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Ukraine crisis: EU signs association deal

The agreement moves Ukraine and its interim PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk closer to the EU EU leaders have signed an agreement on closer relations with Ukraine, in a show of support following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Ukraine’s interim PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk and the EU signed the deal in Brussels. Pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych’s abandonment of the deal had led to deadly protests, his removal and Russia taking over Crimea. On Friday, Russia’s upper house unanimously approved the treaty on Crimea joining the Russian Federation. The EU Association Agreement is designed to give Ukraine’s interim leadership economic and political support. EU President Herman Van Rompuy said in a tweeted message: "Signing political part EU-Ukraine Association Agreement symbolises importance of relations [and] will to take it further." The move comes hours after the EU broadened its sanctions over Russia’s annexation of Crimea. It added 12 individuals to an earlier list of 21 […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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BYD’s Qin plug-in hybrid the best selling automotive EV in China

BYD’s second-generation Dual-Mode, plug-in hybrid electric sedan Qin has posted a second month of strong sales in February. Trends in March now make it “China’s Best-Selling Electric Vehicle” according to China’s National Passenger Car Association. In the first weeks of 2014, more than 6,000 Qin vehicles were sold, accounting for more than one-half of the Chinese new-energy vehicle market. Analysts are not expecting sales to slow, as both Shanghai and Beijing announced earlier this month that they will now permit BYD new energy vehicles to qualify for local municipality green-vehicle incentives and be licensed in those regions. The Qin combines a 1.5-liter, turbocharged, direct-injection 4-cylinder, 113 kW (152 hp), 240 N·m (177 lb-ft) […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Musings: It's Official – Oil Industry Enters The New Era Of Austerity

Last week, Chevron (CVX-NYSE), the second largest oil company, held its annual analyst meeting at which time the company’s management laid out its plans for the next five years, including projections for capital spending and oil and gas production growth. The meeting followed on a presentation at the IHS CERA Week conference in Houston by Chevron CEO John Watson in which he proclaimed that today’s $100 a barrel oil is the equivalent of the past’s $20 a barrel oil. By that he meant that the oil industry must now figure its budget outlooks based on the need for oil prices to stay around the $100 a barrel level in order for the company to generate the necessary cash flow to support spending plans and for projects to offer future returns to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Musings: It’s Official – Oil Industry Enters The New Era Of Austerity

Last week, Chevron (CVX-NYSE), the second largest oil company, held its annual analyst meeting at which time the company’s management laid out its plans for the next five years, including projections for capital spending and oil and gas production growth. The meeting followed on a presentation at the IHS CERA Week conference in Houston by Chevron CEO John Watson in which he proclaimed that today’s $100 a barrel oil is the equivalent of the past’s $20 a barrel oil. By that he meant that the oil industry must now figure its budget outlooks based on the need for oil prices to stay around the $100 a barrel level in order for the company to generate the necessary cash flow to support spending plans and for projects to offer future returns to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Peak Oil: It’s Baaaack

 As an old oil hand, I was seriously disturbed five years ago when it was almost impossible to develop a payback time for shale oil production.  Since then it has continued to go missing as massive amounts of cash was spent on the industry.  This suggests that we now know.  It is never at the present pricing regime. This could not be worse news.  It means that our vulnerability to supply disruption is rocketing while elasticity is dropping.  US shale oil has merely postponed our day of reckoning by a few years while the decline in conventional oil production actually accelerates. Right now we are swapping dollars in the oil industry at best and the ship is clearly leaking. The only good coming out of all this is that massive amounts of money are coming home to be spent drilling more wells.  Obviously this allows repatriation of US currency […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil Futures Advance on Petroleum-Product Demand

U.S. oil prices rose Wednesday as investors regarded shrinking petroleum-product stockpiles as well as a brighter employment outlook from the Federal Reserve as cues for strengthening demand. Light, sweet crude for April delivery settled up 67 cents, or 0.7%, at $100.37 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The April contract expires Thursday. The more actively traded May contract expired up 29 cents, or 0.3%, at $99.17 a barrel. Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange fell 94 cents, or 0.9%, to $105.85 a barrel. Crude-oil stockpiles increased by 5.9 million barrels to 375.9 million barrels in the week ended March 14, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said Wednesday. Analysts had expected stocks to rise by 2.3 million barrels on the week, according to a survey by The Wall Street Journal. Crude-oil supplies are at their highest level since November. Demand for crude oil typically falls in […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Natural Gas Rises Ahead of Inventory Report

Natural gas ticked higher Wednesday on expectations that inventories, already at 11-year lows, would continue to shrink in the coming weeks. Natural gas for April delivery settled up 2.8 cents, or 0.6%, at $4.484 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The U.S. Energy Information Administration is set to release its weekly storage report for the week ended March 14 Thursday at 10:30 a.m. EDT. Analysts and traders expect the agency to report that 59 billion cubic feet of gas were withdrawn from storage in the week, according to a Wall Street Journal survey. If the storage estimate is correct, inventories as of March 14 will total 942 billion cubic feet, 50% below the exceptionally […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Second Round of Iran Nuclear Talks Ends With Optimism

The second round of talks between Iran and six world powers over Iran’s nuclear program ended Wednesday with all parties expressing satisfaction with the discussions, which were the most detailed so far on each of the main issues dividing them. Both Catherine Ashton, the European Union ’s foreign affairs chief and the chief negotiator for the six powers, and Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, described the talks as “useful and substantive.” Although neither offered details, a senior American official described the sessions as “intense” and said there were discussions of Iran’s uranium enrichment program, the construction of a heavy water reactor at Arak that could be used to make plutonium into a fissile material, civilian cooperation on nuclear power and sanctions. The talks, which started on Jan. 20 and are expected to last until July 20, are aimed at reaching a permanent agreement intended to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Iran boasts of gas production from eastern fields

A director for Iran’s eastern gas fields said Tuesday production for the Iranian year should be in line with expectations of 2 billion cubic feet per day. Mohammad-Reza Mehdi-Pour, managing director of Iran’s East Oil and Gas Production Co., said gas fields along the eastern border produced as expected, the Oil Ministry’s official news agency Shana reported. He added gas production from the Khangiran and Gonbadli fields has outpaced regional refinery capacity by more than 10 percent. Iran is the third-largest natural gas producer in the world. Much of its production comes from the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf. Iran’s semiofficial Mehr News Agency reported Tuesday five of the 12 wells from phase 12 operations should begin in mid-April. Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Mansour Moazami said, however, China National Petroleum Corp. was at risk of losing its $4.7 billion contract for […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Iran Bank to Market Energy Fund to Foreign Investors, CEO Says

An Iranian bank plans to target foreigners with the first fund dedicated to investing in the country’s oil and gas industries, in anticipation of a further easing of sanctions against the Islamic republic. Kardan Investments is preparing to set up a Global Energy Fund to invest in projects to develop Iranian oil and natural gas fields and joint ventures between local and international oil companies, Chief Executive Officer Majid Zamani said in an interview in Tehran. Kardan will seek to sell shares in projects and ventures to institutional investors in Europe, he said. “ Iran ’s oil and gas industry needs a lot of investment, and not all of this can come from inside Iran,” Zamani, a former consultant to the Washington-based World Bank, said March 12. “A lot of it has to come from outside.” Sanctions imposed by the U.S. and European Union have deterred many foreign companies […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple