Author: Steven Sahiounie

sThe EU’s looming restrictive measures against Russian supply may force the energy alliance to slash production further The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) could impose deeper cuts in oil output this week as the organization weighs the impact of the looming EU sanctions on Russian crude, CNBC reported Friday, citing analysts.The group of oil-producing nations, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, is expected to meet on Sunday to decide on the next phase of their production policy. The meeting will be held a day before the European Union’s latest anti-Moscow sanctions kick in. The bloc…

Brussels claims it will use proceeds of what it confiscates to rebuild Ukraine. EU lawmakers are looking for legal ways to confiscate Russian assets that have been frozen as part of Western sanctions and to use these to help Ukraine. The issue of a legal seizure of Russian state and private assets held abroad has been debated for months by EU officials. However, the bloc’s desired mechanism is not easy to apply, as in most EU nations seizing frozen assets is only legally possible when there is a criminal conviction. “In the short term, we could create, with our partners,…

Shipments top 50 million tons in the first ten months this year, according to the head of Rosneft. Russia has this year become the second most important supplier of coal to China, the head of oil giant Rosneft Igor Sechin announced at the Russia-China Energy Business Forum on Tuesday. “Deliveries of high-quality Russian coal to China in [those] ten months of 2022 amounted to 53 million tons. This is about 23% of total imports to China, second place after Indonesia, which supplies 134 million tons,” Sechin said. According to the CEO, in order to further increase coal supplies to Asia,…

The Tesla CEO has called for an ‘immediate’ rate cut to prevent a recession. Tesla and Twitter boss Elon Musk has called on the US Federal Reserve to slash the key interest rate as soon as possible in order to avoid a severe recession. He added that the regulator’s latest attempts to bring down inflation could make the situation worse. The critical remarks, published on Musk’s Twitter account on Wednesday, came in an exchange with Tesmanian (Tesla Accessories and News) portal co-founder Vincent Yu in which several other executives participated. “Trend is concerning. Fed needs to cut interest rates immediately.…

Uniper seeks billions in compensation for halted energy supplies. Germany’s largest gas importer Uniper said on Wednesday it is seeking billions of euros in compensation from Russia’s Gazprom for undelivered natural gas, and has opened an arbitration process. According to the soon-to-be-nationalized company, replacing Russian supplies has cost it around €11.6 billion ($12.02 billion) so far, with the figure expected to grow until the end of 2024. “We are claiming recovery of our significant financial damages in these proceedings. It’s about gas volumes that were contractually agreed with Gazprom but not delivered and for which we had to procure replacements…

Moscow is still by far the region’s biggest supplier despite a looming embargo. Western Europe continues to lean heavily on Russia as a source of diesel, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, noting that the region needs to find new supplies with fewer than ten weeks to go until sanctions all but block the imports. According to the media outlet, citing Vortexa data, the European Union and the United Kingdom received almost half their waterborne imports of diesel-type fuel from Russia in the first 24 days of this month. The level of reliance reportedly soared from October, in line with the region’s…

Unemployment claims in the EU’s economic powerhouse topped 2.5 million in November, labor agency says. The number of unemployed in Germany jumped by 17,000 in November in monthly terms, to 2,540,000, according to the country’s Federal Labor Agency. Statistics issued on Wednesday show the nation’s unemployment rate rose to 5.6% last month from 5.5% in October. Analysts had not expected the figure to change from the previous month. “Overall, the labor market is stable,” Daniel Terzenbach, who’s in charge of regions at the Federal Labor Agency, said in a statement. “Seasonally adjusted unemployment and underemployment have risen once more and short-time work…

The bloc wants a compromise to allow Moscow sell its crude for $60 a barrel. Lawmakers in the European Union are negotiating a lower price cap for Russian seaborne oil exports at $60 per barrel, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg on Wednesday. The EU has been deadlocked on the issue since last week as Poland, Estonia and Lithuania insist that the proposed cap of $65-$70 is “too generous” to Moscow, and should instead be set at $30. Meanwhile, major shipping countries, including Greece, Malta and Cyprus, have angled for the ceiling to be set at around $70 per barrel. The…

November consumer prices in the EU’s second-largest economy jumped 7.1% from a year ago, official statistics show. The French economy continued to be hampered by record inflation in November, defying economists’ expectations, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Research (Insee) reported on Wednesday. According to its preliminary estimates, consumer prices surged 7.1% from a year earlier, matching October’s increase. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted a 7% rise. The report suggested that the price of food (excluding fresh produce) and manufactured goods, as well as services, accelerated in November. The price of services rose 3% on the year, which…

Brussels still hopes to use the frozen funds to finance Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reports. EU officials have said they cannot legally confiscate Russian assets that have been frozen under Western sanctions. The bloc however hopes to set up an international court to prosecute Russian officials for the military operation in Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. According to European Commission officials, the international principle of state immunity doesn’t allow the executive body to appropriate the assets of the Russian Central Bank, but lawmakers have proposed that EU member states and their allies create a fund to manage the…