Ethanol pumps will be installed across India soon: Nitin Gadkari
Union minister of road, transport and highways Nitin Gadkari on Friday said the day may not be far when bikes, auto-rickshaws and cars would completely run on ethanol across the country. Inaugurating a week-long agro-exhibition In Nagpur on Friday, Gadkari said soon there would be ethanol pumps at various locations. “We will soon see ethanol pumps set up at various locations,” said the minister. “Toyota has put its 100% ethanol-driven car on display at the expo and soon other brands like BMW, Mercedes, Hyundai and Maruti Suzuki are expected to launch their bio-fuel models of cars soon,” he said. Batting for green fuel, Gadkari said it would be a cheaper, cleaner and forex-saving alternative to diesel. “My aim is that we need to encourage Indians to make bio-fuel in India. We aim to promote Swadeshi (indigenous), which is important for the country,” he said adding, “We are encouraging the ethanol industry from sugarcane juice, molasses, rice, corn, and food grain.”
Germany Warns Of Rationing This Winter If Gas Storage Dips Below 40%
Germany may have to take drastic measures such as gas rationing if levels of gas in storage drop below 40% by February 1st next year, according to the German Federal Network Agency, which will enact such measures if necessary. Germany’s gas storage sites were 99% full at the start of the heating season and the onset of colder weather in November. As of November 23, Germany’s gas storage was 98.95% full, according to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe. The gas drawdowns are now set to accelerate as winter progresses. If gas storage levels drop to below 40% by February 1, this would be considered a critical level, Klaus Müller, the president of the German Federal Network Agency, Bundesnetzagentur, said on Friday. The critical gas storage level could trigger a further response for energy conservation in Germany, including a possible gas rationing. Germany is currently in a stage-two level of alert and could go into a level-three emergency if gas stocks fall to critically low levels. The situation with Germany’s gas supply will be tense if gas storage is between 40% and 55% full by the beginning of February, the head of the regulator Müller said during a webcast as quoted by Reuters. Germany’s energy regulator insists that “significant” gas and energy savings are necessary to avoid a winter of rationing and gas emergency. Households, industry, and businesses need to cut consumption by at least 20%, the regulator’s head Müller said in October. Germany may be unable to avoid a gas emergency this winter if all consumers don’t significantly cut consumption in Europe’s biggest economy, the regulator and its president have said multiple times since the summer. If the coming winter is colder than usual, Germany could see severe nationwide gas shortages, which it will not be able to predict more than two weeks in advance, Müller said in September.
China, India squeeze big oil discounts out of Russia, hitting Putin’s war chest
North American import bans and self-sanctioning by refiners and traders in Europe have barely dented the flow of crude from Russian ports, with volumes successfully diverted east. But switching flows to Asia, where India has emerged as Russia’s second-biggest customer, has concentrated Moscow’s dependence on an ever-shrinking pool of buyers. China and India now purchase two-thirds of all the crude exported by sea from Russia; at least half of the crude exported by pipeline from Russia also goes to China. That gives huge negotiating power to buyers in both countries, and it’s a power they have exercised. Russian crude is trading at a hefty discount to international benchmarks, and that is hitting the Kremlin’s war chest The most recent estimate, from the end of last week, is that Russia’s flagship Urals grade was trading at about $52 a barrel at the export terminal. That’s a discount of $33.28, or 39%, to Brent crude. In comparison, the average markdown in 2021 was $2.85. That discount costs Russia’s oil exporters about $4 billion a month in lost revenue, while also reducing the Kremlin’s tax receipts from overseas sales.
Kirit Parikh panel likely to recommend price cap for ONGC gas, no change in formula for Reliance
A government-appointed gas price review panel, led by Kirit Parikh, is likely to recommend price caps for natural gas produced from legacy fields of state-owned firms to help moderate CNG and piped cooking gas rates, while keeping the pricing formula for difficult fields unchanged. The panel, which was tasked with suggesting a “fair price to the end-consumer” while ensuring “market-oriented, transparent and reliable pricing regime for India’s long-term vision for ensuring a gas-based economy”, may opt to suggest two different pricing regimes, officials said. For the legacy or old fields of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation(ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) — where the cost has long been recovered and which are currently governed by a formula that uses rates in gas-surplus nations such as the US, Canada and Russia — the committee is likely to recommend a floor or minimum base price and cap or ceiling rates This would ensure that prices do not fall below cost of production, as they did last year, or do not spike to record levels as currently.