Regional News

SINGAPORE / Reuters Several bookings for oil product tankers from Asia to the United States and Latin America have been cancelled as traders have not been able to find spot supplies to fill them and as demand has tapered off slightly, traders and shipbrokers said on Wednesday. About one-third of the estimated 25 vessels that were provisionally booked to load ...

LONDON / Reuters OPEC members’ compliance with the agreement to reduce output has improved in recent months, Iran’s oil minister said, noting that unofficial talks were underway among the oil producing countries to extend the cuts next year. Under the agreement OPEC is curbing its collective oil production by about 1.2 million bpd, while Russia and some other non-OPEC producers ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia raised oil pricing for October sales to Asia, increasing its lighter grades for a second consecutive month, in an indication the world’s largest crude exporter sees strengthening demand in its biggest market. State-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Saudi Aramco, increased its official pricing for Arab Light crude to Asia by 55 cents to 30 cents ...

Bloomberg The biggest independent refiner in US says operator of the nation’s largest gasoline pipeline is blocking its efforts to supply more fuel to East Coast in the aftermath of Harvey. Two of Valero Energy Corp.’s Gulf Coast refineries kept operating throu-ghout the storm, churning out gasoline. After US government waived fuel specifications, allowing refiners to ship winter-grade gasoline two ...

LONDON / Reuters Iraq’s Kurdistan is poised for a major increase in gas output following the settlement of a court case with developers who are now looking to unlock the full potential of the region’s large resources, investor Dana Gas told Reuters. The semi-autonomous region settled a case with the Pearl Consortium last week by paying $1 billion to its ...

CAIRO / Reuters Egypt’s tourism revenues jumped by 170 percent in the first seven months of 2017, reaching $3.5 billion, a government official told Reuters, in welcome news for an economy heavily reliant on the sector for foreign currency and jobs. The number of tourists visiting Egypt rose by 54 percent in the same seven-month period on an annual basis ...

BEIJING / Reuters Independent oil refiners in China’s Shandong province are planning to form a consortium to integrate their production of oil products and petrochemicals, according to a planning document reviewed by Reuters. Since late 2015, China has allowed 31 mostly privately-owned oil refineries to import crude oil, the majority of them based in Shandong province. With a combined capacity ...

Bloomberg The UK North Sea is on track for the biggest year of oil and gas field startups in a decade, continuing the aging province’s surprising resilience to the crude-market slump. Fourteen projects with combined peak production of 230,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day will start in the region this year, according to data from consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd. ...

Bloomberg Hurricane Harvey’s crushing blow to the US energy industry reveals just how dependent Mexico has become on natural gas from its northern neighbor. The storm’s wrath forced cross-border gas pipelines in Texas to shut and prevented tankers from loading cargoes of the fuel. Mexican consumers, who are burning record amounts of gas from America’s prolific shale basins, had no ...

Bloomberg Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. is nearing a deal to acquire Cenovus Energy Inc.’s Pelican Lake oil asset for about C$1 billion ($807 million), according to people familiar with the matter. Canadian Natural advanced to the final round of bidding alongside Cona Resources Ltd. for the asset, which is located about 300 kilometers (186 miles) north of Edmonton, said the ...