Marine Link
Friday, March 29, 2024
SUBSCRIBE

Michal Meidan News

21 May 2018

US Exports to China to Rise amid Trade Talks, but Volumes are Capped

© donvictori0 / Adobe Stock

China has pledged to buy more U.S. goods to reduce America's huge trade deficit and help avoid exacerbating a trade war between the world's two biggest economies, with energy and commodities high on Washington's list of products for sale.The U.S. trade war with China is "on hold" after the governments agreed to drop tariff threats and work on a wider agreement, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday. Washington is especially keen to sell more of the United States'…

29 Mar 2018

Oil Backlog Off China Limits Prospects for Fresh Atlantic Basin Shipments

© cascoly2 / Adobe Stock

A backlog of crude cargoes has built up off the coast of China, limiting prospects for new shipments to the world's largest oil importer, trading and shipping sources said. The amount of oil floating in tankers off China has risen partly due to tax changes and an anti-pollution drive that have depressed oil demand from small, independent refiners, known as "teapots". Maintenance has curtailed run rates at others. This has combined with aggressive selling, particularly from West Africa, that pushed vessels to the region even when early warning signs showed crude demand could falter.

10 Jan 2018

Record West African Oil Liftings, Most Sailing East

Total WAF loadings for Asia hit record. Shipments of West African oil to China are set to surge to a record in January, boosting overall fixtures heading east to their highest in at least 14 years, a Reuters survey of shipping fixtures and traders showed on Wednesday. China's loadings are expected to jump by more than 20 percent from December to more than 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in January, the survey showed. The figure is the highest barrel-per-day total to sail for China since September, and is some 37 percent above the same month last year. Traders said China's appetite was whetted in part by the first batch of government import quotas for 2018, which were issued in late December, but announced in November.

10 Jan 2017

CNOOC Diverted Two LNG Cargoes from Tianjin After Pipeline Fire

China's state-owned energy company CNOOC diverted two cargoes of imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) after a pipeline fire in northern China's Tianjin, though imports were normal as of Monday, traders with knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday. Reuters reported on Dec. 28 that a natural gas pipeline in Tianjin was closed after it ruptured and caught fire. Two sources with knowledge of CNOOC's gas operations in Tianjin said CNOOC diverted the LNG cargoes after the accident on the pipeline, which is connected to a domestic gas consumer. "Imports are now back to normal," said one source, adding that the cargoes were sold back to the supplier under force majeure terms. The source did not give further details. A CNOOC press official was not immediately able to comment.

31 Oct 2016

China Gobbles up Angolan Oil in Rush to Year End

China's loadings of West African crude are set to hit their highest in more than two years in November as the nation's refineries race to stock up and offset falling domestic oil production, according to a Reuters survey of shipping fixtures and traders. China's November West African crude oil loadings, the bulk of it Angolan, are on track to reach 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd), the highest since September 2014, the survey showed on Monday. December bookings are already expected to be similarly strong. "Domestic production declines and stockpiling continue to generate demand for crude," said Michal Meidan, Asia analyst with Energy Aspects.

07 Apr 2016

China Teapot Refiners Create Qingdao Tanker Jam

Tankers at Qingdao port face up to 30-day wait. At least 15 large tankers wait to offload -shiptracking data. A surge in oil buying by China's newest crude importers has created delays of up to a month for vessels to offload cargoes at Qingdao port, imposing costly fees and complicating efforts to sell to the world's hottest new buyers. China's independent refiners, freed of government constraints after securing permission to import just last year, have gorged on plentiful low-cost crude in 2016. This has created delays for tankers that have quadrupled to between 20 to 30 days at Qingdao port in Shandong province, the key import hub for the plants, known as teapots, according to port agents and ship-tracking data.

20 Aug 2015

Chinese Trading Rivalry Ruffles Asian Oil Markets

An intensifying rivalry between China's two top oil traders Chinaoil and Unipec is whipsawing Asia's oil market, pitting the state-owned firms against each other in a battle for control of the region's crude benchmark. Aggressive trading - with heavy buying by Chinaoil met by selling from Unipec - has pushed up Middle East crude prices for Asia, even as other grades are being pressed lower by a global glut. Asian buyers are being driven to seek cheaper oil elsewhere or cut refinery runs, but analysts say Beijing is unlikely to intervene in a process that reflects the growing clout of Chinese traders in global oil markets. The volumes…