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Iraqi army to retake Fallujah dam: MP

Iraq will deploy its air force to retake the Fallujah dam after it was captured by armed groups who cut off water supplies to several parts of the country, an MP said Wednesday. "Security forces might launch an operation – tonight or within the next few days – to reopen the Fallujah dam, seized by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) group, which cut off [water] supplies to much of the southern and central provinces," Hassan al-Sanid, head of parliament’s security committee, told Anadolu Agency. "The operation will employ aircraft to conduct limited strikes on ISIL hideouts," he added. "The ISIL hopes to flood Fallujah with water during the [annual] inundation of the Euphrates River… and cut off water to the southern and central provinces," al-Sanid asserted. Iraqi government troops have been pursuing ISIL militants – who the government says […]

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Violence kills 15 in Iraq

Shootings and bombings in Iraq killed at least 15 people Thursday, officials said, as the country struggles with rampant violence ahead of parliamentary elections at the end of the month. The country is suffering from a protracted surge in bloodshed that has killed more than 2,500 people this year and sparked fears Iraq is slipping back into the all-out sectarian fighting of 2006-2007. The unrest has been driven principally by complaints among the Sunni Arab minority of mistreatment by the Shiite-led government and security forces, and by the civil war in neighbouring Syria. In Thursday’s deadliest single incident, gunmen opened fire on a group of young Shiite men in Khales, north of Baghdad, and killed five of them, a police colonel and a doctor said. Fundamentalist Sunni militants frequently target members of Iraq’s Shiite majority, whom they consider apostates. In a […]

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Militant Bombs Stop Iraq Oil for a Record 40 days

Militants whose bombs have shut Iraq’s main northern oil export pipeline for 40 days are preventing repairs, threatening to extend an outage that is already the longest since the days of sanctions in the 1990s. Targeting the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline where it crosses a stretch of desert known as Ain al-Jahash, or Donkey Springs, the saboteurs – described as Islamists by Iraqi officials – have set several more bombs since a first blast halted oil on March 2. Significantly for an Iraqi government hoping for a big rise in exports this year – and long used to brief halts on the route to the Mediterranean – gunmen have also massacred repair crews, prompting oil executives in Mosul to question optimism in Baghdad that the pipeline should be back in action next week. “We have decided to stop all repair operations in Ain al-Jahash until we are sure our crews won’t […]

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OPEC gives poor marks for Kazakhstan's Kashagan field

While oil supply from Kazakhstan has increased, its giant Kashagan oil field has "sucked in" major capital with little to show for it, OPEC said Thursday. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said in its monthly market report oil supply from Kazakhstan increased by 60,000 barrels per day year-on-year to average 1.64 million bpd. Kazakhstan hosts Kashagan, one of the largest oil fields in the world, with an estimated 16 billion barrels of oil reserves. Production was halted in October, less than a month after it started, when a pipeline associated with the field cracked open. OPEC said final results from pipeline inspections aren’t due until second quarter 2014, though the project has already consumed substantial investments. "The giant Kashagan project has sucked in almost $50 billion without yielding a barrel of oil," OPEC said in its market report. The North Caspian Operation Co. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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OPEC gives poor marks for Kazakhstan’s Kashagan field

While oil supply from Kazakhstan has increased, its giant Kashagan oil field has "sucked in" major capital with little to show for it, OPEC said Thursday. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said in its monthly market report oil supply from Kazakhstan increased by 60,000 barrels per day year-on-year to average 1.64 million bpd. Kazakhstan hosts Kashagan, one of the largest oil fields in the world, with an estimated 16 billion barrels of oil reserves. Production was halted in October, less than a month after it started, when a pipeline associated with the field cracked open. OPEC said final results from pipeline inspections aren’t due until second quarter 2014, though the project has already consumed substantial investments. "The giant Kashagan project has sucked in almost $50 billion without yielding a barrel of oil," OPEC said in its market report. The North Caspian Operation Co. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Venezuelan Leader and Opposition Meet in Bid to Ease Tensions

President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and leaders of a coalition of opposition political parties held a dramatic televised meeting on Thursday in a first step aimed at defusing tensions that have escalated during more than two months of antigovernment protests. The meeting was brokered by a group of South American foreign ministers who exerted pressure on both sides to come to the table in the hopes of averting further violence in the protests, which have cost 40 lives, according to a government count. Underscoring the urgency of the situation, local news media reported that a police officer in Barquisimeto, a city in western Venezuela, died after being shot on Wednesday night in a confrontation that appeared to be linked to a protest. The ministers were trying to get Venezuelans to do what they had not been able to do on their own: bridge the country’s bitter political rift. Although […]

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Mexico bets $1.4 billion on Asian markets: Pemex

Mexico plans to build a $1.4 billion "energy corridor" between the Gulf Coast and the Pacific, state energy company Pemex said Thursday, in what appears to be part of a drive to reduce the country’s dependence on the US market. Pemex said the strategy is based on linking the nation’s concentration of oil and gas production on the Gulf Coast with potential markets in Asia, Central and South America. The corridor would run along the Isthmus of Tehuantepec between the Gulf Coast oil and petrochemicals port of Pajaritos and Salina Cruz, the only Mexican oil port on the Pacific Coast. Article continues below… Request a free trial of: Oilgram News Oilgram News brings you fast-breaking global petroleum and gas news on and including: Industry players, upstream and downstream markets, refineries, midstream transportation and financial reports Supply and demand trends, government actions, exploration and […]

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China consumer prices rise, but industry deflation persists

China’s consumer inflation rate increased in March as fresh food prices jumped, but persistent deflation in the industrial sector was another signal of weak demand and slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy. The consumer price index (CPI) rose 2.4 percent in March from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday, more from a 2.0 percent rise in February but just below the median forecast in a Reuters poll. Fresh food prices were a major contributor, with fruit prices up an annual 17.3 percent and vegetables up 12.9 percent, although analysts said food inflation was showing signs of moderating. Pork prices fell 6.7 percent from a year earlier. Producer prices fell in annual terms for the 25th straight month, dropping 2.3 percent, slightly more than expected. "Overall, we expect inflation pressures to remain benign amid tepid domestic demand," Barclays economists said in […]

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China slowdown concerns reinforced by falling prices

Falling prices in China have reinforced fears of the slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy , highlighting sluggish consumer demand and the struggles of over-extended factories. Consumer prices fell 0.5 per cent in March from the previous month, while producer prices remained mired in deflationary territory for a 25th-consecutive month, according to figures published by the national bureau of statistics on Friday. Coming on the heels of weak trade figures , slower credit issuance and big declines in property sales, the price data reinforces the picture of a disappointing first quarter for the world’s second-largest economy. Analysts have rushed to downgrade their forecasts for Chinese growth and now predict that the economy will expand 7.4 per cent this year, its softest in more than two decades. The downturn has fuelled expectations that the government will prop up growth, but Li Keqiang, the premier, on Thursday rebuffed calls for […]

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Excessive benzene found in NW China tap water

Tap water in downtown Lanzhou has been found to contain excessive levels of benzene, provincial authorities said on Friday. Tests carried out in the early hours of Friday showed that tap water contained 200 micrograms of benzene per liter, far exceeding the national limit of 10 micrograms per liter, according to the city’s environmental protection office. (Xinhua/Guo Gang) LANZHOU, April 11 (Xinhua) — More than 2.4 million people in downtown Lanzhou, northwest China’s Gansu Province, have been affected by tap water found to contain excessive levels of benzene, provincial authorities said on Friday. Tests carried out in the early hours of Friday showed that local tap water contained 200 micrograms of benzene per liter, far exceeding the national limit of 10 micrograms per liter, according to the city’s environmental protection office. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple