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EU Puts Brakes on Russia Natural Gas Pipelines

The European Union has slammed the brakes on two big Russian pipeline projects to supply more natural gas to Europe, as part of its efforts to turn up the heat on Moscow over its incursion into Crimea. The move will deal a blow to Russia’s ambitions of increasing its gas exports and bypassing Ukraine as a transit country. It comes as the 28-country bloc is weighing other options to reduce its dependence on Russian natural gas, which accounts for over a third of EU supplies. Six EU countries, including Bulgaria and Lithuania, depend exclusively on Russia for natural gas. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said this week that it would freeze high-level talks on South Stream, a pipeline that aims to carry up to 15% of Europe’s annual gas demand via the Black Sea. It is due to be completed by 2018. The commission warned last year […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Ukraine: Challenging the pipelines narrative

Of course it is all about surrounding the last truly free countries that can actually stop the Empire. Russia and China. If they can get Russia out of their Crimean navy base, they have locked them into only North Atlantic/Arctic/North Pacific Ocean access. Plus, it allows NATO (US) missiles to be based on Russia’s border. If they (the Elite) think that Russia is going to give it up without a fight, they are badly mistaken or what I see is totally BS. This could eventually bring out the nukes as Obama has already said he will strike first if he wants to. Putin may just beat him to the red button. I give it 50:50 at this point. Another Cuban missile crises in the works. Are you prepared? Arthur on Wed, 12th Mar 2014 […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil drops below $99 on China slowdown jitters

The price of oil dropped below $99 a barrel Wednesday as the possibility of a deeper economic slowdown in China fed expectations of weaker demand. Benchmark U.S. crude for April delivery was down $1.34 to $98.70 at 1030 GMT in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract dropped $1.09 to close at $100.03 a barrel Tuesday. China’s lower exports in February have fueled worries of a further slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy, which would tamp down demand for energy. China’s economic growth of 7.7 percent last year was the lowest in two decades. Oil prices have been dropping after being pushed higher last week by fears that Russia’s military incursion into the Crimean peninsula might lead to U.S. and European sanctions on one of the world’s largest energy suppliers. Expectations of larger U.S. stockpiles and potential weaker demand as winter ends later brought futures back […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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WTI Falls as Crude Stocks Rise, Widens Discount to Brent

West Texas Intermediate dropped to its lowest intraday level in almost five weeks, widening its discount to Brent amid rising crude inventories in the U.S. WTI declined as much as 1.4 percent in New York , expanding the discount to the European benchmark to $9 a barrel for the first time since Feb. 17. Crude stockpiles expanded by 2.63 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute said yesterday. An Energy Information Administration report today may show supplies climbed by 2 million, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts. Brent’s losses were capped amid instability in Libya , holder of Africa ’s biggest reserves. “You have rising inventories, especially crude inventories, in the U.S.,” said Andy Sommer, an analyst at Axpo Trading AG in Dietikon, Switzerland , said by phone. “The refinery maintenance season, which is pretty heavy in the U.S., is ahead of us. The forecast is […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Natural Gas Sags as End of Winter Nears

Natural gas fell Tuesday as market watchers anticipated the end of winter, when demand for the heating fuel is expected to subside. Natural gas for April delivery settled down 4.6 cents, or 1%, at $4.605 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices soared above $6/mmBtu last month as frigid temperatures fueled unusually strong demand for gas-powered indoor heating. About half of U.S. households use natural gas as their primary heating fuel, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Concerns about natural-gas supplies amid the unusually cold weather led to wild swings in the market, with prices moving 5% or more on 16 days in January and February. This month, on the other hand, has yet to see prices […]

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Kurdistan Authorities, NGOs Struggle to Cope With Influx of Anbar Refugees

An hour after giving birth in Iraq’s war-torn Anbar province, 16-year-old Heyan Hussein was bundled into a vehicle with her newborn baby and whisked north to the city of Kalar in the Kurdistan Region, the only peaceful portion of Iraq which has become a last haven for tens of thousands of refugees from all parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria.  “I left the city of Fallujah (in Anbar) 15 days ago, one hour after my son was born,” the teenager said, clutching her baby as she stood in line with her parents at a food distribution carried out by two foreign non-governmental organization (NGO). “My husband is still there with his own parents. There was no room for him to come with us,” she explained. Hussein stressed that the Iraqi government was not differentiating between civilians and the terrorists they are fighting, a sentiment […]

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Libya’s Prime Minister Ousted in Chaos Over Tanker

Libya’s transitional Parliament voted on Tuesday to remove its prime minister as his government conceded that despite days of bluster it was powerless to stop a tanker from sailing away with an illicit shipment of Libyan oil. The ouster of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan underscored the explosive danger of loss of control over Libya’s petroleum, the lifeblood of its economy. With negligible military or police forces, oil revenue has been the last bargaining chip for the weak transitional government in its struggle to subdue the fractious local militia and tribes that took up arms during the rebellion that overthrew Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi . The tanker escaped with the oil in defiance of military threats from Tripoli and legal warnings from Washington, and its voyage has evoked the lawlessness that prevailed on the same coast two centuries ago, when Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison sent the Marines […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Political Killings Still Plaguing Post-Qaddafi Libya

People opposing an extension of the national government’s powers blocked a main street in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi last month.” data-mediaviewer-credit=”Abdullah Doma/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images” data-mediaviewer-src=”http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/03/12/world/TRIPOLI/TRIPOLI-superJumbo.jpg” itemid=”http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/03/12/world/TRIPOLI/TRIPOLI-master675.jpg” itemprop=”url” src=”http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/03/12/world/TRIPOLI/TRIPOLI-master675.jpg”> TRIPOLI, Libya — For Judge Jamal Bennour, one of the leaders of the Libyan uprising, the day the revolution turned sour was when his friend and fellow lawyer, Abdul-Salam al-Musmari, was shot dead in front of him. It was last July, nearly two years after the two had helped topple Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and a year since they had left government, ceding power to the General National Congress. The two friends had lingered after Friday Prayer in their mosque in Benghazi, and were walking home when a man leaned out of a passing four-wheel-drive car and shot Mr. Musmari in the chest. “It was just a moment,” his friend said. “We lost Abdul-Salam. It […]

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Libya's ousted PM leaves country despite ban

Libya’s ousted prime minister has left the country despite a ban on travel, hours after parliament removed him from office in a no-confidence vote. Officials in Tripoli on Wednesday could not confirm the departure of Ali Zidan, Libya’s first democratically chosen leader who had struggled for 15 months to stem the country’s spiraling descent into chaos. But in nearby Malta, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told state-owned television that Zidan had made a brief stop-over on the Mediterranean island late on Tuesday, before traveling on. The Western-backed Zidan was ousted in a parliament vote on Tuesday as Libya faces a series of crises, including an escalation over oil ports seized by an eastern militia. Soon after parliament voted, Libya’s general prosecutor banned Zidan from travel pending an investigation into corruption allegations.

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Libya’s ousted PM leaves country despite ban

Libya’s ousted prime minister has left the country despite a ban on travel, hours after parliament removed him from office in a no-confidence vote. Officials in Tripoli on Wednesday could not confirm the departure of Ali Zidan, Libya’s first democratically chosen leader who had struggled for 15 months to stem the country’s spiraling descent into chaos. But in nearby Malta, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told state-owned television that Zidan had made a brief stop-over on the Mediterranean island late on Tuesday, before traveling on. The Western-backed Zidan was ousted in a parliament vote on Tuesday as Libya faces a series of crises, including an escalation over oil ports seized by an eastern militia. Soon after parliament voted, Libya’s general prosecutor banned Zidan from travel pending an investigation into corruption allegations.

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple