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Bloomberg Total SA abandoned a plan to acquire assets from Occidental Petroleum Corp in Ghana, walking away after a proposal to buy Algerian projects from the US company also collapsed. The breakdown of both sales is a setback for Occidental, which had earmarked the proceeds to help reduce debt after buying Anadarko Petroleum Corp for $37 billion last year. After …

Bloomberg In brokering the end to the global oil-price war last month, the Trump administration assured leaders that America’s shale patch would throttle back production. But few expected that the cuts would run this deep — and happen so quickly. Drillers are laying down rigs and shutting in wells at a frantic pace in response to the plunge in oil …

Bloomberg A fifth of global demand for oil will disappear this quarter. All three of the major forecasting agencies now agree that the world faces its biggest-ever slump in oil consumption, after governments imposed movement restrictions on billions of people to combat the coronavirus. The scale of the demand hit means that despite producers implementing unprecedented output cuts, stockpiles will …

Bloomberg Construction of the world’s most controversial natural gas pipeline is about to enter the endgame of an energy dispute that’s pitted the US against Russia and some of its closest trans-Atlantic allies, satellite images show. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline, built to increase the flow of Russian gas into Europe’s biggest economy, was thwarted five months ago after US …

Bloomberg In China’s latest efforts to pit renewable energy against fossil fuels, it is again betting on size. Resources such as wind and solar don’t stand much of a chance if there isn’t a way to store energy when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. So some of China’s biggest state-owned companies are pouring in billions of …

Bloomberg Fuel consumption in India is showing signs of rebounding after witnessing the worst monthly sales in more than 12 years. Demand in May will be as much as 25% higher than April as planting season begins, requiring tractors and water pumps to burn more diesel, and the easing of the world’s biggest lockdown brings more trucks back to the …

Bloomberg The great oil glut of 2020 may have already peaked in the world’s biggest crude importer. Crude inventories in China have shrunk in recent weeks after rising to record levels, according to analysts and satellite observations. Supplies have been drawn out of storage as refineries ramp up operations to meet rising demand from an economy emerging from lockdown. Inventories …

Bloomberg Petroleos Mexicanos’s trading arm PMI has declared a force majeure on some fuel cargoes, deferring other cargoes until later in the year, after measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak pummeled demand. Some fuel deliveries are being postponed until the second half of the year, according to people familiar with the situation. More than 70 tankers were waiting to unload …

Bloomberg Singapore home sales slumped in March and are set to take a harder hit in coming months as the government enforces a more draconian lockdown that threatens to bring the property market to a standstill. Sales in the city-state fell 32% to 660 units last month — even before the toughest curbs were imposed — from 976 in February, …

Bloomberg When the coronavirus hit China late last year, America’s solar industry immediately started worrying about manufacturing. Asia is the main source of panels and other equipment, and with residential installers anticipating a bumper year, a bottleneck in the supply chain could be a major hindrance. Turns out the industry’s biggest 2020 quandary is very different: dwindling demand. Many homeowners …