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South Korea’s Oct crude imports from Iran slump 47% on year to 98,097 b/d

South Korea’s imports of Iranian crude oil in October slumped 47.4% to 3.04 million barrels, or 98,097 b/d, compared with 5.78 million barrels a year earlier, data released Friday by state-run Korea National Oil Corp. showed. Compared with September’s imports of 4.12 million barrels, South Korea’s imports in October were 26.2% lower. In the first ten months, the country imported 40.33 million barrels of Iranian crude oil, down 9.5% from 44.55 million barrels in the same period last year. The country did not import any crude oil from Iran in August and September last year in line with US-led sanctions on Iran, but imported 1.97 million in August and 4.12 million barrels in September this year. South Korea was granted an exemption from US financial sanctions since last year allowing it to keep buying Iranian crude oil as long as it showed an […]

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Chinese official: Oil trade with Iran 'transparent, open, reasonable'

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China’s crude oil imports from Iran are in line with sanctions targeting the Iranian energy sector. “Our cooperation with Iran on crude oil is transparent, open, reasonable and commercial in nature. It does not run counter to U.N. resolutions or damage third-party interests,” Hong said in a report from China’s official Xinhua News Agency Thursday. Hong said China was importing less crude oil from Iran than during previous months but that was not in response to sanctions or to nuclear talks under way in Geneva, Switzerland. Iranian delegates and representatives from the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France, plus Germany, met in Geneva for a third day of nuclear negotiations Friday. Iran denies its nuclear program is geared toward creating weapons. It maintains it has the right to enrich uranium to a high level […]

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Chinese official: Oil trade with Iran ‘transparent, open, reasonable’

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China’s crude oil imports from Iran are in line with sanctions targeting the Iranian energy sector. “Our cooperation with Iran on crude oil is transparent, open, reasonable and commercial in nature. It does not run counter to U.N. resolutions or damage third-party interests,” Hong said in a report from China’s official Xinhua News Agency Thursday. Hong said China was importing less crude oil from Iran than during previous months but that was not in response to sanctions or to nuclear talks under way in Geneva, Switzerland. Iranian delegates and representatives from the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France, plus Germany, met in Geneva for a third day of nuclear negotiations Friday. Iran denies its nuclear program is geared toward creating weapons. It maintains it has the right to enrich uranium to a high level […]

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Libya’s Fragile Peace Cracks

An accident in Omar Mokhtar Avenue in downtown Tripoli. Nobody was injured but there’s a bumper hanging off the back of a car. In just a few seconds, a group gathers around. “Forget about insurance companies in Libya,” says Mansur, a 30-year-old satellite dish installer. “The main problem is that you can easily run into somebody who produces a gun; everyone carries one in their glove box. In such a case there are two options: “You can get back to your car smoothly and leave, but you could also call a brother or a cousin of yours in one of those militias so he backs you up with heavy artillery.” In Libya, the police and the army are names on paper to entities that do not exist on the ground. Security, or the lack of it, comes from the myriad […]

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Saudis launch major gas drilling in Red Sea

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 21 (UPI) — Saudi Arabia is fast-tracking its first major offshore natural gas fields in the Red Sea, a high-priority project that’s seen as the start of a massive new energy program, off the kingdom’s west coast. The objective is to produce gas for power-generation to free up for export growing volumes of oil that are being used domestically to cope with a growing domestic demand. The kingdom’s giant state oil company, Aramco, has not disclosed any estimate of the Red Sea’s potential yet, “but there could be up to 100 billion barrels of oil equivalent under the sea bed,” observed analyst Persian Gulf analyst Kevin Baxter. That’s about equal to a 38 percent increase in the kingdom’s state oil reserves of 267 billion barrels, the largest in the world and overwhelmingly located on land in the Eastern province on the shores of the gulf […]

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Egypt is in official mourning as misery piles up

In Egypt, misery just keeps piling on and, fittingly, the nation is officially in mourning. Political violence and unrest have plagued Egypt since the ouster in 2011 of longtime authoritarian ruler Hosni Mubarak, but a flurry of deadly incidents this week appears to have touched a raw nerve in the nation’s psyche, with many Egyptians abandoning hopes for democracy and freedom and instead embracing a grim view of the future. “I think the time has come for everyone to acknowledge that the only thing this country can offer us is nightmares,” prominent activist Mona Seif wrote despairingly on her Twitter account Thursday. “It is futile that, every now and then, we try to find an excuse to be happy or optimistic.” The interim, military-backed president, Adly Mansour, announced a three-day state of national mourning Wednesday to honor 39 Egyptians who died this week. They […]

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Britain's Tullow Oil says it has made another oil discovery in Kenya

British energy explorer Tullow Oil said Friday an oil discovery in the Agete-1 exploration well in Kenya marks its fifth straight oil find in the region. Tullow said it encountered oil while drilling its Agete-1 wildcat well, which is positioned in a region not known previously to contain oil and natural gas reserves. “A fifth consecutive oil discovery onshore northern Kenya highlights the emerging world class exploration and production potential within our … acreage,” Angus McCoss, exploration director for Tullow, said in a statement Friday. McCoss said next year’s exploration campaign in the region would be “intensive.” Tullow provided no estimate of the potential from Agete-1. In October, Tullow halted operations at drilling sites in northern Kenya because of labor strikes. Work resumed Nov. 7 following talks with federal and local Kenyan officials. More than half of the 1,400 people employed by Tullow in […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Britain’s Tullow Oil says it has made another oil discovery in Kenya

British energy explorer Tullow Oil said Friday an oil discovery in the Agete-1 exploration well in Kenya marks its fifth straight oil find in the region. Tullow said it encountered oil while drilling its Agete-1 wildcat well, which is positioned in a region not known previously to contain oil and natural gas reserves. “A fifth consecutive oil discovery onshore northern Kenya highlights the emerging world class exploration and production potential within our … acreage,” Angus McCoss, exploration director for Tullow, said in a statement Friday. McCoss said next year’s exploration campaign in the region would be “intensive.” Tullow provided no estimate of the potential from Agete-1. In October, Tullow halted operations at drilling sites in northern Kenya because of labor strikes. Work resumed Nov. 7 following talks with federal and local Kenyan officials. More than half of the 1,400 people employed by Tullow in […]

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Australian state extends moratorium on fracking

MELBOURNE, Nov. 21 (UPI) — The Australian state of Victoria has extended its moratorium on onshore coal seam gas production and ban on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, until at least July 2015 while it conducts a community consultation process. Victorian Premier Denis Napthine announced his decision Thursday, in tandem with the release of the Gas Market Taskforce report, which was submitted to the government three weeks ago. The premier said earlier this month that he would not be rushed into making a decision. “There is no hurry … the gas has been in the ground onshore for tens of thousands of years. It’ll be there for some time yet,” he said. The report was commissioned by Napthine’s predecessor, Ted Baillieu, in January. The taskforce, chaired by former Federal Minister Peter Reith, in its report recommended that Victoria encourage the development of onshore gas projects and that fracking be allowed. […]

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China Fires Shot Across Petrodollar Bow: Shanghai Futures Exchange May Price Crude Oil Futures In Yuan

Page added on November 21, 2013 With the US shale revolution set to make America the largest exporter of crude, however briefly, the influence of Saudi oil is rapidly declining. This has been felt most recently in the cold shoulder the US gave Saudi Arabia and Qatar first over the Syrian debacle, and subsequently in its overtures to break the ice with Iran over the stern objections of Israel and the Saudi lobby (for a good example of this the most recent soundbites by Prince bin Talal ). But despite the shifting commodity winds and the superficial political jawboning, the reality is that nothing threatens the US dollar’s hegemony in what many claim is the biggest pillar of the currency’s reserve status – the petrodollar, which literally makes the USD the only currency in which energy-strapped countries can transact in to purchase energy. This may be changing soon following […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple