Commodities Focus

S&P Global Platts senior natural gas writer Harry Weber, S&P Global Market Intelligence senior midstream finance reporter Allison Good and Platts managing editor for Americas LNG Luke Stobbart discuss current trends in the North American midstream sector as operators of gas pipelines and LNG export terminals prepare to release financial results for the second quarter of 2021. Investors will be watching for signs that the pickup in commercial activity in recent months is sufficient to support new infrastructure growth opportunities, as ESG initiatives command a lot of attention across the industry.

US refineries have ramped up production in the second quarter as domestic demand for gasoline and diesel grows and global energy markets begin to adjust back to pre-pandemic demand and production levels. Increasing US Gulf Coast refinery utilization has had an adverse impact to clean and dirty tanker freight in the Americas, however, leaving shipowner earnings at less-than-favorable levels. S&P Global Platts tanker freight editors Catherine Wood, Nicole Baquerizo and Marieke Alsguth, along with senior oil writer Janet McGurty, discuss the "push and pull" of the US refinery landscape and how it's playing out among various tanker freight segments in the Americas.

In this episode of the S&P Global Platts Agriculture Focus podcast, the Platts EMEA Agriculture team discusses how the prices of different agricultural commodities, from wheat, corn and rice, to veg oils, sugar and biodiesel, have fared during the coronavirus pandemic and whether we can expect any knock-on effects in the coming months.

Cheniere, the biggest exporter of LNG in the US, is working to secure sufficient buyer interest for a proposed mid-scale expansion at its Corpus Christi liquefaction facility in Texas. It is also pursuing initiatives to reduce its carbon footprint at Corpus Christi and at its Sabine Pass export terminal in Louisiana, and give customers more information about the life-cycle emissions of its cargoes. S&P Global Platts senior natural gas writer Harry Weber is joined by Anatol Feygin, Cheniere Energy’s chief commercial officer, for a discussion about current trends in the global LNG market, with a special emphasis on North America and the energy transition.

Raw feed materials have seen unprecedented growth in prices, putting a dent in the Asian feedmakers’ margins. In this podcast, S&P Global Platts editors Elizabeth Thang, Takmila Shahid, and Ivy Li examine factors impacting the buying patterns of Asian customers, including supply and demand fundamentals, the impact of weather conditions on prices, as well as the current hog farm situation in China.

Flows of naphtha from the US Gulf Coast to Asia have reached record highs in May and June, drawn by fresh demand from Asia’s steam crackers returning from seasonal maintenance and new units coming online over the second half of June. Though higher refining rates and dampened demand for gasoline in the US have opened wide this normally delicate naphtha arbitrage, tanker owners operating in the Americas have shown resistance to making the trans-Pacific voyage, citing low daily earnings and weak freight levels in both the Americas and Asia Medium Range tanker markets as deterrents for repositioning their fleets. Marieke Alsguth, S&P Global Platts clean tanker editor, sits down with Houston naphtha editor MK Bower and Singapore naphtha editor Wanda Wang to discuss the factors that opened the floodgates for naphtha barrels to move from the USGC to Asia, and how the resurgence of petroleum product demand as countries emerge from pandemic-related lockdowns could affect activity on the trans-Pacific trade flow.

The US Supreme Court's June 25 decision opens the door for further small refinery exemptions. With bearish-for-RIN prices, Janet McGurty and Josh Pedrick of S&P Global Platts talk about what could be on the horizon as the Environmental Protection Agency digests the ruling.

It's already become clear which areas of the US power market are likely to face challenges this summer, with alerts and price spikes in Texas and California in recent weeks, where drought, wildfires and other factors have become recurring threats. The S&P Global Platts power news team gives its summer power market outlook, looking at trends around the country with additional insights from Platts Analytics.

Tanker and dry bulk shipping freight market for inbound and outbound trade from India has become come expensive due to the lingering COVID-19 pandemic. India is one of the world's largest importers of coal, vegetable oils and crude. It exports substantial volumes of refined products and dry bulk commodities such as iron ore, pellets, steel and salt. Many countries are insisting that ships will be allowed to berth at their ports only if they have not called any Indian ports over the previous two to four weeks. This has resulted in many shipowners seeking a freight premium for loading or discharging cargoes in India. It is a double-edged sword - causing delays in delivery of cargoes as well as crew changes and thereby increasing the transportation cost. Some ports are also tweaking their quarantine rules too frequently and adding to the confusion. S&P Global Platts Senior Managing Editor for Asia Pacific & Freight Pradeep Rajan, Senior Editor Sameer Mohindru and Associate Editor Isaac Eio examine present challenges being faced by the freight market for trade from and out of India.

New York has one of the most aggressive decarbonization plans in the country through its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which sets goals for building several gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, including offshore wind, battery storage and the transmission lines to connect those resources with urban demand centers. In this edition of the Platts Commodities Focus podcast, Jared Anderson, senior writer with S&P Global Platts, speaks with Clint Plummer, CEO of Rise Light & Power, whose company is retooling one of the oldest fossil fuel-fired power plants in New York City into a renewable energy and storage hub. Plummer, an industry veteran who helped develop the country’s first offshore wind project, discusses challenges and potential solutions associated with bringing incremental renewable energy capacity into the physical and electrical island that characterizes New York City.