Oil prices rise on Monday ahead of the OPEC+ meeting, traders are assessing the possibility of cutting production after recent statements by Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman about the possibility of such a move.
Most experts still believe that OPEC + will not reduce the oil production plan for October, Bloomberg notes. JPMorgan analysts explain this opinion by the fact that the summer surplus of raw materials in the world market can quickly turn into a deficit.
The price of November futures for Brent oil on the London ICE Futures exchange by 8:15 pm on Monday is $95.06 per barrel, which is $2.04 (2.19) higher than the closing price of the previous session. As a result of trading on Friday, these contracts rose by $0.66 (0.7%) to $93.02 per barrel.
The price of futures for WTI oil for October in the electronic trading of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) is $88.66 per barrel by this time, which is $1.79 (2.06%) higher than the final value of the previous session. By the close of the market on Friday, the value of these contracts increased by $0.26 (0.3%) to $86.87 per barrel.
As a result of the past week, Brent fell by 6.1%, WTI – by 4.6%.
In Europe, the energy crisis is intensifying against the background of the suspension of Russian gas supplies via the Nord Stream gas pipeline. On Friday evening, Gazprom reported that the maintenance of the only working turbine of the Nord Stream revealed “gross violations” and the gas pipeline would not work without their elimination.
Shortly before this, the G7 countries approved a plan to introduce a price ceiling for oil exported by Russia. To implement this plan, the G7 countries intend, in particular, to ban insurance of tankers with Russian oil if it is sold at a price above a certain limit.
“We believe that Gazprom’s decision to extend the shutdown of Nord Stream supplies from the originally announced three days indefinitely is inextricably linked to the G7’s adoption of the price cap plan,” said James Whistler, managing director of Vanir Global Markets Pte. Bloomberg.
Although the G7 countries are striving to maintain the supply of Russian energy resources to the world market, while reducing Russia’s income, “in reality, everything happens the other way around,” the expert says.
The Government on Friday approved a bill that brings the Customs Tariff of Ukraine in line with the requirements of the International Convention on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System in the 2022 version, the Ministry of Economy reported.
The agency explained that the current Customs Tariff of Ukraine is built on the basis of such an international system of the 2017 version, while most countries of the world (China, the USA, the EU, Turkey, Switzerland) have already switched to the 2022 version.
In this regard, there are a number of complications associated with differences in commodity codes in the customs clearance of imported products or when comparing the customs statistics of Ukraine and trading partner countries.
“Ukraine is adapting to international standards for the classification of goods. We need this in order to increase our own exports, enter new markets, strengthen competitive advantages in world trade,” First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko, Minister of Economy, said in the release.
The Ministry of Economy clarified that if the bill is adopted, more than 350 changes will be made to commodity codes, mainly in relation to agricultural goods, chemical, forestry, textiles, non-ferrous metals, engineering, transport, etc.
The report clarifies that the new customs tariff does not provide for changes in the rates of import duty on goods.
Power unit No. 5 of the Zaporizhzhya NPP, which was shut down in an emergency on September 1, is back in operation, Energoatom reported.
“Today, September 2, 2022, the 5th power unit of the Zaporizhzhya NPP, which was turned off on September 1 in the morning as a result of another mortar attack by the Russian occupation forces at the ZNPP site, was connected to the power grid at 13:10,” Energoatom’s Telegram channel reported. on Friday.
According to the report, the increase in power continues.
“The station has two power units (No. 5, 6 – ER), which produce electricity for the needs of Ukraine. There are no comments on the operation of equipment and security systems,” the company said.
Export of goods from Ukraine in August increased by 13.9% compared to July to $3.363 billion, while imports decreased by 2.3% to $4.416 billion, the Ministry of Economy reported on Friday.
According to him, as a result, the negative balance of Ukraine’s foreign trade in goods last month decreased to $1.053 billion from $1.569 billion in July and $1.549 billion in June.
“The growth in exports is associated with the partial unblocking of the ports of Greater Odessa. This made it possible to significantly increase the volume of exports of Ukrainian goods. As a result, transportation by sea increased by 85% and amounted to almost 2.9 million tons,” the Ministry of Economy noted.
It indicated that in physical terms, in August 2022, the volume of Ukrainian exports increased by 25%, to 7.296 million tons, while imports decreased by 1%, to 1.961 million tons.
According to the Ministry of Economy, Ukraine exported more than 3 million tons of goods by rail, and 1.36 million tons by road.
At the same time, exporters receive the largest revenue from goods exported by road – $1.48 billion, sea cargo cost $995 million, and rail cargo – $788 million.
“Ukraine relies on the export model of economic growth. Before the full-scale war, our exports amounted to 35% of GDP. The goal of the Government and the Ministry of Economy is to raise it to 50%. 75% of exports should be finished goods and services,” the words of the First Vice -Prime Minister – Minister of Economy Yulia Sviridenko.
The leaders in terms of export value in August were, in particular, sunflower oil – $443 million and corn – $347 million, whose export volumes increased by 30%, to 366 thousand tons and by 31%, to 1.5 million tons, respectively, while export of sunflower seeds amounted to $71 million.
In addition, the list of leaders includes rapeseed – $305 million, including exported 665 thousand tons of this crop of the new crop, and wheat – $213 million, the export of which in August increased 2.3 times compared to July, to 880 thousand tons.
Last month, soybean exports jumped by 30% to 148,000 tons, and in monetary terms to $62 million, while revenue from electricity exports doubled to $73 million, which was the result of the successful integration of the Ukrainian energy sector into ENTSO-E, an energy system of the European Union.
“It is important that confectionery processing products demonstrate a stable upward trend: bakery +19.4%, sugar +9.1%, chocolate +25%,” the Ministry of Economy added, without specifying specific indicators.
At the same time, ore exports fell to 1.4 million tons, and in monetary terms – to $172 million, cable products – by 9.8%, to $89 million, poultry meat – to $67 million.
“Rudomaine” LLC (Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk region), which is engaged in iron ore mining, intends to reconstruct the storage of fuel and lubricant materials (FMM) to increase the storage of light petroleum products to 200 cubic meters. m and arranging a fuel station for refueling the company’s vehicles.
According to the documentation at the disposal of the Interfax-Ukraine agency, the planned activity is determined by the 2nd category 4.2 – “surface and underground storage of fossil fuels or products of their processing on an area of 500 square meters or more or a volume (for liquid or gaseous ) 15 cubic meters and more”.
I will not disclose the terms of the reconstruction and the amount of funds for the project.
“Rudomine” LLC was registered in May 2010. The main type of activity is iron ore mining. According to the company, it actively works on the territory of Ukraine, the CIS and Europe. Since 2005, it has processed more than 20 million tons of substandard ores of the Kryvyi Rih iron ore basin.
As of the end of 2020, two beneficiation factories were up and running. The production capacity of the enterprise was up to 4 million tons of raw materials per year with an iron content of at least 38%. Production of finished products with an iron content of 50-59% (fraction 0-10 mm) amounted to about 1.5 million tons per year.
According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities as of September 2021, the company “ARDK Mining Asset Management Holding Ltd.” is owned by the company. (Cyprus) is a 100 percent share of “Rudomine” LLC. The ultimate beneficiary is Andreu Katya, a citizen of Cyprus.
Previously, the owner of “Rudomine” LLC was the company “Fernando Trading Ltd.” (West Indies) with the ultimate beneficiary – resident individual Anatoly Medvedev.
FATF (Financial Action Task Force) plans to issue detailed instructions in October this or February next year on the implementation of its new recommendations on transparency of beneficial ownership, said the head of the Secretariat’s Risk and Policies Department organization Tom Neylan.
The next FATF plenary meetings are scheduled for October and February.
Speaking at a FATF-sponsored seminar on Thursday, Neylan noted that the organization has begun the practical implementation of its new legal entity transparency standard. In this regard, the discussion participants discussed the best world practices in the field of creating registers of beneficial owners of companies, the need for constant monitoring of the relevance of the information contained in the registers, the importance of interaction in this matter between the private and public sectors.
Emil van der Doos de Villebois, Head of Global Financial Markets at the World Bank, recalled that almost all criminal schemes that the international community is fighting against use legal entities in one way or another.
Michael Levy, a professor at Cardiff University, believes that the FATF, by implementing the new recommendations at the international level, should thereby “ensure a level playing field.” In his opinion, if there is no transparency of companies, then there is a real threat that international business will simply ignore minimally risky partners, because otherwise, in the conditions of a lack of information, they will have to do so many additional checks that the client will simply “become unprofitable” for them.
“Countries are often surprised when they find that the FATF Evaluation Panel starts looking in the public domain for information about permanent or nominee directors during the evaluation. It happens unexpectedly. But we check it,” Neylan said.
Neilan and European Commission Policy Officer Chiara Bakchi agreed on the importance of using public registers. In their opinion, not only the accuracy of the information collected is important, but also the interaction between different national registries. “I’m not talking about real harmonization (of registers – IF), but at least about the relationship, when we can find common information,” Bakci said.
In March, the organization adopted amendments to recommendation 24 (transparency and beneficial owners of legal entities). The amendments oblige countries to prevent the misuse of legal entities for money laundering or terrorist financing by ensuring that adequate, accurate and up-to-date information is available on the beneficial owners of legal entities.
The authors of the amendments insist on the introduction of a multi-vector approach, that is, the use of a combination of various mechanisms for collecting information on beneficial ownership in order to ensure its timely availability to government bodies.
Jurisdictions should apply any additional measures necessary to identify the beneficiaries of companies. These measures should include the storage of information obtained by regulated financial institutions and professionals, regulators or stock exchanges.
The FATF is an intergovernmental body established in 1989 that develops standards and promotes the effective application of measures to combat money laundering, the financing of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The FATF standards include recommendations, as well as explanatory notes to them and definitions. The measures provided for by these standards are mandatory for all members of the organization. The extent to which the relevant measures are implemented in practice is checked through a system of mutual evaluations.
