The world’s biggest refiner, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, or Sinopec, is accelerating plans to build its first fully-owned refinery outside China.    Sinopec is set to complete a feasibility study in June to build one or two refineries in Sri Lanka as China looks to capitalize on its foreign investments. China Merchants Port Holdings...

Four expatriate workers lost their lives, and two others sustained injuries in a recent drone attack on the Khor Mor gas field in Iraq's Kurdistan region. This attack, reported by an advisor to the Iraqi Kurdish Prime Minister and a senior Kurdish political source, has also resulted in the suspension of production at the site. The ramifications of the...

The US threat of secondary sanctions against enablers of Russian sanctions-busting, especially China, is showing signs of crimping the Russian economy.  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken began a three-day visit to China on April 24 with a stern warning for Beijing: the United States is ready to play hardball to prevent the continuing supply of equipment...

Washington University in St. Louis scientists have developed a novel material that supercharges innovation in electrostatic energy storage. The material is built from artificial heterostructures made of freestanding 2D and 3D membranes that have an energy density up to 19 times higher than commercially available capacitors. Electrostatic capacitors...

The renewable revolution will rely on a whole lot of non-renewable resources to get the job done. Building out the massive amount of clean energy infrastructure needed for a global decarbonization transition is going to require huge quantities of resources. In particular, the clean energy transition is going to call for a whole lot of specialty metals...

The UN is this week discussing the future of plastic—or so it would seem on the surface. The UN Global Plastics Treaty negotiations aim to curb plastic pollution by essentially curbing the use of plastics globally. And they look set to fail. The goal is certainly noble. Reducing the massive amount of plastic waste that we produce on a daily basis to...