Category:

Hezbollah calls for calm after Iranian embassy bombing

A Hezbollah leader appealed for calm on Wednesday and an easing of sectarian tensions in Lebanon, a day after twin suicide bombings struck the Iranian embassy in Beirut. "The solution to this confrontation begins politically," the Shi’ite Muslim group’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, said on Lebanese radio, calling for unity. "Then there are security and military steps by the (Lebanese) authorities … in addition to attempts to calm the arena and reduce the transmission of sectarian poisons." He did not specify what security and military steps were needed. The remarks by Qassem, the most senior Hezbollah official to speak publicly about Tuesday’s bombings, suggested a restrained response from Hezbollah, which is funded by Iran and has sent fighters to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad. Hezbollah’s military role in Syria has helped to inflame sectarian tension there and in Lebanon. Many Lebanese Sunnis back the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

OMV: Libyan production down since October

Austrian energy company OMV said Wednesday its oil production in Libya has been interrupted for close to a month. “Production has been interrupted since the end of October,” the company said in a statement emailed to United Press International. Simmering conflict in Libya since civil war ended in 2011 has curtailed the country’s oil and natural gas production. Rival groups in the east of the country announced in early November they declared independence for the region known as Cyrenaica, which hosts some of Libya’s key oil terminals. Labor strikes have shut down processing facilities in the west of the country. OMV said it evacuated its personnel from Libya when conflict erupted in February 2011 but re-opened its office in Tripoli 10 months later. The company announced Oct. 21 an oil discovery in Libya, made with partners Repsol and Total, was its first since the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Raw Sewage and Anger Flood Gaza’s Streets as Electricity Runs Low

Raw sewage has flooded streets in a southern Gaza City neighborhood in recent days, threatening a health disaster, after a shortage of electricity and cheap diesel fuel from Egypt led the Hamas government to shut down Gaza’s lone power plant, causing a pump station to flood. Three more sewage stations in Gaza City and 10 others elsewhere in the Gaza Strip are close to overflowing, sanitation officials here said, and 3.5 million cubic feet of raw sewage is seeping into the Mediterranean Sea daily. The sanitation department may soon no longer be able to pump drinking water to Gaza homes. “Any day that passes without a solution has disastrous effects,” Farid Ashour, director of sanitation at the Gaza Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, said Tuesday in an interview. “We haven’t faced a situation as dangerous as this time.” The sewage crisis is the most acute of an […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Sudan, South Sudan's Nile, Dar Blend exports to hit 300,000 b/d next year

Exports of Nile and Dar Blend crude oil from Sudan and South Sudan could be raised to 300,000 b/d next year from a current 230,000 b/d as more fields that were previously shut-in are brought back online, officials from South Sudan’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mining said Thursday. “The shutdown was one year and two months and there is a big focus now to bring the production up. The main challenge is that the fields produced too much water during the shutdown and now we’re doing some maintenance and so many fields are currently not producing,” a ministry official said on the sidelines of a conference in Shanghai. “In 2014, the production [of both blends] may reach 300,000 b/d and there is ongoing focus in the longer term to reach up to 400,000 b/d or 500,000 b/d,” he added. Article continues below… Request a […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Sudan, South Sudan’s Nile, Dar Blend exports to hit 300,000 b/d next year

Exports of Nile and Dar Blend crude oil from Sudan and South Sudan could be raised to 300,000 b/d next year from a current 230,000 b/d as more fields that were previously shut-in are brought back online, officials from South Sudan’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mining said Thursday. “The shutdown was one year and two months and there is a big focus now to bring the production up. The main challenge is that the fields produced too much water during the shutdown and now we’re doing some maintenance and so many fields are currently not producing,” a ministry official said on the sidelines of a conference in Shanghai. “In 2014, the production [of both blends] may reach 300,000 b/d and there is ongoing focus in the longer term to reach up to 400,000 b/d or 500,000 b/d,” he added. Article continues below… Request a […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Pirates Looting Cargoes With AK-47s Threaten African Oil: Energy

Ankur Varma, third officer on the oil tanker M/V Cotton, opened his cabin door at five minutes to midnight on July 14 to find two men pointing AK-47s at him. “They just pushed me into the cabin with the guns in my chest and they told me to stay silent,” Varma said in a phone interview from India . “They were threatening, they were showing the guns, pointing at us. They took everything — everything that we had — including clothes, toiletries, electronics.” They also took the ship’s cargo. The Maltese-flagged vessel was carrying about 10,000 tons of fuel oil belonging to France’s largest oil company when it was attacked by 15 pirates off the coast of Gabon in West Africa. The hijackers kept control of tanker for seven days as they siphoned off the fuel. While Total SA (FP) eventually got its fuel oil back with the help […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

To tackle pollution, China to drop pursuit of growth at all costs

* Govt officials no longer to be judged solely on economic growth * "Unified regulation" pledge could augur stronger ministry in new year By David Stanway BEIJING, Nov 18 (Reuters) – China will steer local governments away from the pursuit of economic growth at all costs and beef up their powers to punish polluters as part of a campaign to reverse the damage done by three decades of unchecked expansion. In wide-ranging economic and social reforms unveiled last week, the ruling Communist Party said it would put more emphasis on environmental protection when assessing officials, and would also hold local authorities directly responsible for pollution. The document, which also pledged to relax its "one-child policy" and further free up its markets, said China would draw an "ecological protection red line" that would limit the economic development of environmentally vulnerable regions. Three decades of industrialisation and double-digit growth in China […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

White House Threatens To Veto Two Republican Energy Bills

The White House on Tuesday threatened to veto two Republican-backed energy bills in the House of Representatives, which aim to reduce federal regulation of energy production in the United States. If the President were presented with either bill “his senior advisors would recommend that he veto” the legislation, the White House said. H.R. 2728, authored by Texas Republican Bill Flores, would restrict the ability of the Bureau of Land Management, part of the Department of Interior, to regulate hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on Federal and Indian lands. BLM oversees oil and gas operations, including fracking, on over 700 million acres of such land and subsurface mineral deposits. It has been preparing regulations on environmental safeguards. “The bill, as reported, would undermine these efforts and instead require BLM to defer to existing State regulations on hydraulic […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

House OKs Bill To Speed Oil, Gas Drilling

The House approved a bill Wednesday aimed at speeding up drilling for oil and natural gas. The measure was one of three energy measures the House was considering this week as Republicans controlling the chamber push to expand an oil and gas boom that’s lowered prices and led the U.S. to produce more oil last month than it imported from abroad. Another bill expected to win approval later Wednesday would restrict the Interior Department from enforcing proposed rules to regulate hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on public lands. A third bill would streamline permitting for natural gas pipelines. Supporters say the bills are needed to ensure that a drilling boom taking place on state and private lands extends to millions of acres, mostly in the West, under federal control. President Barack Obama has promised to veto the bills, saying they are unnecessary and run counter to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Deloitte: Oil industry faces high retirement numbers

Oil and gas companies are on the cusp of an unprecedented number of retiring workers, and the ranks of suitable replacements remain thin, speakers said during the 2013 Deloitte Oil & Gas Conference in Houston on Nov. 19. In a paper released at the conference, Deloitte said the industry is looking to improve its workforce planning, talent acquisition, and retention rates. Bruce Culpepper, executive vice-president of human resources for Shell Americas, said Shell is evaluating how it might better measure the effectiveness of employee training programs. “Are people learning anything from the investment?” Culpepper questioned. “There is a lot of opportunity there for us to get sharper on that.” Currently, the number of job openings for the North American oil and gas industry exceeds the number of qualified applicants, said Michelle Seale, a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP. “There is an uptick in retirements,” Seale said. A 2011 survey […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple