Page 15 - AsianOil Week 19

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Trafigura shifts oil trading operations from Shandong to Shanghai
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
INTERNATIONAL commodity trader Trafig- ura is reportedly planning to move its crude oil marketing operations from Qingdao in Shandong Province to its commodities desk in Shanghai.
The trading company’s marketing staff in Shandong will join its Shanghai division in June, Reuters quoted unnamed industry sources as saying on May 12.
Trafigura is understood not only to have cre- ated a head oil trader position in Shanghai ear- lier this year, but to have appointed Huang Shufu from its Singapore-based team to the role.
The portfolio restructuring has also seen Singapore-based, China-focused senior crude oil trader Wang Zheng depart the company recently, according to the newswire’s sources.
“The position in Shanghai is designed so that traders can have better communications between teams and share the resources of the long-establishedmetalsdesk,”onesourcesaid.
Trafigura set up the Qingdao office in January 2017 to gain greater access to Shan- dong’s independent downstream market. The move away from Shandong comes as independent refiners slowly recover from
a challenging couple of months, in which many had to dramatically slash runs in response to the country’s coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown.
The province’s independent sector is report- edly ramping up run rates, however, in response to renewed economic activity following the eas- ing of social quarantine measures.
China imported 40.43mn tonnes (9.88mn barrels per day) of oil in April, according to the General Administration of Customs (GAC), which while down on the 10.68mn bpd shipped in during April 2019, was up from the 9.72mn bpd imported in March.
“The combination of inventories falling and strong imports implies really solid refining activity,” Bloomberg quoted Ursa Space Systems analyst Geoffrey Craig as saying on May 11. Ursa uses synthetic aperture radar to track storage tank activity. “You saw them build aggressively inlateFebruaryandintotheendofMarch,and since then they’ve absolutely plateaued and have come off a bit.”
Energy consultancy SIA Energy estimates that inventories fell by 9.5mn barrels in April after growing by 161mn in the first quarter.™
OCEANIA
ARENA funds APA’s renewable methane pilot
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
THE Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has awarded AUD1.1mn ($712,000) in funding for a renewable methane pilot project that is being developed by APA and Southern Green Gas.
The project aims to demonstrate the tech- nical and commercial benefits of an inte- grated hydrogen electrolysis and renewable methane production system. It will generate cost and technical data to be used to assess the
feasibility of larger, commercial-scale, renew- able methane production.
The plant, which will be built near Roma in Queensland, aims to produce 74 gigajoules (1,928 cubic metres) per year of renewable meth- ane. The methane will be pumped into APA’s pipeline network.
The incorporates a multi-step process to convert hydrogen (H2) into methane using solar-generated electricity, water and carbon
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