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Governor of Sochi says that a drone attack by Ukraine ignited a fire at an oil depot in Russia.
Veniamin Kodratyev, the regional governor of the Russian city Sochi, said on Telegram early Sunday that more than 120 firefighters are trying to put out a fire at an oil depot which was caused by a drone attack from Ukraine. The Russian news agency RIA reported that a fuel storage tank in the Krasnodar Region, where Sochi is situated, was on fire. Rosaviatsia (Russia's civil aviation authority) said on Telegram flights at Sochi airport were stopped to ensure safety. The reports could not be independently verified. Ukraine has not yet responded. This attack on the infrastructure in Russia, which Kyiv considers crucial to Moscow's military efforts, was carried out by Ukraine, according to Kondratyev, and took place in the Adler area of the coastal resort. A drone attack by Ukraine killed a woman in Adler late last month. Attacks on Sochi which hosted the 2014 Olympic Winter Games have been rare in the war Russia started in February 2022. Ilsky Refinery is located in the Krasnodar Region on the Black Sea, near the city Krasnodar. It is one of the largest refineries in southern Russia. The drones of Ukraine are often used to attack the refinery. The military administration in Kyiv reported that the Russians launched a missile strike on Kyiv on Sunday. A woman was injured by a drone attack from Ukraine, which caused multiple fires.
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Ukraine claims it has hit Russian oil installations and military airfield
Ukraine's Military said Saturday it had hit oil facilities in Russia. This included a major refinery, a drone airfield and an electronics manufacturing factory. Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces released a statement via Telegram stating that they had struck the oil refinery at Ryazan (about 180 km southeast of Moscow) and caused a fire in its premises. The USF also said that the Annanefteprodukt storage facility, which borders the northeastern Ukraine, had been hit. The USF is a specialist in drone warfare and long-range attacks. Russia has not yet commented on the reported attack on its infrastructure. Separately the Ukrainian intelligence agency SBU said that its drones have hit Russia's Primorsko-Akhtarsk airfield which is used to launch long-range drones against targets in Ukraine. The SBU also said that it had hit a Penza factory, which it claimed supplied electronics to the Russian military-industrial complex. Ukraine did not have a response at the beginning of Russia's full scale invasion in 2022 to Moscow's massive long-range strike capability. But it has built a fleet of kamikaze drones capable of carrying explosive warheads over hundreds of kilometers (miles). In its daily report, the Russian defence ministry stated that its defense units had shot down 338 Ukrainian drones over night. The reports don't say how many Ukrainians drones are launched at a given time. Ukraine's Air Force said that it has shot down 45 of the 53 Russian drones that were launched at its territory over night. The Russian defence ministry announced that Russian forces captured Oleksandro-Kalynove, a village in Donetsk's Donetsk Region, on Saturday. Could not verify immediately the battlefield report. After three and a half years of brutal war, the Russians now control nearly 20% of Ukraine's east and south. Max Hunder, with additional reporting from Alexander Marrow and Mark Heinrich; edited by Louise Heavens & Mark Heinrich
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Dangote names an ex-Shell executive as refinery manager amid expansion drive
Nigeria's Dangote Group announced on Saturday that David Bird, an ex-Shell executive and former CEO of the 0Q8 Refinery in Oman was appointed as chief executive officer of its refinery division and petrochemicals. The company is accelerating its pan-African expansion strategy. Bird's appointment, which took effect on 1 August, brings with it over 30 years of experience in the industry, including 14 years at Shell, where he was responsible for the $12 billion Prelude project. His appointment coincides with the expansion of Dangote's $20-billion refinery complex, which is the largest single-train facility in the world, in Lagos after its commissioning in 2024. Nigeria's Business Day reported Bird's appointment as first on Friday. Lagos' refinery, despite its increased output, has experienced operational problems, such as design flaws or unit breakdowns. This led to the shift from a single crude oil product to a diverse range of crudes. Bird stated in a LinkedIn posting that he would focus on increasing efficiency and expanding the footprint of the company across Africa. Dangote plans to list his refining company on the Lagos and London stock markets, but hasn't given a timeline. According to S&P Global’s Commodities at sea Data, Dangote exported 220,000 bpd of jet fuel and gasoline in July. He plans to expand the refinery’s capacity to 700,000. He will also launch a CNG truck fleet to improve domestic distribution. Aliko Dangote is Africa's richest person and he also wants to get regulatory approval for the construction of a deep sea port in Ogun State. (Reporting and editing by Ben Ezeamalu)
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NYT reports that India will continue to buy Russian oil in spite of Trump's threats
The New York Times reported that Indian officials said they would continue to buy oil from Russia, despite the threats of sanctions that U.S. president Donald Trump had said he would impose. Could not verify immediately the report. Requests for comments were not immediately responded to by the White House, India’s Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. In a Truth Social posting last month, Trump said that India could face additional sanctions for purchasing Russian oil and arms. He later stated that he didn't care what India did with Russia. Trump informed reporters on Friday that he heard India was no longer buying oil from Russia. According to the NYT, two senior Indian officials stated that there was no change in policy. One official added that the government "had not given any directions to oil companies" regarding the reduction of imports from Russia. Had earlier reported The Indian state refiners have stopped buying Russian oil over the last week, as the discounts on Russian oil are decreasing. On July 14, Trump threatened Tariffs of 100% on all countries who buy Russian oil, unless Moscow agrees to a major deal for peace with Ukraine. Russia is India's top oil supplier, accounting for 35% of its total supplies. (Reporting by Chandni Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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Deepsea Mira Spuds Third Well in Orange Basin License off Nambia
Oil and gas firm Rhino Resources and its partners have spudded the Volans-1X exploration well in PEL85 license, offshore Namibia, using Odfjell Drilling-managed Deepsea Mira semi-submersible rig.Drilled by the Deepsea Mira in water depths of around 1,200 meters, the Volans-1X well aims to test a new play fairway that could unlock significant development potential and strengthen Namibia’s energy future.Rhino Resources is the operator of the PEL85 license, holding 42.5% interest, with partners Azule Energy, a joint venture between Eni and BP, with 42.5% stake, National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (NAMCOR) with 10%, and Korres Investments with 5% interests.The Volans-1X is the third successive well to be drilled on PEL85 license by Rhino and its partners.“With the Volans-1X exploration well Rhino and our partners are strategically advancing our understanding of PEL 85's potential. Once again, we’re proud to emphasize our commitment to local upliftment through the execution of another well in Namibia with all associated construction services and equipment uniquely sourced in-country.“Our focus remains on safely delivering a third consecutive well, with an emphasis on operational excellence and environmental stewardship,” said Travis Smithard, Rhino’s CEO.Built in 2019, the Deepsea Mira is a sixth generation dynamically positioned/anchor-moored semi-submersible drilling rig of Moss Maritime CS60E design. It is designed to operate in both benign and harsh environments, with a maximum operational water depth of 3000 meters.The drilling rig is owned by Northern Ocean and managed by the Norwegian drilling firm Odfjell Drilling.
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US: Rwanda and Congo agree on outline of economic integration framework in peace deal
According to the U.S. State Department the U.S. State Department reported that the U.S. State Department and the U.S. State Department announced on Friday an outline of the regional economic integration frame work. The two countries are taking steps towards implementing the peace agreement signed last month in Washington. The framework includes elements on energy, infrastructures, mineral supply chains and national parks, as well as public health. In June, Rwanda and Congo signed an agreement in Washington, DC, at the talks hosted by President Donald Trump. The deal aims to end fighting that has claimed thousands of lives and to attract Western investment worth billions of dollars to a region with tantalum and gold deposits, as well as copper, lithium, and cobalt. The agreement stated that Kinshasa, Kigali and the other parties to the agreement agreed to launch an economic integration framework for the region within 90 days. Sources familiar with the issue said that a draft framework had been approved and now there will be a period of input to gather feedback from the civil society and private sector before the final version is released. The White House is planning to sign the framework at a summit of head of state. The source stated that no date had been set for the meeting. According to a copy of the statement seen by, Rwanda and Congo stated that each country had "full sovereign control" of the exploitation and processing of their natural resources, and acknowledged the importance of developing the mineral processing and transformation capability within each country. Kinshasa sees the looting of its mineral resources as the key factor in the conflict between their forces and the Rwanda-backed M23 M23 rebels of eastern Congo. In May, it was reported that Congolese minerals, such as tungsten tantalum, and tin which Kinshasa accuses the neighbouring Rwanda for illegally exploiting. exported legitimately Sources claim that the U.S. is negotiating a deal to send the shipments to Rwanda to be processed. According to the joint statement, the two countries have committed themselves to making sure that the minerals trade does not provide funding for armed groups, to creating a world class industrial mining sector in this region and to improving cross-border interoperability of mineral supply chains. The two countries also agreed to link new infrastructure with the U.S.-backed Lobito Corridor to demonstrate Washington's desire to gain greater access to resources and counter China. The Ruzizi hydropower project, and the Lake Kivu methane extraction were the only projects specifically mentioned in the U.S. statement despite the emphasis placed by the U.S. on critical minerals. The countries stated that they would prioritize funding for Ruzizi, and work together in order to sustainably exploit methane gas.
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Meta shares AI infrastructure costs with $2 billion in asset sales
Meta Platforms continues to push forward with its efforts to find outside partners who can help fund the massive infrastructure required to power artificial intelligent. In a Thursday filing, Meta Platforms revealed plans to sell $2 billion worth of data center assets to achieve this strategy. This strategy is part of a wider shift in the tech giants' approach to growth. They are no longer self-funding their own growth, but instead they have been forced to deal with the rising cost of data centers and energy for generative AI. The social media giant announced earlier this week it was looking into ways to collaborate with financial partners in order to co-develop its massive capital expenditure for next year. Meta's Chief Financial Officer Susan Li stated on Wednesday during a conference call following the company's earnings. Li stated that while the company will continue to fund a large portion of its capital expenditures internally, certain projects may attract "significant" external financing and provide more flexibility as infrastructure needs change over time. She said that the company had no finalized transactions she could announce. Meta's quarterly report, however, indicates that plans are becoming more concrete. In its quarterly filing on Thursday, Meta said it had approved a plan in June to dispose of certain data center assets and reclassified $2.04 billion worth of land and construction-in-progress as "held-for-sale". The assets would be transferred to a third-party within the next 12 months to co-develop data centers. Meta did not report a loss for the reclassification. The assets are valued at the lower value of the carrying amount or the fair value less the costs to sell. According to the filing, total assets held for sale stood at $3.26billion as of June 30. Meta declined to comment on this article. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, has announced plans to invest hundreds billions of dollars in building "superclusters", or AI data centers for superintelligence. He said that "just one of these covers an important part of Manhattan's footprint." Instagram and WhatsApp's owner raised its forecast for annual capital expenditures by $2 billion on Wednesday, from $66 billion to $75 billion. It reported stronger-than-expected ad sales, boosted by AI-driven improvements to targeting and content delivery. The executives said that these gains helped offset the rising costs of infrastructure associated with its long-term AI initiative. (Reporting and editing by Sayantani ghosh and Marguerita choy in New York)
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Sources say that Trump is looking to bring Azerbaijan and Central Asian nations under the Abraham Accords.
Five sources familiar with the situation say that the Trump administration is in active discussions with Azerbaijan about the possibility of bringing this nation and other Central Asian allies to the Abraham Accords. The goal is to strengthen their current ties with Israel. In the Abraham Accords signed in 2020 and 2021, during Trump's initial term, four Muslim majority countries agreed to normalize their diplomatic relations with Israel, after U.S. mediated. Azerbaijan, and all countries in Central Asia have had long-standing relations with Israel. Therefore, an expansion of the Abraham Accords to include these countries would be largely symbolic. It would focus on strengthening ties such as trade and military collaboration, according to the sources who requested anonymity for private conversations. This expansion would show Trump's willingness to accept pacts less ambitious than the administration's goal of convincing regional giant Saudi Arabia to restore relations with Israel as war rages on in Gaza. The Kingdom has said repeatedly that it will not recognize Israel until Israel acknowledges a Palestinian State. The Arabs are furious over the escalating death toll and the starvation of Gaza due to Israel's military actions and blockade of aid. This has complicated efforts to include more Muslim majority countries in the Abraham Accords. Global anger has been sparked by the war in Gaza where, according to local authorities, over 60,000 people, including tens and thousands of women, children, have died. Canada, France and United Kingdom announced in recent days plans to recognize an independent Palestine. Azerbaijan and Armenia's conflict is another key sticking point, as the Trump administration views a peace agreement between the two Caucasus countries as a condition for joining the Abraham Accords. Sources said that while Trump officials had publicly floated a number of potential participants in the accords the Azerbaijan talks were among the most structured. Two sources said a deal might be achieved within months, or even weeks. Steve Witkoff was the special envoy of Trump for peace missions. He traveled to Baku in Azerbaijan to meet President Ilham Aliyev. Three sources claim that Aryeh lightstone, a Witkoff aide who is a major player in the Abraham Accords discussion, met Aliyev in the spring to discuss this issue. Sources said that as part of the discussion, Azerbaijani representatives had contacted officials from Central Asian nations including Kazakhstan to gauge their interest for a broader Abraham Accords extension. Sources said that it was unclear which other Central Asian countries were contacted, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan Turkmenistan Tajikistan Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. When asked to comment, the State Department did not mention specific countries but stated that expanding the accords was one of Trump's key goals. A U.S. official said, "We're working to get more nations to join." The Azerbaijani Government declined to comment. Requests for comment were not answered by the White House, Israel's foreign ministry or the Kazakhstani Embassy in Washington. The Abraham Accords, which Israel signed in the past, will not be affected by any new agreements. OBSTACLES REMAINS Original Abraham Accords - signed between Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan – were centered around restoration of ties. The second round of the expansion seems to be evolving into a wider mechanism to expand U.S. soft power and Israeli hard power. Azerbaijan, sandwiched between Russia and Iran in the north, and Central Asia and Europe to the south is a vital link for trade between the two regions. Oil and gas are abundant in Central Asia and the Caucasus, which has led to a competition between major powers for influence. Extending the accords to countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel could also be a way to give a symbolic win to a President who is known for praising even small victories. Two sources describe the Central Asia discussions as embryonic, but the Azerbaijan discussions as fairly advanced. There are still challenges and no guarantee that a deal can be reached. This is especially true given the slow progress of talks between Armenian and Azerbaijan. Both countries gained independence from the Soviet Union, in 1991. Since the late 1980s, when Nagorno Karabakh, an Azerbaijani area with a majority ethnic Armenian population, broke away from Azerbaijan, they have been at odds. Azerbaijan will retake Karabakh in 2023. This will cause 100,000 ethnic Armenians fleeing to Armenia. Since then, both sides have said that they would like to sign a peace treaty to end the conflict. The U.S. and Armenia have strong ties, but the Trump administration does not want to upset the authorities in Yerevan. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have both argued for a near-term peace between the two nations. Trump said to reporters in early July, "Armenia and Azerbaijan...we worked magic there." It's close." (Reporting and editing by Humeyra Pauk and Deepa Babyington; Additional reporting and editing by Steve Holland in Washington and Humeyra and Humeyra in Jerusalem, Nailia Bagirova and Nailia Rose in Baku)
China's copper production in 2025 is set to reach a record high despite shortages of feedstock
Analysts say that China's refined output of copper is expected to reach a new record in 2025 as its giant smelting industry powers through the global shortage of ore copper, which is forcing out some overseas competitors.
Five analysts estimate that the refined copper production in China will increase between 7.5% to 12% and surpass the record of 13,64 million metric tonnes set last year.
Copper is essential for power, construction, and manufacturing. Growing output in China, the world's largest producer and consumer, is sucking up copper concentrate. This is the main ingredient used by smelters. It is increasing pressure on competitors, and cementing China’s dominance in the industry.
Concentrate supply began to tighten in late 2023, as mine closures and rapid expansion of smelting capacities in China exacerbated anaemic growth. Processing fees, the amount smelters pay to convert concentrate into metal, fell to record lows. Profitability was also cut and some smelters outside China were forced to stop production.
Alice Fox, commodities analyst at Macquarie Group, explained that Chinese smelters were able to increase their output faster than imports of concentrates because they had depleted inventories, and used scraps from government consumer goods exchange programmes.
Fox stated that "Chinese refinery production was impressively high year-to-date despite low treatment costs and tight concentrates."
China's refined output of copper grew by 9.5% during the first half of this year. Many of its modern smelting facilities offset losses in part with increasing revenue from the sale of byproducts such as sulphuric acids and rare metals.
Analysts had predicted that global ore supplies would increase by 0.3% to 0.87% in 2025. However, China's imports of copper concentrate grew 6.4% during the first half of this year.
This left smelters with insufficient ore for processing in other regions. Sinomine Resource Group, a Chinese company, announced last month that it temporarily suspended operations at its Tsumeb facility in Namibia due to a shortage of concentrate.
Glencore's Philippine copper smelter was put into maintenance by Glencore in February due to the challenging market conditions.
Analysts predict that global refined copper production will grow between 0.9% to 2% this coming year. According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, China's share of the global refined copper output will increase to 57% in this year.
BETTER DEMAND
The growth in China's output is being driven by stronger-than-expected exports plus growing investment in the power grid sector, both of which are leading analysts to revise up their copper demand forecasts.
BMI has increased its forecasts for China's growth in copper demand this year from 2.9% to 3.8%. This is compared to a forecast at the start of the year of 2.9%. Macquarie raised its forecast from 2.4% to 4.2%.
It is expected that the big increase in production will also pull down China's refined imports of copper, which stood at 3,74 million tons in 2024 or around 20% of China's national demand. BMI predicts that imports will drop by 8% by 2025.
Imports of refined copper have dropped by 8.6% during the first six months of this year. This is partly because traders shipped more cargoes into the United States in order to avoid the tariffs on copper that U.S. president Donald Trump has threatened since February.
The market has been able to counteract the increasing supply of copper with the benchmark prices up 8.8% this year.
Trump surprised the markets on Wednesday by reducing tariffs on copper wire and pipes to 50%. This was a far cry from the restrictions he had threatened, and it excluded copper concentrates, cathodes, and ores.
Zhao Yongcheng, BMI's Zhao Yongcheng, says that the lower-than-expected tariffs will not have a significant impact on Chinese copper demand or production.
(source: Reuters)