The Chinese Ministry of Commerce urged the United States on Saturday to stop expanding restrictions on American investments in China, saying that a proposal related to sensitive technologies would affect trade relations.
On Thursday, the US Treasury Department issued proposals to update its security program for foreign investments, adding critical technology to the banned sectors, and expanding the scope of restrictions to include high-performance computing and high-speed systems.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement that the proposal “discriminatoryly” expanded investment restrictions related to China. She added that she strongly opposes the American proposal and reserves her right to take countermeasures, the nature of which she did not specify.
Beijing also said that the proposal would harm bilateral economic relations, and contradict the consensus reached by the presidents of the two countries, who met twice over the past six months.
The US Treasury Department says that these measures, which are not limited to China alone, aim to prevent US capital from supporting foreign enemies’ development of dual-use strategic technologies that may threaten US national security.
The American program had already imposed restrictions on some American investments linked to China in semiconductors, quantum technologies, and artificial intelligence.
From Saturday, Indonesia began reducing its natural gas exports to Singapore by 31 billion British thermal units per day.
This comes within the framework of President Prabowo Subianto's government's move to give priority to domestic energy needs, amid growing concerns about energy security, according to the Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times.
This reduction will affect the gas being supplied through pipelines from the “Natuna” and “Sumatra” fields, which comes just days after the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Bahlil Lahadalia, raised the issue of the possibility of stopping gas exports to neighboring countries.
The Oil and Gas Market Regulatory Authority in Indonesia announced that natural gas exports from the Natuna region will be reduced by 15 British thermal units, and 16 British thermal units from the Sumatra region, according to local Indonesian reports, on Saturday.
The head of the authority, Joko Siswanto, said that the reduction will start from today, October 24, and that the reduction process in Sumatra will be from the “Jambi Merang” gas field.
He explained that the reduction rate is approximately 8 percent of the volume of pipeline gas that Indonesia exported to Singapore in 2024.
He added that the cuts will only affect Singapore; Because the export pipes in question are directly connected to it.
The Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum and the international company Chevron announced, on Saturday, the achievement of positive results from the drilling work of the “Narges 2” natural gas well in the Mediterranean Sea, which began last May, in cooperation between “Chevron” and its partners and the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS).
A press statement issued by the Ministry explained that these results reinforce the ongoing efforts to evaluate the “Narges” discovery, which was achieved in 2022, and accelerate work on the commercial exploitation of the field as it is one of the unexploited discoveries by confirming the extension of the gas-bearing layers that were previously discovered in the “Narges 1” well, in addition to the discovery of an additional gas-bearing layer that has good characteristics, which supports efforts to evaluate the gas resources in the region and study opportunities for exploiting them.
The statement stated that the well drilling work aimed to evaluate the extensions of the “Narges” discovery, in addition to testing deeper geological layers, as part of efforts to expand research and exploration activities, and maximize the benefit of the promising potential of the Mediterranean Sea, including formations with high pressures and temperatures.
The final depth of the well reached more than 5,000 metres, and the evaluation results showed the presence of gas-bearing layers with a net thickness of up to 35 metres, a positive indicator that supports the continuation of technical studies to determine the overall potential of the discovery and evaluate its development opportunities, according to the statement.
These results come within the framework of the Ministry of Petroleum's strategy to accelerate the exploitation of undeveloped discoveries, motivate investment partners to intensify research and exploration activities, and transform discovered resources into reserves capable of development and production, in a way that supports increasing local gas production.
Minister of Petroleum, Karim Badawi, witnessed the start of drilling work at the “Narges 2” well last May, on board the “Stena Forth” drilling ship, stressing the importance of accelerating the work of evaluating and developing undeveloped gas discoveries, and enhancing cooperation with international energy companies to benefit from the promising potential of petroleum and gas resources in Egypt.
Chevron operates the Narges area, in partnership with the Italian company Eni, the Emirati company Mubadala, and the Egyptian Tharwa Petroleum Company.
