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Mining firm Rare Earths Norway says it has discovered Europe’s largest proven deposit of highly prized rare earth elements, potentially reflecting a watershed moment for both the Nordic country and the broader region.

One of the few deposits not owned or controlled by China, the discovery of continental Europe’s largest rare earths deposit is considered a welcome boost in Europe’s bid to break China’s rare earths dominance.

Demand for rare earths and critical minerals is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years as the clean energy transition picks up pace.

Rare Earths Norway said in a June 6 statement that its Fen Carbonatite Complex in the southeast of the country boasts 8.8 million metric tons of total rare earth oxides (TREOs) with a reasonable prospect for economic extraction.

Within the TREOs, which are considered vital to the global shift away from fossil fuels, the company says there is an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of magnet-related rare earths which can be used in electric vehicles and wind turbines.

The discovery eclipses a massive rare earths deposit found last year in neighboring Sweden.

Alf Reistad, CEO of Rare Earths Norway, told CNBC that the discovery at Fen represents a “great milestone” for the company.

“It is important to state that there is absolutely no extraction of rare earth elements in Europe today,” Reistad said via videoconference Monday.

One of the aims of the Critical Raw Materials Act is to extract at least 10% of the European Union’s annual demand for rare earths by 2030 and Rare Earths Norway says it hopes to contribute to that goal.

Rare Earths Norway said the rare earths deposit in Telemark, roughly 210 kilometers (130 miles) southwest of Oslo, is likely to underscore Norway’s position as an integral part of Europe’s rare earth and critical raw material value chain.

Rare earths ‘more important’ than oil and gas

The International Energy Agency has said that today’s supply falls short of what is needed to transform the energy sector. That’s because there is a relatively high geographical concentration of the production of many energy transition elements.

Most rare earth elements are located in China, with the world’s second-largest economy estimated to account for 70% of global rare earth ore extraction and 90% of rare earth ore processing.

China was the EU’s largest partner for imports of rare earth elements in 2022, accounting for 40% of overall imports based on weight.

Workers transport soil containing rare earth elements for export at a port in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, China October 31, 2010.

Stringer | Reuters

Looking ahead, Rare Earths Norway said exploration work at the complex will continue, with further drilling scheduled for next month. The company said it is working to develop the first stage of mining by 2030.

Asked whether he believed the discovered resources could be considered of more value than Norway’s oil and gas supplies, Rare Earths Norway’s Reistad replied, “Not of more value but [European Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen has stated that lithium and rare earth element will soon be more important than oil and gas.”

“So, it will be more important but not have the same value, of course,” he added.

Source: Cnbc.com

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ENB Pub Note: An excellent article from Bloomberg. Although the first line says “The first Russian oil tanker attempting to deliver crude while under US sanctions”… this is not factual, as Russia has been increasing production and exports for the last two years and is up 73% over the last 3 months. Their “Dark” fleet is substantial and self-insured. Sanctions on oil are typically impacted through the insurance carriers. Venezuela, Russia, and Iran have increased the number of “Dark Fleet” tankers to an estimated 600 to 700. We are even seeing LNG tankers making their way into the self-insured fleet.

Bloomberg:

The first Russian oil tanker attempting to deliver crude while under US sanctions made a secret cargo transfer onto another ship, a sign of the lengths to which Moscow is going to undermine the effectiveness of American restrictions on its fleet.

The SCF Primorye was sanctioned by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control in October, after which it didn’t load oil again for about six months. But in late April, the tanker went to Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk and collected a cargo of Urals crude before embarking on a 7,500-mile voyage to a location about 70 miles east of Singapore.

Russia has shipped about 3.4 million barrels a day of crude so far this year, valued at about $37 billion at the point of export, and working around western sanctions has been part of that. Oil proceeds to the state budget increased almost 50% in May from a year ago, as its crude prices rose and the nation adapted to the measures. Nevertheless, the contorted logistics that the SCF Primorye is involved in show that there are impediments to the trade.

Not long after it arrived east of Singapore, the 900-foot tanker vanished from the automatic identification system, or AIS, where commercial vessels broadcast their locations and destinations for safety reasons. AIS can be turned off by a ship’s crew.

However, after it disappeared, satellite imagery shows that the ship switched its cargo onto another vessel, the Ocean Hermana, on June 3. The secretive transfer would in theory help whoever is buying the oil to distance themselves from dealing with a sanctioned ship and any risk of further actions from the Treasury. Identifying the receiving ship makes it hard to hide the origin of the cargo.

SCF Primorye, which was holding about 1 million barrels of oil, is owned by Russian state oil tanker company Sovcomflot PJSC. The company declined to comment.

The two vessels were identified by Bloomberg based on their dimensions, deck configuration and coloring. The identities of both were confirmed by TankerTrackers.com Inc., which specializes in interpreting satellite imagery to spot sanctions-busting tankers.

Suezmax tanker SCF Primoye transferred its cargo to the Ocean Hermana in the Riau archipelago, east of Singapore on June 3, 2024Source: European Union, contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2024, processed with EO Browser

The Ocean Hermana is about 20 years old and with an unknown insurer. It has spent most of its recent history shuttling between locations around Singapore and the Malacca Strait and ports in China.

Equasis, a database set up to promote safe shipping, indicates that its operator is a company called Sygnius Ship Management Pvt in Kolkata. The company said by email that this was incorrect and that its only role was as the vessel’s crewing agent.

Sygnius forwarded a message on behalf of an operator that it didn’t identify in response to questions from Bloomberg saying that the tanker complied with all relevant rules and regulations, and hadn’t engaged in any unlawful ship-to-ship operation.

Whether the cargo is eventually delivered to a refinery — most likely in China given the location of the transfer — will offer clues as to how easily Russia might be able to repeat the process with its other sanctioned vessels. Since October, almost all of 40 tankers sanctioned by OFAC have failed to load cargoes and only one has been removed from a list of designated vessels. Not all are owned by Sovcomflot.

SCF Primorye, which was holding about 1 million barrels of oil, is owned by Russian state oil tanker company Sovcomflot PJSC. The company declined to comment.

The Ocean Hermana is about 20 years old and with an unknown insurer. It has spent most of its recent history shuttling between locations around Singapore and the Malacca Strait and ports in China.

Bloomberg tracked the SCF Primorye’s movements on AIS and then, when it disappeared from that system, examined modified Copernicus Sentinel data, processed with EO Browser from Sentinel Hub.

SCF Primorye has now resumed its journey, heading northeast through the South China Sea and showing a draft that indicates it is now empty. The last signal from the Ocean Hermana was on June 10, nearby where the cargo transfer happened. It’s draft indicates that the ship’s cargo tanks are now full.

Another sanctioned vessel, the Bratsk, is already following the route of the SCF Primorye. It’s now in the Indian Ocean, carrying a cargo of Urals crude it loaded at Novorossiysk on May 23, and due to arrive off Singapore on June 17.

More sanctioned tankers owned by Russia’s Sovcomflot PJSC may follow. Another seven disappeared from tracking after entering the Black Sea. They are likely still there, as regulations require them to send automated position signals while transiting the Turkish Straits, making it difficult for them to have sailed into the Mediterranean undetected.

(Updates with message from the ship’s operator in third paragraph after image.) Julian Lee

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The post Russian Oil Tanker Does Secret Cargo Switch Near Singapore to Dodge US Sanctions appeared first on Energy News Beat.

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State-owned German LNG terminal operator DET expects to receive the first cargo at its FSRU-based LNG import terminal in Stade in the second half of this year.

In March, the 2021-built 174,000-cbm FSRU, Energos Force, owned by Apollo’s Energos Infrastructure, arrived at the AVG jetty in Germany’s Stade.

DET says the FSRU is ready for commissioning.

However, “there is still remaining work to be done and documentation to be drawn up, which we need for safe operation,” a DET spokesman told LNG Prime.

“As of today, we are planning the first LNG delivery as early as possible in the second half of the year,” the spokesman said.

Once operational, the almost 300 meters long ship will feed up to 5 bcm of gas per year into the German gas network.

Image: DET

This is the third of DET’s four FSRU-based LNG terminals following the launch of the Brunsbüttel and Wilhelmshaven 1 terminals.

DET previously said it expects commissioning to start at the its second terminal in Wilhelmshaven during the second half of this year.

The spokesman confirmed that commissioning of the Wilhelmshaven 2 terminal is still expected for the second half of 2024.

Unlike the three other three FSRU-based terminals, the jetty for the second Wilhelmshaven LNG terminal is located some 1.5 kilometers offshore Wilhelmshaven.

Excelerate’s 138,000-cbm FSRU Excelsior arrived at the Navantia yard in El Ferrol, Spain last year for a planned stopover prior to its job in Wilhelmshaven. The FSRU is still located there.

Besides working on commissioning the two new facilities, DET recently announced a new marketing round for new regasification capacities (including storage and sendout) for its terminals.

The LNG terminal operator is offering short-term and long-term regasification capacity.

Source: Lngprime.com

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In diplomacy, what’s left unsaid often matters more than what’s said. After Chinese President Xi Jinping met the king of Saudi Arabia in December, both nations issued lengthy readouts extolling the burgeoning Saudi-Sino relationship in “all fields.” But in more than 5,000 words, the statements were silent on the much-hyped idea of using the yuan to price oil.

The communiques said nothing at all about it. Zero. zilch. Nada.

The inevitability of a petroyuan has become a popular take in the financial blogosphere: China flexing its muscles as an emerging power, elbowing one of the most visible and enduring signs of the 75-year US hegemony in the Middle East.

If you believe in conspiracy theories, the introduction of a petroyuan, and the ensuing collapse of the petrodollar, would be a first domino, potentially weakening the whole US financial system. Very serious stuff. A redrawing of the global economic map. The backdrop to crisis and wars.

Astonishing as it is, the narrative is an illusion.

Ask quietly in government circles in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait City or Doha about the petroyuan, and the response — even in the weeks following Xi’s visit to Riyadh — is unanimous: the petrodollar is here to stay. On a recent trip to the region, I didn’t hear a single official talking seriously about making preparations to introduce a new currency to the mix. The answers sound a lot like this: What’s in it for us? The greenback is freely convertible, the yuan isn’t; the dollar is liquid, the yuan isn’t. That’s the polite version; the more candid answers sounded even more emphatic about the absurdity of turning to a managed currency produced by an opaque and unpredictable financial machine.

As in every conspiracy, there’s a grain of truth in the petroyuan tale, however. Xi did encourage the region to embrace the yuan for oil trade. But rather than pricing oil in yuan, as many had expected, Xi simply asked Middle East producers to accept payments in yuan.

Middle East officials were lukewarm at best. In public, they are open to debate the merits, but not much more. “There are no issues with discussing how we settle our trade arrangements, whether it is in the US dollar, whether it is the euro, whether it is the Saudi riyal,” Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan said last month. Thani Al Zeyoudi, the Emirati trade minister, said his country was prepared to discuss settling trade in different currencies, but only for “non-oil” deals.

In the region, the petroyuan is also seen as a door that, once opened, would invite followers. India may want a petrorupee, officials say; Japan, South Korea and Taiwan could seek similar arrangements. Although China is Saudi Arabia’s largest oil customer, taking roughly 26% of its oil exports, the combination of Japan and South Korea surpasses that share, reaching 28%. Add Taiwan, and the trio account for nearly one-third of Saudi petroleum exports. If you say “yes” to the petroyuan, how can you refuse, say, the petroyen and the petrowon?

Going beyond settling oil trade invoices in yuan is even harder. The appetite among OPEC producers to price oil in yuan using a Chinese exchange is almost nil. Middle Eastern national oil companies closely watch how Beijing tries to manipulate local commodity prices such as iron ore, cotton, coal or grains every time prices rise above its pain threshold. Having spent 60 years building a formidable cartel, why would Middle East nations cede pricing power to China?

Beyond Chinese capital controls, Middle East oil-producing nations have other reasons to stick to the dollar. A crucial one is that most of their currencies are pegged to the greenback, requiring a constant influx of dollars to support the arrangement. Those savings are held in dollar accounts, so Middle East countries have an interest in keeping the dollar strong.

Petroyuan fans play down the importance of the currency pegs. They do have a point, as those pegs can be abandoned or, at least, tweaked. But I haven’t seen any signs that’s about to happen. The other argument in favor of the petroyuan is that the US has weaponized the dollar via oil sanctions on Venezuela, Russia and Iran, making an alternative payment not only likely but necessary. Perhaps, but this isn’t the first time the US has imposed oil sanctions, and the dollar hasn’t suffered. Libya demanded — and got — payment in European currencies in the 1990s, as did Iraq.

Ironically, the only new petrocurrency to emerge of late has been the dirham of the United Arab Emirates. India is using it to settle some oil transactions with Russia, bypassing US sanctions. But for the past 25 years, the dirham has been pegged to the US dollar — another indication that the petrodollar remains the only petrocurrency that really matters.

Source: Bloomberg: Javier Blas

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(Bloomberg) – Months after UN-led climate talks, the demand for natural gas from the host of this year’s COP29 is growing in Europe and elsewhere.

Azerbaijan, which has the presidency of the 29th United Nations’ Conference of the Parties, exported almost 24 Bcm of natural gas in 2023 with half of the volumes going to Europe, according to Energy Ministry data.

“There’s absolutely no hint that” the gas demand will decline, Deputy Energy Minister Orxan Zeynalov said in an interview in the capital Baku. “Right now, we have a long list” of countries — both old and new buyers — for an additional 30 Bcm.

Producers like Azerbaijan have been stressing that the COP28 text also recognized the role that “transition fuels” like natural gas can play in moving to clean energy.

The bp Plc-led Shah Deniz deposit in December 2020 started supplying natural gas to Italy, Greece and Bulgaria via the so-called Southern Gas Corridor — a chain of pipelines connecting Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea shores with Europe via Georgia and Turkey. Three more European countries, Romania, Hungary and Serbia, have since joined the list of buyers.

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered an energy crisis in the continent, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Baku in July 2022 and signed a memorandum of understanding to double natural gas purchases from Azerbaijan by 2027.

Despite the rising demands for its natural gas — exports to Europe last year rose more than 40% above 2021 levels — there are stumbling blocks. Getting an additional 10 Bcm to the continent by 2027 could prove difficult as European buyers are reluctant to commit to long-term gas purchases from Azerbaijan.

“We can’t do this without long-term guarantees that our gas will be needed,” Zeynalov said. “What will happen after 2040, for instance?”

Another hurdle is a lack of funding to expand the existing export infrastructure as some European lenders no longer finance fossil fuel projects. Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov earlier complained that his country hadn’t received the “close cooperation” it expected from the European Union to boost natural gas supplies to the 27-nation bloc.

“Pipeline gas cannot be delivered in big volumes” without long-term sales contracts, Shahbazov said Tuesday at an energy conference in Baku, adding that his government expected the EU to help finance the expansion of the infrastructure and secure long-term contracts.

Source: Worldoil.com

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Green parties were on track to lose seats in the European Parliament elections, provisional results showed Monday, sparking concerns that the bloc may be on the brink of scaling back its climate policies.

The left-leaning Greens/European Free Alliance were set to win 52 seats in the legislative branch of the 27-member trade bloc, according to preliminary results. That’s significantly lower than the 71 seats the Greens/EFA secured when the green faction enjoyed its strongest-ever showing five years ago.

It comes amid a broader shift to the right and a green backlash — or “greenlash” — against policies designed to tackle the climate crisis and protect the environment.

The far-right Identity and Democracy group made major gains across the European Union, while the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists logged a slight uptick in votes.

In Germany, where the Greens govern as part of a so-called traffic light coalition alongside the center-left Social Democrats and pro-business Free Democrats, support for the Greens nearly halved compared with 2019. Provisional results showed the party in fourth place on 11.9% of the vote.

Support for the Greens also fell in Austria and France, where the far right outperformed and prompted French President Emmanuel Macron to call snap elections.

Across the Continent, frustrated farmers have taken to the streets in recent months to push for further exemptions from European Union environmental regulations. Nationalist and far-right parties — traditionally skeptical of climate issues — have also been vocal critics of green policies.

If we’re not going to accelerate the action here, our European industry is going to lose this global race and that’s what I’m worried about.

Bas Eickhout

LEAD CANDIDATE FOR THE GREEN PARTY

Bas Eickhout, lead candidate for the Green Party, said that support for the far-right parties across the bloc could jeopardize Europe’s progress on climate action.

“I would say that the global green race is on, and you see that in China, you see that in the United States, so this means Europe really needs to step up its action,” Eickhout told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro.

“I don’t fear rolling back, but if we’re not going to proceed, if we’re not going to accelerate the action here, our European industry is going to lose this global race and that’s what I’m worried about.”

Eickhout said in a separate statement on Sunday that the losses in France and Germany had “obviously been a blow” and the rise of the far right was “extremely concerning for all those who believe in a democratic European Union and in just and equal societies.”

Ricarda Lang (l-r), Federal Chairwoman of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, Terry Reintke, the Greens’ lead candidate for the 2024 European elections, and Omid Nouripour, Federal Chairman of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, react to the initial projections at the Greens’ election party in Berlin’s Columbiahalle.

Picture Alliance | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

However, the Greens were set to place first in Denmark and the Netherlands — and Terry Reintke, another leading candidate for the party, said in the same statement that strong results for the party in Sweden and Finland should be seen as an “important milestone for our political family.”

Reintke pointed out that voters had elected MEPs from green parties in countries which had never sent greens to the European Parliament before, such as Croatia, Latvia, Slovenia and Lithuania.

“It is now more important than ever to secure a stable pro-European democratic majority in the European Parliament. This democratic majority must come together in the face of the far-right,” Reintke said.

Green Deal ‘cannot go back’

Ahead of the vote, researchers warned that the outcome of the European elections was likely to put significant pressure on the European Green Deal, the region’s showcase carbon neutrality program.

Pedro Marques, vice president of the center-left Socialist and Democrats Group, said Monday that pushing forward with climate polices was likely to be a challenge, given the support for the far right.

“We are concerned, and we certainly will not allow, from our side, [for] that to happen. Which means [the] Green Deal cannot go back, but we are prepared to give it this additional twist, which is a Green Deal, but taking care of the transitions,” Marques told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro.

“Our economy, our small enterprises, our citizens, they are affected by the transition to this new green economy so let’s support them — but that does mean going back with the Green Deal,” he added.

Jorg Asmussen, CEO of the German Insurance Association and former deputy finance minister of Germany, said Monday that he did not expect the outcome of the European elections to trigger a snap vote in Germany. He added that the country’s current coalition government would likely continue to “muddle through” until September next year.

“In what I see on the European level, the pro-European and also pro-competitiveness agenda will not change. So, the influence of the extremes on the right or on the left of politics will be limited,” Asmussen told CNBC’s Annette Weisbach.

“I would see an influence in EU and German migration policies as well as on the Green Deal, which for sure will be recalibrated … because there is not sufficient support in the future in the European Parliament but of course the climate issue will not go away,” he added.

An activist shouts slogans during a Fridays for Future climate rally at Unter den Linden boulevard in Berlin, Germany on May 31, 2024.

John Macdougall | Afp | Getty Images

Environmental campaign group Greenpeace said that, regardless of the election results, voters across the bloc still ranked climate change and saving nature among their top concerns, arguing that a clear majority wanted the EU to take action in these areas in the next five years.

“This election will not make the climate and nature crisis any less existential,” Greenpeace EU campaigner Ariadna Rodrigo said in a statement. “Flooding, droughts and heatwaves will only get worse, and all newly elected politicians will have to act to maintain our planet’s ability to sustain life and give our children a future. Whoever is in power, we will hold them to account and remind them of their responsibility.”

Source: Cnbc.com

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A Houston company will construct the largest new refinery in the last 50 years in Brownsville, Texas.

Element Fuel Holdings LLC is spending between $3 and $4 billion on the project, which will produce more than 160,000 barrels per day of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from shale oil production, according to a report by the Houston Business Journal.

“Since no one’s built a refinery in 50 years, there’s probably a better way to do it. Let’s optimize it,” Element Fuels founder and co-CEO John Calce told the business outlet.

The refinery will be located in the Port of Brownsville and constructed in three phases. The first construction phase includes building a naphtha hydrotreater and reformer, which is expected to be operational by 2027. Element will also build a power plant that uses hydrogen and natural gas to produce energy and include carbon capture and storage to reduce the facility’s carbon footprint.

Element Fuels told the Houston Business Journal that it intends to produce enough hydrogen to supply all the refinery’s power needs, significantly reducing the refinery’s emissions compared to older refineries that run on diesel.

The Houston-based firm said that in its second phase, it will also add a crude distillation unit and diesel hydrotreater. In its third phase, the refinery will investigate using excess hydrogen and carbon dioxide to make biofuels.

According to a report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, refinery utilization rates are forecasted to average 90.3 percent in 2024, a significant increase from the 2020 pandemic low of 78.8 percent, offering a hopeful outlook for the industry’s growth and the prices upstream of gasoline.

Refinery activity reached 95.4 percent capacity in June, processing 17.584 million barrels per day of crude oil and other feedstocks, according to the EIA. This surge in activity has led to gasoline and other feedstock inventories growing well above figures from the same period in 2023 and 2022.

Element plans to process U.S. shale oil, which is a type of light crude that older refineries in the country are not optimized to handle. The company expects to provide 1,000 new jobs in Brownsville and grow its Houston headcount by about 80 employees.

Source: Chron.com

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Belgium’s Fluxys is offering long-term capacity for 2027-2044 at its LNG import facility in the port of Zeebrugge.

In operation since 1987, the LNG terminal is located in the outer port of Zeebrugge and currently has five tanks with a capacity of 566,000 cbm.

Fluxys is expanding the facility and it already increased the terminal’s capacity by 4.7 mtpa to 11.3 mtpa by adding three new open rack vaporizers.

In addition, 1.3 mtpa of additional sendout capacity is expected to be available by early 2026.

Fluxys LNG, a unit of Fluxys, ran a call for market interest between November 2023 and February 2024 to capture the feedback of market players regarding the LNG services of the Zeebrugge terminal and possible expansion plans based on the market demand.

“Many shippers expressed a serious interest in getting access to the Zeebrugge terminal and securing long-term regasification capacities,” according to the company.

In order to address such long-term demand, Fluxys has decided to convert its current short-term offering of additional slots into long-term capacities and consequently, increasing the nameplate long-term regasification capacity of the terminal from 110 to 134 slots per year as of April 2027.

Therefore, Fluxys proposed some modifications to the regulatory documents and conducted a market consultation in April 2024.

These amendments were approved by the regulator CREG on June 7, 2024, Fluxys said.

Fluxys announced that this additional long-term capacity for the period 2027-2044 will be offered to the market via a subscription window organized between June 10 and July 1.

The LNG services on offer are 2 lots of slots and each lot consists of 9 slots in 2027 available as of April 2027, and 12 slots per year as from 2028 until 2044.

A slot is a bundled product consisting of a berthing right, storage rights, and sendout rights, the company said.

Source: Lngprime.com

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Spanish liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports and reloads decreased in May compared to the same month last year. Russia and the US were the biggest LNG suppliers to Spain in May, according to Enagas.

LNG imports decreased by 30.6 percent year-on-year to about 17.1 TWh in May and accounted for 61.1 percent of the total gas imports. In April, LNG imports reached some 16.1 TWh and some 18.1 TWh in March, while in February LNG imports reached about 18.4 TWh and in January imports reached some 20 TWh.

Including pipeline imports from Algeria (8.79 TWh), France, and Portugal, gas imports to Spain reached about 28.2 TWh last month, a drop from some 34.7 TWh in May last year, Enagas said in its monthly report.

Moreover, national gas demand in May decreased by 8.5 percent year-on-year to some 22.4 TWh.

Demand for power generation dipped by 38.3 percent year-on-year to about 4.27 TWh last month, while conventional demand increased by 3.3 percent to 18.1 TWh, the LNG terminal operator said.

Storage facilities were were 93 percent full in May, compared to 91 percent in the same month last year and 87 percent in the prior month, according to Enagas.

Enagas operates a large network of gas pipelines in Spain and has three wholly-owned LNG import plants in Barcelona, Huelva, and Cartagena.

It also owns 75 percent in the Musel LNG facility, 50 percent in the BBG regasification plant in Bilbao, and 72.5 percent of the Sagunto plant, while Reganosa operates the Mugardos plant.

In August last year, Spanish power group Endesa delivered the first commercial cargo to the El Musel LNG terminal in Gijon.

Endesa completed in April this year the first reloading operation at the facility.

The seven operational Spanish LNG regasification terminals, unloaded 18 cargoes last month, down by 8 cargoes compared to May last year, the data shows.

Russia was the biggest LNG supplier to Spain in May with about 6.41 TWh, down from 9.66 TWh last year, and the country was followed by the US with 3.89 TWh, up compared to 1.96 TWh last year.

Nigerian LNG volumes to Spain dropped to 2.93 TWh last month from 6.81 TWh last year, while Qatari volumes rose to 1.74 TWh from 0.87 TWh last year. Spain also received 1.47 TWh from Algeria and 0.82 TWh from Trinidad in May.

Russia was the biggest LNG supplier to Spain in April and the US was the biggest supplier in January and February.

Also, Russia was the biggest LNG supplier in December last year and the US was the biggest supplier to Spain in October and November.

Spanish LNG terminals loaded about 1.19 TWh in May, the highest monthly figure this year but a drop compared to the previous year.

Reloads decreased by 44.7 percent compared to some 2.16 TWh in the same month last year and they rose compared to 0.45 TWh in April.

The LNG terminals loaded about 0.56 TWh in March, 1.07 TWh in February, and 0.92 TWh in January.

The Mugardos LNG terminal reloaded about 0.74 TWh of LNG, the Barcelona terminal reloaded about 0.27 TWh, and the Huelva terminal reloaded some 0.18 TWh during May.

Moreover, the number of truck loads at the LNG terminals rose by 7.6 percent year-on-year to 1,009.

The Huelva LNG terminal completed 198 truck loads in May, while the Barcelona terminal completed 195 truck loads and the Cartagena terminal completed 185 truck loads, the data shows.

Source: Lngprime.com

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The post Spanish LNG imports, reloads drop in May appeared first on Energy News Beat.

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The Liberal Democrats have launched their manifesto, emphasising the urgency of addressing climate change and reducing energy bills.

The party describes climate change as an existential threat, citing rising temperatures, wildfires, floods, droughts and sea levels affecting millions globally.

They argue that immediate action is essential both in the UK and worldwide to achieve net zero and prevent further environmental and economic damage.

The manifesto criticises the Conservative Government for its inadequate response to these challenges, referencing the independent Climate Change Committee’s warning that the government is not on track to meet its legally binding targets.

The Liberal Democrats commit to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.

Key proposals include a ten-year programme to make homes warmer and more energy-efficient, beginning with free insulation and heat pumps for low income households and ensuring all new homes are zero-carbon.

The party also aims to expand incentives for rooftop solar panels and invest in renewable power, targeting 90% of the UK’s electricity from renewables by 2030.

Further measures include appointing a Chief Secretary for Sustainability in the Treasury, establishing a Net Zero Delivery Authority, and enhancing powers and resources for local councils to develop local net zero strategies.

The party also proposes national and local citizens’ assemblies to involve the public in climate decisions and restore the UK’s international development spending to 0.7% of national income, focusing on climate change.

Labour aims to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030, five years earlier than the Conservative’s 2035 target.

Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho described Labour’s plans as ideological and warned of significant risks, including potential blackouts and high costs.

The post Lib Dems unveil plan to cut energy bills appeared first on Energy Live News.

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The post Lib Dems unveil plan to cut energy bills appeared first on Energy News Beat.