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Watch: Market Movers Europe, Dec 9-13: Leaders meet in Paris to try to break Ukraine gas transit impasse

  • Featuring
  • Stergios Zacharakis
  • Commodity
  • LNG Natural Gas Oil Metals
  • Length
  • 05:06
  • Topic
  • OPEC+ Oil Output Cuts

In this week's highlights: The European Commission unveils its new Green Deal; the oil markets digest the latest output cuts by OPEC and its allies; and it's election day in the UK and Algeria.

View Full Transcript

In this week's highlights: The European Commission unveils its new Green Deal; the oil markets digest the latest output cuts by OPEC and its allies; and it's election day in the UK and Algeria.

But first, the gas market will be closely monitoring a four-way summit on Monday for any signs of an end to the impasse over the continuing transit of Russian gas via Ukraine.

The summit between French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy, takes place in Paris.

The agreement on gas transit expires on December 31st.

This means Moscow and Kiev have just over three weeks to reach a new agreement or run the risk of Russian gas flows through its western neighbor being stopped again at the height of winter.

As you can see from the chart on your screen, at the moment between 40 and 50 percent of Russian gas heading for Europe transits via Ukraine.

There have been bilateral talks between Moscow and Kiev in the past few weeks, suggesting a breakthrough could be imminent.

With the Russian gas supply cut-offs of 2006 and 2009 still fresh in the mind of the European gas market, the risk of further disruption in 2020 has led to storage facilities across Europe being filled to capacity.

Moving away from gas in every way, on Wednesday the European Commission will present a European Green Deal strategy to help the EU become a net-zero carbon economy by 2050.

The EC wants to expand the bloc's Emissions Trading System to shipping, tighten its 2030 carbon reduction target to at least 50% below 1990 levels, and write the net-zero target in law.

Formal EC proposals on this will start next year - the immediate impact is likely to be on carbon markets.

EU leaders then meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to decide whether to back the Commission's net-zero 2050 ambition.

Talking of ambition, the oil market will be looking at whether OPEC and its allies have succeeded in bolstering the oil price with their latest output cuts.

As you can see from the chart on your screen, prices jumped in the wake of last week's announcement by OPEC plus in Vienna.

The OPEC-plus group came up with a package of deep production cuts, in effect totaling 2.1 million b/d.

However, Saudi Arabia again shoulders much of the burden, and Russia won a concession with an agreement to exclude condensate volumes from consideration.

As the dust settles, we'll get some pointers on how this is all going to work out from the monthly oil market reports of OPEC itself and the IEA on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.

And that brings us to our social media question for the week: How successful will the OPEC+ cuts be in supporting oil prices? Tweet us your replies under the hashtag #PlattsMM.

Looking at another production basin, North Sea oil and gas explorers meet for their annual PROSPEX conference in London on Wednesday, with the UK regulator, the Oil & Gas Authority, providing an update on the country's lackluster exploration efforts.

And Friday the 13th is the deadline for the European Commission to rule on the competition implications of Polish refiner PKN Orlen's planned takeover of Number 2 refiner Lotos

The Commission has been conducting an in-depth probe into whether the deal, which would create a single Polish refiner, with additional assets in neighboring countries, would hurt competition.

Back in the UK, there may also be some disappointed faces on Friday 13th after the country goes to the polls on Thursday.

The oil and gas industry will be looking at the environmental policies of the incoming government, and the opposition Labour Party has pledged to take utilities into public ownership if it wins power.

However, the key issue will be Brexit and the UK's future relationship with the EU, its largest trading partner.

And finally, the UK is not the only oil and gas producer where elections are being held on Thursday.

Algeria will be holding presidential elections.

The energy markets will be eying any signs of policy changes closely.

The same applies to the steel market which will be looking for clues about any changes in trade policy.

Algerian steel importers will be anxious to see whether the incoming regime will maintain new legislation requiring imports of all goods to be made on a free on board basis from December 31, instead of the current cost and freight basis.

The move is designed to save the nation's foreign currency reserves as it will require freight to be paid in Algerian dinars instead of dollars or euros.

This means importers will need to use Algerian state-owned vessels.

Some fear this may result in disruption to the flow of steel imports into Algeria.

Thanks for kicking off your Monday with us and, regardless of your politics, have a great week ahead!