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U.S. Gas Rises to $3.5572 Per Gallon in Lundberg Survey

The average price for regular gasoline at U.S. pumps rose 4.74 cents in the past two weeks to $3.5572 a gallon, the highest since Sept. 20, according to Lundberg Survey Inc. The survey covers the period ended March 21 and is based on information obtained at about 2,500 filling stations by the Camarillo, California-based company. The average is 15.02 cents below a year ago. “It’s been six weeks of rising prices at the pump but this is a pace that has greatly slowed,” Trilby Lundberg, the president of Lundberg Survey, said yesterday in a telephone interview. Consumers are paying more even as oil and gasoline futures have fallen because the price for ethanol, the government-mandated fuel additive, has risen, Lundberg said. “Higher ethanol prices adds about a nickel at the pump,” Lundberg said. Ethanol prices have jumped 24 percent this month as winter weather and a shortage of rail […]

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Quebec Oil-Train Disaster Report Filed With Prosecutors

Quebec police have finished and filed with authorities their investigation into the Lac-Megantic train disaster that killed 47 people and prompted backlash against the growing practice of transporting crude oil by rail. The report has been sent to Quebec provincial prosecutors, said Claude Denis, a spokesman for Quebec’s provincial police service. A story by the QMI news service on March 22, citing an unidentified police source, said the train’s engineer knew some of the train’s brakes were broken and that police expected prosecutors to file criminal charges. In July 2013, a train operated by closely held Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd. rolled downhill into the small […]

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BlackRock wades into Scottish referendum debate

©AFP BlackRock has written an in-depth report on the expected impact on investors of Scottish independence BlackRock has waded into the debate on Scottish independence , warning that a vote to break away from the UK would create “substantial issues” for investors. The US asset management giant has written an in-depth report, seen by FTfm, on the expected impact on investors of the 306-year union between Scotland and the rest of the UK coming to an end. BlackRock, which opened its first office outside the US in Edinburgh, believes an independent Scotland would create “major uncertainties, costs and risks” for companies and pension schemes based in Scotland and the remainder of the UK. Investors in UK gilts and equities, in particular financial, utility and energy companies, will be most affected, according to the New York-based fund house. Investments in Scottish infrastructure projects are also likely to be put on […]

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Russia Steps Up Economic Pressure on Kiev

KIEV, Ukraine — Russia and Russian state companies have increased the economic pressure on the new pro-Western government in Kiev over the past week, closing the border to most trucks, shutting a Ukrainian factory in Russia and yet again raising the price of natural gas . The actions revive an array of Russian economic foreign policy tools used for years and made possible by Russia’s robust domestic consumer market and the country’s energy exports. About a quarter of all Ukraine ’s exports go to Russia, and factories here have benefited from a growing demand in the defense sector and rising consumer purchasing power. Russia’s manipulation of gas prices under various pretexts has for a decade proved to be a particular headache for pro-Western Ukrainian governments. Russia is now asking close to $500 for 1,000 cubic meters of gas, the standard unit for gas trade in Europe, which is a […]

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Foreign Monitors Enter Ukraine to Observe Political Situation

The first foreign observers permitted by governments in Moscow and Kiev to monitor the political situation and human rights are assembling in the Ukrainian capital and will start fanning out across the troubled region on Tuesday, a spokeswoman said Sunday. Deployment of the first 100 observers — a number that may rise to 500 during the six-month mission — was viewed by some diplomats as the first break in the crisis over Crimea since Russia sent thousands of troops into the peninsula and then annexed it last week. The annexation, considered illegal by the West, followed a public referendum in favor in Crimea on March 16. Moscow expressly barred the monitors from Crimea, and even suggested that the mission constituted foreign recognition that the peninsula was now Russia’s — a notion swiftly dismissed in the West. The monitors are working for the 57-nation Organization for Security […]

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Big climate report: Warming is big risk for people

If you think of climate change as a hazard for some far-off polar bears years from now, you’re mistaken. That’s the message from top climate scientists gathering in Japan this week to assess the impact of global warming. In fact, they will say, the dangers of a warming Earth are immediate and very human. "The polar bear is us," says Patricia Romero Lankao of the federally financed National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., referring to the first species to be listed as threatened by global warming due to melting sea ice. She will be among the more than 60 scientists in Japan to finish writing a massive and authoritative report on the impacts of global warming. With representatives from about 100 governments at this week’s meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, they’ll wrap up a summary that tells world leaders how bad the problem is. […]

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World energy use threatens water

Rising demand for energy, from biofuels to shale gas, is a threat to freshwater supplies, according to a United Nations report released Friday. The report urged energy companies to do more to limit their use of water in everything from cooling coal-fired power plants to irrigation for crops grown to produce biofuels. “Demand for energy and freshwater will increase significantly in the coming decades,” U.N. agencies said in the World Water Development Report. “This increase will present big challenges and strain resources in nearly all regions.” By 2030, the world will need 40 percent more water and 50 percent more energy than now, the report said. Water is under pressure from factors such as a rising population, pollution and droughts, floods and heat waves linked to global warming. Around the world, about 770 million of the world’s 7 billion people now lack access to safe drinking water, it said. […]

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U.S. Oil Futures Up as Some Fret About More Sanctions Against Russia

U.S. oil futures climbed Friday as Crimea-related rhetoric between Russia and the West remained a top focus for traders, with some worrying that sanctions against Russia could have economic implications. Light, sweet crude for May delivery settled up 56 cents, or 0.6%, to $99.46 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange gained 47 cents, or 0.4%, to $106.92 a barrel. Geopolitical tensions over Russia’s annexation of Crimea remain high, though some observers said the price increase for Nymex lessened later in the trading session on Friday as concerns about economic sanctions against Russia eased. Andy Lebow, senior vice president for energy at Jefferies Bache LLC, […]

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U.S. Oil Futures Rise

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in May traded at $98.31 a barrel at 0527 GMT, down $0.59 in the Globex electronic session. May Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange fell $0.39 to $106.06 a barrel. Nymex WTI crude extended overnight losses, dropping below the $100 a barrel mark, as it came under pressure from a strong greenback as markets reacted to U.S. Federal Reserve commentary Thursday that interest rates could start rising in the fall. "The appreciation in the U.S. dollar has inevitably hurt overseas demand for the U.S.-denominated benchmark crudes, resulting in downward pressure," analyst Tan Chee Tat at Phillips Futures said. President Barack Obama ordered a second round of sanctions Thursday on 20 Russians and a St. Petersburg bank, and Russia responded with its own list of punitive measures against six U.S. lawmakers and three White House officials. European […]

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Brent, WTI Rise After Russia’s Annexation of Crimea

West Texas Intermediate and Brent crudes climbed after Russia completed annexing Crimea, escalating the worst standoff with the West since the Cold War . WTI rose 0.6 percent and Brent 0.4 percent. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed legislation needed to absorb the Black Sea peninsula and its port of Sevastopol from Ukraine. Futures retreated from the day’s highs after the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slipped from a record. “Crude is up on concern that Putin may decide over the weekend that areas of eastern Ukraine might also prefer to be part of Russia,” said Bill O’Grady, chief market strategist at Confluence Investment Management in St. Louis , which oversees $1.4 billion. WTI for May delivery advanced 56 cents to settle at $99.46 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The April contract expired yesterday after dropping 0.9 percent to $99.43. The volume of all futures traded was […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple