Oil prices are rising in the morning trading on Tuesday on information about further weakening of anti-coke measures in China and closure of some refineries in the US due to bad weather.
The price of February futures for Brent crude oil on London’s ICE Futures Exchange stood at $84.4 a barrel by 7:20 a.m. Tuesday, up $0.48 (0.57%) from the close of the previous session. Those contracts rose $2.94 (3.6%) to $83.92 a barrel in trading the previous Friday. There were no oil trades on Monday because of the Catholic Christmas.
The price of WTI crude futures for February increased by $0.5 (0.63%) to $80.06 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) by that time. By closing of previous trades the cost of these contracts grew by $2.07 (2.6%) to $79.56 per barrel.
Chinese authorities will cancel obligatory quarantine for people arriving in the country from abroad since January 8, Bloomberg informs. In addition, Beijing has downgraded its COVID-19 surveillance, abandoning the legal basis for imposing harsh measures to combat the spread of infection. “Our priorities should shift from preventing and controlling (the coronavirus – IF) to treating it,” said Liang Wannian, head of the COVID-19 expert group under China’s National Health Commission, in an interview for People’s Daily.
Market participants are also following the news from the USA where the production of petroleum products is falling due to the difficult weather conditions in the key regions which were covered by a snowstorm. Thus, production was stopped at two major refineries Motiva Port Arthur and Marathon Galveston Bay in Texas. According to Bloomberg, their capacity is more than 1.8 million barrels per day.
Export of Ukraine by countries in Jan-Oct 2022
export.gov.ua
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the Ukrainian government expects to hold a “peace formula” summit by the end of February, preferably at the United Nations with Secretary General António Guterres as a possible mediator.
As the foreign minister told The Associated Press, the Ukrainian government would like to hold the summit by the end of February, around the anniversary of the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“The U.N. could be the best venue for this summit because it’s not about doing a favor for some country. It’s about getting everybody involved in the initiative,” he said.
Asked if they would invite Russia to the summit, he said that first that country should be held accountable for war crimes, for example, in an international court.
On Guterres’ role, Kuleba said: “He has proven himself as an effective mediator and an effective negotiator, and most importantly, as a man of principle and integrity. So we would welcome his active participation.”
The AP later published a U.N. response that Guterres can only mediate if all parties want him to.
“As the secretary general has said many times in the past, he can mediate only if all parties want him to mediate,” UN Deputy Spokesperson Florencia Soto Nino-Martinez said Monday.
The Ukrainian foreign minister also reiterated that Russia is not really ready to negotiate.
“They regularly say they are ready for negotiations, which is not true, because everything they do on the battlefield proves otherwise,” he said.
At the same time, the minister noted that every war ends diplomatically.
“Every war ends as a result of actions taken on the battlefield and at the negotiating table,” he added.
Ukraine at the end of 2022 became the ninth largest producer of wheat with the indicator of 20.5 million tons, which is a third lower than last year’s figures due to the full-scale military aggression unleashed by Russia.
As reported on the site Finance.yahoo, Ukraine this season is ahead of China (138 million tons), the EU (134.7 million tons), India (103 million tons), Russia (91 million tons), the United States (44.9 million tons), Canada (35 million tons), Australia (33 million tons) and Pakistan (26.4 million tons) in wheat production.
In turn, Ukraine produced more wheat than Argentina (17.5m t), Turkey (17.25m t), Britain (14.6m t), Iran (13.2m t), Kazakhstan (13m t), Egypt (9.8m t), Brazil (9.2m t) and Uzbekistan (6.6m t).
According to the publication, the total area of wheat planted in 2022 exceeded 220 million hectares worldwide. Wheat is produced by both developed and developing countries. Developed regions account for 50% of the world’s wheat production, and the total area sown is 53%. About 70% of the wheat produced in the world is used as food, 20% – for livestock, and 2-3% – in industry.
As reported, Ukraine in 2021 harvested a record crop of cereals, legumes and oilseeds in the amount of 106 million tons: cereals and legumes – 84 million UAH, and oilseeds – 22.6 million tons.
A total of 32.4 million tons of wheat, 40 million tons of corn, 10 million tons of barley, 581.5 thousand tons of peas, 191 thousand tons of millet and 110 tons of buckwheat were harvested last year. Sunflower harvest amounted to 16.3 million tons, soybeans – 3.4 million tons and rapeseed – 2.9 million tons.
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Editor Maksim Urakin
The main corruption risk of the draft law No 5655 on reform of the urban planning sphere is its elaboration with violations of the principle of transparency and consideration of the public opinion.
This position is stated by the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) in a letter to the National Union of Architects of Ukraine (NUAU), the deputy chairman of the Architectural Chamber of NUAU Anna Kiriy told Interfax-Ukraine.
“The National Agency has always emphasized – both in its public position at the Committee’s November 28, 2022 meeting and in its informal communication with diplomats from the G7 countries – that the main corruption risk of the draft law is that it is not developed in an open and inclusive way, in violation of the principle of transparency and consideration of public opinion, established by the Law of Ukraine “On the Principles of State Regulatory Policy in the Business”, – said in a letter of NACA.
At the same time, the specialized committee of the Verkhovna Rada did not fully take into account the observations of the NAPC on the finalization of the bill at the meeting on December 9, the agency notes.
According to the NACC, the finalized bill still contains a rule that establishes the principle of tacit consent to restore the right to perform preparatory and construction works by the customer / contractor in the case of failure by the authorized person of the body of urban control for entry into the Register of construction activities to file a claim for termination of such right within 30 days from the date of the writ.
In turn, the National Agency recommended deleting this rule in the final version of the law.
The NACP emphasizes that its representatives did not participate in the meeting of the Profile Committee on December 9 and the Parliament meeting on December 13, when the law was passed, and therefore can not fully evaluate the extent to which its recommendations and comments were taken into account in the final version of the law.
The National Agency also never campaigned either for or against the bill, but conducted an anticorruption assessment and additional analysis of the bill with the provision of comments within its competence, the letter said.
As it was reported, on December 13, the Verkhovna Rada adopted as a whole the draft law № 5655 on reforming the sphere of urban planning. It was voted for by 228 deputies. A petition with a demand to veto the bill has collected more than 25 thousand signatures and is pending consideration by the president.
Earlier, on December 1, 2022, the bill was withdrawn from consideration by Parliament. The Association of Ukrainian Cities, mayors of cities, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy and the National Union of Architects of Ukraine insisted on its revision.
