The new pact, inked during a Qatari state visit to Germany, comes as Berlin looks to fast-track a number of new LNG import terminals to reduce its dependence on Russian gas imports.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has made it clear for all actors in Germany: diversification of gas imports is urgently needed.

China's seaborne Russian oil imports will jump to a near-record 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) in May, up from 750,000 bpd in the first quarter and 800,000 bpd in 2021,

German industry is particularly anxious about energy-intensive factories, such as glass, steel, food or drug manufacturing, as well as the chemicals sector, that provide many of the building blocks for industry.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 3.4 million barrels to 420.8 million barrels.

The Finnish transmission system operator (TSO) Fingrid estimates that there is no threat to the sufficiency of electricity in the country since electricity imports from Russia covered about 10% of Finland’s total consumption before the suspension.

Gazprom produced 193.8 billion cubic meters of gas from January 1 through May 15, 2022. This is a decrease of 3.7 per cent (or 7.5 billion cubic meters) versus the same period of 2021.

Engie and Gazprom have agreed on a solution in line with both companies' expectations in terms of currencies and with European sanctions.

All this progress, however, could be derailed without a massive overhaul of America’s antiquated electric infrastructure – a task some industry experts say requires more than $2 trillion.

The crude throughput was the lowest since March 2020 when it was at 11.81 million b/d, following lockdowns after the initial COVID-19 wave.

World oil demand growth in 2022 is expected to increase by 3.4 mb/d y-o-y, representing a downward revision of 0.3 mb/d from last month’s report, with 1.8 mb/d in the OECD and 1.6 mb/d in the non-OECD.

European gas prices were trading higher early May 12, with the TTF month-ahead price up at Eur105/MWh ($109.72/MWh) as of 0815 GMT, according to ICE data.

Germany, Russia's top client in Europe, said some subsidiaries of Gazprom Germania were receiving no gas because of the sanctions.

The monthly import profile for April, which following European wholesale front-month trade in March, saw sourcing from all parts of the world intensify, with Europe comfortably receiving its highest-ever volume for a single month. This was, however, paid for at a high price.

Global LNG import volumes reached 372.3 million tons, a rise of 16.2 million tons from 2020,