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Brent Falls Amid Speculation Price Gains Excessive; WTI Steady

Brent crude fell for a second day amid speculation that the biggest weekly rally since February on tension between Ukraine and Russia may be excessive. West Texas Intermediate was steady. Futures dropped as much as 0.5 percent in London . The U.S. and its European allies urged Russia to help calm the Ukraine crisis after four-nation talks produced an accord aimed at easing the worst standoff since the Cold War . WTI’s discount to Brent shrank as the Obama administration said it will postpone a ruling on the Keystone XL pipeline. “Oil futures went up quite a bit over the last week and now we’re seeing some selling,” Victor Shum , a vice president at IHS Energy Insight in Singapore, said by phone today. The Ukraine crisis “has added to geopolitical tension but no oil supply has been disrupted.” Brent for June settlement declined as much as 54 cents […]

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Iran Says It Would Redesign Heavy-Water Reactor as Concession to West

TEHRAN, Iran—Iran will redesign its Arak heavy water reactor to greatly limit the amount of plutonium it can make, the country’s vice president said on Saturday, marking a major concession from the Islamic Republic in negotiations with world powers over its contested nuclear program. The comments by Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi comes as the talks face an informal July 20 deadline to hammer out a final deal to limit Iran’s ability to build nuclear arms in exchange for ending the crippling economic sanctions it faces. Iranian state television quoted Mr. Salehi, who heads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, as saying Iran has proposed to redesign Arak to produce one-fifth of the plutonium initially planned for it. He said that will eliminate concerns the West has that Iran could use the plutonium produced at Arak to build a nuclear weapon. Mr. Salehi also said Iran has completed diluting […]

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14 Algerian soldiers killed in ambush

Attack on troops tasked with protecting polling stations appeared to carry message for returning president Insurgents ambushed an Algerian military convoy in the mountainous Kabylie region, killing 14 soldiers, the state news agency reported Sunday. The attack came two days after Algeria’s presidential election . The attack near the village of Iboudraren began at 10 p.m. Saturday with 11 soldiers being killed immediately and another three succumbing to their wounds, the agency said. A local official said a large group of insurgents hid on both sides of the road and opened fire with automatic weapons as the military bus drove by. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. The region has been the site of past clashes, including one three years ago that killed 13 soldiers at an army post. That attack was claimed by the Algeria-based Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. There […]

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China Premier Li Reiterates Plans to Boost Clean Energy

China, the world’s biggest investor in renewable energy, reiterated plans to boost construction of solar and wind power plants along with projects to transmit electricity from the clean sources. The nation will also start construction of some key nuclear power projects in eastern coastal areas and “reasonable” hydropower plants, according to comments from Premier Li Keqiang posted on the central government’s website. The statement reinforces China’s commitment to look for alternative sources of energy as the nation’s policy makers grapple with improving the nation’s air and water supplies. The world’s largest carbon emitter is planning the energy projects to stabilize growth and adjust its energy structure after Li declared war on smog in a speech last month, vowing to shut coal-fired furnaces among other measures. Beijing’s air quality failed to meet government standards 52 percent of the time last year, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said in March. Mainland […]

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Communist Party Strips China Resources Chairman of Leadership Position

BEIJING—The chairman of state-owned China Resources Holdings Co. has been stripped of his position as the firm’s Communist Party chief as part of a corruption investigation, state media said Saturday. The decision to dismiss Song Lin from his leadership position was made by the party’s Central Organization Department, the official Xinhua news agency said in a brief report. Xinhua didn’t give further details. The party’s internal corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said earlier in the week in a short statement that Mr. Song was being investigated for "suspected serious violations of discipline and law," phrasing Chinese authorities typically use to refer to suspected corruption. Representatives at the Hong Kong and Shenzhen offices of China Resources couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Mr. Song also couldn’t be reached for comment. In a statement posted to its website Friday, the company said that it was cooperating with the […]

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Japan posts largest-ever trade deficit

Japan suffered its largest-ever trade deficit last fiscal year, underlining a wrenching structural shift for an economy long renowned as an export powerhouse. The gap between the value of Japan’s exports and that of its imports grew by more than two-thirds in the 12 months through March, to Y13.7tn ($134bn), according to government data released on Monday. It was the third consecutive fiscal year of deficits, the longest streak since comparable records began in the 1970s. Toyota , Hitachi and other large Japanese companies have enjoyed soaring profits as a result of the weaker yen, which has fallen by a fifth against other major currencies since November 2012. But the improvement has come less from increased exports than from flattered exchange rates on overseas sales. Japanese export volumes have barely risen and the yen value of goods shipped to foreign markets has increased much more slowly than the value […]

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EPA drastically underestimates methane released at drilling sites

Drilling operations at several natural gas wells in southwestern Pennsylvania released methane into the atmosphere at rates that were 100 to 1,000 times greater than federal regulators had estimated, new research shows. Using a plane that was specially equipped to measure greenhouse gas emissions in the air, scientists found that drilling activities at seven well pads in the booming Marcellus shale formation emitted 34 grams of methane per second, on average. The Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that such drilling releases between 0.04 grams and 0.30 grams of methane per second. The study , published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, adds to a growing body of research that suggests the EPA is gravely underestimating methane emissions from oil and gas operations. The agency is expected to issue its own analysis of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector as early as Tuesday, which […]

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Keystone Pipeline Fate Now in Hands of Nebraskan Jurists

The focus of the Keystone XL debate has shifted from a fierce lobbying war in Washington to Lincoln, Nebraska , where the state Supreme Court has been asked to weigh a legal challenge to the pipeline. The U.S. State Department, which is responsible for reviewing whether the project is in the nation’s interest, said April 18 that it would delay making a recommendation until questions about the way the route was approved through the prairie state are resolved. That could spare President Barack Obama from having to decide on a project that splits supporters of his in the environmental and labor movements before an important congressional election in November. “Once again, the administration is making a political calculation instead of doing what is right for the country,” Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America , said in an e-mail. “It’s clear the administration needs […]

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U.S. Gasoline Prices Rise to 13-Month High in Lundberg Survey

The average price for regular gasoline at U.S. pumps jumped 8.5 cents in the past two weeks to a 13-month high of $3.6918 a gallon, according to Lundberg Survey Inc. The survey covers the period ended April 18 and is based on information obtained at about 2,500 filling stations by the Camarillo, California-based company. Prices are the highest since March 22, 2013. The average is 15.55 cents higher than a year ago, Lundberg said. Gasoline has risen 39.74 cents a gallon since bottoming out in February and is up 43 cents this year. “The most important factor right now in this rise is crude oil, which rose by a very similar amount to the street-price move,” Trilby Lundberg , the president of Lundberg Survey, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “From here, we will probably see very little increase, if any, with the big caveat of course being crude. […]

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Daimler/BYD Joint Venture Unveil Plans for All-Electric Car for China

BEIJING— AG , the German automotive group, Sunday unveiled plans to build an all-electric vehicle with its Chinese partner , a further sign foreign operators are under pressure to meet demands by the Chinese government for a massive increase in electric cars to fight air pollution. The Chinese government has a target of putting 500,000 electric or plug-in hybrid cars on the road by 2015, but the industry would have to sell about 450,000 plug-in cars during the next two years to achieve that target. The shortfall is putting more pressure on auto makers to step up investments in electrified vehicles—such as the Daimler-BYD cars. Thomas Weber, Daimler’s board member in charge of research and development, told reporters that this new model is "undoubtedly one key pillar of our electric vehicle strategy for China." The new electric car, called the Denza, is entitled to subsidies from both the central […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple