Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr withdrew his MPs from parliament in mid-June
Paper progress only in Iraq
Oil Ministry claims around key IOC investments ignore its lame duck status
All looks rosy in the Iraqi oil garden. The first major contract off the back of TotalEnergies’ planned $27bn investment in the country’s energy sector was signed in mid-July. Ever-bullish oil minister Ihsan Ismail declared in June that necessary approvals had been received for a state firm to buy ExxonMobil out from a key oilfield, potentially enabling some of Baghdad’s record crude export revenues to be ploughed into its slow-moving expansion. But flat production and sales—combined with, and in no small part caused by, prolonged political paralysis—paint a far bleaker picture. After a Paris meeting with the major’s CEO, Patrick Pouyanne, Ismail announced that a design contract had been ink
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Greater social mobility means increased global demand for refined fuels and petrochemical products, with Asia leading the way in the expansion of refining capacity
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The EU would do well to ease its gas storage requirements to avoid heavy purchase costs this summer, with the targets having created market distortion while giving sellers a significant advantage over buyers
18 February 2025
Deliveries to China decline by around 1m b/d from move to curb crude exports to Shandong port, putting Iran under further economic pressure
