(Reuters) - A seismic event
sparked a fire and halted operations at the Alardinskaya mine in southwestern
Siberia, Russian officials and news agencies said on Monday.
Russia's ministry of emergency services
said that 120 miners have been evacuated from the mine in Russia's vast coal
region, the Kuznetsk Basin known as Kuzbass, with two of them requiring medical
assistance.
Russia's RIA and TASS state news agencies
reported, citing regional prosecutor's office, that a seismic event had likely
sparked the fire, which has yet to be contained.
The Alardinskaya mine is part of
the Raspadskaya coal mine, and has production capacity of 3 million metric tons
of coal per year, RIA agency reported.
The Interfax news agency reported, citing
a Raspadskaya representative, that operations have been suspended at the mine.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne;
Editing by Michael Perry)
Obituaries for OPEC have been
prematurely written before, but the emergence of new producers outside of the
oil cartel and the continued slowdown of China's economy may be shifting the
balance of power more decisively.
In the latest sign of weakness, crude oil
prices fell even after OPEC and other oil-producing allies like Russia agreed
on Thursday to extend their output curbs by three more months to April, adding
to previous delays.
The OPEC+ alliance accounts for about half
of the world's oil production, but demand from top customer China remains weak
as growth sputters. At the same time, non-OPEC countries like Canada, Brazil
and Guyana have joined the U.S. as increasingly influential on global markets.
That means OPEC's market power lately
is "less than you would imagine," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
for Energy Resources Geoffrey Pyatt told the Wall Street Journal
"In the world that I live in, the
challenge as we think about strategy is, how does the United States think about
its status as an energy superpower?" he added. "We don’t have to be
so fussed about what OPEC or anybody else is doing, because we can focus on our
own story."
OPEC didn't immediately respond to a
request for comment.
Powered by the shale revolution, the U.S.
surpassed Russia as the world top oil producer in 2018 and even briefly edged
out Saudi Arabia in 2019 as the world's biggest oil exporter.
While shale companies have
de-emphasized output growth in favor of cash flow and shareholder returns in
recent years, U.S. production continues to set new records. And more is on the
way. Output is expected to climb to 13.5 million barrels a day in 2025 from
13.2 million in 2024.
The U.S. shale boom has eroded OPEC's grip
on oil markets. Bank of America
Meanwhile, some OPEC members have chafed
under production curbs and have pumped more than their quotas allow. They're
adding more barrels to a global market that's already showing signs of a glut.
If OPEC doesn’t cut output next year,
supplies will exceed demand by more than 1 million barrels a day, according to
the International Energy Agency.
Analysts at Bank of America have
an even dimmer view for OPEC over the next several years. In a note on Friday,
BofA estimated that by 2030, non-OPEC countries will boost production by about
3 million barrels per day and will grab 75% of the additional supply that the
world will demand.
"In other words, only ~20% of OPEC+
spare capacity may be called upon this decade," analysts said.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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