Bloomberg @Business reporter covering energy & commodities in Singapore. Topics include natural gas, LNG, power, nuclear. Opinions my own ブルームバーグ通信社シンガポール支局記者
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Aug 17 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Malaysia founded the oil & gas giant Petronas 50 years ago today, adding to a wave of countries nationalizing lucrative fuel supplies 🇲🇾 🛢️
Here is a short thread of about the creation of Petronas, one of the most important and influential Asian fossil fuel producers🧵
Shell discovered Malaysia’s first oil well in 1910
(Shell first commenced operations in Malaysia in 1891)
“The Grand Old Lady” produced for decades, and put Sarawak on the map
Aug 5 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
An LNG tanker docked at a sanctioned Russian facility has no insurer, is managed by a little known Indian company and is pretending to be somewhere else
🇷🇺🚢
This is how Russia is trying to circumvent US measures against its new Arctic LNG project 🧵 bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Russian gas/LNG had largely avoided sanctions since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine
That changed in Nov 2023, when the US imposed sanctions against the new Arctic LNG 2 project
A decade ago, an ex-banker & lawyer were driving across Texas in a rental car trying to raise money for an LNG export project
Today, they're the billionaire owners of Venture Global ensnared by politics and angry customers bloomberg.com/news/features/…
For nearly half a century, the LNG industry was dominated by petrostates and Big Oil
The shale boom upended that, shifting the advantage to the US and opening the door to entrepreneurs, like Venture Global
These outsiders propelled the US to become the world's top LNG exporter
May 5 • 20 tweets • 7 min read
How US sanctions are strangling Putin’s ambitions to grow LNG exports
🇺🇸 🥊🇷🇺
Arctic LNG 2 has been ready to start exports for months
And yet it sits virtually idle, the first piece of Russia’s energy complex to be halted by US restrictions
🚢 Russia has long sought to increase its share of the global LNG market, but the war and the subsequent sharp drop in pipeline gas Europe have reinforced the importance of these ambitions
Moscow wants to expand LNG output three-fold by 2030
Mar 3 • 47 tweets • 17 min read
HOW LNG IS MAKING QATAR RICH 🇶🇦🚢
The Gulf nation of Qatar is setting itself up to control about a quarter of all liquefied natural gas production by the end of the decade -- and with it, a growing share of the world's wealth and influence
A thread 🧵
bloomberg.com/news/features/…
Qatar unveiled last week plans to boost LNG export capacity another 13% on top of previously announced projects, together lifting production from 77 million tons/year to 142 million tons by 2030
This will make the rich nation (with a population of just 2.7 million) much richer
Jan 27 • 57 tweets • 21 min read
THE US LNG MIRACLE 🇺🇸🚢
This is the story of how the US became the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas in less than a decade, drastically rewriting global energy trade
Thread below 🧵👇
The world's first overseas LNG shipment was exported from Louisiana to the UK on the Methane Pioneer over 60 years ago
The US pioneered the large-scale process to chill natural gas to -256F, transforming it into a liquid. Liquefying gas makes the fuel occupy 600-times less space
Jan 11 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
A HISTORIC WAVE OF LNG PROJECTS BEGINS THIS YEAR
🚢🚢🚢
It took half a century for the energy industry to develop the first several hundred million tons of LNG export capacity
Now, the industry has the potential to do it again in six years
bloomberg.com/news/features/…
This enormous buildout of LNG export capacity from Qatar to the US will cement the role of natural gas in energy transition
Much of this new LNG supply will go to China, but even the EU has agreed to buy shipments past 2050, despite ambitious green goals
Dec 14, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
HOW ENERGY TRADERS LEFT A COUNTRY IN THE COLD
Pakistan, one of the world’s poorest nations, thought it had secured natural gas to fuel its economy
Commodities firms had other ideas
Full story with @FaseehMangi 👇
bloomberg.com/features/2023-…
LNG traders began diverting shipments meant for Pakistan into the more lucrative spot market when price began to significantly rise
Canceled LNG shipments from 2021 helped prompt an energy crisis in Pakistan
Dec 9, 2023 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
I asked ChatGPT to make a picture of an LNG tanker
For every 10 likes, I’ll ask it to make the LNG even more super chilled
“Make it even more super chilled”
Sep 13, 2023 • 19 tweets • 8 min read
The world is running out of time for carbon capture & storage to make a meaningful impact ⏰
💰 CCS is seen as a crucial green solution, but it needs $4.5 trillion of investment THIS DECADE to gain traction
🧵 A thread about the controversial technology
Chevron is capturing and storing CO2 at its Gorgon liquefied natural gas export project on a remote island in Australia
It was the size of a city block, very loud and eye opening
Jul 4, 2023 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Japan is set to release over 1 million tons of water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant 🇯🇵☢️
Why are they doing this? Is it safe? This is what you need to know 👇🧵
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
💦 Since the 2011 earthquake & tsunami, hundreds of cubic meters of groundwater enter the Fukushima plant on a daily basis, mix with the melted fuel and become contaminated
The tainted water is pumped out and run through a process to remove almost all of the radioactive elements
May 30, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
These niche commodities show how China's economy is stuttering 🇨🇳🧵
📌 GLASS
➡️ Futures plunged ~20% in the past month due to China's teetering property market and weaker vehicle output
➡️ China makes up half of the world’s plate glass production
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
📌 STYRENE
➡️The price of styrene monomer, a material used for the plastics and rubber that go into appliances like fridges, is dropping
➡️ Dalian futures fell last week to their lowest since February 2021, after a near-5% drop in home appliance sales in the first quarter
May 28, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
A growing gas glut means that US LNG buyers may soon cancel shipments 🇺🇸⚠️🚢
🙅 If gas prices in Europe/Asia plunge more, it may not make economic sense to export LNG from the US
👀 That's a big reversal to last year, when Europe was facing gas shortages
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
US LNG contracts are very flexible and usually allow for buyers to cancel deliveries 🇺🇸
📝 The purchasers must provide two months’ advance notice to LNG producers
📅 This means that any decisions around September loadings would be made in the month of July
Apr 11, 2023 • 21 tweets • 10 min read
I visited one of Japan’s oldest coal mines 🇯🇵 ⛏ 🪨
Today it is shut and Japan is currently very dependent on imported fossil fuels
But it wasn’t always like that. A century ago, Japan had a booming coal industry
A nerdy thread 🧵🤓
Even up until the 1960s, Japan had a formidable coal industry 💪
More than half of the energy the nation consumed in 1965 was produced within Japan
Now it is roughly 10%, which is why Japan currently has a reputation for being very dependent on overseas fuel
Mar 15, 2023 • 18 tweets • 7 min read
The world is rallying behind nuclear power after last year’s energy crisis
Here is a thread of recent public opinion polls in support of nuclear ☢️ 🧵
🇬🇧 A UK poll found a 25% increase in net support for new nuclear power since June 2021
China massively accelerated its coal power plans in 2022 🇨🇳❤️🪨
📝 Local governments permitted 106GW of new plants, the most since 2015, says CREA
🚧 Construction has started on 50GW, 6-times more than in the rest of the world combined
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
“China continues to be the glaring exception to the ongoing global decline in coal plant development"
Feb 27, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Ford's EV pickup is built from metal that's damaging the Amazon rainforest 🚗⚠️
🏭 Bloomberg investigation traced much of the aluminum in the F-150 to a refinery in Brazil accused of sickening thousands of people
💧 Rivers are polluted with toxic metals
⛏️ A typical North American car contains about 500 pounds of aluminum, almost twice the amount 20 years ago, and electric vehicles have about 150 pounds more
Feb 20, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
China is taking control of the LNG market 🇨🇳 🚢
📝 China is rushing to sign the most long-term LNG purchase agreements of any nation
💰 They are then reselling some of that supply to the highest bidders in Europe/Asia, becoming a key intermediary
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
“China is evolving from being a rapidly growing import market to playing a more flexible role with an increased ability to balance the global LNG market,” Shell said in its annual LNG outlook report released last week 🇨🇳 🚢
Feb 19, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The power of nuclear energy 🇯🇵☢️💰
📉 Japan's electricity bills are ~40% cheaper in regions with more nuclear reactors online
💸 Tokyo must depend more on coal/LNG because its reactors are idled. That became very costly due to the global energy crunch
nikkei.com/article/DGKKZO…
Tepco was forced to ask the government to hike rates even more due to surging fuel costs 💰
Regional utilities in Kansai and Kyushu (which have a bunch of reactors online) did not
MAJOR SHIFT: Pakistan is abandoning its LNG expansion plans because the fuel is too expensive, and instead will use more coal
🇵🇰🪨
🚢"LNG is no longer part of the long-term plan," Energy Minister told Reuters
🏭 Pakistan to QUADRUPLE coal power capacity
reuters.com/business/energ…
Pakistan was betting BIG on LNG roughly a decade ago when the fuel was cheap and abundant
Their energy minister told me in 2016 that they wanted to import 60 million tons/year by 2025 -- which would make it one of the world's top buyers of the fuel