Commodities Focus

The current European Commission is the greenest ever as it pushes toward carbon neutrality by 2050. Gas —despite being a fossil fuel— is considered by many as having a key role to play in Europe's energy transition, and the industry is working hard on ways to decarbonize gas and secure the future of Europe's vast gas infrastructure, including through the growing use of hydrogen. Following an interview with James Watson, secretary general of industry body Eurogas, S&P Global Platts Stuart Elliott, Henry Edwardes-Evans and James Huckstepp discuss Eurogas' key messages around the role of gas in Europe.

Refinery outages from the cold snap on the US Gulf Coast Feb. 15-19 put even more bearish pressure on the already weak Americas clean tanker market, and heightened diesel prices in the USGC. With petroleum product demand still low globally, the Americas clean tanker market continues to move along the freight floor as typical arbitrages to Europe and Latin America remain closed. Heightened diesel prices and ever-drawing stocks in the USGC have reversed the typical arbitrage to Europe, exacerbating the already low cargo supply for clean tankers looking to carry USGC product exports to other regions. Marieke Alsguth and Troy Duffie of the Americas shipping team sit down with Maha Husseini from the clean oil products team in Houston to discuss immediate impacts from the mid-February cold snap refinery outages and potential outlooks for petroleum product demand in the Americas as the vaccine effort rolls out.

The global styrene market has risen sharply in February, driven by a number of factors around the world, including production issues in Europe and severe winter storms in Texas. Matthew Cook, associate editorial director for Americas petrochemicals coverage for S&P Global Platts, discusses the recent trends with Platts editors Simon Price in London, Emily Burleson in Houston and Tess Tseng in Singapore.

Commodities have witnessed a broad upturn in prices across the board in recent months. In a discussion with S&P Global Platts Asia Energy Editor Sambit Mohanty, veteran commodities investor and chairman of Beeland Interests Inc Jim Rogers says that oil's future would still be looking good 10 years from now, energy transition will find strong support from governments across the globe, while agriculture would still be one of his favorite investment picks. Beeland Interests Inc. is the owner and sponsor of the Rogers International Commodity Index, a composite, US dollar-based total return index, designed by Rogers in the late 1990s. The index represents the value of a basket of commodities consumed globally, ranging from agricultural commodities to energy and metals.

Ira Joseph, head of generating fuels and electricity power pricing for S&P Global Platts, and Ryan Ouwerkerk, manager of Americas natural gas pricing, are joined by Kelsey Hallahan and Arsalan Syed, pricing specialists from the North American natural gas team, to untangle the historic Texas freeze and subsequent price movements and what it means for US and global gas markets.

Commodity prices, as assessed by S&P Global Platts, are hitting fresh highs, sparking a debate around a potential supercycle. Goldman Sachs' global head of commodity research Jeff Currie, who identified the last supercycle in the early 2000s spoke with Platts associate director Paul Hickin about why and how it's different this time around, what it means for oil, copper and the energy transition, as well as the outlook for demand, US shale and OPEC+.

Rising levels of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea are having a direct impact on tanker owners' preferences, altering both crude and refined trade flows in and out of the West African coast. S&P Global Platts Shipping editors Charlotte Bucchioni, Chris To, and Sam Eckett take a deep look into how the markets are changing as a result of these attacks, from Nigeria's removal of the Security Anchorage Area to increasing numbers of ships with armed guards on board.

The push to transition away from fossil fuel-fired power generation in the US relies heavily on energy storage projects that facilitate renewable energy growth, with several states mandating energy storage capacity targets. However, valuing battery energy storage attributes can vary significantly between power markets, customers and applications. In this edition of the Platts Commodities Focus podcast, Jared Anderson, senior writer with S&P Global Platts, speaks with Jeff Bishop, CEO of energy storage developer Key Capture Energy, about the most valuable US energy storage markets, the accessibility of those markets, policy barriers, preparing for market changes, federal regulation to watch in 2021, and more.

Josh Pedrick, S&P Global Platts managing editor for Americas biofuels pricing, and Corey Lavinsky, adviser for biofuels analytics, discuss the recent surge in prices for renewable identification numbers and trends to watch. High prices in corn and soybean oil futures, key feedstocks for US biofuel producers, have supported the market even as policy uncertainty leaves questions about how much biofuel refiners and importers need to blend into gasoline and diesel. The discussion also looks at the supply and demand fundamentals and when the market might hear news from Washington.

Ira Joseph of S&P Global Platts Analytics and Ryan Ouwerkerk, manager of Americas natural gas pricing for S&P Global Platts, discuss key market fundamentals following the historic JKM price movements of early January and the trickle-down impact on TTF, and what's next for the global gas market as it moves into the latter part of winter.