Demand has ticked up a bit into Western Africa and other places for HSFO, one trader said.

This comes on the back of a four-day closure at the ports in Shanghai, after Typhoon In-Fa made landfall in east China Zhejiang Province.

Taylor and UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Kwasi Kwarteng, signed a letter of intent focused on a variety of emerging technologies on July 29.

High sulfur straight run can feed into the HSFO pool, as it can be used as both a bunkering and a heating fuel. Strength in the HSSR market is often an indicator of strength in the high sulfur fuel oil market.

The country consumed 77.37 million barrels, or an average of 2.58 million b/d, of refined oil products in June, compared with 71.64 million barrels a year earlier, the KNOC data showed.

Chinese refiners are not importing as much crude oil. Poor arbitrage economics, surging outright prices, and pressure on the independent refining sector have reduced the country's demand for long-haul Atlantic basin barrels in recent trading cycles, forcing sellers of these grades to discount and look elsewhere, according to market participants.

India has been looking to procure more North and Latin American grade crudes, Kapoor said.

Ample availability of barges plying the delivered bunkers trade in Singapore stiffens price competition too, another bunker supplier said. Data by the Maritime and Port Authority, or MPA, of Singapore showed a registry of 210 bunker barges as of March 2021, slightly down from the 215 registered barges reported in July 2020.

The second quarter saw significant price increases across distillates and light ends, with outright values reaching 1.5-year highs amid a tightening of the crude oil market and global demand recovery hopes.

Maritime industry players in Singapore are keeping a close watch on bunker fuel quantity disputes, as a slew of pandemic-related restrictions including contactless bunkering potentially reduces the scope for checks on bunker tankers and tough markets may tempt some unscrupulous players to benefit from the situation.

Platts is proposing to change the ex-wharf volume range for all Panamanian assessments of Marine Fuel 0.5%S and IFO 380 to 500-1,000 mt. The current range is 500-1,500 mt for Balboa, Cristobal and the Panama Canal, which reflects the lower of the two ports on occasions when the two diverge.

Any offer of oil from vessels approved for the MOC process will be on ex-wharf FSU basis.

Platts will publish all relevant information from Minerva Bunkering (USA) LLC accordingly.

A source close to SLNG told S&P Global Platts that a final investment decision will be made after the study is completed.

Bill Wakeling will lead the new division, the company said.

In their July 21 protest, Sierra Club and Healthy Gulf argued Driftwood Pipeline's single precedent agreement must be made public.

The jailing of Zuma on July 8 led to widescale protests, which began in Zuma's home province of KwaZulu-Natal and has now spread to other regions.

"We need much stronger policies, and faster," van Hulst said at a Euractiv virtual panel debate.

Heavy industries are concentrated in the northern provinces that may need to buy carbon allowances from southern provinces, Peng Wensheng, Chief Economist at China International Capital Corp, said.

The EU carbon allowance prices under the EU Emissions Trading System rose to an all-time high on July 1, after leaked draft documents showed details of EU legislation to revamp the carbon market, which was to be unveiled by the European Commission on July 14.