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WTI Falls as Dudley Bolsters Concern That Fed Will Taper

West Texas Intermediate fell to a five-month low and the discount to Brent widened after comments by Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William C. Dudley added to speculation that the central bank will reduce stimulus. Futures dropped 0.9 percent. The New York Fed chief pointed to payrolls growth as a positive sign in the text of remarks given in Flushing, New York, today. The policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee is buying $85 billion of bonds every month to spur growth and has said it plans to slow the purchases when the economy improves. WTI’s discount to Brent ended the day at the widest level in almost eight months. “We dropped about a dollar after Dudley said he was upbeat about the economy,” said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago . “The good news about the economy will strengthen calls for a tapering […]

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Ethanol Futures Advance as Fuel Consumption Outpaces Supply

Ethanol futures climbed for the seventh time in eight days as the highest production rates in 21 months fail to replenish stockpiles. Futures rose as much as 2 percent as supply has been at record seasonal lows most of this year even as output increased amid cheaper prices for corn, the primary ingredient used to make the additive in the U.S., data compiled by Bloomberg show. “The front-end has its own set of issues to deal with on supply and demand,” said Will Babler, a broker at Atten Babler Risk Management LLC in Galena, Illinois . “Even with really high production rates, supply is still tight.” Denatured ethanol for December delivery jumped 3.2 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $1.809 a gallon at 12:10 p.m. New York time on the Chicago Board of Trade. Futures have dropped 17 percent this year. Gasoline for December delivery rose 0.13 cent to $2.659 […]

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Demonstrators at Warsaw climate summit demand emission cuts

WARSAW, Poland, Nov. 18 (UPI) — Climate change demonstrators took to the streets of Warsaw during the weekend as host Poland comes under fire from critics at the U.N. COP19 climate summit. Chanting “Change the system, not the climate,” and “Justice and positive energy for all,” nearly 1,000 people marched through Warsaw Saturday as part of the international “March for Climate and Social Justice,” the Polish broadcaster TVN 24 reported. The event caused traffic congestion in the heart of the city as it wound its way from the Palace of Culture and Science, passed over the Poniatowski Bridge along Jerusalem Avenue and past the National Stadium, where the UN climate summit is being held. The march ended at Skaryszewski Park near the National Stadium, where demonstrators set up an “eco-park.” At the head of the procession was a large inflatable globe, emphasizing the demonstrators’ point decisions made to reduce […]

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Israelis Embrace French President for Iran Position

JERUSALEM — President François Hollande’s trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories, like all state visits, was planned months ago. But coming days before France and other world powers prepared to resume the nuclear talks with Iran in Geneva, the three-day visit that started on Sunday could not have come at a more opportune time for Israel — or for France, according to some Israeli officials. The warm greetings exchanged by the French and Israeli leaders gave an international boost to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who has been conducting a campaign against a deal he calls “dangerous” even before the final details have been negotiated. At the same time, a senior Israeli official said, the country’s praise for Mr. Hollande’s tough stance at the nuclear talks “will provide a boost to France and even more motivation for it to stay the course.” For years, France has been […]

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Split on Accord on Iran Strains U.S.-Israel Ties

WASHINGTON — To the Israeli government, the preliminary deal with Iran that the Obama administration is trying to seal this week is a giveaway to a government that has spent two decades building a vast nuclear program. It enshrines the status quo — at a time when the Iranians are within reach of the technical capability to build a bomb — and rewards some unproven leaders with cash and sanctions relief. President Obama and his top aides see the same draft deal in sharply different terms. To them, it is a first effort to freeze the Iranian program, to buy some time to negotiate a more ambitious deal, and to stop two separate methods of developing a bomb, one involving uranium, the other plutonium. In return, the Iranians get modest relief from sanctions, but not what they desperately desire, the ability to again sell oil around the world. That […]

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Iran State Gas Company Faces Collapse, Hit by Sanctions

Iran’s national gas company said it is facing collapse, the latest sign of deepening economic distress from international sanctions as Tehran seeks urgent relief in talks with world powers. The chief executive officer of state-owned National Iranian Gas Company, Hamid Reza Araghi, said over the weekend that the company has declared bankruptcy, according to the semiofficial Mehr news agency. The report said the company had a debt of 100 trillion rials, or about $4 billion. The company tried to backtrack on the comments Monday. Majid Boujarzadeh, a spokesman reached by phone, denied it was bankrupt. But media reports also quoted Iran’s oil minister, Bijan Zangeneh, as saying the gas company “is destroyed.” The sanctions, aimed at preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, have devastated the country’s critical energy industry. While gas is a relatively small income generator, oil exports, a major revenue source, have been slashed by nearly […]

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Iran president warns against "excessive demands" at nuclear talks

TEHRAN, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned on Monday against what he called “excessive demands” by some powers at nuclear talks, saying that it will be detrimental to the negotiations, Press TV reported. “At the recent Geneva talks, good progress was made, but everyone must realize that excessive demands could complicate the process towards a win-win agreement,” Rouhani said in a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday. “From our point of view, there should not be a situation in which the will of parties to reach mutually acceptable agreement is affected,” Rouhani was quoted as saying. The Iranian president did not expand on the “excessive demands, ” but western media reported on Monday that French President Francois Hollande has put forward some major demands to Iran ahead of nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 — the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France […]

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Iran president warns against “excessive demands” at nuclear talks

TEHRAN, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned on Monday against what he called “excessive demands” by some powers at nuclear talks, saying that it will be detrimental to the negotiations, Press TV reported. “At the recent Geneva talks, good progress was made, but everyone must realize that excessive demands could complicate the process towards a win-win agreement,” Rouhani said in a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday. “From our point of view, there should not be a situation in which the will of parties to reach mutually acceptable agreement is affected,” Rouhani was quoted as saying. The Iranian president did not expand on the “excessive demands, ” but western media reported on Monday that French President Francois Hollande has put forward some major demands to Iran ahead of nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 — the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France […]

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Russia invites Syrian opposition to Moscow for talks: FM

MOSCOW, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) — Russia has invited Syrian opposition groups to travel to Moscow for talks aimed at bridging their differences on the planned Geneva peace conference, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday. Leaders of the Istanbul-based Syrian National Coalition (SNC) ” did not refuse to come to Moscow, and they are studying our proposal,” Lavrov told a news briefing. He confirmed that Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov held talks with the SNC leaders in Istanbul last week. Russia’s mediation is to help the Syrian opposition to form a single delegation to the talks, which the United States and Russia are trying to convene in Geneva by the end of the year, Lavrov said. The proposed meeting is to “consolidate positive trends,” which included negotiations which have begun between the SNC, one of Kurdish groups and the so-called “internal opposition,” about finding common approaches to the peace […]

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Iran needs to extend natural gas pipeline network, official says

TEHRAN, Nov. 18 (UPI) — Iran needs more than 3,700 miles of pipeline installed to respond to domestic needs in the natural gas sector, a gas company director said Monday. Reza Almasi, managing director of the National Iranian Gas Transfer Co., said an extension of that length is needed on a gas pipeline network that now covers 21,000 miles, the Fars News Agency reported. Almasi said he was responding to a request from the federal government to overhaul the pipeline network to keep up with domestic demand for natural gas. “Up to the present, [the] gas pipeline network has been designed and built just to connect the feeding points and consumption markets without considering any alternative network for emergency situations, and construction of this extra network requires $15 billion to $20 billion dollars of investments,” he said. Taylor Swift diss by Victoria’s Secret model a misunderstanding Two hospitalized after […]

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