Category: Nieuws

Oil prices were little changed on Thursday as a falling dollar and rising stock markets offset earlier declines caused by a big increase in U.S. gasoline stockpiles and subdued demand compared with pre-pandemic levels.

Brent futures rose 4 cents, or 0.1%, to settle at $63.20 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude ended 17 cents, or 0.3%, lower at $59.60.

“Crude prices are struggling for direction as short-term COVID pressures are countered by a much weaker U.S. dollar,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA in New York.

The U.S. dollar fell to a two-week low against a basket of currencies, tracking Treasury yields lower, after data showed a surprise rise in U.S. weekly jobless claims.

A weaker dollar makes oil cheaper for holders of other currencies, which usually helps boost crude prices.

The S&P 500, meanwhile, hit a record high and the Nasdaq was at a seven-week peak, helped by gains in tech-related stocks, a day after the Federal Reserve reiterated its pledge to remain ultra-dovish until the economic recovery is more secure.

U.S. gasoline inventories rose sharply by 4 million barrels to a little more than 230 million barrels as refiners ramped up output before the summer driving season, the U.S. Department of Energy said on Wednesday. [EIA/S]

“A huge build in road fuel stocks is not what the market was expecting and concerns over the speed of the oil demand recovery resurfaced, leaving traders wondering how stable road fuel usage actually is,” said Rystad Energy analyst Bjornar Tonhaugen.

Russia said the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic on the global consumption of oil may last until 2023-2024, according to a draft government document seen by Reuters.

While oil demand remains weakened by the impact of the coronavirus, crude production looks set to rise.

Last week, the Organization of the Producing Countries (OPEC) and its allies, including Russia, a group known as OPEC+, agreed to bring back about 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of production over the next three months.

Iran and the United States held talks with other powers on reviving a nuclear deal that almost stopped Iranian oil from coming to market, reviving tentative hopes Tehran might see some sanctions lifted and add to global supplies.

Data intelligence firm Kpler said the U.S.-Iran negotiations provide potential for 2 million bpd in additional oil supply if a deal is struck.

Russian oil output increased from average March levels in the first few days of April, traders said.

In the United States, energy research firm East Daley lifted its rig and production outlook for the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico following a 22% rally in WTI prices during the first quarter. The firm said that price rise set the stage for years of additional oil and natural gas output from the shale formation.

Reuters, by Scott DiSavino, April 13, 2021

The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (“AMLO”), sent a new bill to Congress intended to amend the Federal Hydrocarbons Law (the “Hydrocarbons Bill”). This is AMLO’s latest attempt to upend the Mexican energy sector and to restore the dominance of PEMEX, the national oil company.

Consistent with his recent announcements, AMLO claims that the privatization of the Mexican energy market has caused grave harm to Mexico’s national energy security.

The Hydrocarbon Bill’s stated purpose is to grant a greater role to state owned entities in midstream and downstream activities rather than “leave those activities in the hands of the private sector in light of the imminent risks to national security.” The Hydrocarbons Bill indicates that the world is entering an energy transition that will affect Mexico’s ability to guarantee its energy security and financial stability; and that a shortage of hydrocarbons supply poses serious risks to the country.

The Hydrocarbons Bill uses these reasons to justify granting unfettered authority to the Mexican government to suspend previously-granted permits for the import, export, storage, processing and commercialization of hydrocarbons, petroleum resources and petrochemicals.

In practical terms, the Hydrocarbons Bill, if passed, will set forth the following new rules with respect to such permits:

• Permit holders for distribution and commercialization will be required to comply with a minimum fuel storage policy;
• If energy regulators fail to respond to a permit application within 90 days, the permit will be considered to have been denied;
• The Energy Ministry (“SENER”) and the Comisión Reguladora de Energía (“CRE”) will have enhanced authority to suspend (temporarily or permanently) operating permits. Permits can be suspended based for vague and broad reasons such as “national and energy security” or the “security of the national economy.”
• Once a permit is suspended, SENER and CRE can occupy the facility; only state-owned entities can continue operating the occupied facilities; and
• Failure to comply with hydrocarbons’ quality, quantity and measurement requirements, as well as modifications to technical equipment shall be deemed as new immediate grounds for permit revocation.

This Hydrocarbons Bill is the latest example of AMLO’s nationalistic ambitions to undo Mexico’s 2013 privatization of the energy market.

If the Hydrocarbons Bill is passed, permit-holders will face considerable uncertainty due to the Mexican authorities’ new power to suspend their permits based on undefined and politically motivated grounds.

Similar to the recent reform to the power sector,¹ the Hydrocarbons Bill is expected to move swiftly in the House of Representatives and the Senate, where AMLO’s political party, “Morena”, holds the majority.

The proposed legislation comes in advance of Mexico’s midterm federal elections in June 2021, which will test AMLO and his party’s political clout.

Due to its impact on existing investments in Mexico, the Hydrocarbons Bill could violate rights afforded by Mexico to foreign investors under international investment treaties and free trade agreements.

Mexico has signed investment treaties and trade agreements with approximately 45 countries. These treaties and agreements protect foreign investors from, among other things, discriminatory, arbitrary, and unfair and inequitable treatment by the Mexican Government, as well as from direct and indirect expropriation of their investments.

Like other countries that amended their energy regulatory framework, Mexico could see a number of investment treaty arbitrations launched by foreign investors. As part of a comprehensive defense strategy, investors considering filing local actions, like amparos, should asses, in parallel, their remedies under these treaties.

By JD Supra, April 2, 2021

The state oil company of Kuwait plans to borrow as much as $20 billion over the next five years to make up for an expected shortfall in funding, a person familiar with the matter said.

Kuwait Petroleum Corp. will need the money to maintain the petrostate’s crude-production levels, said the person, who asked not to be named because the information is private.

The borrowing plan underscores how badly Persian Gulf countries were impacted by the drop in crude prices last year as the coronavirus pandemic spread and energy demand plunged.

The company remits almost everything it generates from crude sales to the OPEC member’s government. It then gets reimbursed in installments to fund capital expenditure, mainly for upstream operations and investments in oil fields. The firm may face a deficit of 6 billion dinars ($19.9 billion) over five years, though it hopes to minimize the gap by becoming more efficient, the person said.

KPC plans to cover the shortfall by issuing debt, including on international markets. The situation will be reviewed every six months to assess the company’s needs and borrowing costs, the person said.

Pandemic Hit

Kuwait’s financial position — like that of almost all major oil producers — took a hit last year when the virus grounded planes and shut down businesses across the world. The government faced a cashflow crisis and it instructed KPC to transfer more than 7.5 billion dinars in dividends to the Treasury, but which the Supreme Petroleum Council had previously said could be retained.

KPC has since reached a preliminary agreement to repay the sum over 15 years. That helps but won’t solve the company’s problem, the person said.

The firm’s media office couldn’t be reached for comment.

Wealth Fund

Oil accounts for 90% of Kuwait’s revenue. The nation pumps around 2.4 million barrels of crude a day, making it the fourth-biggest member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Kuwait is trying to cut spending to contain its economic slump. KPC has slashed capital-expenditure projections for the next five years by more than 30%. The company has hired a consultant to help merge eight subsidiaries into four to streamline operations. That’s expected to be completed by the end of 2022, the person said.

Last month, the government sought permission from parliament to withdraw money from the sovereign wealth fund for the first time since the aftermath of the Gulf War in 1990.

Bloomberg, by Fiona MacDonald , April 3, 2021

The sun never sets for Pravin Jamkhandi, a 49 year old farmer. He is the only one of the four brothers to continue farming and works on his 6.2-hectare land. He grows hybrid cucumber, often referred to as ‘Chinese kheera’ by city vendors and is a keen learner of new agricultural practices.

He realises that even when India is the largest segment of the Indian populace are farmers, they face endless occupational challenges everyday, often owing to flood, drought, productivity and irrigation. Irrespective of the rainfall received during a particular season or the presence of water bodies around, the crisis looms large on these agriculturists for whom water is nothing less than an elixir. And so, he puts his trust in innovative agro pumps that are designed to provide superior performance and reliability are ideal for all agricultural solutions, like the ones that Crompton makes.

Crompton’s extensive range of pumps expands through categories like household, Agriculture specialty, and solar. Over the years, its agricultural pumps specifically have become a megahit because they are sturdy and provide an unfailing and steadfast performance. Here are a few ways how Crompton has been silently allying with the farmers’ toil for decades:
Extensive range of pumps suitable for all your needs and applications
Agriculture pumps are used for irrigation of land by sprinkler, flood or micro-irrigation. Water is pulled out by pumps from reservoirs with the help of open well or monoblock pumps or with the help of borewell pumps from borewells that are up to 60 to 1500 feet deep!

An agro pump helps farmers transfer water from one source to another with ease. Whether the source is underground or situated on the surface, these pumps are powerful enough to draw water from just about any depth. For your farming and agricultural needs, these pumps use high pressure to transfer the water to your desired location. They help make the distribution of water more convenient with every pull. But before you buy a pump, you need to understand its specifications. Each pump has a different power range, stage, head range, discharge range, pipe size and supply phase. The higher the power, the greater will be the discharge from the pump.
Keeping this in mind, we have brought you information about the various types of agricultural pumps and their features.

Borewell Submersible Pump

Farmers are well aware that unpredictable rainfall leads to an uneven supply of water. To ensure uninterrupted water supply throughout the year, you can opt for a borewell submersible pump. This pump is entirely submerged in water. Lower HP variants are also used for supplying water to residential and industrial units. Borewell pumps come with many exciting features like better hydraulic and electrical design along with high-grade electrical stamping which make the pump highly efficient. The specially designed thrust bearing ensures reliability and its simple construction makes maintenance easy. It can also function effectively in a wide voltage band, protecting it from voltage fluctuations.

Open Well Submersible Pump

Used to extract water from reservoirs and transfer it to the storage in farms or directly to the farmland, this pump is also submerged in water. It can be used in irrigation, transferring water from canals, wells to farms etc. These pumps come under wide voltage range and with CED coated parts. Their ability to function effectively in a wide voltage range without damaging the pump makes them a safer and more durable option. The parts that are CED coated make the pump rust and stuck-free, giving it a longer life. If you are looking to buy open well pumps, you must consider factors like reservoir, storage tank size, pipe diameter, and material used in pumps before buying them. Also, there are two types – horizontal and vertical. It’s always better to talk to an expert before making a purchase.

Centrifugal Monoblock Pumps

When there is a need for vast quantities of fluids to be transferred from one location to the other, these pumps come in handy. They ensure that the flow rates are high. Monoblock Pumps find use in agriculture, industry, wastewater plants, mining, power generation plants and many more industries. Centrifugal pumps offer wide voltage bands like most agricultural pumps do but what sets it apart is the monoset construction. The monoset construction and high-quality mechanical seal prevents any leakage and prevent contaminants out.
Stress-free Solutions for Regular Water Supply
Crompton agriculture pumps ensure that you don’t miss out on your regular water supply, whether it is your overhead water tank, industrial applications or farming needs. They come with advanced technology and features like:

• High Grade Electrical Stampings that ensure reduced power losses & lower the operating current of the pump.
• Wide Voltage Application is designed to withstand wide voltage fluctuations from 250V-440V & provides consistent performance.
• Lower Operating Current with robust electrical design leading to lower electricity bill.
• High Thrust Capacity ensured by specially designed thrust bearing leading to highest reliability.
• Long term maintenance with easily replaceable wear & tear parts, low maintenance cost.

Water pumps offer benefits to not just farmers but also crops and ecosystems on the whole. They are an essential to the modern irrigation system and should be invested in if not done already. If you’re anyway connected to the world of agriculture, check out the extensive range of Crompton Agro Pumps today.
Disclaimer: This article has been produced on behalf of Crompton by Times Internet’s Spotlight team.

By Times Of India, April 2, 2021

Abu Dhabi started trading futures contracts for Murban crude, its biggest oil grade, in a bid to create a benchmark for the energy market.

The aim is “to make sure that Murban is a globally freely traded commodity and allows everybody around the world to use it either for pricing or hedging their risk,” Khaled Salmeen, executive director of supply and trading at government-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “It provides an additional tool that the market has been looking for.”

The start of Murban trading on an Abu Dhabi exchange on Monday marked the first time a Persian Gulf OPEC member has allowed its oil to be freely sold and shipped anywhere in the world. Atlanta-based Intercontinental Exchange Inc. is operating the platform known as ICE Futures Abu Dhabi.

Establishing a benchmark isn’t immediate as traders want to see a sufficient volume of deals over time that lead to prices investors deem fair. Creating a forward curve, or bids and asks for crude in future months, will also be a key test for the new Murban exchange.

On its first trading day, volume in Murban for June, the first month for which cargoes will be available, and for July both exceeded 2,200 lots, with more than 1,100 August contracts changing hands and several hundred for September. Each lot represents 1,000 barrels. The contract for June delivery traded at $63.78 a barrel as of 2:50 p.m. in Abu Dhabi.

Murban’s first trading day has “been a real success so far,” Stuart Williams, president of ICE Futures Europe, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “We have greater aspirations for this contract,” Williams said of the ambition to establish Murban as a regional benchmark. Once trading volumes and liquidity are established, ICE and Adnoc will seek to advance talks with other national oil companies in the region about adopting Murban futures as a pricing reference for their sales.

The region’s main producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates, of which Abu Dhabi is the capital, tend to stop buyers from reselling their oil. They also use benchmarks from outside the Middle East to price much of their crude.

In attempting to make its mark, Murban faces competition for regional benchmark status. S&P Global Platts publishes widely used price assessments for Dubai oil and the Dubai Mercantile Exchange trades futures for Omani crude. Both act as benchmarks for Middle Eastern shipments to Asia.

What’s more, oil traders dislike change, especially when they believe markets already do a good job matching supply and demand. Platts backed away from plans to revamp its Dated Brent contract after comments from traders earlier this year.

Adnoc can produce about 2 million barrels of Murban crude a day and has pledged to guarantee at least 1 million barrels of daily exports to support trading on the exchange.

Murban’s available volumes mean supply will be “enough to establish this benchmark, and then you will see other crude in this region being benchmarked against it,” Patrick Pouyanne, chief executive officer of French oil major Total SE, said in an interview in Abu Dhabi Monday.

Total is a partner with Adnoc in Abu Dhabi’s onshore fields where Murban crude is produced and is a partner in the new exchange. Brent’s declining output means Murban is “serious competition” and the Middle Eastern grade could one day become as famous as its European counterpart, Pouyanne said.

Adnoc CEO Sultan Al Jaber said at a ceremony for the start of trading in Abu Dhabi that the company now sells Murban to more than 60 customers in 30 countries, a leap from its “humble” beginnings in the late 1950s when just 4,000 barrels were pumped daily from one well. Trading Murban will help Abu Dhabi and the UAE get more value out of its barrels, he said.

The UAE is the third-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Counties, which cut supplies last year as the pandemic crushed energy demand.

OPEC+, a broader group including countries like Russia, meets this week to discuss whether to further ease the production cuts that began last May. Those supply curbs and the rollout of vaccines have caused the established global benchmark, Brent crude, to surge roughly 65% since the start of November to about $63.50 a barrel. Still, the rally has faded this month amid a new wave of virus cases, which may push some members of the producer group to argue that the cartel can’t raise output just yet.

Price levels in the range of $60 a barrel are “a sustainable average,” Salmeen said.

Last week’s closing of the Suez Canal after the Ever Given container ship ran aground won’t cause major issues for oil markets, he said. Markets are well supplied and buyers can draw from high inventories to avoid any shortages, he said.

Bloomberg, by Anthony Di Paola, April 2, 2021

Robert D. Bondurant serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Martin Midstream Partners L.P. and is a member of the board of directors of its general partner.

Mr. Bondurant joined Martin Resource Management Corporation in 1983 as Controller and subsequently as Chief Financial Officer from 1990 through 2020 and continues as a member of its board of directors. Mr. Bondurant served in the audit department of Peat Marwick, Mitchell and Co. from 1980 to 1983.

He holds a bachelor of business administration degree in accounting from Texas A&M University and is a Certified Public Accountant, licensed in the state of Texas.

In this 2,889 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, Mr. Bondurant details his strategy for Martin Midstream Partners.

“From the IPO date of November 2002 through 2014, we had substantial growth through access to capital.

Some of this growth was in areas that had upstream energy exposure, such as gas processing and fractionation in East Texas, and investment in West Texas LPG, which is an NGL pipeline, a crude storage terminal in Corpus Christi, and natural gas storage in North Louisiana and Mississippi.

These investments were large and had nice early returns, but with the energy commodity price collapse that began in late 2014, we made strategic decisions in 2015 to sell assets that had volatile upstream exposure and refocus on what we do best — providing services to refineries, including logistics through land and marine transportation, as well as terminal services.

We also provide marketing services for the byproducts that refiners produce, such as sulfur and natural gas liquids.

As a result, we have four segments: terminalling and storage, sulfur services, transportation, and natural gas liquids. Although these four segments are different, they have a common thread — all of these segments are servicing refiners in some form or fashion.”

This emphasis by Martin Midstream on refinery servicing has lead to a focus on several businesses.

“Let me begin with the terminalling and storage segment. First, we have approximately 30 terminal facilities, mostly located along the Gulf Coast, with storage capacity of approximately 2.8 million barrels.

Our specialty terminals receive hard-to-handle products from refineries and natural gas processing facilities, storing them for delivery to our customers. These specialty products include asphalt, natural gasoline, sulfuric acid, and ammonia, just to name a few.

Also within this segment, we own and operate a small naphthenic lubricant refinery located in southern Arkansas that includes a lubricant packaging facility, where we blend and package private label lubricants for use in the automotive and commercial industries.

Finally, within this segment we operate facilities in Kansas City, Missouri, in Houston, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona, to process and package specialty grease products, such as post-tension grease.

Next is our sulfur services segment. Within this segment we have two business lines.

First, in what I like to refer to as the pure sulfur segment, we aggregate, store and transport molten sulfur from Gulf Coast refineries to our terminals in Beaumont, Texas. The molten sulfur is shipped by our own barge to Tampa, Florida, where it is used in domestic fertilizer production.

We also convert molten into prilled sulfur, which we store for our refinery customers.

Basically, the molten sulfur goes through a water bath process that converts the liquid to a small solid pellet. This prilled sulfur is eventually loaded onto dry bulk vessels for international delivery, where it is remelted for use in fertilizer production.

Based on a five-year average, approximately 70% of prilled sulfur exports from the U.S. Gulf Coast originate at our terminal in Beaumont.

The second business line within our sulfur segment is the production of sulfur-based fertilizers, which are marketed to wholesale fertilizer distributors and industrial users. Here we purchase molten sulfur from refineries and use it as a feedstock to convert to fertilizer. These sulfur-based fertilizers are used in corn crop production, making corn acres planted a key driver of this business.

Moving to our transportation segment, we own both land and marine assets. Our fleet of tank trucks service the petroleum, petrochemical and chemical industries. We deliver hard-to-handle products for refineries and chemical companies across the U.S. with our fleet of specialty trailers.

In addition, our land assets are utilized by our other business segments. For example, land transportation delivers sulfur from refineries to our sulfur terminals; NGLs for the natural gas liquids segment; and lubricants for the terminalling and storage segment.

On the marine side, we utilize both inland and offshore tows to provide transportation of petroleum products and petroleum byproducts. As within the land group, we handle specialty products for oil refiners and international and domestic trading partners.

Finally, our natural gas liquids segment purchases and stores NGLs, both from and for delivery to refineries, as well as industrial users and propane retailers.

Within this segment, we have approximately 2.1 million barrels of underground storage. Of that, approximately 400,000 barrels are used in our seasonal propane business.

The other 1.7 million barrels are dedicated to our butane optimization business. Refineries excess butane during the summer months, but require butane during the winter months for gasoline blending purposes.

This supply/demand imbalance creates opportunities for us to utilize our underground storage assets in service to the refineries.

Lastly within the NGL segment, we deliver natural gasoline from refiners and natural gas processors to our Spindletop terminal in Beaumont, Texas. This terminal then supplies the local petrochemical industry with natural gasoline for use as a feedstock.”

The Martin Midstream CEO sees a long term value for his company, despite recent trends toward renewable energy sources:

“Regarding the movement towards decarbonization, first, I believe this will take a considerable amount of time to implement.

Second, I believe our assets and the majority of our operations around the Gulf Coast refinery corridor are strategic longer term. Refineries in our area of operations are the largest and some of the most sophisticated refiners in the U.S.

There’s adequate crude supply to them by pipeline and by VLCCs. In fact, some of these Gulf Coast refineries have made investment decisions to expand over the next two to three years.

Because of these investment decisions, it appears they plan to operate the assets long term.

So my point is this: If there is a time in the future where there will no longer be any need for gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, marine fuels, or even asphalt, my view is that refineries we service in the Gulf Coast will be the last refineries to cease operation.”

The WallStreet Transcript, March 11, 2021

The market shock from the pandemic and the resulting crash in oil prices expectedly dragged down the net profit of the world’s biggest oil company and largest oil exporter, Saudi Aramco.  

The 2020 year of COVID also upended the development plans of the Saudi state oil giant at the oilfields it co-owns with other countries in the Gulf.

In early 2020, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were preparing to significantly boost oil production in the so-called neutral zone between the two countries after ending a five-year spat over concessions. Both sides had grand plans to pump as much as 550,000 barrels per day (bpd)—or 0.5 percent of daily global oil supply—from the jointly owned fields by the end of 2020.

The unexpected events last year, however, led to the fields producing just around 120,000 bpd, which for Saudi Aramco means up to 60,000 bpd as output is equally divided between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Aramco’s president and chief executive officer Amin Nasser said on the call after the 2020 results release.

Not only did the pandemic slash Aramco’s profits in 2020, but it also put on ice its plans to quickly ramp up production from the fields it shares with Kuwait in the neutral zone. 

The so-called Partitioned Neutral Zone (PNZ) was established between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in 1922 to settle a territorial dispute between the two neighboring countries. As of 2015, the oil production capacity in the neutral zone stood at a total of 600,000 bpd, equally divided between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Production from the zone averaged around 500,000 bpd just before the shutdown of the two oil fields, Al-Khafji and Wafra, in 2014-2015.

Operational differences and a worsening in bilateral relations led to the suspension of production back in 2015. The worsening came as Saudi Arabia renewed Chevron’s concession for Wafra. According to the Kuwaiti side, Riyadh did that without consulting it.

One of the upstream milestones Aramco boasted in its 2020 presentation was resumed operations at the Al-Khafji oilfield.

Just after the owner of Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia, broke the OPEC+ pact with Russia in March last year, contributing to the oil price crash in the demand collapse, Abdullah Mansi Al-Shammari, Deputy CEO Finance and Management at Kuwait Gulf Oil Company, told Reuters that total production from the two oilfields, Al-Khafji and Wafra, would hit 320,000 bpd by the end of 2020.

During the Saudi-Russia price war in March and early April 2020, Kuwait even exported its first cargo of Khafji crude oil, after the nearly five-year hiatus—during which the fields were not pumping oil.

But after the new OPEC+ deal entered into force in May 2020 to prevent another price collapse and help the market to rebalance in the face of plunging fuel demand, the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, and all OPEC+ members had to scale back oil production much more than they would have done had they kept the initial agreement.

The restart of production at the Al-Khafji oilfield last year marked the end of a five-year hiatus due to disputes. Still, the much lower-than-expected output from the neutral zone highlighted the challenges in ramping up production from oilfields that haven’t pumped oil in years, and operational decisions on major oilfields in the Middle East depend largely on OPEC’s policies, which is effectively led by Saudi Arabia.

The future OPEC+ policies on withholding oil supply from the market will determine whether the Al-Khafji and Wafra fields shared with Kuwait could return to pumping meaningful volumes of crude soon.

As of February, OPEC’s spare capacity, excluding Iran, stood at 7.7 million bpd, mostly in the Middle East, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its monthly report earlier in March, when it said that with “plenty to spare” capacity and still abundant supply, there is no supercycle for oil around the corner.  

Oilprice, by Tsvetana Paraskova, March 26, 2021