According to a report from the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia may lose its position as a key energy producer and exporter by 2050, due to sanctions and market losses.
Due to the first increase in US crude oil inventories in six weeks, but still down 9 million barrels from the same period last year, Brent crude oil futures approached $80 per barrel in Asian morning trading.
As of 12:00 Beijing time, the price of the Brent crude oil October contract was $79.96 per barrel, up 20 cents from the settlement price on August 14, while the contract fell 93 cents at the close of August 14.
The WTI crude oil September contract rose 26 cents to $77.24 per barrel from the settlement price on August 14, with a drop of $1.37 at the close of the same day.
According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) data, US crude oil inventories increased by 1.4 million barrels last week, reaching 430.7 million barrels, up from 429.3 million barrels the previous week. However, stocks are still down 9 million barrels from the same period last year, and have fallen more than 31 million barrels in the past six weeks.
Crude inventories at the Cushing Oil Center in Oklahoma fell 1.7 million barrels to 28.8 million barrels this week, down 5 million barrels from last year. While the increase in inventories along the US Gulf Coast this week offset the decline in Cushing, increasing by 5.6 million barrels to 243.7 billion barrels.
According to operational reports seen by Argus, Libya's crude oil production dropped by about 0.075 million barrels/day due to pipeline fire.
The fire affected the pipeline that connects the oil fields operated mainly by the oil company Waha Oil to the Es Sider terminal storage facility, which exports the medium sweet Es Sider crude oil produced by the company's shareholders, including the state-owned oil company NOC (co-owned with Total and Conocophillips). The fire was extinguished on August 13, caused by an accident related to maintenance, and repairs were announced to begin immediately.
According to a report from the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Energy Research, Russia may lose its position as a key energy producer and exporter by 2050 due to sanctions and loss of market share in Europe. The Moscow-based think tank report stated that without access to Western technology and key energy export markets, Russia will not be able to recover its export level and income before the Ukrainian war. The report predicts that although it may temporarily rise to 0.221 billion tons next year, Russia's crude oil and refined oil exports will fall to 0.167 billion tons in 2050, compared to 0.217 billion tons in 2021.
This report is a rare admission by Russian official agencies of the negative consequences of the changes in Russian oil and gas export flows since 2022. Nevertheless, Moscow insists that redirecting oil to the Asia-Pacific region largely offsets the negative impact of the EU ban on Russian crude oil and products.
(The above content is from Argus, an independent international energy and commodity price assessment agency)