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BP Loses Bid to Stall Spill Payments During Appeal

BP Plc (BP/) must pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damage claims while it seeks U.S. Supreme Court review of disputed payments in its $9.2 billion accord over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a court ruled. The U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans rejected the U.K.-based energy company’s request to maintain a temporary halt on payments to businesses that can’t prove they were directly damaged by the spill. BP settled with most private-party plaintiffs in 2012, initially estimating the cost of the agreement at $7.8 billion. The company contends a flawed interpretation by the claims administrator helped raise the price to $9.2 billion or more. A trial judge in December suspended payments to all businesses harmed by the spill, even those with losses unquestionably linked to the disaster, while the appeals court weighed BP’s concerns. On May 19, the court refused to reconsider its earlier […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Are We Underestimating America's Fracking Boom?

Start with exotic Nazi technology, take a detour with South African apartheidists, and add a bit role for Iranian imams. What you have is—what else? —one of the most improbable and important American business stories of the past decade. It’s the tale of a company called , the former South African state oil company, which is embarking on what could be the single-largest foreign investment project in U.S. history. Sasol is building a 3,034-acre energy complex near a bayou in Lake Charles, La. Tapping into cheap, fracked natural gas as well as the pipeline and shipping infrastructure along the Gulf Coast, Sasol plans to spend as much as $21 billion there. It is expensive, elaborate and dirty work. Sasol plans to reduce, or "crack," the gas into ethylene, a raw chemical used in plastics, paints and food packaging. It also plans to convert the gas into high-quality diesel and […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Are We Underestimating America’s Fracking Boom?

Start with exotic Nazi technology, take a detour with South African apartheidists, and add a bit role for Iranian imams. What you have is—what else? —one of the most improbable and important American business stories of the past decade. It’s the tale of a company called , the former South African state oil company, which is embarking on what could be the single-largest foreign investment project in U.S. history. Sasol is building a 3,034-acre energy complex near a bayou in Lake Charles, La. Tapping into cheap, fracked natural gas as well as the pipeline and shipping infrastructure along the Gulf Coast, Sasol plans to spend as much as $21 billion there. It is expensive, elaborate and dirty work. Sasol plans to reduce, or "crack," the gas into ethylene, a raw chemical used in plastics, paints and food packaging. It also plans to convert the gas into high-quality diesel and […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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How Local Governments Lead the Way on Energy Policy

The U.S. federal government is failing its citizens by not developing a comprehensive energy policy that ensures secure, economical and reliable energy over the long term. But while our federal officials flounder in fear and partisan dysfunction, local leaders across the political spectrum are taking on the challenge, breaking dependence on conventional energy sources, and liberating their communities with efficiency and renewable energy technologies. States like California and Maine have passed laws limiting the building of new coal plants, while cities like Los Angeles and Dallas have joined many others to pass moratoria and bans on fracking. No one knows how to safely store nuclear waste, which coupled with the staggering costs of building new reactors and fixing old ones, is also forcing a decline in nuclear power. While some communities say no to polluting fossil energy, increasingly others are saying yes to renewable-energy […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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BP faces resumption of Deepwater Horizon compensation payments

BP is close to being forced to restart contentious compensation payments under its settlement for victims of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster , after a federal appeals court rejected its call to keep an injunction in place. The Fifth Circuit appeals court on Tuesday denied a request from BP to maintain a block on payments to businesses while the US Supreme Court decided whether to take on the case over the settlement. The company said it was “disappointed” by the decision, and planned a second appeal to the Supreme Court to try to avoid being forced to resume the disputed payments. BP argues that the deal it agreed in 2012 has been misinterpreted by Patrick Juneau, the court-appointed claims administrator, to allow businesses that suffered no loss as a result of the oil spill to receive compensation. Payments for business losses were suspended by a court order last October, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Russians Revealed Among Ukraine Fighters

For weeks, rumors have flown about the foreign fighters involved in the deepening conflict in Ukraine’s troubled east, each one stranger than the last: mercenaries from an American company, Blackwater; Russian special forces; and even Chechen soldiers of fortune. Yet there they were on Tuesday afternoon, resting outside a hospital here: Chechen men with automatic rifles, some bearing bloodstained bandages, protecting their wounded comrades in a city hospital after a firefight with the Ukrainian Army. “We received an invitation to help our brothers,” said one of the fighters in heavily accented Russian. He said he was from Grozny and had fought in the Chechen War that began in 1999. He said he arrived here last week with several dozen men to join a pro-Russian militia group. The scene at the hospital was new evidence that fighters from Russia are an increasingly visible part of the conflict […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Russian Gas Deliveries to Europe to Continue Uninterrupted

Russian natural gas deliveries to Europe ‎should continue uninterrupted in June as commercial disputes between Russia and Ukraine can be resolved in short order, Europe’s commissioner for energy said on Tuesday. "I’m quite optimistic we can [regarding to Europe] in the next days," Günther Oettinger said in Prague after meeting with the Czech foreign minister. Russia has threatened to halt European Union-bound ‎ due to its failure to pay for deliveries between November and May. The stoppage could be averted however by a compromise solut‎ion in which Ukraine pays part of its outstanding bill as a show of good faith while it negotiates a new price for future deliveries. The future price should be closer to the market price that Russia’s OAO Gazprom charges its EU customers, he said. To limit the risk to EU energy security, Mr. Oettinger said the bloc and member states should bolster gas storage […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Ukrainian Forces Inflict Rebel Losses After Poroshenko Win

Ukraine’s government said it will press on with military operations against pro-Russian rebel fighters after its forces retook Donetsk airport and inflicted “significant” losses on the separatists. Troops killed “dozens” of rebels in Donetsk without suffering any losses, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said yesterday, while the mayor’s office in the eastern city said 40 people died and 31 were wounded. President-elect Petro Poroshenko has vowed to wipe out the rebels and re-establish order across Ukraine after winning office May 25. He must stabilize a shrinking economy and confront separatists who’ve captured swaths of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. They’ve declared themselves independent and are fighting to join Russia, which annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in March. “The elections showed that the voters are tired of ongoing violence, giving the new president a mandate to act in a forceful way to put an end to this,” Arkady Moshes , head of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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EU, Russia, Ukraine propose deal to break gas impasse

BRUSSELS, May 27 (UPI) –Russian energy company Gazprom agrees to keep gas flowing through Ukraine for June without pre-payment from Ukraine, the European Union said. European Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger met with Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and his Ukrainian counterpart, Yuri Prodan, to settle lingering issues in the Ukrainian natural gas sector. The European Commission said Monday " substantial progress " has been made, though there were no major breakthroughs. Russian energy company Gazprom said Ukraine would have to pay in advance for natural gas unless it settles a multi-billion dollar gas bill. Ukraine hosts the bulk of Russia’s gas delivered for Europe and the stalemate has put the region’s energy security at risk. The European Commission said Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz agrees to pay $2 billion by Friday and another $500 million by June 7 to settle its outstanding debts. "Gazprom agrees to continue to supply gas […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Ukrainian Forces Inflict Rebel Losses After Poroshenko Win

Ukraine’s government said it will press on with military operations against pro-Russian rebel fighters after its forces retook Donetsk airport and inflicted “significant” losses on the separatists. Troops killed “dozens” of rebels in Donetsk without suffering any losses, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said yesterday, while the mayor’s office in the eastern city said 40 people died and 31 were wounded. President-elect Petro Poroshenko has vowed to wipe out the rebels and re-establish order across Ukraine after winning office May 25. He must stabilize a shrinking economy and confront separatists who’ve captured swaths of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. They’ve declared themselves independent and are fighting to join Russia, which annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in March. “The elections showed that the voters are tired of ongoing violence, giving the new president a mandate to act in a forceful way to put an end to this,” Arkady Moshes , head of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple