Latest news with #AmenaBakr
CNBC
11 hours ago
- Business
- CNBC
Uncertain outlook for energy demand due to trade uncertainty: Kpler
Amena Bakr, Head of Middle East & OPEC+ Insights at Kpler, discuss how uncertainty around Trump's tariffs are playing out in the energy patch in the second half of the year. She also discusses U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil, saying she expects Washington to continue pressuring Tehran with sanctions till there's a clear resolution to the conflict between Israel and Iran. She says sanctions need to be followed by rigorous implementation to be effective.
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Oil Volatility Remains High After U.S. Struck Iran's Nuclear Sites
Oil erased earlier gains on Monday, but volatility remains high after the U.S. struck the core of Iran's nuclear infrastructure, stoking fears of disruptions to a vital route for global energy flows. In mid-morning trade, Brent crude was down 0.1% to $76.91 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate edged 0.2% lower to $73.66 a barrel. Both contracts had jumped around 3% earlier in the session. The European benchmark gas contract at the Dutch TTF hub rose 0.5% to 41.16 euros a megawatt-hour. Zuckerberg Leads AI Recruitment Blitz Armed With $100 Million Pay Packages Millions of Résumés Never Make It Past the Bots. One Man Is Trying to Find Out Why. A New Meatpacking Plant's Novel Pitch to Attract American Workers Bank of New York Mellon Approached Northern Trust to Discuss Potential Merger Tesla's Robotaxis Are Here: What You Need to Know 'Markets are still waiting to see what Iran will do next,' analysts at Peak Trading Research said. 'Hormuz is still open, trade is flowing, Iran's crude production facilities were untouched.' Brent has gained more than 10% since Israel's initial attack on Iran on June 13, with Goldman Sachs now estimating a geopolitical risk premium of $12 a barrel. The future price direction remains sensitive to Tehran's next move. Market watchers say the country could either pursue diplomacy or retaliate–potentially by targeting U.S. bases in the Middle East or through allied militias across the region. The market's biggest concern is that Iran could disrupt flows through the Strait of Hormuz–a vital artery for about a quarter of the world's seaborne oil and one-fifth of global liquefied natural gas flows. Tehran holds a strategic position on the northern side of the strait, and could try to close it by attacking ships or laying mines. So far, vessels linked to the U.S. have been passing through the strait without incident, according to the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations agency. However, Goldman estimated Brent could briefly peak at $110 a barrel if flows through the waterway were halved for a month and remained 10% lower for the following 11 months. A drop in Iranian supply by 1.75 million barrels per day could instead push Brent to a peak of around $90 a barrel. While OPEC could tap more than 5 million barrels a day of spare capacity to help cushion potential supply shocks, analysts note that most of the cartel's spare oil belongs to Gulf producers who rely on the Strait of Hormuz for exports. 'Any obstruction to the waterway may lead oil prices to spike to three digits, even though some of the crude volumes from the Gulf could be diverted via pipelines located in the UAE and Saudi Arabia,' said Amena Bakr, Kpler's head of Middle East energy and OPEC+. Only about 5 million barrels a day of oil exports could be diverted through Saudi Arabia's East West Pipeline and the United Arab Emirates' Adcop pipeline, out of a total of around 15 million barrels a day that typically pass through the strait, according to the data firm. Meanwhile, there are no indications that the OPEC+ alliance will call an emergency meeting before gaining more clarity on the situation and its impact on global supply, Bakr said. Still, persistently high levels of electronic interference continue to disrupt vessel signals and recent data suggests that some tankers are hesitating or diverting course near the Strait of Hormuz in response to growing regional uncertainty, according to Kpler. Commercial vessels transiting the strait and surrounding waters also face greater risks of misidentification or collateral damage following the U.S. strikes, as Yemen's Houthi rebels had threatened to target American ships in the Red Sea if Washington entered the conflict. While prospects of a global energy supply shock have increased, such a scenario still isn't the most likely outcome, according to Kallum Pickering, chief economist at Peel Hunt. 'Aside from the OPEC shocks in the 1970s, past escalations in the Middle East suggest that disruptions to energy markets tend to resolve quickly,' he said. Write to Giulia Petroni at Chinese Stocks and American Exchanges Head for a Breakup What Israel's Soaring Markets Are Saying About the Iran War Eyeglasses With Built-In Hearing Aids: This Just Makes Sense A Toy Maker Sued Trump Over Tariffs and Won. Its Operations Are Still in Tatters. Ordinary Investors Are Souring on Big Tech Sign in to access your portfolio
Gulf Insider
03-05-2025
- Business
- Gulf Insider
OPEC Moves Up Meeting To Discuss Oil Production Quotas
The OPEC+ members currently participating in voluntary production cuts will meet this Saturday, May 3, instead of Monday, May 5, according to Kpler's Amena Bakr on X. The call is set for noon Vienna time, with the agenda focused on 'consensus building around maintaining the sped-up increment of 411K for June.' Brent crude had slipped nearly 1% by late Friday morning, trading at $61.56. It's a price level not seen since early 2021—and one that puts most OPEC+ budgets underwater. For producers already grappling with restricted output, prices below $65 are a growing fiscal headache. The accelerated meeting follows mounting tensions within the group. Reports suggest Saudi Arabia is signaling it can live with lower prices—a not-so-subtle message to chronic overproducers like Iraq and Kazakhstan. The 411,000 bpd production increase originally floated as a wake-up call may now be cemented into policy, signaling a strategic shift in Riyadh's approach. OPEC+ has pledged to offset 4.57 million bpd of overproduction by mid-2026. But enforcement remains patchy. Saturday's call will test whether Riyadh and Moscow can still steer the ship—or whether quota politics are about to devolve into a full-blown battle for market share. Meanwhile, a Bloomberg survey released Thursday showed that OPEC's actual output fell by 200,000 bpd in April, down to 27.24 million – contradicting the group's planned increase. Goldman assigns a 70% subjective probability that the announced change in OPEC8+ supply for June will be 0.41mb/d, a 25% probability to a larger increase, and a 5% probability to a 0.14mb/d increase. Market pessimism is already pricing in a production hike. But April's figures are a reminder: announced increases don't always materialize. Whether Saudi Arabia will keep absorbing the blow while others cheat—or start using price as a weapon to enforce discipline—won't be decided in a Vienna video call. It'll be decided at the wellhead.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's trade war has a few silver linings for clean energy
Are there any winners in the energy transition during a rapidly escalating global trade war? For the most part, tariffs clearly work against decarbonization: Renewable energy and utility-scale energy storage projects in the US are highly dependent on imported parts from Vietnam and other countries that now face steep tariffs, which will raise construction costs at a time when these projects' upfront spending requirements were already one of their main bottlenecks. Electric-vehicle prices will also go up. Meanwhile, prices for oil and gas, which were exempted from tariffs, have fallen steeply in the past week, making them more competitive with alternative energy sources. Coal traders in Asia will likely benefit from a push to reduce manufacturing costs there. Yet there could be a few silver linings in the storm. A tanking stock market means lower borrowing costs, while central banks elsewhere like the Bank of England and the European Central Bank are projected to cut rates more than previously expected, which could benefit renewable project developers. And what will happen with all the solar panels and EV batteries that China is churning out which were once bound for the West? Pre-existing trade barriers with the US and EU were already driving more of those to emerging markets, said Antoine Vagneur-Jones, head of trade and supply chains at BloombergNEF. That trend will accelerate, which could either improve those countries' access to low-cost clean tech or give them leverage to negotiate deals with Chinese manufacturers to invest in new local factories, something that Turkey, for one, is already doing. And there's one other way a global trade war could help the climate crisis, although with plenty of unpleasant side effects: Lower economic activity overall means lower emissions. Low prices are relatively less painful for OPEC, the biggest rival to US producers: The group, along with its partner Russia, is forging ahead with production increases despite the low price as a way to maintain its internal political cohesion in the face of a newly volatile market, analyst Amena Bakr wrote for Semafor Gulf. Domestic battery manufacturers in the US should be thankful for trade barriers. They're not.
Reuters
21-03-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Oil set for weekly gain on Iran sanctions, OPEC+ plan to rein in overproduction
March 21 (Reuters) - Oil prices rose in early Asian trading on Friday, and were set for their second consecutive weekly gains, after fresh U.S. sanctions on Iran and a new OPEC+ plan for seven members to cut output raised bets on tightening supply. Brent crude futures climbed 42 cents, or 0.6%, to $72.40 per barrel by 0026 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were up 45 cents, or 0.6%, to $68.52 a barrel. here. On a weekly basis, both Brent and WTI were on track to rise about 2%, their biggest weekly gains since the first week of 2025. The United States Treasury on Thursday announced new Iran-related sanctions, which for the first time targeted an independent Chinese refiner among other entities and vessels involved in supplying Iranian crude oil to China. That marked Washington's fourth round of sanctions against Iran since U.S. President Donald Trump in February vowed to reimpose a "maximum pressure" campaign on Tehran, pledging to drive the country's oil exports to zero. Analysts at ANZ Bank said they expect a 1 million barrels per day (bpd) reduction in Iranian crude oil exports because of tighter sanctions. Vessel tracking service Kpler pegged Iranian crude oil exports at over 1.8 million bpd in February, cautioning that the masking of Iranian vessel activity due to sanctions could lead to revisions to those numbers. Oil prices were also supported by a new OPEC+ plan announced Thursday for seven members to further cut output to make up for producing more than agreed levels. The plan would represent monthly cuts of between 189,000 bpd and 435,000 bpd, and will last until June 2026. The plan will buffer all the supply increments that OPEC+ had previously announced will take effect from next month, Kpler's head of Middle East energy Amena Bakr said in a post on social media service X. OPEC+ earlier this month confirmed that eight of its members would proceed with a monthly increase of 138,000 bpd from April, reversing some of the 5.85 million bpd of output cuts agreed in a series of steps since 2022 to support the market.
