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Gasoline Futures Jump as Frigid Air Causes Refinery Shutdowns

Gasoline futures rose for the first time in seven days as frigid temperatures caused refinery shutdowns from Newfoundland to Louisiana. Valero Energy Corp. (VLO) ’s Memphis refinery in Tennessee had a instruments freeze and units trip offline, a person familiar with operations said. Phillips 66 (PSX) had an electrical issue at its Westlake plant in Louisiana, according to a regulatory filing. Korea National Oil Corp.’s site in Come-by-Chance, Newfoundland, is trying to restart after an island-wide power failure over the weekend, company spokeswoman Gloria Slade told CBC News. “The concern over some of the refinery issues we’ve seen as a result of the brutally cold climate across the continent has led to buying in the refined products,” said Andrew Lebow , a senior vice president at Jefferies Bache LLC in New York. Gasoline for February delivery rose 2.05 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $2.6665 a gallon […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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In Iraqi City Under Siege, More Support for Militants Than Officials

On a good day, the drive from Falluja to Baghdad takes less than an hour. On Sunday morning, with his city under siege, its morgue filled with bodies and people running low on food, water and generator fuel, Osama al-Ani packed his family of seven into his car and set off for the capital. The trip, with its constant checkpoints and vehicle searches, took more than 12 hours, he said. Yet, even after being forced to flee for his family’s safety, Mr. Ani remains more sympathetic to the militants who have set up checkpoints across his city and are largely aligned with Al Qaeda than he is toward the central government. “We had no food, no electricity and no water, and mortar shells were falling all around us,” said Mr. Ani, who is staying with relatives in the Sunni neighborhood of Ameriya here. “But many of us […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Stretched thin, Syrian extremists are pressured

Just a week ago, al-Qaeda-linked rebels in Syria enjoyed an arc of dominance across the country’s north and east, ruling with brutality. But a series of stunning reversals in recent days has made clear that the militant group may be more vulnerable than it seemed, in part because its frequent kidnappings and attacks on fellow rebels have won it few allies. By Tuesday, the group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, appeared increasingly desperate, with its fighters pushed out of some towns and turning to suicide bombings in a bid to hold on to pockets of Raqqah, the large north-central city that was its stronghold. Still, the group showed no sign of giving up easily, calling Tuesday for its followers to behead anyone associated with the Western-backed Syrian Opposition Coalition, which it accused of starting the conflict. For now, at least, a coalition of more-moderate Syrian […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Saudis Back Syrian Rebels Despite Risks

On his eighth trip to fight with the rebels in Syria, in August, Abu Khattab saw something that troubled him: two dead children, their blood-soaked bodies sprawled on the street of a rural village near the Mediterranean coast. He knew right away that his fellow rebels had killed them. Abu Khattab, a 43-year-old Saudi hospital administrator who was pursuing jihad on his holiday breaks, went to demand answers from his local commander, a notoriously brutal man named Abu Ayman al-Iraqi. The commander brushed him off, saying his men had killed the children “because they were not Muslims,” Abu Khattab recalled recently during an interview here. It was only then that Abu Khattab began to believe that the jihad in Syria — where he had traveled in violation of an official Saudi ban — was not fully in accord with God’s will. But by the time […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Analysis: U.S. fears grow about Iraq, but response remains limited

The Obama administration is considering expanding its support to Iraqi forces as they fight off a renewed al Qaeda threat, but Washington’s ability to significantly increase security assistance to Baghdad will remain limited. U.S. officials say they are in discussions with the Iraqi government about training its elite forces in a third country, which would allow the United States to provide one modest measure of new assistance against militants in the absence of a troop deal that allows U.S. soldiers to operate within Iraq. No further details were immediately available about where that might take place or how many troops it might involve. Reluctance to further empower Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki or put American boots on the ground constrains U.S. support for Iraq as it battles militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an al Qaeda affiliate, in Anbar province, and seeks to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Kenya, Uganda Scramble to Bring Peace to South Sudan

Kenya and Uganda were recruiting investors to back an oil pipeline in South Sudan in December when a rebellion upended the world’s newest nation. Now the two East African nations have joined a diplomatic effort to end the conflict in South Sudan —yet another reminder of how the security crises of a volatile region intrude on efforts to boost commerce among its countries. "I’m not sleeping," Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said in a televised address last week. "I am monitoring the crisis which is taking place in the young country of South Sudan and I want to see that peace is attained there." More than 1,000 people have died and more than 100,000 have fled their homes since troops loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar rose up in December against those loyal to President Salva Kiir . On Tuesday, South Sudanese military spokesman Philip Aguer said government troops […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Nigerian oil unions drop strike threat as government says won't sell refineries

The Nigerian government will not privatize its four ailing oil refineries, labor minister Chukwuemeka Wogu said Wednesday, prompting the country’s two powerful oil workers’ unions to declare that they have now dropped plans to embark on a nationwide strike intended to cripple crude oil production and exports. "The Federal Government is not selling the nation’s refineries," Wogu said in a statement issued after a meeting with the unions in Abuja. The government called the meeting after the unions had threatened to begin a strike this week aimed at forcing the government to reverse earlier announcements by two government agencies that Nigeria would commence the sale of the state-owned refineries by first quarter of this year. "After extensive deliberations on the situation with the refineries, the two parties agreed that…the unions shall not embark on any form of industrial action over the subject matter," Wogu […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Nigerian oil unions drop strike threat as government says won’t sell refineries

The Nigerian government will not privatize its four ailing oil refineries, labor minister Chukwuemeka Wogu said Wednesday, prompting the country’s two powerful oil workers’ unions to declare that they have now dropped plans to embark on a nationwide strike intended to cripple crude oil production and exports. "The Federal Government is not selling the nation’s refineries," Wogu said in a statement issued after a meeting with the unions in Abuja. The government called the meeting after the unions had threatened to begin a strike this week aimed at forcing the government to reverse earlier announcements by two government agencies that Nigeria would commence the sale of the state-owned refineries by first quarter of this year. "After extensive deliberations on the situation with the refineries, the two parties agreed that…the unions shall not embark on any form of industrial action over the subject matter," Wogu […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Ivory Coast Sees Soaring Oil Output Rivaling Ghana by 2019

Ivory Coast Prime Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan said his nation will boost oil production within five years to 200,000 barrels a day, rivaling neighboring Ghana as stability returns to a country racked by a decade of turmoil. The West African nation wants oil companies to increase exploration and drilling offshore after output more than halved to about 30,000 barrels a day because of technical problems, he said in an interview Jan. 6. Ghana pumps about 100,000 barrels a day and wants to more than double output to 250,000 by 2021. Ghana is West Africa’s fourth-largest producer, after Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. “We have about 50 oil blocks of which half have been awarded,” Duncan said in the commercial capital, Abidjan. “We expect to add at least five wells a year.” President Alassane Ouattara has pledged to spur economic growth by investing in energy and infrastructure […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Talks Fail to Resolve Dispute Over Panama Canal Expansion Costs

The Panama Canal Authority and a consortium of international companies overseeing a multibillion-dollar construction project to widen the canal met on Tuesday but failed to resolve a dispute over huge cost overruns that threaten to derail the historic undertaking. The Panama Canal opened in the summer of 1914, and 100 years later the 50-mile waterway is two-thirds of the way through a massive expansion project that would allow ever-larger ships to pass through. The project could quadruple the government’s $1 billion in annual revenue, which comes mostly from toll charges. But GUPC, the consortium of construction firms led by Spain’s Sacyr SA SCYR.MC -2.42% Sacyr S.A. Spain: Madrid € 3.46 -0.09 -2.42% Jan. 8, 2014 12:12 pm Volume : 7.42M P/E Ratio N/A Market Cap €1.58 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee €153,727 01/07/14 Talks Fail to Resolve Dispute … 01/06/14 Spanish Official in Panama to … 01/02/14 […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple