- Russia announced that it plans to seize control of the Sakhalin-1 Oil and Gas project, one week after taking over the neighboring Sakhalin-2 project (Reuters)
- The Sakhalin-1 project is currently operated by ExxonMobil, Japan’s SODECO, and India’s ONGC
- According to the Russian head of the energy committee, Pavel Zavalny, the move was the “obvious next step”
- Although Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an order last week to seize control of Sakhalin-2, no formal decision has been made on Sakhalin-1
- The Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which exports Kazakh crude from a key terminal on the Black Sea, requests the Russian court to delay the order halting oil loadings
- The CPC handles around 1%, or 1.2 MMBbl/d, of global oil announced on Wednesday that a Russian court had ordered it to halt operations for 30 days due to concerns regarding oil spills
- A further shutdown would remove additional oil from a tight market as shipments were already halted in June for the removal of mines
- Shanghai has experienced a major spike in COVID cases since late May (BBG)
- The doubling of cases raises concerns that the pursuit of Covid Zero may force China's financial center back into lockdown
- Shanghai reported 54 local COVID cases on Wednesday, including two that were detected outside of quarantine. There were 338 infections reported nationwide on Wednesday