Global Markets.

The European Market: From Jan 2018, Europe's refining capacity was 14,659m b/d. The table from strataadvisors.com summarises the key details for in 2018-25 - with more projects to be announced by Strata later in 2018.

South-East Asia: The state-owned Saudi Aramco (SA), to be privatised with an IPO to be floated later in 2018 or in 2019, is helping fund a $27bn refining/petrochemical complex to process 1.2m b/d of crude in Malaysia's southern state of Johor. This Refinery & Petrochemicals Integrated Development (RAPID) will add a new stream of fuels near Asia's main oil trading hub of Singapore.

This comes with China continuing to supply record amounts of diesel and gasoline onto the global market, where crude supply is restrained in 2018/19 by SA and Russia.

SA and India's three main state oil firms are developing a 1.2m b/d refining complex as a 50-50 JV on India's west coast about 215 miles south of Mumbai. The JV will cost $44bn. India has a fast-growing demand for fuel and petrochemicals. This will be among the world's largest projects. SA may bring in a strategic partner to share part of its stake.

Latin America: The Union of South American Nations (Unasur) once aspired to become Latin America's answer to the EU. It faded away quietly in early 2018 due to splits over Venezuela's turmoil and internal leadership battles. Its vulnerability stemmed from the US-led global isolation of Venezuela's Chavista tyrant, Nicolas Maduro, once a bus driver who is the puppet of his lawyer wife a little lefty who still dreams of uniting Latin America the way she sees Caracas' "Bolivarian future".