Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani speaks during a joint press conference with his French counterpart in Doha on March 28, 2022.
Mustafa Abumunes | Afp | Getty Images
Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Thani on Tuesday appeared to correct a controversial statement his fellow minister made over the weekend concerning Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, Qatar’s energy minister and head of the state gas company, said he was sure Russian gas would eventually flow back to Europe, as the Continent would “forgive and forget” Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.
“We’re all blessed to have to be able to forget and to forgive. And I think things get mended with time … they learn from that situation and probably have a much bigger diversity [of energy intake],” al-Kaabi said on Saturday, during an energy forum in Abu Dhabi.
The comment sparked anger and came just as a Russian missile strike killed at least 40 civilians in a residential neighborhood of Ukraine’s Dnipro.
Asked by CNBC’s Hadley Gamble if al-Kaabi’s comment was the official position of Qatar, al-Thani said:
“Well, it’s not actually. First of all, politically speaking, when we are talking about the situation and the war, Qatar has a very clear political stance on this: we don’t accept the invasion of another country. We don’t accept threatening by force or the use of force, we don’t accept civilians to be hurt. And we have been demonstrating this throughout our votes within the United Nations.”
He added, “Our message to the Russians, to the Ukrainian has been always … these kinds of differences and disagreements shouldn’t be resolved in a battlefield, they should be resolved through dialogue.”
Rescuers search for people trapped under the rubble of a high-rise residential building hit by a missile on Jan. 14, 2023, in Dnipro, Ukraine.
Global Images Ukraine | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Europe has long been Russia’s largest customer for most energy commodities, particularly natural gas supplies. EU countries have dramatically reduced their imports of Russian energy supplies, slapping sanctions in response for Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The cut in imports has increased energy costs for Europe, sending leaders and oil and gas executives to seek out new sources of energy and alternative supplies.
Al-Thani maintained it was up to Europe to decide its energy future.
“Actually it is the European decision,” he said. “At the end of the day, from our perspective and our policy, as state of Qatar, we never politicize the energy. We see that food, medicine, energy, those are items that need to be protected, because they are for the people, they are not for the government or for political reasons.”
He added that Europe’s woes aren’t solely the result of the war, but said the conflict had accelerated the Continent’s energy challenges.
“It has been for a very long time, policies … were not realistic,” the minister said, pointing to an overzealous energy transition that discounted the importance of fossil fuels while relying too highly on renewables.
Qatar has emerged as an important alternative source of natural gas for Europe. In late November, QatarEnergy and ConocoPhillips signed agreements to export 2 million tons of liquified natural gas yearly to Germany for at least 15 years, starting in 2026.
Qatar maintains good relations with Russia. Its $300 billion sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, owns roughly 19% of Russian oil giant Rosneft and plans to continue investing in the country.
Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura oil refinery and oil terminal
Ahmed Jadallah | Reuters
Saudi state oil giant Aramco reported a 15.4% drop in net profit in the third-quarter on the back of “lower crude oil prices and weakening refining margins,” but maintained a 31.05 billion dividend.
The company reported net income of $27.56 billion in the July-September period, topping a company-provided estimate of $26.9 billion. The print is also a 5% drop from the previous quarter, which came in at $29.1 billion, as lower global oil prices, weaker demand and prolonged OPEC+ production cuts led by Saudi Arabia continue to impact crude prices.
The average selling price of oil for the second quarter of 2024 stood at $85 per barrel, but dropped to $78.7 per barrel during the third quarter, according to Saudi-based bank Al Rajhi capital, as non-OPEC supply volumes grew.
The oil firm said its year-on-year decline was partly offset by a “reduction in selling, administrative and general expenses primarily driven by a gain from derivative instruments, and a decrease in production royalties largely reflecting lower crude oil prices and a lower average effective royalty rate compared to the same quarter last year.”
Aramco’s dividend includes a base payout of $20.3 billion and an atypical performance-linked one of $10.8 billion. The Saudi government and the kingdom’s sovereign wealth vehicle, the Public Investment Fund, are the main beneficiaries of the dividend, holding stakes of roughly 81.5% and 16% in the company.
The remaining shareholding trades freely on Saudi Arabia’s Tadāwul stock exchange, with the company having finalized its second public share offering back in June.
Aramco’s earnings before Interest and Taxes (EBIT) came in at $51.45 billion in the third quarter, down 17% year-on-year. Aramco’s capital expenditure guidance was brought up 20% to $13.23 billion.
The company was trading at 27.45 riyals following the announcement, down 0.18% on the previous day.
The earnings align with a broader trend across oil majors, whose third-quarter profits have also suffered from declines in crude prices and refining margins. Aramco said it achieved average realized crude price of $79.3 per barrel in the third quarter, compared with $89.3 per barrel in the same period of last year.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter who produces roughly 9 million barrels per day of crude at present, serves as the de facto leader of the OPEC+ oil producers’ alliance, a subset of whom agreed over the weekend to delay a planned December output hike by one month.
“Aramco delivered robust net income and generated strong free cash flow during the third quarter, despite a lower oil price environment,” CEO Amin Nasser said in a statement. “We also progressed our upstream developments, strengthened our downstream value chain, and advanced our new energies program as we continue to invest through cycles.”
The revenues will be a boon to the Saudi economy, which is currently undergoing a diversification process under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s legacy Vision 2030 scheme spanning a slew of high-cost infrastructure “gigaprojects.”
Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Finance cut the kingdom’s growth forecast to 0.8% in 2024, in a steep decline from a previous projection of 4.4%, and raised the outlook for the national budgetary shortfall to roughly 2.9% of GDP, from a prior indication of 1.9%.
On today’s episode of Quick Charge, Tesla’s Cybertruck is now available in Canada – and, like in the US, there’s no waiting! Plus, we’ve got an “actually” smart summon Tesla that’s actually stuck, GM reaches a sales milestone, and we get a brand-new title sponsor!
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Mobile car care company Yoshi Mobility launched a DC fast charging EV mobile unit that it likens to “a supercharger on wheels.”
November 4, 2024 update: Yoshi Mobility will only be charging EVs on the side of the road now – it announced today that it’s selling its fleet fueling operation to EZFill Holdings (Nasdaq: EZFL).
It was originally founded as a direct-to-consumer, mobile fueling business in 2016, but now it’s going to focus on mobile EV charging, virtual vehicle inspections for partners like Uber and Turo, and onsite preventative maintenance.
Bryan Frist, Yoshi Mobility’s CEO & cofounder, said, “By spinning off our fuel business and focusing all of our energy on solving hair-on-fire problems that fleet owners face, we are meeting the changing needs of enterprise customers while making the future of transportation safer, cleaner, and more sustainable.”
May 22, 2024: Yoshi Mobility saw that its existing customers needed mobile EV charging in places where infrastructure has yet to be installed, so the Nashville-based company decided to bring the mountain to Moses.
“We recognized a demand among our customers for convenient daily charging, reliable private charging networks, and proper charging infrastructure to support their fleet vehicles as they transition to electric,” said Dan Hunter, Yoshi Mobility’s chief EV officer and cofounder.
The company says its 240 kW mobile DC fast charger, which can turn “any EV” into a mobile charging unit, is the first fully electric mobile charger available. It can provide multiple charges in a single trip but doesn’t detail how they charge the DC fast charger or who manufactured it. (I asked for more details, and they replied that they won’t disclose client names or the manufacturer of its DC fast charger yet.)
Yoshi is launching its mobile charger on two GM BrightDrop Zevo 600s and will introduce additional vehicles throughout 2024. It aims for full commercialization by Q1 2025. (I wonder if the Zevo 600 ever charges itself? Yes, I asked that too.)
Yoshi Mobility says it’s already deployed its EV charging solutions to service “major OEMs, autonomous vehicle companies, and rideshare operators” across the US. Its initial customers are made up of large EV operators managing “hundreds” of light-duty vehicles requiring up to 1 megawatt of energy per day that don’t yet have grid-connected EV chargers. I’ve asked Yoshi for details of who it’s working with, and will update if they share that info.
The company says pricing is based on location and enterprise charging needs. Once under contract for service, the service will be deployed to US-based customers within 10 days.
To date, Yoshi Mobility has raised more than $60 million, with investments from GM Ventures, Bridgestone, ExxonMobil, and Y-Combinator in Silicon Valley.
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