Archives for December 2019

The company suspended work on the underwater pipeline on December 21, shortly after US President Donald Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act for the 2020 fiscal year. The law envisions sanctions against companies involved in the construction of two major Russian gas pipelines, Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream. Firms are given 30 days to quit the projects or face US penalties.

Also on rt.com Russia has ships to complete Nord Stream 2 pipeline without European help

Despite having time before the January 20 deadline, Allseas ordered an immediate stop to the work on Nord Stream 2, the firm said on Monday. Allseas’ Pioneering Spirit pipelayer was anchored in the Norwegian waters around noon on Monday, while another vessel Solitaire was still in the Baltic Sea, but far from the construction area, according to ship tracking website Marine Traffic.

“Allseas constructor fleet has left the Baltic Sea and has been mobilized for preparations for other work,” the company said as cited by Russian media.

Also on rt.com Putin Merkel agree to keep supporting Nord Stream 2 project amid sanctions pressure from Washington

Moscow has pledged to finish the construction of the pipeline, which is 93 percent complete. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said that the country has the necessary capacities. One of the options is using Gazprom’s Akademik Cherskiy pipelaying vessel, currently stationed in the Far East. It has all the technical characteristics to finish the pipeline, but replacing the vessels will take time and the launch of the project is set to be delayed until the end of 2020.

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Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/477103-allseas-ditches-nord-stream/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

According to China’s Ministry of Transport (MOT), 1.8 trillion yuan might be spent on roads and waterways, and about 90 billion yuan on civil aviation.

The country will strive to cover 98 percent of its countryside with delivery networks.

Also on rt.com China doubles down on infrastructure projects as trade war with US drags on

According to MOT data, China’s investment in fixed assets in the transport sector is estimated at over 3.2 trillion yuan for 2019.

China’s first high-speed line was commissioned in 2007 and within four years the country developed the world’s largest network. By the end of 2018, China was operating 29,000km of high-speed lines, around two-thirds of the world’s total, having added more than 4,000 route-km in 2018.

The current network has considerably reduced the travel time between major Chinese cities. The rail authority is now considering extending new lines into some of the country’s more remote regions.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/477099-china-railway-investments-2020/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

“Works at the site have already begun… We may hold an official concrete pouring ceremony by March,” Alexey Likhachev, director general of Russian nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, told journalists on Monday.

Also on rt.com Turkey vows to retaliate if US imposes sanctions on Russian gas pipeline

Pouring concrete at such sites usually marks the official start of construction. In August, Akkuyu Nuclear, a part of Rosatom charged with implementing the construction in Turkey, was granted a general licence, allowing them to start work on the second reactor.

The Akkuyu NPP is the largest joint project between Russia and Turkey. The $20-billion project is fully funded by Russia, while in the future Russian companies are set to have a 51 percent stake in it. The rest will be acquired by third-party investors, according to an agreement the two sides signed in 2010.

Also on rt.com Turkey aims to boost trade with Russia to $100bn

The main contractor for the power plant’s construction, Rosatom’s subsidiary Titan-2 Concern, is working in partnership with one of Turkey’s largest private investment construction firms Ictas, the Russian nuclear energy corporation announced on Monday. “We hope this alliance will help us successfully realize the project,” Likhachev said.

The plant will have four reactors with a capacity of 4,800 MW, and is expected to serve for at least 60 years, covering around 10 percent of Turkey’s electricity needs. The first reactor is expected to start operations in 2023, when Turkey will celebrate its centenary.

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Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/477082-russia-turkish-nuclear-plant/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

By 2034, the South Asian nation will be the world’s third largest, it added.

“India has decisively overtaken both France and the UK to become the world’s fifth-largest economy in 2019. It is expected to overtake Germany to become fourth largest in 2026, and Japan to become the third largest in 2034.”

The three countries – India, Germany and Japan – will continue to battle for the position of third-largest economy over the next 15 years, said CEBR.

Also on rt.com India will reverse economic slowdown to become stronger, as it did before – Modi

It noted that India’s “slow growth during the year has increased pressure for more radical economic reforms.”

The country’s economy, hailed as the fastest-growing in the world, grew by five percent year-on-year between April and June. This was its weakest pace since 2013, coming on the back of slowing consumer demand and government spending amid global trade conflicts.

Goldman Sachs projected this month that the Indian economy will rebound in 2020 as global conditions are set to improve.

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Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/477083-india-fourth-largest-economy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

“The attitude for further support of the Nord Stream 2 project was confirmed” during a phone call which was initiated by the German side on Sunday, according to a statement on the Kremlin website.

Earlier this month, the US State Department issued an ultimatum to European companies taking part in the project, threatening them with sanctions if they do not cease their work by January 20.

Also on rt.com Obey immediately or face sanctions: Washington sets 30-day deadline for European contractors to abandon Nord Stream 2 project

The US’ announcement was a shock for Europe and caused a vast outcry in Berlin and Brussels. German finance minister, Olaf Scholz, blasted the sanctions as “a serious interference in the internal affairs of Germany and Europe and their sovereignty.” The European Commission also said that it “strongly rejects” the American crackdown on EU companies, which had all the legal grounds to take part in the pipeline project.

Swiss-Dutch construction company Allseas fell for the American intimidation and halted operations in the Baltic Sea. However, Russia confirmed it will be able to complete the pipeline on its own by the end of 2020.

The US has been vigorously opposing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, as it will provide cheaper gas to European customers than American liquefied natural gas – which it calls “molecules of freedom” – and it increases the EU’s dependence on Russia.

Ukraine and Poland have fully sided with Washington in rejecting the project as it may deprive them of billions of dollars in transit fees, which they have been receiving from Moscow for decades.

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Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/477062-putin-merkel-nord-stream/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

“Judging from the situation in the past months, continued negative growth is unavoidable,” Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said on Sunday.

Is Trump using Hong Kong unrest as leverage in trade talks with China?

While the official economic results will be released only early next year, Chan could already cite some gloomy statistics. The city’s retail sales plunged 26 percent in October, while its once booming tourist sector lost 50 percent of vacationers during the Christmas holidays. Tourist numbers have been dramatically collapsing since the beginning of the unrest, with earlier reports saying that Hong Kong-based companies were deprived of more than 2.5 million visitors.

“It was the HK government’s first loss in 15 years, making it less flexible to mobilize financial resources in the recession,” he said as cited by the Global Times.

In a separate statement, another top financial official, Hong Kong’s Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung, said that the economy could post an annual 1.3 percent contraction this year for the first time in ten years, while the consequences of the protests from a macro aspect will be further evaluated. He also warned that next year might not be much easier, fraught with “tough tests and challenges.”

On the bright side, the city still has a chance for “rebirth” if the violence stops, according to Cheung. “The past six months have been tough for us, but we will soldier on,” he wrote.

Also on rt.com Hong Kong plunges into recession as months of violent protests take toll on economy

In October, China’s self-governing territory recognized that massive rallies, sparked in June by a now-withdrawn extradition bill, plunged it into recession after two successive quarters of contraction. Months of chaos are believed to have cost Hong Kong two percent of its GDP, and are feared to leave the budget in the next 2020-21 financial year in the red.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/477050-hong-kong-economy-downturn/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

An eventful 2019 wraps up a decade of turmoil in oil markets, in which Brent Crude prices fluctuated from as high as US$125 a barrel in 2012 to as low as US$30 per barrel in January 2016.

Geopolitical turmoil, economic growth, soaring US shale production, and OPEC’s various policies to try to set the trends in oil prices marked the decade which is drawing to a close.

Is this the beginning of a US shale crisis?

For the decade beginning in 2020, the key factors determining the price of oil are likely to be similar to those we have seen over the past decade, Andy Critchlow, Head of News, EMEA at SP Global Platts, writes.

The state of the global economy, US oil production and exports growth, and the OPEC+ alliance between the cartel and a dozen non-OPEC producers led by Russia will continue to influence the price of oil through 2030.

Geopolitical flare-ups and US sanctions policies toward major oil producers, including Iran and Venezuela, will also shape the supply side of the market over the next few years.

On the demand side, the growing share of renewables in the energy mix and the increased use of electric vehicles (EVs) will begin to displace meaningful volumes of fossil fuel demand in power generation and oil demand in transportation over the next decade, many analysts say. Growing climate concerns may also start impacting investment decisions in new fossil fuel production, including oil.

The fundamental supply and demand picture will likely be ‘more of the same’, but the push and policies toward greener economies could be the new factor shaping oil markets and influencing oil prices over the next decade.

According to SP Global Platts Analytics, alternative energy— including renewables, higher EV penetration, and hydrogen use — “will limit the overall call on fossil fuels.”

Also on rt.com India could become fastest growing energy market by 2030

“As we enter a new decade, the energy complex feels like it is all cascading towards a race to the bottom,” SP Global Platts Analytics said in a research note.

Many forecasts predict oil demand peaking at around 2030 or in the 2030s. Global oil demand will reach its peak in the mid-2020s and flatten out in the 2030s, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its latest annual World Energy Outlook.

The 10 most important oil market trends for 2020

“Oil demand for long-distance freight, shipping and aviation, and petrochemicals continues to grow. But its use in passenger cars peaks in the late 2020s due to fuel efficiency improvements and fuel switching, mainly to electricity. Lower battery costs are an important part of the story: electric cars in some major markets soon become cost-competitive, on a total-cost-of-ownership basis, with conventional cars,” the IEA said in its outlook to 2040.

Unsurprisingly, OPEC continues to see oil as the fuel with the highest share in the global energy mix through 2040. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries expects EVs to hold a share of just 13 percent of the global car fleet in 2040 and sees the majority of the growth still coming for conventional internal combustion-engine vehicles.

OPEC has also been warning since the oil price crash in 2015-2016 that reduced investments in conventional oil after the price plunge will start to impact global oil supply in the 2020s. Through 2040, the world will need US$10.6 trillion in total investments in oil, OPEC said in its World Oil Outlook 2019 in November.

In the new decade, OPEC and its allies in the current OPEC+ pact will have to reckon with US shale production, where growth is slowing these days as prices remain bound in a narrow range. But US production will still grow in 2020, by more than 1 million bpd, according to nearly all major forecasts. US shale production is expected to start declining in the middle or late 2020s, according to OPEC’s estimates.

The OPEC+ alliance will be tested as early as this coming March, when the partners are meeting to discuss how to proceed with their production cuts.

Also on rt.com Russia’s crude oil output could surpass 12 million bpd by 2035

The coming decade will also test how (ir)relevant OPEC is on the global oil market, considering the supply growth from countries outside the production pact, the rising share of renewables and EVs amid falling technology costs, and growing concerns about climate change.

Global economic growth and recessions will undoubtedly also impact oil demand and oil prices over the next decade. So will the ever-restive Middle East with the Saudi-Iran antagonism and global powers vying for influence in a region home to one fifth of the world’s daily oil supply.

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/477041-oil-markets-next-decade/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS