New base 17 may 2021 energy news issue 1432 by khaled al awadi

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NewBase Energy News 17 May 2021 - Issue No. 1432 Senior Editor Eng. Khaled Al Awadi
NewBase for discussion or further details on the news below you may contact us on +971504822502, Dubai, UAE
U.A.E: Masdar to complete design on hydrogen project by year-end
The National - Jennifer Gnana
Abu Dhabi's renewable energy company, Masdar, is advancing the development of a hydrogen
demonstrator project as part of an alliance that includes two other state-backed entities. The
project's design will be complete by the end of the year, the company's new director of clean energy,
Fawaz Al Muharrami, said.
The company has already begun an assessment of its green hydrogen demonstrator project, which
will find uses for fuel cells in buses at the carbon-neutral Masdar City as well as in aviation fuel to
be used by Etihad and Lufthansa.
Masdar, alongside Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and holding company ADQ, agreed earlier this
year to form a hydrogen alliance to produce green and blue variants of the fuel.
Green hydrogen refers to the gas produced from renewable sources of energy such as wind and
solar, which powers electrolysers that split water molecules. Blue hydrogen, which is being
produced by Adnoc, is manufactured through steam methane reforming.
"For this year, we have already initiated the assessment, the design aspect of the project," Mr Al
Muharrami told The National in an interview. "Hopefully, by the end of this year we'll be able to
complete that work so that we can begin the next phase of that project," he added.

This will involve construction of the demonstrator
project and is likely to take two years, he said. A second
phase of the project will look into extending the use of
the fuel in the maritime and shipping sectors.
Hydrogen has become an increasingly popular
alternative fuel that is being prioritised for development
by Gulf oil-exporting countries such as the UAE and
Saudi Arabia.
Masdar's project has backers including Germany's
Siemens Energy, Japan's Marubeni, Etihad Airways,
the Lufthansa Group, the UAE's Khalifa University of
Science and Technology and the Abu Dhabi
Department of Energy.
The main infrastructure for the green hydrogen project
is being developed by Siemens Energy and Marubeni.
The German company is also developing one of the first
solar-powered electrolyser projects to produce
hydrogen for fuel cells at Dubai's Expo 2020, which was
delayed until this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Masdar will trial the manufacture of hydrogen using
solar photovoltaic power and will look at opportunities
in the future to export such fuel to meet growing
demand globally, particularly in Europe.
"The UAE, in particular, has that advantage, being the
cheapest source of renewable [energy and] through PV
[we] could actually be able to generate this easily," said
Mr Al Muharrami.
Solar power capacity of around 10 to 25 megawatts
could power the initial electrolyser needed to generate
green hydrogen, he added. "We are able to easily
adapt to hydrogen and transport that hydrogen to the
world – including Europe – and we can actually play that
role in the future," Mr Al Muharrami said.
Falling costs for solar will allow green hydrogen to cost
less than natural gas by 2050, according to
BloombergNEF. The UAE's Gulf neighbour Saudi
Arabia is also looking to become an exporter of green
hydrogen.
The kingdom, the world’s largest exporter of crude,
plans to sell green hydrogen produced locally to Europe
through a pipeline "if the economics allow for it", energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said
in February.
The UAE is in the process of updating its 2050 energy strategy with a greater potential role for
hydrogen.The country also plans to tap nuclear energy as a baseload to power hydrogen production
in the future.In March, the UAE Cabinet approved a nationwide system for hydrogen vehicles.

U.A.E: Dubai issues new directive on LPG trading regulation
TradeArabia News Service
Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman of Dubai Supreme Council of Energy (DSCE), has
issued a directive on the regulation of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) trading, in order to protect the
environment and society, by implementing the highest standards of safety and security.
This involves the transportation, storage
and distribution of LPG, whether through
cylinders or transport tanks. The directive
stipulates that it is prohibited to distribute
LPG cylinders in Dubai unless they are
filled in the approved LPG factories in the
emirate. This ensures compliance with all
standards and regulations issued by local
departments.
The DSCE also stipulated the necessity
of obtaining its authorisation to issue the
permit to complete all approvals and
requirements from government
authorities in the emirate, according to
their respective requirements. It will
coordinate with government authorities to
conduct joint inspection campaigns to ensure that workers in this sector follow the Directive and
apply the highest safety and security standards.
"Through this directive, we outline the regulatory framework, strategies and regulations for LPG
trading in Dubai, in accordance with the highest international standards in this area," said Saeed
Mohammed Al Tayer, Vice Chairman of the DSCE.
"We also work to regulate business practices and implement the highest international safety and
security standards. We aim to ensure transportation, storage and distribution of LPG according to
the approved criteria in the UAE. We thank all authorities involved in regulating this sector," he
added.
The DSCE is the sole entity in Dubai to carry out all tasks and powers according to Federal Law No
of 2017 as well as the decisions issued thereby, in particular, to issue permits for trading in
petroleum products in Dubai and to determine the petroleum materials that may be traded, the
activities associated therewith, and the control and inspection of the facilities authorised to deal in
this regard.
This is based on the Federal Law No. (14) of 2017 regarding the regulation of petroleum products
trading and Decree No. 8 of 2020 regarding the appointing of the competent entity in the Emirate of
Dubai responsible for implementing Federal Law No. (14) of 2017 for petroleum products trading.
The directive also states that issue or renewal of licenses to distribute LPG and its derivatives in Dubai
requires written approval from the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy (DSCE), said Ahmed Buti Al Muhairbi,
Secretary-General of the DSCE and Chairman of the Dubai Regulatory Committee for Petroleum Products.
"This confirms the distributor has a valid contract showing commitment to safety and security criteria, with
the approved bottling plants in the emirate," he added.-

Oman: International JV plans green hydrogen demo project
Oman Observer + NewBase
Zero-carbon: Partnership of Fusion Fuel Green of Ireland and CCC Group to invest in clean energy
venture to help refining and petrochemical firms achieve their decarbonisation goals
Oman is among three countries in the Middle East selected by Irish clean energy specialist Fusion
Fuel Green PLC for the establishment of green hydrogen demonstrator plants designed to support
local refining and petrochemical firms reduce their carbon footprint.
A collaboration agreement has been signed to this effect with Consolidated Contractors Group SAL
(CCC), a globally diversified company specialising in engineering and construction.
The pact, signed in Dublin over the weekend, commits the two sides to cooperating on the
development of projects centring on the production of green hydrogen for potential clients in the
refining and petrochemicals industries. Demo plants are also planned in Kuwait and Qatar.
Green hydrogen — billed as the ‘fuel of the future’ — is produced through the electrolysis of water
using electricity generated from renewable energy resources — a process that is entirely free from
carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas primarily responsible for global warming and climate change.
Announcing the pact with CCC, Joao Wahnon, Head of Business Development at Fusion Fuel, said:
“We are delighted to be partnering with the CCC to open this new market. The Middle East
represents a big opportunity and a very promising region for us, given the high levels of solar
exposure, strong appetite for green hydrogen projects and strategic geographic position between
Europe and Asia. We are excited to bring Fusion Fuel’s revolutionary technology to the Middle East.”
Dublin-headquartered Fusion Fuel is credited with developing its own proprietary electrolyser
design, dubbed HEVO, that enables the production of hydrogen using renewable energy at highly
competitive costs. The company specialises in supplying electrolyser technology to customers
interested in building their own green hydrogen capacity. It also plans to develop and operate its
own portfolio of hydrogen assets with a view to supplying green hydrogen to clients on long-term
supply agreements.

CCC Group, through its local subsidiary CCC Oman, has a longstanding presence in the Sultanate
dating back to the country’s first renaissance beginning in the 1970s. The company has a number
of important infrastructure landmarks to its name, and has since made inroads into Oman’s Oil &
Gas sector as well.
Dori Barakat, Director of Business Development at CCC added: “We are very pleased to cooperate
with Fusion Fuel towards the building of green hydrogen and ammonia plants and to bring our
expertise in construction projects, particularly in the Middle East. This cooperation between our
companies will generate new opportunities in the development of green energies.”
Significantly, the latest venture adds to a string of green hydrogen projects — demonstrator and full-
fledged commercial-scale — planned for implementation at key locations around the Sultanate.
The Alternative Energy unit of OQ, the integrated energy group of Oman, is joining hands with
DEME Concessions, the Belgian-based global solutions provider for the maritime infrastructure and
offshore energy industries, in the implementation of a world-scale green hydrogen project at the
Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Duqm.
The so-called HYPORT Duqm Green Hydrogen Project envisages an electrolyser capacity of 250-
500 MW in the first phase.
Also at Duqm SEZ, the partnership of the Oman Company for the Development of the Special
Economic Zone at Duqm (Tatweer) and India’s biggest solar developer ACME Solar Holdings Ltd
plans to invest $2.5 billion to manufacture green ammonia and green hydrogen. An MoU signed by
the two sides envisions the establishment of a large-scale facility to produce 2,200 mt of green
ammonia.
A number of pilots and industrial-scale ventures are also planned at Sohar Freezone and in the
oilfield areas of the Sultanate.

Qatar Petroleum Plans $10 Billion Bond Sale for Gas Expansion
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
Qatar Petroleum plans to issue up to $10 billion of bonds as soon as this quarter to fund a massive
natural-gas project, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
The state producer is inviting banks to arrange what would be its first dollar bonds, the person said,
asking not to be identified because the information is private. The company is seeking between $7
billion and $10 billion of five, 10- and 30-year notes, the person said. That would make it one of the
largest corporate deals this year and one of the biggest of any kind from emerging markets.
A spokesperson for QP didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The money would go toward the North Field expansion, the person said. Through that $29 billion
project, Qatar will cement its status as the biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas. It aims to raise
its annual output capacity more than 50% by 2027 to 126 million tons.
The North Field, situated in the Persian Gulf, is the world’s largest gas deposit and shared between
Qatar and Iran.
Qatar’s government issued a $10 billion bond in April last year and attracted nearly $45 billion of
orders. Like the sovereign, QP is rated AA- or its equivalent by Moody’s Investors Service and S&P
Global Ratings. Reuters earlier reported that QP was planning a bond.

E.U: Peak LNG Looms in E.U With Investors Wary of New Projects
Bloomberg – Anna Shiryaevskaya and Vanessa Dezem
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Utilities in Europe are scrambling to find alternative uses for liquefied natural gas projects in a sign
that demand for new multi-billion euro import terminals has peaked.
The viability of new LNG projects has never been more uncertain with European gas use expected
to wane over the next two decades as ever-cheaper, greener energy sources take hold. The
demand outlook means the payback period for gas assets such as LNG terminals is shrinking,
according to Accenture Strategy.
Germany’s Uniper SE is the latest to acknowledge waning investor appetite for new LNG capacity
when it decided last month to turn a planned terminal into a hydrogen hub. It follows a similar project
in Ireland that was redesigned to produce green hydrogen using power from an offshore wind park.
RWE AG is exploring ways to handle imported hydrogen at a planned LNG facility in Germany.
No Appetite for Gas
Natural gas demand in Europe slides in all scenarios
“Most European utilities don’t want to touch gas-related projects with a barge pole as companies
seek to improve their ESG metrics, improve valuation and avoid stranded asset risks,” said Elchin
Mammadov, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Europe Drops Another Project to Buy U.S. LNG in Green Push
Only a couple of years ago, Uniper and U.S. LNG developer NextDecade Corp. bet that new
facilities to import LNG into Europe would look attractive to diversify fuel supplies amid abundant
global production.

The risk LNG developers face now is that billions is invested in new gas infrastructure that becomes
unsaleable, or stranded, assets. Terminals under construction in Europe total 2.6 billion euros ($3.1
billion), and those in pre-construction would add another 13 billion euros, according to a survey
by Global Energy Monitor.
“Companies that remain excluded from the green bubble become less attractive,” said Nicolas
Bouthors, an equity analyst at Alphavalue SAS in Paris, which is excluding fossil-fuel assets from
its valuation of some energy companies. “It is ever more difficult to raise equity and green bonds
are not a solution for such projects, which means energy companies have lost two important ways
to finance LNG terminals.”
Concerns about the long-term future of gas are making companies take steps “in the right direction
for hydrogen,” said Deepa Venkateswaran, managing director at Bernstein Autonomous LLP. Still,
hydrogen is unlikely to make a significant difference in the short term because the economics remain
unknown, she said.
Source: Wood Mackenzie Ltd.
With hydrogen technology still in its infancy and facing headwinds in its cost and complexity, not all
LNG terminal projects in Europe are likely to be scrapped. As global trading of the fuel develops
and Asian demand is set to boom for another two decades, LNG still plays a key role in Europe’s
energy mix.
Uniper is still active in northwest European and Spanish LNG regasification capacity and “we don’t see that
changing any time soon,” Peter Abdo, the company’s chief commercial officer for LNG, said in an interview.
For RWE, adding the ability to import hydrogen at its proposed terminal in Germany is a natural evolution
from its LNG trading experience, according to Andree Stracke, chief executive officer of the utility’s trading
unit.
The role of gas as a transition fuel will be “increasingly scrutinized” said David Rabley, a managing director
at Accenture Strategy. Any decision not to invest in gas or LNG will be tied to demand trends, he said.

U.S: Shell report deep-water discovery in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico
Source: Shell
Shell Offshore, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, has announced a significant discovery at
the Leopard prospect in the deep-water U.S. Gulf of Mexico (GoM). The Leopard well encountered
more than 600 feet (183 meters) net oil pay at multiple levels. Evaluation is ongoing to further define
development options.
'Leopard expands our leading position in the Gulf of Mexico and is an exciting addition to our core
portfolio, especially given its proximity to existing infrastructure and other discoveries in the Perdido
Corridor,' said Paul Goodfellow, Shell’s Deepwater Executive Vice President. 'With our US Gulf of
Mexico production among the lowest GHG intensity in the world, Shell remains confident about the
GoM and this latest discovery will help us deliver on our strategy to focus on valuable, high margin
barrels as we sustain material Upstream cash flows into the 2030s.'
Leopard is an opportunity to increase production in the Perdido Corridor, where Shell’s Great White,
Silvertip and Tobago fields are already producing. Meanwhile, the Whale discovery, also in the
Perdido Corridor, is progressing toward a final investment decision in 2021.
Leopard is located in OCS block Alaminos Canyon (AC) 691, approx. 20 miles (32 kms) east of the
Whale discovery, 20 miles (32 km) south of the recently appraised Blacktip discovery and 33 miles
(53 km) from the Perdido host.
Shell announces deep-water discovery in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico
Background

 The Leopard Discovery is ~245 miles (394 km) SSE of Houston.
 Leopard is operated by Shell (50%) and co-owned by Chevron U.S.A. Inc. (50%).
 Shell began production in the Perdido Corridor at the Perdido Spar in 2010.
 Shell is a leading operator in US Gulf of Mexico, with eight DW production hubs and a network
of subsea infrastructure.
 Shell is the largest deep-water leaseholder in the US Gulf of Mexico, with access to some of
the most prolific acreage in the basin.
 The reference to our US Gulf of Mexico production being among the lowest GHG intensity in
the world is a comparison among other IOGP oil and gas producing members.
Overview of the Gulf of Mexico
Shell currently operate nine deep water production hubs, numerous subsea
production systems, and one of the largest contracted drilling rig fleets in the Gulf of
Mexico. Shell is also part owner of one producing project in the Gulf of Mexico
operated by another oil and gas company.
The core of Shell’s daily work in deep water Gulf of Mexico consists of producing oil
and gas using our existing production facilities, as well as drilling wells to grow
production from its existing fields and to find and develop newly-discovered fields.
Shell’s focus is on safely maximizing production from its existing hub, safely
developing the next generation of deepwater projects and continuing to be trusted
stewards of the environment.

NewBase May 17-2021 Khaled Al Awadi
NewBase for discussion or further details on the news below you may contact us on +971504822502, Dubai, UAE
Oil Edges Higher as Investors Weigh Near-Term Demand Outlook
Bloomberg + NewBase
Oil edged higher after posting a third weekly gain as a demand recovery in key regions raised
optimism about rising fuel consumption, despite a Covid-19 flare-up in parts of Asia.
West Texas Intermediate for June delivery gained 0.4% to $65.66 a barrel on the New York
Mercantile Exchange at 10:57 a.m. Singapore time after climbing 0.7% last week.Brent for July
settlement added 0.4% to $68.99 on the ICE Futures Europe exchange after rising 2.5% on Friday.
Futures in New York inched toward $66 a barrel after advancing 2.4% on Friday. The U.S. and
China along with parts of Europe are rebounding strongly from the pandemic as the vaccination
drive accelerates. The prompt timespread for global benchmark Brent oil has also started widening
again in a bullish backwardation structure, signaling a tightening market.
Oil price special
coverage

China’s economic activity moderated in April from its record expansion in the first quarter, although
segments such as industrial output was robust. Apparent oil demand eased slightly from March, but
was up from a year earlier.
Oil has managed to break out from a tight range near $60 a barrel and resume its upward
momentum, but constant reminders that parts of the world remain far from a full recovery from the
pandemic continues to dent the outlook. The coronavirus resurgence in India is still crippling the
nation, while Singapore and Taiwan grapple with new outbreaks.
Another wildcard is the prospect of more crude flows from Iran as the nation seeks to revive a
nuclear deal and free itself of U.S. sanctions. Talks are ongoing, however, and progress on a
solution remains uncertain.
“The recovery happening in Europe and the U.S. is good enough to support oil,” said Stephen Innes,
global managing partner at SPI Asset Management. “There will be a lot of pent up demand for
gasoline. We may continue to drift here for a little while until the Indian saga starts to ease up a
little.”
The prompt timespread for Brent was 36 cents in backwardation -- where near-dated contracts are
more expensive than later-dated ones -- compared with 23 cents a week earlier. It narrowed to 17
cents on Thursday.
The U.S. added slightly more than 30,000 cases on Saturday, sending the nation’s rolling one-week
average to the lowest level since late last June, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins
University and Bloomberg. In the U.K., more than 20 million people, or 38% of the British adult
population, are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, the government said Sunday.
Meanwhile, the supply of gasoline at pump stations was in the process of returning to normal after
the restart of Colonial Pipeline Co., although fuel disruptions may still be seen for weeks in parts of
the U.S. East and South

A Dry Pipeline Asks: Who Wants an Electric Car Now?
Bloomberg - Kyle Stock
The stuff was spewing out of Teslas, Nissan Leafs and every other electric vehicle silently zooming
past dry gas pumps and frantic drivers filling all manner of receptacles with fast-dwindling fuel. When
hoarders turned to plastic bags, the righteousness of the clean, green observers, no doubt, hit the
redline.
“It’s certainly an opportune time to be an EV driver,” Clemson University economist Matthew Lewis
said from his home in northwest South Carolina. “Around here, there’s no gas at all.”
Gas stations are slowly refilling their reservoirs this weekend, but will the Colonial Pipeline debacle
— a computer hack that shut down the country’s largest gas conduit and triggered panic hoarding
that exacerbated shortages — spur a wave of electric vehicle sales? The short answer, according
to economists like Lewis: probably not. But there is a big “but” to consider.
Even as some gas stations ran dry across the Southeast, the average U.S. price per gallon
remains far below where it hovered from 2011 to 2014.
Historically, gasoline isn’t a very elastic product, which is to say drivers aren’t very sensitive to
swings in its price — at least not sensitive enough to change their driving habits or buy a greener
vehicle.
In fact, there’s evidence that U.S. drivers have grown less sensitive to increasing gas prices in
recent years. A 2006 study from University of California economists found a 10-fold decrease in gas
elasticity between the late 1970s and early 2000s.
The authors cited an increase in suburban development and commuting, coupled with a decline in
public transportation; more efficient vehicles may have also played a part, the economists posited.

When oil prices dropped in 2014, sales of hybrid vehicles dipped as well, suggesting a weak
correlation, according to BloombergNEF. However, the adoption rate of fully electric vehicles didn’t
deviate, it remained steady, suggesting the Tesla crowd was making purchase decisions based on
the environment and personal choice rather than monthly gas bills. That’s not surprising given the
average price point of electric vehicles at the time; nearly the entire product category fell in the
“luxury” segment.
Inelastic
For nearly any product, demand elasticity depends largely on two things: duration and alternatives.
For the former, people don’t dial down demand unless the price hike is expected to drag on. That
seems to be the case this week: Even as gas stations ran dry, prices only climbed 4.8% in the past
two weeks. At $3.04 a gallon, the average U.S. price remains far below where it hovered from 2011
to 2014.
A bullish economy — particularly in a tight labor market — tends to trump any penny pinching at the
pump. Generally, when we are working, we are driving. When we are earning more, we are buying
bigger, less-efficient vehicles, and driving more.
Electric miles can run dry as well. Frank Wolak, a Stanford economist, noted that widespread power
outages are far more common today than pipeline shutdowns. Indeed, energy stewards across the
U.S. West are warning about a summer of blackouts, as extreme heat stresses utilities shutting
down dirty plants and shifting to wind and solar power generation.
What has changed is the second function in the elasticity equation: alternatives. With the most price
elastic products, consumers tend to have other options. Beef is a good example; if steak gets
spendy, people turn to hamburgers or chicken. As for vehicles, there have never been as many
alternatives to gasoline as there are at the moment and they’ve never been as affordable. In the oil

crisis of the 1970s, the alternative to a long line at the pump was a bus pass; today, it’s a Nissan
Leaf, which can be had new for $31,670, before any applicable federal and state rebates, or used
for pennies on the dollar.
Electro-Curious
Although, electric vehicles are still a tiny share of U.S. sales, a large segment of drivers is expected
to go electric the next time they buy a vehicle.
What’s more, potential car buyers have never been so EV-curious. Some 4% of U.S. drivers
“definitely” plan to buy an electric vehicle for their next purchase and another 27% are strongly
considering one, according to a December survey by Consumer Reports.
Jonathan Levy, chief commercial officer at charging network EVgo, believes the pipeline drama
accelerates the tailwinds for EV adoption. Cleaner air that came from COVID lockdowns was
another recent “check in the ‘pro’ column” for prospective electric buyers,” Levy said.
Even so, Nick Nigro, executive director of Atlas Public Policy, doesn’t expect any immediate green
shoots. But he said the pipeline glitch “plants more seeds” of potential EV drivers. “If we end up in
a place this summer where the wild swings in the price of oil point upwards,” Nigro said, “you can
expect a compounding effect.”
“This is a very unique event,” Clemson’s Lewis said of this week’s gas crisis. “There are a lot more
people entertaining the idea who are about to get a lot more options. For people like that, this is a
new piece of information.”

NewBase Special Coverage
The Energy world – May - 17- -2021
As the Oil Glut Drains, So Does Confidence About Demand Rebound
By Julian Lee
Oil stockpiles are back at pre-pandemic levels, but forecasters remain wary of fragile demand
recovery.
Excess oil inventories built up during the Covid-19 pandemic have been drained almost completely
with demand picking up as vaccine programs are rolled out across the U.S. and Europe, helping to
boost road traffic. But notes of caution remain in the latest reports from the world’s major oil
forecasting agencies.
The International Energy Agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the Organization
of Petroleum Exporting Countries all agree that the oil stockpiles built up in the developed nations
of the OECD have all but disappeared, as producers have maintained discipline, while demand has
picked up from the depths of 2020.
Excess commercial stockpiles in the OECD countries, which ballooned to as much as 270 million
barrels above their 2015-19 average in June, are now almost back to that benchmark level. That
was the target set in January by Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman to measure
the success of the oil producers’ attempts to rebalance oil markets after the pandemic triggered an
unprecedented slump in global oil demand last year.
Drained Away
Excess stockpiles built up during the pandemic have been drained away

That doesn’t mean producers are going to suddenly reopen the spigots and flood the world with oil.
Demand in the second quarter is still about 4 million barrels a day below the same period in 2019,
according to both the IEA and OPEC (the EIA sees the deficit about 3.4 million barrels). And a closer
look at the latest outlooks shows reasons to remain cautious.
Two of the three (the IEA and EIA) have cut their forecasts of oil demand growth this year, with only
OPEC leaving its outlook unchanged. The biggest reduction came from the Paris-based IEA, which
reduced both demand and year-on-year growth by 270,000 barrels a day, more than wiping out the
upward revisions it made to those same figures last month. It now sees oil demand increasing by
5.42 million barrels a day on average this year, compared with 5.69 million barrels a month ago.
Recovery Falters
But that headline figure hides a feature that raises greater concerns — how the demand growth is
spread across the year and it’s a feature that is common to all three forecasts.
All of the agencies have cut their estimates of demand growth in the first quarter, as data have
become available from more countries, indicating that the recovery at the start of the year wasn’t as
robust as had previously been thought. For the IEA and EIA, the reductions were more than 0.5
million barrels a day.
The IEA and OPEC have also cut their oil demand and year-on-year growth forecasts for the current
quarter — in the IEA’s case, again by more than half a million barrels a day.
They have partly compensated for these reductions by boosting their growth forecasts for the
second half of the year.

Brighter Future
This trend isn’t new. Comparing the latest demand growth forecasts with those made in July 2020
— the first month that all three agencies published detailed quarterly forecasts for 2021 — we can
see how the recovery has been pushed back. Forecasts of year-on-year demand growth in the first
half of 2021 have been slashed by as much as 4 million barrels a day, while those for the second
half, particularly the final quarter, have been raised.
Delayed Recovery
The growing dependence on the second half of the year to drive the upturn is a worry because, as
the IEA notes, “the recovery in global oil demand remains fragile as surging Covid cases in countries
such as India and Thailand offset recent more positive trends in Europe and the U.S.”
As long as those outbreaks can be contained and controlled, the recovery looks set to continue,
but if they spread more widely, as earlier ones did, then the recovery elsewhere could be at risk too.

NewBase Energy News 17 Mayl 2021 - Issue No. 1432 call on +971504822502, UAE
The Editor:” Khaled Al Awadi” Your partner in Energy Services
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About: Khaled Malallah Al Awadi,
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MS & BS Mechanical Engineering (HON), USA
Emarat member since 1990
ASME member since 1995
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Khaled Al Awadi is a UAE National with over 30 years of experience in the Oil & Gas
sector. Has Mechanical Engineering BSc. & MSc. Degrees from leading U.S.
Universities. Currently working as Technical Affairs Specialist for Emirates General
Petroleum Corp. “Emarat “with external voluntary Energy consultation for the GCC
area via Hawk Energy Service, as the UAE operations base. Khaled is the Founder
of NewBase Energy news articles issues, an international consultant, advisor,
ecopreneur and journalist with expertise in Gas & Oil pipeline Networks, waste
management, waste-to-energy, renewable energy, environment protection and
sustainable development. His geographical areas of focus include Middle East,
Africa and Asia. Khaled has successfully accomplished a wide range of projects in
the areas of Gas & Oil with extensive works on Gas Pipeline Network Facilities &
gas compressor stations. Executed projects in the designing & constructing of gas
pipelines, gas metering & regulating stations and in the engineering of gas/oil supply routes. Has drafted &
finalized many contracts/agreements in products sale, transportation, operation & maintenance agreements.
Along with many MOUs & JVs for organizations & governments authorities. Currently dealing for biomass
energy, biogas, waste-to-energy, recycling and waste management. He has participated in numerous
conferences and workshops as chairman, session chair, keynote speaker and panelist. Khaled is the Editor-
in-Chief of NewBase Energy News and is a professional environmental writer with more than 1400 popular
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New base 17 may 2021 energy news issue 1432 by khaled al awadi

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New base 17 may 2021 energy news issue 1432 by khaled al awadi