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The Chinese government is set to launch a sweeping overhaul of its petrochemicals and oil refining sector, phasing out smaller facilities and targeting outdated operations for upgrades, while redirecting investment to advanced materials. Remedies to curtail longstanding overcapacity in lower-value parts of the industry are likely within the next month, according to people familiar with the matter. The detailed plan is awaiting final approval from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, they said, declining to be identified discussing matters that aren’t public yet. Under the measures proposed, petrochemicals facilities over 20 years old – or about 40 percent of the country’s…

Discovered, recoverable oil resources worldwide grew by five billion barrels over the past year, despite 30.1 billion barrels of production in 2024, Rystad Energy has reported. “This net increase was driven primarily by the delineation of upside potential in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta play and the Permian Delaware basin in Texas and New Mexico”, the Oslo-based energy research company said. “Global recoverable oil resources, including estimates for undiscovered fields, stabilized at approximately 1.5 trillion barrels”. Last year, approved developments amounted to 12.3 billion barrels, while new discoveries added 1.8 billion barrels of probable and proven reserves, according to Rystad. It expects…

India’s state-run refiners Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum have bought Russian oil for September and October delivery, resuming purchases after discounts widened, two company officials aware of the matter said on Wednesday.The refiners had halted purchases in July due to narrower discounts and after India was criticised by Washington for its purchases of Russian oil. President Donald Trump also threatened an additional 25% levy on Indian goods, effective August 27, to penalize New Delhi for its continued buying of the oil. Discounts for Russian flagship Urals crude have widened to about $3 per barrel, making the oil attractive for Indian…

Hinge is using AI to help you find better dates, but the company doesn’t want you dating bots.”I don’t think that an AI chatbot should be your friend or certainly not your boyfriend or girlfriend,” Hinge CEO Justin McLeod said in an episode of the “Rapid Response” podcast published on Tuesday.In contrast, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a May podcast that the average American now has fewer than three close friends and that digital chatbots could help cure this “loneliness epidemic.”Hinge is owned by Match Group, which also operates dating apps like Tinder and OKCupid. In 2018, Match acquired…

LONDON (AP) — Higher food and airfare prices pushed U.K. inflation above expectations in July, official figures showed Wednesday, which has tempered market expectations that the Bank of England will cut interest rates again this year.The Office for National Statistics said consumer price inflation was 3.8% in the year to July, up from 3.6% in June. One of the contributors was airfares soaring by 30.2% between June and July, the biggest jump since the collection of monthly data began in 2001.Most economists had anticipated a more modest rise in inflation to 3.7%.With inflation now at its highest rate since January…

The Chinese government is planning to reduce the number of oil refiners and petrochemicals producers in the country in a bid to solve the industry’s problem with overcapacity.According to a Bloomberg report, the authorities will shut down some smaller refineries and upgrade facilities that have become outdated. The latter constitutes some 40% of China’s total refining capacity, the report, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the plans, said.These will be retrofitted in order to boost their production. This production will also change, with the government encouraging, per Bloomberg, refiners to produce more specialty chemicals rather than bulk refined products, where…

BUNER, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan issued a flood alert Wednesday for some southern districts, warning of torrential rains, as rescue teams continued searching for missing people in the country’s northwest, where severe floods killed hundreds over the past week.The new warning is for the same southern regions struck by climate-induced catastrophic deluges in 2022 that killed thousands of people.The National Emergencies Operation Centre said expected rainfall of up to 100 millimeters (about 4 inches) over the next 24 hours could submerge highways, disrupt transport, and damage power and telecommunications networks in Karachi, Hyderabad, Thatta, Badin, Mirpurkhas, and Sukkur in the…

Lovable CEO Anton Osika says he isn’t bothered by Mark Zuckerberg’s aggressive AI hiring spree at Meta.In an interview that aired Monday, Osika told podcaster Harry Stebbings that his vibe-coding startup was looking for a “very different type of talent” than Meta.”For Zuck, it’s like there’s these 10 people that know everything about how to train foundation models and he’s paying more for that knowledge than for these people,” Osika told Stebbings.But that sort of talent isn’t what Lovable is looking for, Osika said.”They wouldn’t perform as well as the engineers in my team, doing what we are doing. So…

FX Empire – German Producer Prices While the data will influence risk sentiment, Russia-Ukraine peace talks will be key. Wall Street Mixed as Jackson Hole Symposium Looms Wall Street traded mixed on Tuesday, August 19. The Dow edged 0.02% higher, while the Nasdaq Composite Index and the S&P 500 fell 1.46% and 0.59%, respectively. Rate-sensitive tech stocks bore the brunt as investors braced for Fed Chair Powell to temper hopes of near-term cuts. Fed Speakers in Focus Later in Wednesday’s session, FOMC members’ speeches will set the tone. Any support for a September Fed rate cut and further policy easing…

Petrol earned the state-run oil marketers an estimated ₹10.3 per litre at the pump while diesel fetched ₹8.2 per litre versus ₹2.5, according to brokerage ICICI Securities.Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) posted a combined profit of ₹16,184 crore in the quarter to June, an increase of more than two and a half times year-on-year, buoyed by extraordinary retail margins on petrol and diesel despite heavy inventory losses.Petrol earned the state-run oil marketers an estimated ₹10.3 per litre at the pump, up from ₹ 4.4 a year earlier, while diesel fetched ₹8.2 per litre…