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Dozens dead as car bombs rock Baghdad and Mosul

Baghdad Attacks across Iraq, including a spate of car bombs in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul, killed 63 people yesterday in the bloodiest violence to hit Iraq since April elections. The worst of the blasts went off during the evening and left dozens of people wounded, fuelling fears a protracted surge in violence is pushing Iraq back into the brutal communal conflict that left tens of thousands dead in 2006 and 2007. Separate deadly sets of car bombs hit both the Iraqi capital and Mosul, in the north, in the evening. In Baghdad’s deadliest attack, a suicide car bomb exploded in the mainly Shia neighbourhood of Kadhimiyah in north Baghdad, killing at least 16 people […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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At least 54 killed in Iraqi violence

Violence rocked Iraq on Wednesday as at least 54 people died in car bombings, suicide attacks and assassinations around the country. The bloodshed hit mostly Shi’ite sections of Baghdad and the troubled northern city of Mosul, where an al Qaeda breakaway faction, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), holds sway. The bombings and killings were a reminder in the month since national elections were held that the pace of bloodshed has shown no signs of diminishing In one attack in Baghdad’s Sadr City, a minivan pulled into a line of taxis and the driver abandoned the vehicle minutes before it exploded, police said. Four people were killed and 14 were wounded, police and medical sources said. “People started shouting, ‘Where is the driver?’,” a witness said, describing the minutes before the blast. The witness spoke on condition of anonymity. Another 22 people died […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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"Will continue exporting oil, not yielding to Baghdad", Kurdish spokesman

Kurdish spokesman Sifin Muhsen Di’za’i announced today that the Kurdish region will continue exporting oil and will benefit from the revenues to provide the salaries of the Kurdish officials. He confirmed in a statement today, copy received by Aswat al-Iraq, that the Kurdish region will not yield to Baghdad. Di’za’i re-iterated that the Kurdish region is continuing peaceful dialogue to find a solution to this problem with Baghdad. He added that the Kurdish region needs to export 400-500 thousand b/d to meet its necessary needs, but confirmed that it will not be easy. Di’za’i disclosed that the last visit of Kurdish Premier Njirvan Barzani to European counties was to get some loans to pay governmental salaries. The selling of the Kurdish oil stirred again the differences between Baghdad and Arbil. Number of Reads: 990

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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“Will continue exporting oil, not yielding to Baghdad”, Kurdish spokesman

Kurdish spokesman Sifin Muhsen Di’za’i announced today that the Kurdish region will continue exporting oil and will benefit from the revenues to provide the salaries of the Kurdish officials. He confirmed in a statement today, copy received by Aswat al-Iraq, that the Kurdish region will not yield to Baghdad. Di’za’i re-iterated that the Kurdish region is continuing peaceful dialogue to find a solution to this problem with Baghdad. He added that the Kurdish region needs to export 400-500 thousand b/d to meet its necessary needs, but confirmed that it will not be easy. Di’za’i disclosed that the last visit of Kurdish Premier Njirvan Barzani to European counties was to get some loans to pay governmental salaries. The selling of the Kurdish oil stirred again the differences between Baghdad and Arbil. Number of Reads: 990

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil-Tinged Graft Scandal Roils Mexico

Over the past decade, Amado Yáñez Osuna gained a reputation throughout Mexico as a highflying CEO with good political ties. He turned up at events with prominent ruling-party members, and lent his private jet to party officials. But then the party lost power. On Thursday, officials arrested Mr. Yáñez and charged him with violating banking laws. Authorities say his company, oil services firm Oceanografía, defrauded Banamex, the Mexican unit of U.S. banking giant Citigroup , of about $400 million. Citigroup has already fired 12 employees in Mexico for failing to detect the alleged fraud, which was tied to alleged fake documents from state-owned oil firm Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex. The arrest deepens a scandal that has sent shock waves across Mexico’s political landscape. That […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Mexico's energy ministry projects rapid near-term growth of natural gas imports from U.S.

Source: Mexican national energy ministry SENER, 2013 natural gas market prospectus Note: All pipeline imports are from the United States. Gross imports equal net imports beginning in 2013. Logistical pipeline imports are imports from the United States to regions of northern Mexico that have no access to any other sources of natural gas. PGPB is the natural gas subsidiary of national oil company Pemex. A combination of higher natural gas demand from Mexico’s industrial and electric power sectors and increased U.S. natural gas production has resulted in a doubling of U.S. pipeline exports of natural gas to Mexico between 2009 and 2013. Mexico’s national energy ministry, SENER, projects that U.S. pipeline exports to Mexico will reach 3.8 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2018. This would be more than double U.S. pipeline exports to Mexico in 2013, which averaged 1.8 Bcf/d . This projected growth is driven mainly […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Mexico’s energy ministry projects rapid near-term growth of natural gas imports from U.S.

Source: Mexican national energy ministry SENER, 2013 natural gas market prospectus Note: All pipeline imports are from the United States. Gross imports equal net imports beginning in 2013. Logistical pipeline imports are imports from the United States to regions of northern Mexico that have no access to any other sources of natural gas. PGPB is the natural gas subsidiary of national oil company Pemex. A combination of higher natural gas demand from Mexico’s industrial and electric power sectors and increased U.S. natural gas production has resulted in a doubling of U.S. pipeline exports of natural gas to Mexico between 2009 and 2013. Mexico’s national energy ministry, SENER, projects that U.S. pipeline exports to Mexico will reach 3.8 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2018. This would be more than double U.S. pipeline exports to Mexico in 2013, which averaged 1.8 Bcf/d . This projected growth is driven mainly […]

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Shell signs 20-year LNG deal with Japan

The third largest electric company in Japan, Chubu Electric Power Co., will start receiving liquefied natural gas under a 20-year deal, Shell said Thursday. "Shell has a long history of supplying natural gas to Japan, and this agreement demonstrates our continued commitment to the country," Maarten Wetselaar, executive vice president for Shell’s integrated gas, said in a statement Thursday. Shell’s first LNG sales agreement with Chubu, made through the Dutch company’s Singapore-based subsidiary Shell Eastern Trading Ltd., calls for up to 12 deliveries a year, or about 720,000 tons, starting in October. Shell didn’t say from where the LNG would be sourced specifically. Japan, the second-largest importer of fossil fuels in the world, starting taking on more LNG in response to the shortage of power brought on by the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011. With 50 years in the LNG business, Wetselaar said, Shell […]

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US Individual States Production, Bakken Area and GOM

The EIA’s Petroleum Supply Monthly  has been published with production data for all individual states and offshore areas.  All data is Crude + Condensate and in thousand barrels per day with the last data point March 2014. Since the Bakken occupies part of two states, North Dakota and Montana, I have combined their production in order to get a better idea of what is really happening there. I have drawn a trend line from July 2011 through October 2012. That shows where production might have been if the fast decline rate and bad weather had not caught up with the. Production was 1,050,000 barrels per day in March, still 5,000 barrels per day below the point reached in November. I wanted to show this chart so we could get a better idea what is really going on in the entire Bakken area. Back in May and June of 2012 […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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A Price Tag on Carbon as a Climate Rescue Plan

Bryan T. Pagel, a dairy farmer, watched as a glistening slurry of cow manure disappeared down a culvert. If recycling the waste on his family’s farm would help to save the world, he was happy to go along. But back, machinery was breaking down the manure and capturing a byproduct called methane, a potent greenhouse gas. A huge Caterpillar engine roared as it burned the methane to generate electricity, keeping it out of the atmosphere.

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple