Category:

Syrian refugees face harsh winter in Iraq

When the rains started at the beginning of November, creating streams of mud, Amoud Mohamed found herself fighting to keep her tent dry. “During the rain the tent was moving, at night we couldn’t sleep because of the rain and the wind,” she told DW, pointing to a pile of rugs at the entrance of the tent she shares with her family. “The water came in here under the floor. We must manage for the whole winter – we can’t go back to Syria.” Amoud and her family of eight are originally from Qamishli in northern Syria. The matriarch of the family, she is a thin woman with strong features. A few weeks later we stood with Amoud’s family in the mud where tire tracks had created sunken puddles, surrounding the tents in Arbat, Sulaymaniyah governorate, in northern Iraq, where just under 3,000 refugees live. Arbat is one of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Leviathan gas only in late 2017

Development of the Leviathan natural gas field will cost $8 billion and production will begin in late 2017 said Noble Energy Inc. (NYSE: NBL ) EVP Eastern Mediterranean Keith Elliott at the “Globes” 2013 Israel Business Conference. “Leviathan is our next major project in Israel.” Elliott continued, “Leviathan will be developed in stages, a domestic component and an export component. The expected cost of developing the field is $8 billion, and we’ll start production in late 2017, a year behind our initial estimate. The reasons for this are known, such as Israel’s export policy. We need an environment that supports investment. We intend to develop Leviathan as fast as we can, and we’re confident that the challenges will be solved. We’re committed to working with our Israeli partners and the Israeli government.” Commenting on the potential of oil at Leviathan, Elliott said, “We’ve […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Eni Shuts Flow Stations at Nigeria Pipeline After Fire

Eni SpA said Saturday it has shut flow stations serving a key pipeline following a fire in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. A spokesman for the Italian company said “a fire occurred along the Tebidaba-Brass line.” “We have promptly started the shut-in operations for the flow stations related to the pipeline,” the spokesman said. The pipeline, which is operated by Eni’s Agip unit, normally carries 75,000 barrels a day of the high-quality Brass grade for export. A Nigerian official said oil theft was the suspected […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Tullow dry but unfazed by Ethiopian drilling efforts

British energy explorer Tullow Oil said Monday it encountered natural gas but no oil while drilling into a frontier area in Ethiopia. Tullow said its Tultule-1 wildcat well, a well positioned in a region not known previously to contain oil and natural gas reserves, will be categorized as a dry hole after drilling to a depth of 6,893 feet in the South Omo prospect. Tullow said it was targeting a region similar to another area in Ethiopia that had oil potential, though no oil was encountered during the drilling. The company said Monday it found some natural gas deposits, which it says proves the presence of a hydrocarbon source in the region. Tullow said it would move its drilling rig to a different section of the South Omo prospect “where new seismic [survey information] has delineated a number of exciting new prospects.” New wells […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Mexico Joint Energy Proposal to Break $95 Billion Monopoly

Senators from Mexico’s two biggest political parties proposed a bill to break the nation’s 75-year oil monopoly by amending the constitution to allow production sharing contracts and licenses for outside producers. The joint legislation would allow private companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) to develop fields in the largest unexplored crude area after the Arctic Circle as state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos seeks to reverse eight years of falling output. The bill would allow companies to log crude reserves for accounting purposes, which may make it easier to secure project financing . The bill comes after four months of political wrangling following the release of separate plans from President Enrique Pena Nieto’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party , or PRI, and the opposition National Action Party , known as the PAN. The government says an energy overhaul would lift economic growth 1 percentage point by 2018 and reverse oil production losses. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Venezuela's socialists win majority in local polls

CARACAS (Reuters) – President Nicolas Maduro’s government won a majority of votes in Venezuela’s local elections on Sunday, disappointing the opposition and helping his quest to preserve the late Hugo Chavez’s socialist legacy. With votes in from three-quarters of the nation’s 337 mayoral races, the ruling party and allies had combined 49.2 percent support, compared with the opposition coalition and its partners’ 42.7 percent, the election board said. Since taking power in April, Maduro, a 51-year-old former bus driver, has faced a plethora of economic problems including slowing growth, the highest inflation in the Americas, and shortages of basic goods including milk and toilet paper. Yet an aggressive campaign launched last month to force businesses to slash prices proved popular with consumers, especially the poor, and helped Maduro’s candidates on Sunday. "The father of the revolution has gone, but he left the son who continued helping the poor," said […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Venezuela’s socialists win majority in local polls

CARACAS (Reuters) – President Nicolas Maduro’s government won a majority of votes in Venezuela’s local elections on Sunday, disappointing the opposition and helping his quest to preserve the late Hugo Chavez’s socialist legacy. With votes in from three-quarters of the nation’s 337 mayoral races, the ruling party and allies had combined 49.2 percent support, compared with the opposition coalition and its partners’ 42.7 percent, the election board said. Since taking power in April, Maduro, a 51-year-old former bus driver, has faced a plethora of economic problems including slowing growth, the highest inflation in the Americas, and shortages of basic goods including milk and toilet paper. Yet an aggressive campaign launched last month to force businesses to slash prices proved popular with consumers, especially the poor, and helped Maduro’s candidates on Sunday. "The father of the revolution has gone, but he left the son who continued helping the poor," said […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

China inflation slows on lower food prices

Chinese shoppers Inflation in China slowed in November, giving the government more room to push ahead with its slate of financial reforms. The consumer price index rose 3 per cent year-on-year, down from its 3.2 per cent pace in October and comfortably below the official 3.5 per cent target for 2013. A drop in food prices from a month earlier was the main source of downward pressure on inflation in November. Producer prices remained in deflationary territory, dropping 1.4 per cent year-on-year, though that was up slightly from October’s 1.5 per cent decline. Weak commodity prices have suppressed factory-gate inflation this year. When Chinese financial institutions unleashed a flood of credit earlier this year, there were concerns that the country would eventually face higher inflation. But the central bank began to act in June to withdraw excess cash from the financial system, and the subdued inflation readings are testament […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Lured by cheap coal, Southeast Asia turns away from gas

Southeast Asian power generation capacity to rise 50 pct this decade * More than half of new Southeast Asian capacity to be coal-fired * LNG-fired power twice as expensive as coal-fired power in Asia Southeast Asia’s power sector will tilt away from gas to use more coal by the end of this decade, chipping away at demand for liquefied natural gas as the region of more than 600 million people tries to cut costs to meet soaring electricity needs. With a wave of LNG projects due to come online this decade, this shift in consumption from a region long expected to be a key growth market could help take some of the heat out of rising Asian prices of the cleaner fuel. Gas prices in Asia are about five times more expensive than in the United States, driven by demand for LNG […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

China environmentalists slam inaction over smog

The smog that blanketed over 100 cities in half of China last week has rekindled criticism of insufficient efforts in the fight against air pollution. Among urban residents, severely polluted air has become a main source of complaints and frustration over health concerns. Late last week, the Air Quality Index (AQI) in dozens of cities in eastern China topped or neared 500. AQI of over 300 cities is defined as “serious pollution.” Many rushed to buy face masks and air purifiers to ward off the choking smog, a result of decades of breakneck economic growth. The dirty air even forced all primary and middle schools in the eastern city of Nanjing to close for two days. “The smog is everywhere,” said Xiong Yuehui, head of the science and technology department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, at a meeting on Sunday in Shanghai. “If […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple