Commodities Focus

As China will restrict imports of aluminum scrap from July, the global scrap industry is preparing for the material flow change by the world's biggest scrap-consuming nation. The outlook, whether near or longer term, is uncertain as no one is sure yet how much scrap China will be importing...

Global crude oil prices have fallen to two-month lows in recent days amid concerns that the ongoing trade dispute between the US and China could slow global demand growth. US President Donald Trump said this week that he was not rushing to reach a trade agreement with China, increasing uncertainty...

At its 50th year, Houston's Offshore Technology Conference highlighted panels that showed a global deepwater that has become increasingly robust, with several countries tendering for the first time in years and oil and gas operators busy planning deep and often remote wells around the world. Some...

The US-China trade dispute has widened in recent days, with China announcing increased tariffs on $60 billion of US goods, including LNG, just days after the US raised tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, with the possibility of tariffs on all other Chinese imports. The trade tensions...

S&P Global Platts editors Seth Clare and Kristian Tialios unpack first-quarter earnings from the US refining sector and discuss the causes for the industry's lackluster margins. OPEC+ production cuts, sanctions on Venezuela and Iran, and new supply curtailments in Canada all made the...

The Offshore Technology Conference promises to be a special event this year -- not only is it the 50th anniversary of the well-attended Houston event, but offshore exploration globally is heating up in a big way. Project tenders are estimated to nearly double this year what they were in 2018, Latin...

S&P Global Platts senior natural gas writer Harry Weber and S&P Global Market Intelligence midstream finance reporter Allison Good preview with natural gas managing editor Joe Fisher the upcoming first-quarter earnings season for midstream companies, which starts April 17 with Kinder...

Though aluminum scrap sources in the US and Asia have noticed an uptick in zorba prices in the past month, prices of other scrap items have only inched upwards in the same time frame. Alloy prices, meanwhile, have been stagnant if not down slightly. Mayumi Watanabe, senior editor out of Tokyo, and...

The new sulfur cap set by the International Maritime Organization will be implemented in January 2020. As the sulfur cut is so drastic, from 3.5% to 0.5%, uncertainty continues to grip the industry, which does not seem to have a clear picture on how the market will become after 2020. In this...

S&P Global Platts oil market editors Seth Clare, Laura Huchzermeyer, Maria Eugenia Garcia and Daron Jones discuss the most talked about themes they heard while attending the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers' Annual Meeting in San Antonio, one of the largest energy industry events...