Korea Crude Imports: New UAE Record

...ril’s 570,000 b/d was a 21-year high on a monthly basis (MEES, 17 May).   *Korea’s overall crude imports were up 1.5% at 2.82mn b/d for 1H 2024, putting 2024 on track for the highest annual figure since 2019, albeit some 210,000 b/d below the record annual figure of 3.03mn b/d set in 2017. South Ko...

China Gas: Record Domestic Output & Piped Russian Imports Cut Need For LNG

...erland volumes from Russia since the start up of the ‘Power of Siberia’ pipeline at the end of 2019. For 2021 these volumes hit 10bcm, and deliveries saw a further 63% year on year surge to 7.6bcm for 1H 2022. As such LNG’s share of China’s gas imports has fallen below 60% for the first time since 2017, wi...

Global LNG: Does The Current Boom Risk Seeding Its Own Downfall?

...tright contraction in demand to 2025 and beyond according to IEA projections.   For China, the IEA predicts that gas demand growth will fall from an average of 11%/year for 2017-21 to somewhat below 5%/year for 2021-25 as, amid high gas prices, “gas-fired generation remains under pressure in the Ch...

Opec: Another Month, Another Missed Target

...rget. With oil prices more than $100/B, the country has every reason to maximize output if possible.     But gone are the days when the country was able to produce more than 1.7mn b/d – a level it last reached in October 2017. Even with efforts to boost effective capacity over the past few mo...

Opec+ Ratifies Agreement To Unwind Cuts In August

...20.    Iraq arguably has the wellhead capacity to go above its August allocation of 4.651mn b/d, but export capacity limitations mean it will struggle to do so (MEES, 15 April), while a 522,000 b/d capacity drop for Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) since 2017/18 means that Kuwait may struggle to hit its 2....

Thailand Crude Imports: UAE Dominant, Mideast Share Squeezed

...*Key southeast Asian crude importer Thailand saw volumes slump 7% year-on-year to 988,000 b/d for 1H 2021, the first sub-1mn b/d first half figure since 2017.   *Thailand has seen far fewer Covid-19 deaths than most countries in Europe or the Americas but is currently seeing the hi...

Thailand LNG: Record Imports, Qatar Dominant

...ar figure of 1.59mn tons, up 72% year-on-year. Qatar’s 1H 2021 market share of 49.8% is the highest on a half-year basis since 2017, with the share hitting 51.4% for Q2 as Qatar supplied a quarterly record 1.04mn tons.   *Nigeria and Malaysia were second and third respectively for 1H 2021, wi...

GCC Rig Count Stuck At 10-Year Low Levels For 1H 2021

...e first half of the last decade Kuwait consistently had a higher rig count than the UAE. For 2017 and 1H 2018 the two were neck and neck. But the UAE has been more than 10 ahead for every quarter since Q4 2018, save Q2 and Q3 2020 when the UAE was more dynamic than Kuwait in cutting rigs and the gap fe...

Taiwan Crude Imports: Total & Mideast Volumes Stay Low

...cluded 236,000 b/d from Saudi Arabia, just above the quarterly low set in 2017. Saudi 1H 2020 volumes of 266,000 b/d were down 10% year-on-year despite record monthly arrivals of 475,000 b/d in February. Given the size of the overall fall in volumes, supplier countries chalking up sizable gains this ye...

Hormuz Escalation Spooks Major Asian Economies

...y of 420,000 b/d this year. The US has been making huge inroads into the Korean market, with volumes breaking records for the past five consecutive quarters. Having averaged just 36,000 b/d over the course of 2017, 2Q 2019 volumes averaged a massive 325,000 b/d. This was sufficient to place the US...

Aramco Trading Volumes Surge, With Crude Playing Enhanced Role

...st year saw it emerge as an increasingly active, albeit modest in scale, crude trader. Overall liquids volumes rose from 1.40mn b/d in 2017 to 2.17mn b/d in 2018 (see chart), and the firm says that it exited the year in excess of 4mn b/d. Volumes rose to 4.5mn b/d in 1Q 2019 and are planned to reach 6m...

South Korea 2Q19 Crude & Condensate Imports ('000 B/D): Middle East Share Up Quarter-On-Quarter But Still Down On 2017 Levels

Opec Production Purgatory: Cuts And More Cuts With No End In Sight

...nister Suhail al-Mazrouei warned in 2017 that there “is too much fluctuation within one year. It is not healthy for producers, and it is definitely not healthy for consumers. We need some sort of stability” (MEES, 17 November 2017). He reiterated the message this week in Vienna, saying “once we are cl...

LNG Start-Ups To Peak, Then Slump

...ertaking Qatar (77mn t/y) as the world’s top LNG exporter. Actual Australian 2017 exports were 56.2mn tons, with the country set to add a further 21.4mn t of capacity this year (and of course the 9.7mn t/y of capacity added during 2017 was not operating for the whole of the year).   • With in...

Saudi Crude Exports Poised To Fill Market

...rket. He said crude exports for July would be equal with June but expected August exports to fall by 100,000 b/d. It thus appears unlikely that November 2016’s record 8.26mn b/d is under imminent threat. Following the implementation of the Opec+ agreement in January 2017, Saudi Arabia cut crude ex...

EIA Hikes 2019 US Output Forecast; Exports AT Record

...tput topped 14mn b/d for the first time in February and 15mn b/d in May. It is now set to breach 16mn b/d from January 2019 and 17mn b/d from November next year. Average 2018 output of 15.14mn b/d would represent a record 2.05mn b/d gain on the 2017 output figure; production is set to soar by a further 1....

Opec+ Leaders Make Head Start In Boosting Production

...ound 300,000 b/d from June levels. At 11.06mn b/d, Russian output was the most since March 2017 and 130,000 b/d above its previously allocated 10.93mn b/d (see chart). OPEC WELLHEAD PRODUCTION, June  2018 (MN B/D, MEES ESTIMATES) CONGO JOINED EFFECTIVE 22 JUNE, WILL BE INCLUDED IN TABLE FR...

US Firms Scale Back Investment, Claim Output Unaffected

...With WTI stuck below $50/B almost continuously since late-April, US-focused majors and large independents have dialed back on 2017 capex. They claim output will rise nonetheless. Achieving this in the short term looks feasible. Longer-term will be more tricky. US-focused E&Ps responded to th...

Opec Revenue: Sour Crude Shortfall Mitigates Price Crunch

...ghtened considerably. The predominance of sour grades within Opec is therefore somewhat mitigating the impact of price falls on the group’s revenues. The Opec basket averaged $3/B less than Brent in 2016, but this discount more than halved to just $1.48/B in the first half of 2017. And the trend has sh...

US Shale: No Sign Yet Of A Slowdown

...ghest since June 2015. If the August output figure (based on the latest drilling data) proves correct, this would be a rise of 757,000 b/d since the start of 2017. Gains to US shale production are slightly outstripping overall US crude production gains: overall output was 9.224mn b/d in June, ac...