In this week's highlights: It's results week for oil and gas majors; another key OPEC+ meeting; Gazprom holds investor day; French nuclear demand; and the continued surge in steel prices.
- Q1 results, OPEC+ cuts in spotlight
- Gazprom to hold key investor day
- EU nuclear and climate target in focus
- Hot rolled coil prices reach record-highs
In this week's highlights: another key OPEC+ meeting, Gazprom's investor day, French nuclear demand, and the continued surge in steel prices.
But first, this week is set to be dominated by corporate results from the global majors and markets will be looking closely for indicators on the state of the oil and gas industry. The mood across the industry has significantly improved of late, with upstream oil and gas production rebounding on the back of higher oil and gas prices. Shell has already flagged that it will report its first positive earnings in the upstream for a year at its first quarter results.
Results coverage kicks off with BP on Tuesday, followed by Shell, Total, Equinor and Repsol on Thursday, and finishing with results from the US majors -- Chevron and ExxonMobil -- on Friday.
Also high up the agenda is an OPEC+ meeting taking place on Wednesday, led by Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak.
OPEC+ faces the delicate task of easing production cuts introduced in response to last year's massive demand collapse, but not doing so too quickly, given the risk that a seasonal demand recovery normal in the northern summer could prove transitory.
When you add in uncertainty over how much Iranian crude will be on the market, as talks on easing US sanctions take place in Vienna, OPEC+ has a formidable task.
In addition, we'll be getting the Russian perspective on all the above issues as Russia's National Oil & Gas Forum gets underway Tuesday.
Staying in Russia, gas giant Gazprom holds its annual investor day on Thursday, which is expected to give insight into the company's European gas sales strategy for the remainder of this year.
Russia remains the dominant gas supplier in Europe and its sales behavior is a key signal for market participants.
In the year to mid-April, its European gas sales were up by some 28% on the year to more than 60 billion cubic meters as cold weather triggered high demand.
As Gazprom has withdrawn much of the gas it had stored in Europe for sale this winter, it remains uncertain whether it will be able to replenish stocks and whether it will book more short-term capacity via Ukraine to boost supplies.
In power, France's Flamanville-1 reactor is scheduled to return from a 19-month outage on Wednesday. French nuclear, a key swing factor in European power pricing, is recovering from last year's record low output but power demand has also rebounded. Year-ahead power prices are now at the highest since the Fukushima crisis ten years ago.
In neighboring Germany, meanwhile, the government is set to confirm a doubling in wind and solar auction volumes for 2022 this week, after coalition parties reached a compromise on Earth Day.
The sector is being given the hurry-up in response to tough climate targets.
Under burden sharing rules, the EU's goal to reduce emissions by 55% by 2030 equates to a 65% cut for Germany - hence the move to auction 10 gigawatts in 2022.
And that takes us to our social media question for the week: What will the implementation of the EU's climate target mean for other member countries? Please tweet us your thoughts using the hashtag #PlattsMM.
And finally, the first-quarter results season also kicks off this week for European steelmakers.
Speciality steelmaker SSAB, stockholder Kloeckner and tubemaker Tenaris are set to report, followed by steelmakers ArcelorMittal, Outokumpu and Aperam next week.
These companies are expected to see improved results amid continued high demand for steel as the recovery gathers pace.
S&P Global Platts north European hot rolled coil price assessment reached its highest-ever last week, at 970 Euros per metric ton, in what appears to be a still-rising trend. Mills and traders are waiting to see if the psychological threshold of 1,000 Euros per metric ton is about to be breached.
The Platts Atlas of Energy Transition is your map to the sustainable commodity markets of the future. You can explore the Atlas by visiting the address displayed on your screen.
Thanks for kicking off your Monday with us and have a great week ahead!