Asia

Submitted by Rakesh Upadhyay via OilPrice.com,

The next OPEC meeting on the 2nd of June will act as little more than a forum for continued altercations between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The 2 June 2016 OPEC meeting will be held amid a backdrop of oil prices near $50 per barrel, a sharp drop in Nigerian production due to sabotage, turmoil in Venezuela, Saudi Arabia operating with a new oil minister, and Iran aggressively pumping close to pre-sanction levels.

   "I've been coming to Singapore once a year for the last 15 years, and flying in I have never seen the waters so full of idle tankers,"

   - Senior European oil trader a day after arriving in the city-state.

Back in November, when the world-record crude inventory glut was still in its early innings, we showed what we then thought was a disturbing image of dozens of oil tankers on anchor near the US oil hub of Galveston, TX, unwilling to unload their cargo at what the owners of the oil thought was too low prices.

It had been a bad week for Dennis Gartman who just yesterday admitted that Wednesday "was our worst day of the year thus far, as that which we were long of fell and that which we were short of closed unchanged. Long ago we learned that when things go awry and do so as “majestically” as they did yesterday it is best to simplify, simplify and to simplify again. Getting smaller; getting less involved; curtailing positions in numbers and sizes is the only proper way to respond and so we did exactly that.

India is set to divert water from its rivers to tackle sever droughts. The Indian government is pushing ahead with the ambitious and expensive engineering project, despite strong opposition from lawmakers, environmentalists and it’s neighbor, Bangladesh. The minister of water resources Uma Bharti said that transferring water from major rivers like the Brahmaputra and the Ganges, to drought-prone areas is now her government’s top priority. Environmentalists have opposed the project and argue it will invite ecological disaster but the Supreme Court has ordered its implementation.

Just days after a report that two Chinese J-11 fighter jets buzzed a US spy plane above the South China Sea, Beijing has officially escalated its displeasure at US surveillance up the chain of command and as Reuters reports, Beijing has demanded an end to all U.S. surveillance near China. 

As a reminder, a U.S. Defense official said two Chinese J-11 fighter jets flew within 50 feet (15 meters) of the U.S. EP-3 aircraft in what the Pentagon deemed an "unsafe" intercept. And, just like Russia, China has had enough and demands US provocations end.