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China dominates renewable energy and coal power forecasts

Energy News Beat

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Jan 11 (Reuters) – China’s status as the colossus of renewable energy is set to be cemented in the next five years, with the world’s second-biggest economy adding more capacity than the rest of globe combined.

The International Energy Agency said in its Renewables 2023 report, released on Thursday, that China will account for 56% of renewable energy capacity additions in the 2023-28 period.

China is expected to increase renewable capacity by 2,060 gigawatts (GW) in the forecast period, while the rest of the world will add 1,574 GW, the IEA data showed.

The European Union and the United States are the next biggest builders of renewable energy, at 429 GW and 337 GW respectively.

It’s worth noting, though, that India is forecast to add 203 GW of renewable capacity, while the 11 countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are expected to boost capacity by a combined 63 GW.

This shows that Asia is the dominant force in renewable energy deployment, largely because of supportive policies and the availability of capital and offtake agreements for the electricity produced.

The IEA report also sheds light on just how China is coming to be the leading force in renewable energy, with supportive policies driving a huge increase in the expected capacity additions from the previous report in December 2022.

“China accounts for almost 90% of the global upward forecast revision, consisting mainly of solar photovoltaic (PV). In fact, its solar PV manufacturing capabilities have almost doubled since last year, creating a global supply glut,” the IEA said.

“This has reduced local module prices by nearly 50% from January to December 2023, increasing the economic attractiveness of both utility-scale and distributed solar PV projects,” the report said.

The IEA said the lower costs are making utility-scale solar more attractive in China than coal- and gas-fired generation.

China has also clarified the rules around its green certificates, which will provide additional revenues for solar and wind developers.

China is also expected to increase its gap over the rest of the world in deploying renewables, even as the United States and countries in Europe boost policy and financial support.

ADVANTAGE CHINA

China has several advantages that sometimes aren’t available in other countries.

These include being able to approve and build transmission grids and renewable energy projects more quickly than in countries where democratic processes and the objection of local communities can constrain infrastructure development.

China can also finance projects more easily than in countries where money is lent or raised on the basis of expected returns rather than on policy priorities.

The country’s manufacturing base also allows for economies of scale in producing PV panels and wind turbines, and this is further supported by China’s efforts over the previous decades to build a leading position in the supply and processing of minerals such as copper, nickel and lithium.

There is also a caveat to China’s rapid build-out of renewable capacity because at the same time it is still adding substantial coal-fired generation.

China is the world’s biggest coal producer and importer and has more coal-fired capacity under construction than the rest of the world combined.

China is building 136.24 GW of coal-fired generation, and has another 255.5 GW at the announced, pre-permit or permitted stage, according to data compiled by the Global Energy Monitor.

This is 67% of the global coal-fired capacity currently under construction and 72% of the potential new capacity.

China already accounts for 53% of the world’s 2,095 GW of operating coal-fired generating capacity, a share likely to increase in coming years as more coal plants are retired in the developed world.

When taking China’s renewable deployment together with its ongoing coal-fired construction, a more nuanced view emerges of the country’s energy profile.

It’s clear that renewables are increasing their share of China’s power generation, but it’s equally clear coal-fired power is going to be around for decades to come, and that if China does meet its goal of net-zero emissions by 2060, it will largely be achieved in the final years prior to the deadline.

The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.

Source: Reuters.com

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Demand for natural gas will increase significantly by 2025 – Williams Co.

Energy News Beat

There is more demand of U.S. natural gas now and it is expected to growth more by 2025, said Williams Companies (WMB) CEO Alan Armstrong.

The Henry Hub Natural Gas Spot Price reached $8.81 per million Btu in August 2022, but last year prices declined about 60% and moved down below the cost of marginal production, said Armstrong during a CNBC interview.

“We’re starting to see that supply taper off now,” he said. “At the same time, we’re starting to see demand pick up pretty strongly against the fundamentals — on a weather normalized basis.”

In 2023, demand for natural gas (NYSEARCA:UNG), (NG1:COM) was up by about 6%. LNG (liquified natural gas) growth is expected to pick up “a little bit” in 2024 and there will be “a big pick-up” in 2025, as a lot of new facilities come on, he said.

According to the Energy Information Administration, 20 new natural gas power plants are expected to come online with a total capacity of 7.7 gigawatts.

“You can see quite a bit of contango in the market with prices picking up by about 25% from 2024 to 2025,” said Armstrong. “So, producers are holding their breath right now through those periods of low prices.”

The EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2023 report said that U.S. natural gas production is expected to increase by 15% — to 42.1T cubic feet — and LNG exports are expected to increase by 152% — to 10T cubic feet — by 2050.

“Since 2010, we’ve seen total natural gas demand pick up by 60%, but pipeline infrastructure only 30%,” said Armstrong, adding that storage to back up intermittent renewals only increased by 12%.

Source: Msn.com

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The down side to wind power

Energy News Beat

Wind farms will cause more environmental impact than previously thought

When it comes to energy production, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, unfortunately.

As the world begins its large-scale transition toward low-carbon energy sources, it is vital that the pros and cons of each type are well understood and the environmental impacts of renewable energy, small as they may be in comparison to coal and gas, are considered.

In two papers — published today in the journals Environmental Research Letters and Joule — Harvard University researchers find that the transition to wind or solar power in the U.S. would require five to 20 times more land than previously thought, and, if such large-scale wind farms were built, would warm average surface temperatures over the continental U.S. by 0.24 degrees Celsius.

“Wind beats coal by any environmental measure, but that doesn’t mean that its impacts are negligible,” said David Keith, the Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and senior author of the papers. “We must quickly transition away from fossil fuels to stop carbon emissions. In doing so, we must make choices between various low-carbon technologies, all of which have some social and environmental impacts.”

Keith is also professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

One of the first steps to understanding the environmental impact of renewable technologies is to understand how much land would be required to meet future U.S. energy demands. Even starting with today’s energy demands, the land area and associated power densities required have long been debated by energy experts.

In previous research, Keith and co-authors modeled the generating capacity of large-scale wind farms and concluded that real-world wind power generation had been overestimated because they neglected to accurately account for the interactions between turbines and the atmosphere.

“The direct climate impacts of wind power are instant, while the benefits of reduced emissions accumulate slowly.”
— David Keith

In 2013 research, Keith described how each wind turbine creates a “wind shadow” behind it where air has been slowed down by the turbine’s blades. Today’s commercial-scale wind farms carefully space turbines to reduce the impact of these wind shadows, but given the expectation that wind farms will continue to expand as demand for wind-derived electricity increases, interactions and associated climatic impacts cannot be avoided.

What was missing from this previous research, however, were observations to support the modeling. Then, a few months ago, the U.S. Geological Survey released the locations of 57,636 wind turbines around the U.S. Using this data set, in combination with several other U.S. government databases, Keith and postdoctoral fellow Lee Miller were able to quantify the power density of 411 wind farms and 1,150 solar photovoltaic plants operating in the U.S. during 2016.

“For wind, we found that the average power density — meaning the rate of energy generation divided by the encompassing area of the wind plant — was up to 100 times lower than estimates by some leading energy experts,” said Miller, who is the first author of both papers. “Most of these estimates failed to consider the turbine-atmosphere interaction. For an isolated wind turbine, interactions are not important at all, but once the wind farms are more than five to 10 kilometers deep, these interactions have a major impact on the power density.”

The observation-based wind power densities are also much lower than important estimates from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

For solar energy, the average power density (measured in watts per meter squared) is 10 times higher than wind power, but also much lower than estimates by leading energy experts.

This research suggests that not only will wind farms require more land to hit the proposed renewable energy targets but also, at such a large scale, would become an active player in the climate system.

The next question, as explored in the journal Joule, was how such large-scale wind farms would impact the climate system.

“If your perspective is the next 10 years, wind power actually has — in some respects — more climate impact than coal or gas. If your perspective is the next thousand years, then wind power has enormously less climatic impact than coal or gas.”
— David Keith

To estimate the impacts of wind power, Keith and Miller established a baseline for the 2012‒2014 U.S. climate using a standard weather-forecasting model. Then, they covered one-third of the continental U.S. with enough wind turbines to meet present-day U.S. electricity demand. The researchers found this scenario would warm the surface temperature of the continental U.S. by 0.24 degrees Celsius, with the largest changes occurring at night when surface temperatures increased by up to 1.5 degrees. This warming is the result of wind turbines actively mixing the atmosphere near the ground and aloft while simultaneously extracting from the atmosphere’s motion.

This research supports more than 10 other studies that observed warming near operational U.S. wind farms. Miller and Keith compared their simulations to satellite-based observational studies in North Texas and found roughly consistent temperature increases.

Miller and Keith are quick to point out the unlikeliness of the U.S. generating as much wind power as they simulate in their scenario, but localized warming occurs in even smaller projections. The follow-on question is then to understand when the growing benefits of reducing emissions are roughly equal to the near-instantaneous impacts of wind power.

The Harvard researchers found that the warming effect of wind turbines in the continental U.S. was actually larger than the effect of reduced emissions for the first century of its operation. This is because the warming effect is predominantly local to the wind farm, while greenhouse gas concentrations must be reduced globally before the benefits are realized.

Miller and Keith repeated the calculation for solar power and found that its climate impacts were about 10 times smaller than wind’s.

“The direct climate impacts of wind power are instant, while the benefits of reduced emissions accumulate slowly,” said Keith. “If your perspective is the next 10 years, wind power actually has — in some respects — more climate impact than coal or gas. If your perspective is the next thousand years, then wind power has enormously less climatic impact than coal or gas.

“The work should not be seen as a fundamental critique of wind power,” he said. “Some of wind’s climate impacts will be beneficial — several global studies show that wind power cools polar regions. Rather, the work should be seen as a first step in getting more serious about assessing these impacts for all renewables. Our hope is that our study, combined with the recent direct observations, marks a turning point where wind power’s climatic impacts begin to receive serious consideration in strategic decisions about decarbonizing the energy system.”

Source: News.harvard.edu

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Russia’s Oil Drilling Boom Proves Moscow’s Resilience to Western Sanctions

Energy News Beat

Russia was on pace for a second year of record oil drilling in 2023, further evidence of the nation’s resilience to Western sanctions.

The boom in activity came alongside a recovery in both the volume and value of Russia’s oil exports, a stark illustration of how the country’s fossil fuel industry has been a crucial source of funds for President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, which is about to enter its third year.

“Russia is substantially more independent in its oil-field services than generally appreciated,” said Ronald Smith, an oil and gas analyst at Moscow-based BCS Global Markets.

In the first 11 months of 2023, Russia drilled oil production wells with a total depth of 28,100 kilometers, according to industry data seen by Bloomberg. That’s on track to beat the previous year’s post-Soviet record.

The frenetic pace of drilling — amid fairly static production — also offers an indication of some long-term problems that may be building up for Russia’s oil sector as a result of Moscow’s international isolation. The industry is working harder to maintain output from its oldest wells, while new projects that would sustain production in the coming decades must adapt to the country’s changed circumstances.

For 2023 as a whole, Russia’s production drilling is set to top 30,000 kilometers, according to analysts at intelligence firm Kpler and Moscow-based consultant Yakov & Partners. The increase comes despite Western countries’ pressure on the country’s energy industry, which is a key source of funds for the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. The sector has been the target of sanctions ranging from import bans and price caps, to prohibitions on the export of technology.

Last year, the US sanctioned dozens of companies that produce drilling equipment and develop new production techniques, aiming “to limit Russia’s future extractive capabilities.” The European Union in 2022 imposed “comprehensive exports restriction on equipment, technology and services for the energy industry in Russia.”

Two of the world’s largest oil-service providers — Halliburton Co. and Baker Hughes Co. — sold their Russian units and withdrew. Two more giants, SLB and Weatherford International Plc, have said they continue operations in the country in compliance with sanctions.

Failed Goal

The data indicate that these restrictive measures have largely failed.

“Only some 15% of the nation’s domestic drilling market depends on technologies from so-called unfriendly nations,” said Daria Melnik, vice-president for exploration and production at Oslo-based research firm Rystad Energy A/S.

The withdrawal of major Western oil-service companies from Russia had minimal impact because it largely left intact their local subsidiaries. These operations “were mostly sold to management, retaining the know-how built up over the years,” said Viktor Katona, lead crude analyst at Kpler.

Russia’s exploration drilling rates have also resumed growth after dipping in the wake of the pandemic, industry data show, although they remain below the 2019 peak.

“In crisis times, when companies have to optimize their investment budgets, high-risk projects, including exploration, are slashed,” Rystad Energy’s Melnik said.

Still, for the full-year 2023, Russia is set to drill exploration oil wells with a total depth of just over 1,000 kilometers, according to Dmitry Kasatkin, a partner at Kasatkin Consulting, formerly Deloitte’s research center in the region.

The drilling boom is a sign of Russia’s resilience to Western energy sanctions, but the pace of activity also carries a warning.

Over the years, the rise and fall of the nation’s drilling has moved largely in sync with changes in output, historic data show. Yet in 2023, the drilling boom came alongside production cuts that Moscow is implementing in tandem with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. That suggests the high level of activity is necessary simply to maintain output.

“The main reason for the growth in Russia’s drilling is the need to launch new wells,” said Gennadii Masakov, director of the research and insights center at Yakov & Partners. “New wells have to be launched as the currently producing fields are depleting.”

As of 2022, fields that had been in operation for more than five years accounted for nearly 96% of Russia’s total liquids production, according to a research paper from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Many of those upstream projects are long past their peak output levels, the paper said.

“Natural decline is a routine factor” for the nation’s industry, said Sergey Vakulenko, an industry veteran who spent ten years of his 25-years career as an executive at a Russian oil producer.

Depletion has to be compensated either by new drilling at existing sites, so-called brownfields, or by new projects known as greenfields. The latter could be problematic, said Vakulenkо, who is now a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Berlin.

“Pre-war planned greenfield developments were conceived with Western technologies in mind and need to go back to the drawing board to be adjusted to the available technologies,” he said. “In the meantime, Russian oil companies are trying to maintain the plateau by accelerating production in the brownfields.”

Some components from foreign suppliers are difficult to obtain and “the Russian industry might have to resort to simpler wells and fewer frack stages as a result of missing parts,” Vakulenko said. “This would make the wells less productive and more expensive per barrel of oil produced.”

The technological independence achieved by its drillers will be enough for Russia to keep output stable in the medium-term, said Yakov & Partners’ Masakov. Yet over time, the efficiency of Russia’s drilling operations will decline, potentially risking as much as 20% of the nation’s output if untapped reserves become uneconomic to develop, he estimated.

Source: Rigzone.com

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BRICS: Russia & Iran End SWIFT, Start Bank Transfers in Local Currency

Energy News Beat

BRICS members Russia and Iran have officially abandoned the SWIFT payment system for cross-border transactions. The two countries will initiate payments to settle international trade using direct bank transfers. SWIFT payment system is no longer needed for trade between Russia and Iran, as both countries have agreed to carry out transactions directly through the banks. The two BRICS members will engage in direct bank transfers in their respective local currency and not the US dollar.

The direct bank transfers with no SWIFT are between Russia and Iran only, and not the other BRICS members. Read here to know how many sectors in the US will be affected if BRICS ditches the dollar for trade.

BRICS: After Being Banned From SWIFT, Russia & Iran Initiate Direct Bank Transfers in Local Currency

Source: oilprice.com

Both Russia and Iran were banned from SWIFT in 2022 after the US pressed sanctions against the two countries. However, both countries were allowed to partake in SWIFT for a few transactions but have now decided to abandon it. The Central Banks of both the BRICS countries, Iran and Russia, are now working towards smoothing the direct bank transfers.

The two BRICS members are now bypassing the US sanctions by completely sidelining SWIFT and engaging in direct bank transfers. Mohsen Karimi, Deputy Head for Central Bank of Iran and International Affairs confirmed that the country no longer requires SWIFT.

“We have connected the transmission systems of messages of the two countries to each other. This means that the banks of the two countries no longer need Switzerland to communicate with each other and commercial banks of both countries can establish intermediary relations with each other. The exporter can issue an invoice in Rials to the Russian side and receive money from Russian banks in Iran,” said Karimi to Fars news agency.

Source: Watcher.guru

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Biden Administration Reviews Climate Criteria for LNG Projects

Energy News Beat

The Biden administration is reevaluating the climate criteria it uses to approve new liquefied natural gas export facilities, threatening to stall pending projects as the 2024 election nears.

A panel of government officials convened by White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi met to develop a policy recommendation on the issue for President Joe Biden, according to two people familiar with the matter who weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The officials met Saturday, one of the people said. Biden has been briefed on the issue but has yet to make a decision, a second person said.

The issue forces Biden to balance competing geopolitical and domestic priorities. He committed to providing more gas to Europe after Russia invaded Ukraine. But as the election nears, every fossil-fuel project approval under his watch is being scrutinized by climate-minded voters key to his reelection.

The deliberations, meanwhile, come on the heels of an agreement reached by the US and nearly 200 other nations at last month’s COP28 climate summit in Dubai to transition away from fossil fuels.

The Department of Energy, which issues export permits, is checking whether it’s properly accounting for the climate impact of proposed plants, Politico earlier reported, citing an unidentified senior US administration official.

An Energy Department spokeswoman said the agency didn’t have any updates on its approval process. The White House didn’t immediately comment.

The US, which was the largest LNG exporter in the world in 2023, has five LNG export facilities under construction and several more permitted and awaiting a final investment decision. The plants chill natural gas to a liquid, allowing it to be loaded onto tankers and shipped around the globe. The US began exporting LNG from its vast shale reserves in 2016, with demand picking up sharply after Russian gas flows to Europe sputtered following the country’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“Should the Biden administration decide to needlessly delay permits for additional LNG exports, it would undoubtedly send a troubling message to our allies and potentially force them to seek supply from bad actors like Russia for LNG supply,” said Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for LNG, a trade group.

While international buyers are eager for US LNG, environmental groups and some Democrats have pushed Biden to reject further export licenses amid climate concerns. Natural gas’s primary ingredient, methane, is a super-potent greenhouse gas.

Any push to change how export licenses are approved could effectively stall permitting in the meantime. Administration officials already warned industry representatives of potentially protracted delays for approvals to broadly export LNG during meetings at the COP28 summit, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Reviews of applications to broadly export LNG have stretched to more than 330 days under the Biden administration, up from 49 days under former President Donald Trump and 155 days under former President Barack Obama, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

“The signal that sends to our allies is very, very concerning: Is the United States going to be a source of LNG and a reliable partner into the future?” American Petroleum Institute Chief Executive Mike Sommers said in an interview. “Our allies are going to start asking that question if they make this determination.”

Environmentalist Bill McKibben, who earlier pushed to block the Keystone XL oil pipeline, has now taken up the campaign against LNG exports. He and other climate activists are planning a three-day demonstration at the Department of Energy in February. The sit-in’s website includes a sign-up form asking participants whether they are willing to risk arrest.

“So far, the DOE has refused to listen to thousands of letters and ignored petitions signed by hundreds of thousands of people. So we need to go to DC to drive home how serious this crisis is,” a letter from the activists released Tuesday reads. It specifically calls out CP2, a proposed plant from Venture Global LNG Inc. in Louisiana that’s awaiting approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Venture Global says its proposed project, like other US plants, will be key to the world’s push to move away from dirtier fuel sources, like coal.

“American LNG is the best weapon in our arsenal to quickly displace global coal use and combat climate change. NGOs and their paid activists have continually misled the public, making up their own facts to fit their agenda, when the data shows otherwise,” Shaylyn Hynes, a spokeswoman for Venture Global, said in an emailed statement.

Compared to the two previous presidencies, the Biden administration has taken longer to approve LNG export licenses for new projects, according to data from LNG Allies, a trade group. A longer wait means delays in getting financing and customer commitments, potentially putting projects’ viability at risk.

The proposed Commonwealth LNG project in Louisiana has been waiting more than 400 days for its so-called non-FTA export permit from the DOE.

Compared to the FERC process, “we find there is far less feedback or visibility in DOE’s deliberations for us to understand the delay,” Commonwealth LNG Founder and Executive Chairman Paul Varello said in an emailed reply to questions. “With all our other permits in hand, we’re ready to move forward with the final steps toward financing and construction once the Non-FTA permit is secured.”

Source: Rigzone.com

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Will Direct Lithium Extraction Disrupt the $90B Lithium Market?

Energy News Beat

The following content is sponsored by the EnergyX

Will Direct Lithium Extraction Disrupt the $90B Lithium Market?

Current lithium extraction and refinement methods are outdated, often harmful to the environment, and ultimately inefficient. So much so that by 2030, lithium demand will outstrip supply by a projected 1.42 million metric tons. But there is a solution: Direct lithium extraction (DLE).

For this graphic, we partnered with EnergyX to try to understand how DLE could help meet global lithium demands and change an industry that is critical to the clean energy transition.

The Lithium Problem

Lithium is crucial to many renewable energy technologies because it is this element that allows EV batteries to react. In fact, it’s so important that projections show the lithium industry growing from $22.2B in 2023 to nearly $90B by 2030.

But even with this incredible growth, as you can see from the table, refined lithium production will need to increase 86.5% over and above current projections.

2022 (million metric tons)2030P (million metric tons)

Lithium Carbonate Demand0.461.21

Lithium Hydroxide Demand0.181.54

Lithium Metal Demand00.22

Lithium Mineral Demand0.070.09

Total Demand0.713.06

Total Supply0.751.64

The Solution: Direct Lithium Extraction

DLE is a process that uses a combination of solvent extraction, membranes, or adsorbents to extract and then refine lithium directly from its source. LiTASTM, the proprietary DLE technology developed by EnergyX, can recover an incredible 300% more lithium per ton than existing processes, making it the perfect tool to help meet lithium demands.

Additionally, LiTASTM can refine lithium at the lowest cost per unit volume directly from brine, an essential step in meeting tomorrow’s lithium demand and manufacturing next-generation batteries, while significantly reducing the footprint left by lithium mining.

Hard Rock MiningUnderground ReservoirsDirect Lithium Extraction

Direct CO2 Emissions15,000 kg5,000 kg3.5 kg

Water Use170 m3469 m334-94 m3

Lithium Recovery Rate58%30-40%90%

Land Use464 m23124 m20.14 m2

Process TimeVariable18 months1-2 days

Providing the World with Lithium

DLE promises to disrupt the outdated lithium industry by improving lithium recovery rates and slashing emissions, helping the world meet the energy demands of tomorrow’s electric vehicles.

EnergyX is on a mission to become a worldwide leader in the sustainable energy transition using groundbreaking direct lithium extraction technology. Don’t miss your chance to join companies like GM and invest in EnergyX to transform the future of renewable energy.

The post Will Direct Lithium Extraction Disrupt the $90B Lithium Market? appeared first on Elements by Visual Capitalist.

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Japan’s Inpex to boost Ichthys LNG stake

Energy News Beat

Japan’s Inpex plans to enter into a deal with compatriot Tokyo Gas to buy a small stake from the latter in the Inpex-operated Ichthys LNG export project in Australia.

Inpex said in a statement it would buy a 1.575 percent stake held by Tokyo Gas in the Ichthys LNG project through Tokyo Gas Australian project subsidiaries.

Through this acquisition, Inpex’s project subsidiaries would increase their participating interests in the Ichthys LNG project from 66.245 percent to 67.82 percent.

The firm did not reveal the price tag of the deal.

The deal includes interest in Block WA-50-L and Block WA-51-L including the Ichthys gas condensate field, shares of Ichthys LNG, a downstream company that owns LNG facilities, and interest in exploration permit WA-285-P.

Inpex said this agreement results from the October 2022 decision by Tokyo Gas to sell the shares in its Australian project subsidiary that holds the stake in the Ichthys project to EIG’s MidOcean Energy.

In accordance with the relevant joint operating agreements and shareholder’s agreement, Tokyo Gas notified the proposed sale to the projects’ participating interest holders whereupon Inpex exercised its preemptive rights to acquire Tokyo Gas’s participating interest, it said.

Inpex added the completion of the acquisition remains subject to the fulfillment of certain conditions, including approval by Australian government regulatory agencies.

The Japanese company has shipped 96 LNG cargoes from its Ichthys export plant during the January-September period of 2023, 16 cargoes more compared to the same period last year.

The facility at Bladin Point near Darwin has two trains and a nameplate capacity of 8.9 mtpa but it is expected to reach a production of about 9.3 mtpa due to debottlenecking.

Last year, Inpex said that it plans to ship record 132 cargoes of LNG, or 11 per month, from the Ichthys plant in 2023.

Ichthys LNG is a joint venture between operator Inpex and major partner TotalEnergies.

Also, other partners include Australian units of CPC, Osaka Gas, Kansai Electric Power, Jera, and Toho Gas.

Natural gas arrives to the LNG plant at Bladin Point from the giant Ichthys field offshore Western Australia via an 890 kilometers long export pipeline.

 

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Former Ukrainian chief prosecutor ‘fired’ for Biden could be assassinated – ex-MP

Energy News Beat

Viktor Shokin has dirt on the US president’s family and Kiev is using him as a bargaining chip, Andrey Derkach has claimed

The former Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Viktor Shokin, who was famously sacked by then-President Pyotr Poroshenko under pressure from US President Joe Biden, is being used by the current government in Kiev as a bargaining chip with Washington, controversial former MP Andrey Derkach has claimed in an interview.

Biden had Poroshenko sack Shokin in 2016, when he was vice president in the Obama administration, threatening to withhold a $1 billion loan unless his demands were met. The now-incumbent US president claimed that the Ukrainian prosecutor was corrupt, but also bragged about getting rid of the man. Critics of Biden have alleged that he used his office to derail an investigation into the gas firm Burisma, which infamously retained his son Hunter on a well-paid board position during his father’s tenure as Obama’s VP.

Derkach made his explosive claims in an interview recorded in Minsk, Belarus, with Italian-US journalist Simona Mangiante, published on Wednesday on X (formerly Twitter).

“Shokin is now a hostage on Ukrainian territory. As far as I know, he is not allowed to leave Ukraine. He is under the total control of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU),” he claimed.

President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the US side, and President Vladimir Zelensky and his chief-of-staff Andrey Yermak on the Ukrainian side, are interested in information possessed by Shokin, according to Derkach.

He claimed that last October Shokin had contacts with two attorneys “working with the US Congress,” Jake Greenberg and Clark Abourisk. The SBU “recorded those conversations, where Shokin told the Congress about real criminal acts of Blinken and Biden, and about the corruption of the Biden family.”

The former official said he’d been tipped off about the surveillance by sources inside the SBU. Derkach is an intelligence officer by background and served in the Ukrainian agency before being elected to parliament.

He claimed that his sources had told him that “the question of liquidating Mr Shokin on the territory of Ukraine is under consideration.” He urged the US Congress to ensure the man’s safety and extraction from his home country.

Derkach spoke in Russian throughout the hour-long interview and touched on a number of sensitive aspects of US-Ukraine relations, including those he’d been personally involved in.

He was the official that published in 2020 what he claimed to be recordings of conversations that Biden and Poroshenko had in 2015-2016. In the interview this week he claimed that at the time he was acting with the blessing of Zelensky’s office, which was seeking to discredit the former president.

Washington branded Derkach a Russian agent in 2022 and indicted him for allegedly interfering in the 2020 US presidential elections. Last year, Ukraine accused him of treason, also claiming he was working for Moscow. Zelensky stripped him of his Ukrainian citizenship in January 2023.


READ MORE:
US Republicans open Biden impeachment inquiry

Derkach has denied the accusations and claims in the interview that the Ukrainian charges against him were brought after Kiev failed to dispose of him by other means, on a direct request from Antony Blinken.

 

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White House supports seizure of Russian assets – Bloomberg

Energy News Beat

ENB Pub Note: This is a huge mistake for the Biden administration. The weaponization of the US dollar has accelerated its demise from being the world’s currency standard. This action will only accelerate the demise. 

The Biden administration sees the move as a way of making Moscow pay for damage done to Ukraine

The White House supports the idea of confiscating Russian assets that have been frozen since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, Bloomberg has reported, citing a US National Security Council (NSC) memo.

The NSC – which is the US president’s principal forum for considering national security, military and foreign policy matters – forwarded the document to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in November, the agency said in an article on Wednesday.

According to the memo, the Biden administration backs “in principle” a bill that “would provide the authority needed for the executive branch to seize Russian sovereign assets for the benefit of Ukraine.”

Some $300 billion in Russian funds remain frozen in the West, more than $200 billion of which is held by the EU and the rest by the US.

The “shift” in the White House’s stance on the matter comes as Republican lawmakers continue to resist attempts by the Biden administration to push through another $60 billion in military support for Kiev, Bloomberg said. The EU’s €50 billion ($55 billion) aid package for Ukraine also remains stalled due to a veto by Hungary.

A senior administration official told the agency that Washington sees the confiscation of Russian assets as a tool with which to make Moscow pay for damage done to Ukraine. The World Bank estimated last year that the reconstruction of the country would cost at least $411 billion.

The White House wants to align the seizure of Russian funds with its G7 allies, especially those in the EU, where support for the measure has been “tepid,” Bloomberg said. Germany, France and the European Central Bank are worried that it could undermine the Eurozone’s stability and provoke Russia to retaliate and also confiscate foreign funds that it blocked in a tit-for-tat response, it added.

The issue is expected to be discussed at the G7 leaders’ meeting in February, close to the second anniversary of the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, a source told the agency.

During his visit to Estonia on Thursday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky again said Russian assets abroad “need to be located, frozen and, after all, confiscated” before being channeled to Ukraine.

Commenting on the Bloomberg report, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that the seizure of Russian assets by Washington would be a step towards “undermining the international financial authority and the confidence of the international investors” in the US.


READ MORE:
Russia warns West of retaliation over asset grab

By working to legalize the move at home, the Biden administration is trying to “pressure” the EU, which holds most of Moscow’s frozen funds, to commit similar “illegal actions” and face “the inevitable losses, fines and legal consequences” that will follow, Peskov claimed.

The post White House supports seizure of Russian assets – Bloomberg appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

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