In this week's Market Movers: the Turkish steel market will look to an event to mark the end of World War I; the gas market will turn a weather eye on Asia; and the power markets will weigh up Belgian nuclear availability.
First off, key players in the world of oil will come together on Tuesday at the Abu Dhabi International Exhibition and Conference to assess the fall in prices and signs of oversupply. Both Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih and his Russian counterpart, Alexander Novak, will attend.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his US counterpart Donald Trump met Sunday at an event to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, with the Turks hoping that tariffs on their steel entering the US could be reduced to 25% from 50% if the talks help relations thaw.
Elsewhere, European natural gas markets may soon be looking East to see whether temperatures in Asia fall, causing some LNG flows to switch away from Europe.
And finally, in European power markets, Belgian nuclear operator Engie Electrabel announced it was bringing back from maintenance two reactor units at Tihange 1 today.
Join our conversations on Twitter - use #PlattsMM and connect with us.
In this week's highlights: the Turkish steel market looks to an event to mark the end of World War I; the gas market turns a weather eye on Asia; and the power markets weigh up Belgian nuclear availability.
But first, key players in the world of oil will come together on Tuesday at the Abu Dhabi International Exhibition and Conference to assess the fall in prices and signs of oversupply. Both Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih and his Russian counterpart, Alexander Novak, will attend - following another meeting just this past weekend with a key group of ministers from the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee. Pressure is now mounting on OPEC and Russia to limit production ahead of the next ministerial meeting in Vienna in December.
And further oil price signals are likely to come from some closely watched reports this week. On Tuesday OPEC will publish its regular monthly report and the IEA will unveil its annual World Energy Outlook, which assesses trends up to 2040.
While the IEA will be looking forward, the Turkish steel sector will be hoping that looking back might improve its situation. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his US counterpart Donald Trump met Sunday at an event to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. The Turks are hoping that tariffs on their steel entering the US could be reduced to 25% from a current level of 50% if the talks help relations thaw.
While Turkey looks West, European gas markets may soon be looking East to see whether temperatures in Asia fall, causing some LNG flows to switch away from Europe. But meanwhile so far we have seen quite an improvement in European supply.
As you can see from the chart, data from S&P Global Platts Analytics shows that North West European LNG send-outs increased dramatically through October. And we now see daily deliveries and 30-day averages hitting post-Fukushima highs.
With other supply sources into Europe also rising into winter, we saw record October underground storage injections of over 100 mcm/d.
Sendouts should remain high through November, but flows could start to move to Asia once heating demand there picks up.
And finally, we look to Belgium, where several nuclear plants have been offline in recent months.
Belgian nuclear operator Engie Electrabel announced it was bringing back from maintenance two reactor units at Tihange 1 today, rather than November 17th as originally planned. Their return will double available nuclear capacity in Belgium to 2 gigawatts.
However, as you can see from this chart S&P Global Platts Analytics expects Belgian nuclear output to set a new record low throughout Q4 2018, despite the Tihange 1 restart.
And Belgium is not out of the woods just yet. The nuclear regulator last week announced greater scrutiny in nuclear inspections at the Doel 1 and 2 reactors, due back on December the 10th and December 31st, and this could represent a risk of delays to their restarts.
Thank you for kicking off your Monday with us, and have a great week ahead!