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Libyan parliament sacks PM after tanker escapes rebel-held port

Libya’s parliament voted Prime Minister Ali Zeidan out of office on Tuesday after rebels humiliated the government by loading crude on a tanker that fled from naval forces, officials said, in a sign of the worsening chaos in the OPEC member state. Libyan gunboats later chased the tanker along Libya’s eastern Mediterranean coast and opened fire, damaging it, a military spokesman said. Italian naval ships were helping move the tanker to a Libyan government-controlled port, he said. But Italy denied any of its vessels were in the area at the time and the reported firing incident could not be confirmed. Western powers fear the vast North African state could even break apart with the government struggling to rein in armed militias and tribesmen who helped oust dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 but want to grab power and oil revenues. Zeidan, a liberal weakened for months by […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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China Slowdown Is Rocking Raw Materials

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in April traded at $99.41 a barrel at 0455 GMT, down $0.62 in the Globex electronic session. April Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange fell $0.31 to $108.24 a barrel. Nymex WTI crude extended losses and traded below $100 a barrel while Brent crude gave up overnight gains and moved into negative territory as concerns over a slowdown in China dominated market sentiment. "Global risk sentiment remained somewhat fragile on the back of lingering concerns over Chinese GDP growth," Singapore-based OCBC Bank said in a report. The slide in oil prices wasn’t as pronounced as prices of industrial metals like copper. Markets expect China’s industrial production data due on Thursday to provide more cues. China’s fuel consumption has been increasingly driven by the transport sector and industrial fuels like diesel has seen limited growth with oil […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Fears Spread That Venezuela Is Approaching Bloody Face-Off

The gunmen descended a street on Monday night toward a park taken over by student demonstrators in the western city of San Cristóbal, the crucible of the protests that have shaken Venezuela . They opened fire, and a 23-year-old student leader, Daniel Tinoco, fell. Hit in the upper body, he died before he got to a hospital, fellow protesters said. Less than a week earlier, in Caracas, someone opened fire and killed a 25-year-old soldier, Acner López, who was riding on a motorcycle. Residents said he was in a group of soldiers shooting tear gas at demonstrators and apartment buildings. The shot that killed him, investigators believe, came from someone in one of the apartments. These two deaths, among more than 20 that the government says are linked to over a month of protests, are emblematic of a spiral of violence that people on both sides […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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California Gov. Jerry Brown Faces Protests Over Fracking as Epic Drought Looms

California Gov. Jerry Brown is having a hard time maintaining his green image. Like President Obama, Brown has stumped about the dangers of climate change and the need to take action. But Brown’s message runs afoul of his own actions to open California to more oil and gas drilling enabled by hydraulic fracturing and other extreme extraction methods. Demonstrators protested the governor and the president’s hypocrisy on the issue of fracking (Obama’s been singing the praises of natural gas) when the two were part of a climate change task force (or “task farce” as demonstrators made clear) in Los Angeles last month. It’s not the first time Brown has come under attack since signing SB4 in September, a law to regulate fracking in California. Supporters of SB4, introduced by Fran Pavley, have called it the “toughest law in the country” (though it’s an extremely low bar) but opponents say […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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EIA: Harsh winter affected US heating expenditures, oil production

Worldwide liquids fuels consumption will increased by 1.2 million b/d this year and by 1.4 million b/d in 2015, according to the latest outlook from the US Energy Information Administration. In last month’s Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA projected that global oil demand would climb by 1.3 million b/d in 2014 and 1.4 million b/d in 2015. The outlook for this year sees countries outside of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) accounting for all consumption growth in 2014 and nearly all of the growth in 2015. EIA expects lower OECD consumption in 2014, led by projected consumption declines in both Japan and Europe. “China is expected to see the biggest jump in petroleum demand this year, with consumption increasing by 400,000 b/d. Japan and Europe are forecast to lead the decline in oil demand this year among industrialized countries as a group, with consumption falling by […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Is the Propane 'Shortage' Really a Shortage?

Thanks to this past winter’s infamous "polar vortex" low-pressure system that has driven Arctic air farther southward than usual, even the U.S. Gulf Coast experienced a succession of winter storms.  Americans living in higher latitudes have had to endure repeated bouts of extraordinarily frigid temperatures. For those in the Midwest and Northeast, prices for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) – or propane – surged this winter as supplies tightened. Government officials and media reports labeled the supply situation – which has eased in the past few weeks – a propane "shortage," but the propane industry has countered that the country’s overall supply of propane is actually strong. In fact, the United States became a net exporter of LPG in 2012 – a status it had last attained in the early 1980s. Instead, a veritable "perfect storm" of factors has limited the distribution of LPG to customers in the Midwest and […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Is the Propane ‘Shortage’ Really a Shortage?

Thanks to this past winter’s infamous "polar vortex" low-pressure system that has driven Arctic air farther southward than usual, even the U.S. Gulf Coast experienced a succession of winter storms.  Americans living in higher latitudes have had to endure repeated bouts of extraordinarily frigid temperatures. For those in the Midwest and Northeast, prices for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) – or propane – surged this winter as supplies tightened. Government officials and media reports labeled the supply situation – which has eased in the past few weeks – a propane "shortage," but the propane industry has countered that the country’s overall supply of propane is actually strong. In fact, the United States became a net exporter of LPG in 2012 – a status it had last attained in the early 1980s. Instead, a veritable "perfect storm" of factors has limited the distribution of LPG to customers in the Midwest and […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Natural gas output rising in five of six biggest US shale plays in April: EIA

Production in the Permian Basin is expected to increase by 39,000 Mcf/d to 5.369 Bcf/d in April from projected March output of 5.330 Bcf/d. Month-over-month gas output is projected to fall in one of the basins studied. In the Haynesville Shale play, gas production is expected to fall by 76 Mcf/d to 6.390 Bcf/d in April from 6.466 Bcf/d in March. The EIA report also shows that average per-rig gas production will increase in five of the six basins studied. The report projects that per-rig gas output in the Bakken Shale will increase by 9 Mcf/d to 497 Mcf/d in April from 488 Mcf/d in March. Per-rig production in the Eagle Ford Shale is expected to increase 8 Mcf/d to 1,280 Mcf/d in April from March gas output of 1,272 Mcf/d. In the Haynesville Shale, production from an average rig is expected to increase by 25 Mcf/d in April […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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US refinery runs to hit record high in 2014, as domestic production grows: EIA

The ability of the US refining sector to absorb burgeoning domestic production, particularly from areas like the Bakken and Eagle Ford that are heavily slanted towards light, sweet crude, is likely to be a central focus of the debate over whether to lift US restrictions on crude oil exports. Many producers have warned that the US will soon be oversupplied with light crude, as the bulk of the US refinery system is optimized to take heavier oil. Without the ability to export crude, US production could be shut in, producers say. But some refiners, who are opposed to lifting the de facto ban on exports, say they are rapidly adjusting their infrastructure to process lighter slates and that fears of an upcoming crude glut in the US are overblown. The US largely bans exports of crude under restrictions imposed by Congress in the wake of the 1973 Arab oil […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Chesapeake Accused of Underpaying Gas Royalties

Pennsylvanians who embraced the natural-gas drilling boom that has swept the state are starting to sour on one of the biggest names in the business: Chesapeake Energy Corp. Some property owners are accusing Chesapeake of shortchanging them on royalty payments for pumping oil and gas from their land. The public outcry has grown so loud that Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, a longtime industry supporter who has received campaign contributions from the company, wrote an open letter last month asking the state attorney general to investigate. Chesapeake declined to comment on the royalty disputes, but said in a recent letter to the governor that it is abiding by the terms of its contracts with landowners. In Bradford County, a rural area in northern Pennsylvania where a lot of the drilling has taken place, anti-Chesapeake sentiment is running high, said Doug McLinko, a county commissioner. "Bradford County is a pro-gas part […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple