Pakistan’s arid climate and rocky deserts may seem an unlikely place to look for a green revolution, but the nation of more than 200 million people has begun one of the world’s largest reforestation programs. The government is in the first phase of planting 3.25 billion trees at an estimated cost of around Rs 105 billion ($650 million), Malik Amin…
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LOS ANGELES — While the nation continues to see record levels of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths, wealthy patients in Southern California — the epicenter of the state’s COVID-19 crisis — are offering to pay top dollar to cut the line and be among the first to receive a vaccine. At a number of concierge medical practices in Southern…
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Coal consumption is set for a rebound of 2.6 percent next year as the world’s heavy industry emerges from the pandemic crisis, the International Energy Agency said in its latest report on the fossil fuel. The forecast is, of course, based on the assumption that the global economy will begin to recover next year, which is far from certain. China’s and India’s…
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Trans Mountain is halting construction work on the expansion of the oil pipeline in a voluntary safety stand-down of more than two weeks until January 4, the company said on Thursday, days after a worker was seriously injured. On Tuesday, an employee of a contractor working on the Trans Mountain Expansion Project at the Burnaby Terminal was seriously injured and…
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China’s largest refiner, Sinopec, expects domestic demand for oil products to peak by 2025 due to COVID impacts and the rise of electric vehicles, Argus reported on Friday, citing Sinopec’s research think-tank as saying in its annual report. “China’s oil products will enter a final growth phase before peaking in the next five years,” the Economics and Development Research Institute…
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The Governing Council of the ECB met last week, announcing significant, dovish changes to its monetary policy . First of all, the ECB decided to increase the envelope of the pandemic emergency purchase program (PEPP) by €500 billion to a total of €1,850 billion. It also extended the horizon for net purchases under the PEPP to at least the end of March 2022. Second,…
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The Pakistan Industrial and Traders Associations Front has rejected jump in prices of petroleum products for the second half of December 2020 despite the fact that Pakistan’s headline national inflation is still in high range of over 8 per cent, warning the authorities that inflation above 6 percent could hurt economic growth. In a joint statement with vice chairman Javed…
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Spot prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) delivery in Asia jumped to a six-year high this week as lower-than-normal temperatures in key LNG importers and continued growth in China’s industrial activity boost demand. Spot LNG prices for January delivery have jumped to over $12 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) as a cold snap in parts of the major LNG…
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Energy companies BP, Eni, Equinor, Galp, Occidental, Repsol, Royal Dutch Shell and Total have announced they have agreed on six joint principles to drive their participation in the energy transition. The oil and gas sector has a great deal of work to do to decarbonise and as the drive to net zero picks up pace, there is simply no choice…
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The global oil and gas industry has faced difficult times before, but the situation it confronts in 2020 is unprecedented. The short-term outlook is complex, as the erosion of demand caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has staggered an already challenged industry. The medium- and long-term outlooks are also uncertain in the context of the pressures for decarbonization, structural changes in…
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