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U.S. Fuel Shipments to Latin America Surge on Wealth Gain

Latin American nations are poised to accelerate imports of U.S. refined-oil products after failing to build refineries to meet demand from a growing middle class. Freight traders booked tankers to send 19 million metric tons of fuels from the U.S. to Latin America in the spot market last year, 5.4 percent more than in 2012, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Volumes may rise again because demand is expanding and no new regional refining capacity will be added in the short term, according to Houston-based Hart Energy Research & Consulting. While growth in some Latin American economies slowed in 2013, the region has outpaced the world for the past seven years, helping lift more than 50 million people out of poverty. For the first time there are more Latin Americans classified as middle class than poor, according to a 2012 study by the World Bank . Lower […]

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China taking in more oil from Kazakh pipeline

The Chinese government said oil imports through a pipeline from Kazakhstan reached a record high in 2013, marking a 14 percent increase from the previous year. China imported more than 86 million barrels of oil last year through the China-Kazakhstan pipeline, an increase of 14.1 percent from the previous year, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday. The pipeline runs 745 miles from central Kazakhstan to a PetroChina facility in northwest China. Xinhua said the increase in pipeline imports underscores the importance of securing natural resources through overland transit networks. Xinhua reported China imported an estimated 466 million barrels of oil each year since the pipeline went into service in 2006. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said in its January market report Russian oil transit company Transneft aims to send approximately 140,000 barrels of oil per day to China through a Kazakh pipeline […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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China's Dec apparent demand for gas jumps 14% to record 16.3 bil cu m

China’s apparent demand for gas in December rose 14.1% year on year to a record high of 16.26 billion cu m, according to Platts calculations of recently released government data. China does not release consumption data on gas. Platts calculates apparent demand by taking into account domestic production and net imports of LNG and pipeline natural gas. The surge in apparent demand last month was due to record high LNG imports, which rose 33.3% year on year to 2.43 million mt, data released by the General Administration of Customs showed Wednesday. LNG supplies from Qatar hit a new high of 1.09 million mt last month, more than double volumes received in December 2012. Article continues below… Request a free trial of: International Gas Report International Gas Report International Gas Report is a biweekly report that intelligently analyzes what is happening in the natural gas […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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China’s Dec apparent demand for gas jumps 14% to record 16.3 bil cu m

China’s apparent demand for gas in December rose 14.1% year on year to a record high of 16.26 billion cu m, according to Platts calculations of recently released government data. China does not release consumption data on gas. Platts calculates apparent demand by taking into account domestic production and net imports of LNG and pipeline natural gas. The surge in apparent demand last month was due to record high LNG imports, which rose 33.3% year on year to 2.43 million mt, data released by the General Administration of Customs showed Wednesday. LNG supplies from Qatar hit a new high of 1.09 million mt last month, more than double volumes received in December 2012. Article continues below… Request a free trial of: International Gas Report International Gas Report International Gas Report is a biweekly report that intelligently analyzes what is happening in the natural gas […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Australia on course for a shale boom?

Australia is slated to be the next big energy market for shale, experts say. Boston consultancy Lux Research in a recent report predicted that Australia will experience large-scale hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, sooner than in China, even though China’s shale resources are estimated to be twice that of the United States. "Existing infrastructure, low population density in resource-rich regions and a welcoming government position Australia at the forefront of shale development," Lux analyst Daniel Choi was quoted as saying by The Australian newspaper. China by contrast, is fraught with technical challenges caused by depth and geology, Choi says, in addition to the country’s poor infrastructure and local turf wars. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says Australia has an estimated 437 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable shale gas reserves, ranking the country the sixth highest in the world. The reserves are dispersed throughout the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Colder Weather Heads for U.S. as Ice Set to Coat Texas

Parts of southern Texas may get a rare coating of ice as temperatures plunging across the U.S. portend an even sharper cold snap to come. Temperatures across the eastern U.S. and parts of Ontario and Quebec will be at least 8 degrees below normal through Jan. 27, said Matt Rogers , president of the Commodity Weather Group LLC in Bethesda, Maryland. Next week will be colder, he said. “The crazy thing is that the current cold snap this week looks to be a bit more modest in the face of next week’s outbreak,” Rogers said. “The cold coming for the end of January is sufficient to make this the coldest month of the century so far and the coldest the Lower 48 has felt in at least 20 years.” Temperatures in Chicago fell lower than the South Pole this month as freezing weather boosted energy consumption, grounded thousands of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Midwest Propane Jumps to Record Premium as Supplies Fall

Propane in the Midwest soared to another record premium over prices on the Gulf Coast as supplies of the heating fuel fell to the lowest level for this time of year since at least 1994 amid a cold front. Propane at the rack in Conway, Kansas , ranged from $3.62 to $4.50 a gallon today, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The spot price yesterday in Conway was $1.72 more than at Mont Belvieu, Texas , the largest premium since at least 2001. Last year, propane at Conway sold at an average discount of 2.8 cents to Mont Belvieu. They are the top two U.S. propane storage hubs. Supplies of propane and propylene in the Midwest fell by 1.34 million barrels to 10.2 million last week, the Energy Information Administration said today. That’s the lowest level for mid-January since the EIA began keeping data in 1993. January may end […]

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Stronger Tank Cars Needed to Ship Oil by Rail: Agencies

Crude oil hauled by rail needs to be shipped in stronger tank cars and on safer routes, transportation investigators in the U.S. and Canada said following a series of accidents in North America . The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Canadian Transportation Safety Board issued the recommendations today as part of a probe into the July derailment of rail cars filled with oil in Lac-Megantic, Quebec . The accident ignited an inferno that killed 47 people spending a Saturday night in the town’s center. “The large-scale shipment of crude oil by rail simply didn’t exist 10 years ago, and our safety regulations need to catch up with this new reality,” NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said in a statement citing concerns about “the major loss of life” in accidents involving oil transported by rail. The Canadian agency recommended tougher standards for the type of tank car involved in the […]

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Oil-by-rail deliveries up for week ending Jan. 18, rail group says

U.S. rail delivery of petroleum and petroleum products was up 13.3 percent last week from the same period in 2013, the American Association of Railroads said. The AAR said Thursday 15,708 carloads of petroleum and petroleum products, or about 10.9 million barrels of oil, were delivered on the U.S. rail system for the week ending Jan. 18. Since Jan. 1, the AAR said, 43,556 carloads, or about 30 million barrels of oil, were delivered on the U.S. rail system, a 12.7 percent increase from the same period in 2012. The AAR said its total for U.S. operations excludes deliveries from the Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Railway. Shawn Howard, a spokesman for TransCanada, said Thursday rail was playing an important role for oil transit while the industry waits for new pipeline capacity to come online. TransCanada this week started sending crude oil […]

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Industry Awakens to Threat of Climate Change

Coca-Cola has always been more focused on its economic bottom line than on global warming, but when the company lost a lucrative operating license in India because of a serious water shortage there in 2004, things began to change. Today, after a decade of increasing damage to Coke’s balance sheet as global droughts dried up the water needed to produce its soda, the company has embraced the idea of climate change as an economically disruptive force. “Increased droughts, more unpredictable variability, 100-year floods every two years,” said Jeffrey Seabright, Coke’s vice president for environment and water resources, listing the problems that he said were also disrupting the company’s supply of sugar cane and sugar beets, as well as citrus for its fruit juices. “When we […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple