

Commodities Focus
S&P Global Commodity Insights
S&P Global Commodity Insights analysis of key news and pricing issues from across the global shipping, natural gas, power, petrochemicals, agriculture, and coal markets.
Episodes
Mentioned books

May 30, 2014 • 5min
Impact of $400 bil Russia-China oil-linked gas supply deal on China
After over a decade of prolonged talks, Russia and China have finally inked a historic gas deal, with Gazprom supplying 38 bcm/year of gas to CNPC for 30 years from 2018. Mriganka Jaipuriyar, senior editor for Platts Oilgram News and Song Yen Ling, Platts senior writer for China, assess the...

May 30, 2014 • 7min
Natural gas bears and bulls wait for a signal in shoulder market
While gas markets in the northeast US swung high and low as temperatures ranged from the 90's to the 50's, the futures market stayed range bound as bull and bears stayed locked into their positions waiting for some kind of signal. Gas production and supply hit record highs but more than...

May 30, 2014 • 6min
Shenhua coal price discounting speculation triggers CFR China market concerns
Mike Cooper, Platts Asia senior editor for coal, and Eric Zeng, managing editor at Fenwei Energy, Platts' joint venture partner for its CCI thermal coal prices discuss the latest moves in domestic and CFR South China thermal coal prices and the possible implications of China's proposed ban on...

May 21, 2014 • 7min
US spreads shift, companies eye processing possibilities as NGLs rise
Increased focus on US shale plays has contributed to an sharp increase of natural gas and NGL production. With more natural gas liquids flooding the market, the price relationship between gas, NGLs and petrochemicals is tightening and, in some cases, reversing. Samantha Santa Maria, Platts managing...

May 15, 2014 • 6min
Asian benzene may still flow to US after record long arbitrage ends
Ng Bao Ying, Platts senior Asian petrochemicals editor and Vernon Lee, Platts petrochemicals editor, provide in-depth analysis on where benzene volumes have been flowing to in recent months, with the market in the midst of the longest open arbitrage window for Asian benzene cargoes to the US since...

May 14, 2014 • 5min
US natural gas markets settling down on spring's arrival
Spring finally arrrived and the US natural gas markets have finally settled down. But storage injections are well behind the averages and there is a lot of gas to get into the tank after this winter's record pull. Gas Daily editors Rodney White, Chris Tremulis, TL Hamilton, and Jasmin Melvin take a...

May 8, 2014 • 7min
Oil, gas production in East Africa includes juggling local, global demands
Bob Fryklund, chief upstream strategist, IHS Energy, spoke with Platts web editor Elizabeth Bassett about challenges the energy industry will face in East Africa on the fourth day of the 45th Offshore Technology Conference. While countries like Mozambique have massive oil and gas reserves,...

May 6, 2014 • 5min
DOE pursues production R&D in 'ferociously difficult' budget environment: official
Platts web editor Elizabeth Bassett spoke with Christopher Smith, principal deputy assistant secretary for fossil energy with the Department of Energy, at the Offshore Technology Conference. Smith was part of a panel on the second day of the conference, and he talked about what sort of R&D the...

Apr 29, 2014 • 6min
US natural gas prices up as weatherman blows hot and cold
Warm weather out West and continued below-average temperatures in Chicago and the East bolstered US natural gas prices as the May futures contract held its own to roll off the board at $4.79/MMBtu. Gas Daily editors Rodney White, Chris Tremulis, TL Hamilton, and Bill Holland discuss what's in store...

Apr 28, 2014 • 5min
US ethylene market on edge as prices climb and outages continue
Platts petrochemicals editor Pavel Pavlov talks about what's been driving up the US ethylene market, where spot prices recently hit a 12-week high. Both planned and unplanned outages have been spurring prices upward, as has the continued outage of the Evangeline pipeline between Texas and...


