginning of the year amid falling European natural gas prices as talks on a peace deal in Ukraine began.
The fundamental argument for today’s rise in natural gas futures is driven by higher LNG exports and colder weather forecasts, which are expected to boost heating demand.
President Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ policy promises to unleash a new boom in U.S. oil and gas production with eased regulations and greater access to export markets.
Germany’s natural gas demand rose by 3.3% in 2024, due to lower prices compared to last year, preliminary estimates by the association of the German utilities, BDEW, showed on Wednesday.
European natural gas futures rebounded to over €41.5 per megawatt-hour on Tuesday, up from the over one-month low of €39.5 they touched on Monday as markets continue assessing the outlook of gas supply to Europe and the Ukraine gas transit deal comes to an end.