Imported Oil News

One of Turkey's mid-sized Mediterranean oil terminals - the Dortyol terminal - will no longer accept Russian imports after receiving record volumes last year, amid an increase in sanctions pressure by the United States.Turkey has become one of the biggest importers of Russian crude and fuel since 2022, after the West imposed sanctions on Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine. Russia responded by re-routing oil away from Europe and the U.S. to Asia, Turkey and Africa.Global Terminal Services' (GTS)…

U.S. Gulf Coast crude oil exports are flowing again after recent hurricanes took out 26 million barrels of offshore production, according to sources and Refinitiv Eikon data, with local prices easing as more shipments moved out of the region.Hurricanes Ida and Nicholas damaged platforms, pipelines and processing hubs, shutting in most offshore production for weeks. Restarts continued on Thursday with about 28% of U.S. Gulf of Mexico crude output offline. Some vessels remained at sea waiting to load U.S. crude.But of more than 50 tankers set to load U.S.

Worsening diplomatic relations between the United States and China are putting a spotlight on their economic inter-dependency in the context of global supply chains for both technology and energy.Top policymakers in the United States and some of its closest allies, including Australia and Britain, have recently hardened the language in which they describe relations with China.China has been labelled a “strategic competitor” for some time but the country is increasingly described as a “strategic adversary” implying a more confrontational relationship.Complaints about unfair trade practices…

Last year, China replaced the United States as the No. 1 importer of oil from Venezuela, yet another front in the heated rivalry between Washington and Beijing.The United States had imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil company as part of a bid to topple that country’s socialist president, Nicolas Maduro. U.S. refineries stopped buying Venezuelan crude. Caracas’ ally China, long a major customer, suddenly found itself the top purchaser. Through the first six months of 2019, it imported an average of 350,000 barrels per day of crude from Venezuela.But in August, Washington tightened its sanctions on Venezuela, warning that any foreign entity that continued to do business with the South American country’s government could find itself subject to sanctions.

California will block the transport of petroleum from new offshore oil rigs through its state, officials told Reuters, a move meant to hobble the Trump administration’s effort to vastly expand drilling in U.S. federal waters. California's threat to deny pipeline permits for transporting oil from new leases off the Pacific Coast is the latest step by states trying to halt the biggest proposed expansion in decades of federal oil and gas leasing. Officials in Florida, North and South Carolina…

Refiners from the Midwest United States are fighting for access to a vital Pennsylvania pipeline – a move that could cripple their East Coast competitors and redraw the map for international flows of crude and fuel into coveted coastal markets. The regulatory dispute centers on a proposal by pipeline operator Buckeye Partners’ to that state's Public Utilities Commission. The plan would reverse the flow of fuels on a section of Buckeye’s 350-mile Laurel Pipeline, which currently flows from the East Coast to Pittsburgh. Because pipelines only flow in one direction, the change would effectively block five East Coast refineries from serving Pittsburgh – with Midwest refiners picking up their market share.

European oil traders rushed on Tuesday to book vessels to carry gasoline to consumers on the U.S. East Coast left stranded without their main domestic supply source, more than quadrupling shipping costs, traders and ship brokers told Reuters. An explosion late on Monday on the Colonial pipeline, which carries roughly one-third of the 3.2 million barrels per day (bpd) of gasoline consumed on the East Coast, makes U.S. drivers more reliant on imported oil products. But by noon on Tuesday…

The American Maritime Partnership (AMP), the voice of the domestic maritime industry, today released a statement in response to the sheer number of factual errors in the recent report published by the Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure’s (Aii) – Jones Act: Protectionism v. Global Trade. “The publication is littered with fabrications intended to mislead policymakers and we demand a retraction of the report," said Tom Allegretti, Chairman of AMP. “It is shocking that a nonprofit organization led by former senior members of the U.S. military would produce such a factually inaccurate report and take such a myopic view of an important national security issue. They have failed to even acknowledge the fact that the U.S.

One of the U.S. Senate's top advocates for lifting the ban on domestic crude exports urged the Commerce Department on Thursday to disclose whether any oil swaps with Mexico have actually been finalized after the agency approved the transactions in August. Administration officials told Reuters in August that the Commerce Department was "acting favorably on a number of applications" to export U.S. crude in exchange for imported oil from Mexico, in a step seen as loosening the ban on most crude oil exports.

The U.S. should immediately begin a push to exploit its enormous trove of oil in the Arctic waters off of Alaska, or risk a renewed reliance on imported oil in the future, reports AP. The US Arctic potentially contains enough oil and gas to allow it to be a significant contributor to the country’s future energy needs, filling the hole left by expected declines in production of shale and other domestic sources of oil. The U.S. has drastically cut imports and transformed itself into the world’s biggest producer of oil and natural gas by tapping huge reserves in shale rock formations. But the government predicts that the shale boom won’t last much beyond the next decade. A U.S. Energy Department advisory council study released Friday says that in order for the U.S.

Sales to the United States of new Venezuelan crude blends made with imported oil nearly doubled in January to 176,000 barrels per day (bpd), but the rise was not enough to offset a decline in total oil shipments, according to Reuters trade data. Venezuela's state-run company PDVSA started buying Algerian light crude in October from Sonatrach to use it as diluent for its own extra heavy oil output. China and the United States have been receiving cargoes of the new blends since then, but disagreements over terms of the Algerian oil sales have caused PDVSA to halt the purchases, according to industry sources. PDVSA and its joint venture partners sent 736,000 bpd of crude to the United States last month, down 10.5 percent from December.

S.Africa wants 30 wells drilled in next 10 years; Total woes a setback to S.Africa exploration drive. French energy major Total has halted oil exploration off the southern coast of Africa due to mechanical problems with a rig, meaning it will not be able to resume searching in the area before 2016, a company official said on Tuesday. The news is a huge setback to South Africa's plans to have 30 exploration wells drilled in the next 10 years as the continent's most advanced economy strives to reduce its heavy reliance on imported oil. "Offshore repair was not possible," Guy Maurice, the company's senior vice-president for exploration and production in Africa, told delegates at an Africa oil and gas conference organised by Global Pacific & Partners.

President Michelle Bachelet of Chile enacted new environmental tax legislation on Friday making the country the first in South America to tax carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Part of a broad tax reform, Chile's carbon tax will target the power sector, particularly generators operating thermal plants with installed capacity equal or larger than 50 megawatts (MW). These installations will be charged $5 per tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) released. Thermal plants fueled by biomass and smaller installations will be exempt. The new tax is meant to force power producers to gradually move to cleaner sources to help reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions and meet its voluntary target of cutting these gases 20 percent from 2007 levels by 2020.

Venezuela is considering importing crude oil for the first time ever and could use a light oil from its partner in OPEC, Algeria, to dilute their own heavy crude, according to a company document seen by Reuters accessed on Wednesday. Despite having the largest oil reserves in the world, in recent years Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) has been buying increasing amounts of heavy naphtha for blending with the extraction of heavy crude in the Orinoco Oil Belt, the largest producing region . These blends are made to convert the extra-an exportable product, amid the decline in local production of medium and light crude oils previously used as diluents and delays in construction of new breeders that can change the quality of the crude.

China wants to invest in Greek airports and railways as well as the busiest port, officials said on Friday, as the country where the euro debt crisis began seeks a role as China's gateway into Europe. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is on a three-day trip to Greece to boost economic ties between the nations, who have drawn closer since China's Cosco Paficic won a 35-year concession in 2009 to upgrade and run two cargo piers at the Piraeus port. Greece, which relies on bailout loans from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund…

"China is our reliable friend," Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday in an interview ahead of a conference in Shanghai. Most evaluations of the bilateral relationship begin by reciting the historical border disputes, rift between Mao Zedong and Nikita Khrushchev, opening to China by Richard Nixon, and the perennial problem of reaching an agreement on gas pricing. But these are all essentially backward looking and ignore the growing community of interests between the two countries. The case for a closer bilateral relationship on energy, trade, security and diplomatic issues is compelling. In the energy sphere, the two countries are an almost perfect match: the world's largest net energy exporter and its second-largest net energy importer (2011) with a long land border.

The European Union must create an energy union to secure its gas supply because the current dependence on Russian energy makes Europe weak, Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote in an article in the Financial Times. Russia, which provides around one third of the EU's oil and gas, sent shockwaves through the international community with its military intervention and annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in March. The action prompted the United States and its European allies to begin imposing sanctions on President Vladimir Putin's inner circle and to threaten to penalise key sectors of Russia's economy if Russia escalates tensions with Ukraine.

Increased energy demand due to rapid economic development is driving many Asia Pacific countries to reduce their dependency on imported oil and gas by upping local offshore exploration and production (E&P) activities. Responding to this reality, The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Singapore announced the free Asia Offshore Technology Conference  on Tuesday, April 16 in Singapore to assess ‘The Challenges of Offshore E&P in Asia Pacific’. A survey report analyzing key trends in the region’s E&P sector will be disclosed at the conference.

China’s demand for imported oil is, and will, continue to be one of the key influences on the tanker market, according to industry experts Braemar Shipping Services plc. Demand growth in the country has progressed at an unprecedented pace over the last decade, a pattern universally anticipated to continue. This additional demand will increase China’s dependence on imported crude with beneficial knock-on effects for the tanker industry. Oil and Gas Journal estimates that Chinese refining capacity stood at 8.1m bpd as of 1st January 2011, exhibiting growth of 54% over the last decade.

Following the earthquake that struck on Friday 11th March, six Japanese refineries are reportedly closed. The plants in question, detailed in the table belo,have a combined capacity of 1.34m bbl/day, or around 28% of Japan’s total. The immediate effects of the earthquake are likely to cause a drop in oil demand, but it is likely that in the long‐run, oil and product demand could rebound to levels that surpass those seen pre‐quake as the country re‐builds. Furthermor with up to ten nuclear reactors shut down…

Acting Maritime Administrator David T. Matsuda approved the construction of a deepwater port for liquefied natural gas (LNG) off the coast of Fla. As part of the approval agreement, officials for Port Dolphin Energy, LLC, agreed to provide employment and training opportunities to American mariners on ships using the port. The Maritime Administration is an agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation. “This energy project is a win for Florida consumers, and for U.S. maritime workers,” said Transportation Secretary LaHood. The Port Dolphin facility will be located in the Gulf of Mexico, approximately 28 miles southwest of Tampa Bay. Deepwater ports are offshore facilities used to transfer imported oil and natural gas from carrier vessels to shore via sub-sea pipelines.

Charles G. (Chuck) Raymond, Chairman, President & CEO of Horizon Lines, Inc. expressed strong support for legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate that would exempt coastwise shipping of containerized cargo from the Harbor Maintenance Tax (HMT). The legislation, introduced by Senator Frank Lautenberg (NJ), would exempt water carriage of non-bulk cargo between ports from the HMT. This would eliminate both the tax and associated paperwork burdens that discourage shippers from routing cargo by sea. By removing these barriers, the legislation would encourage use of the fuel-efficient marine mode to move cargo along our nation's coasts, helping ease highway and rail congestion and the demand for imported oil.

install a new Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System. oceanographic and meteorological data. NOAA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. annually. the water. off. make marine transportation both safe and efficient. administrator of NOAA's National Ocean Service. effort with the Block Island Pilots Association. quality control and data dissemination. thoroughly quality controlled to ensure accuracy. accessible by Internet or phone. include port authorities, vessel pilots, shipping companies, U.S. Guard, U.S. environmental organizations, academia and surfers. using the highly successful NOAA program. and Tacoma, Wash. understanding, conserving and restoring the nation's coasts and oceans. sustaining coastal habitats and mitigating coastal hazards. resources.