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Ukraine Suspects Terrorism in Pipeline Explosion

A major natural gas pipeline exploded in central Ukraine on Tuesday, a day after the Russian energy behemoth Gazprom said that it was cutting off supplies to Ukraine in a dispute over pricing, and officials immediately labeled it a possible act of sabotage. Utility officials said that natural gas deliveries were not interrupted and that supplies to Ukrainian customers and other European countries were flowing through alternative pipes. The blast occurred in a sparsely populated area of the Poltava region, which lies between Kiev, the capital, and the embattled regions of eastern Ukraine where a civil war is effectively underway between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian military. Video from the scene showed a huge plume of fire shooting hundreds of feet into the sky. The explosion destroyed a section of the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline, which runs more than 1,800 miles from Russia’s Arctic north through Ukraine to the […]

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Looking past the death of Peak Oil

Production has not peaked, but prices could be volatile Peak Oil is dead. The news that US output of liquid petroleum has regained its previous peak , reached in 1970, is enough to read the last rites over the idea that a region’s oil production will follow a shape like a bell curve, rising to a peak and then inexorably falling away. Much of the theorising about Peak Oil failed to anticipate technological progress, or understand the power of economic incentives. The US boom in production from previously uncommercial shale reserves has been made possible by advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, and made a reality by oil prices that 15 years ago barely seemed possible. More On this topic Editorial Yet while the strong form of the Peakists’ argument can be consigned to the dustbin of history, they were not entirely wrong. Producing oil has become harder, […]

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BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2014

BP has released its Statistical Review of World Energy 2014 . There are a lot of things in this report but I am only posting charts on liquid petroleum only. The BP report includes crude oil and NGLs. Their data does not include ethanol or any type of biofuels or process gain. The report actually has data from 1965 but I started all charts from 1990 in order to highlight more recent production. All data is in kb/d. BP World BP has World liquids output up 557 kb/d in 3013. BP United States BP World Less USA World liquids less USA were down 554 kb/d in 2013. BP North America North America is USA, Canada and Mexico. The increase is USA plus Canada minus Mexico and was up 1,283 kb/d  in 2012. BP S. and Cent. America Central and South America was up 19 kb/d but is down 181 […]

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Conventional Oil Production

The United States is awash in shale oil. Iran, once OPEC’s second-largest producer, is slowly ramping up production. Oil consumption in the Western world has been flat since the 2008 financial crisis. The “peak oil” theory has pretty much vanished, along with The Oil Drum, the bible of peak oil believers. Rest in peace. Or turn in your grave – because the price of oil tell a different story. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil futures are up 13 percent over one year. Since 2009, they have climbed every year except 2012. In Europe, the Brent crude futures are flat for the year after rising three years in a row. Brent, the de facto global benchmark, trades at about $113 (U.S.) a barrel. West Texas Intermediate, the North American benchmark, is at $106. For the sake of argument, let’s say the world is valuing oil at $110. […]

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Oil Up On Iraq Unrest, Seasonal Demand

Crude-oil futures continued to rally in Asian trading hours Monday after last week’s surge on escalating Iraqi violence. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in July traded at $107.45 a barrel at 0513 GMT, up $0.54 in the Globex electronic session. August Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose $0.62 to $113.08 a barrel. Nymex crude for July delivery gained over 4% last week, its largest weekly gain since the week ended Dec. 6, while Brent crude gained 4.4% last week, snapping a two-week losing streak on Iraqi violence. Over the weekend, radical Sunni militia advancing through Iraq bragged about the execution of hundreds of Shiite Iraqi soldiers. Oil markets are concerned that oil fields in Kuwait, another key oil producer in the region, could also be at risk as it borders Iraq. Meanwhile, the Obama administration is expected to open talks […]

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Oil Topping $116 Possible as Iraq Conflict Widens

Brent crude was projected by Wall Street analysts to average as much as $116 a barrel by the end of the year. Now, with violence escalating in Iraq , how far the price will rise has become anyone’s guess. The international benchmark surged above $114 on June 13 for the first time in nine months as militants routed the Iraqi army in the north and advanced toward Baghdad, threatening to ignite a civil war. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, known as ISIL, has halted repairs to the pipeline from the Kirkuk oil field to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey . The conflict threatens output in OPEC’s second-biggest crude producer. The Persian Gulf country is forecast to provide 60 percent of the group’s growth for the rest of this decade, the International Energy Agency said June 13. Global consumption will “increase sharply” in the last […]

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Brent-WTI Crude Futures Spread Widens on Violence in Iraq

Brent crude climbed, extending its premium over West Texas Intermediate to the highest this month, as the crisis in Iraq showed no signs of abating. The August Brent contract gained 0.4 percent. Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is fighting to reverse the advance of militants, who captured Iraq’s largest northern city and other towns last week. The fighting hasn’t spread to the south, which the U.S. Energy Information Administration says is home to three-quarters of Iraq’s crude output. “The oil market is reacting positively to the unrest,” said Bill O’Grady, chief market strategist at Confluence Investment Management in St. Louis , which oversees $1.4 billion. “If Baghdad really starts to run into trouble, it’s going to be very difficult to maintain production.” Brent for August settlement gained 48 cents to end at $112.94 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The July contract closed at $113.41 on […]

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Building Up To Another Oil Shock?

Will Iraq derail the global economic recovery? The latest iteration of the country’s seemingly endless conflict has already started to squeeze oil prices higher. The question now facing investors is how much of an oil shock would it take to stall what looks to be a widespread–if still very subdued–recovery from the financial crisis of 2008. The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil has risen 17% over the past six months to $107.12 a barrel–with a 5.4% gain coming just in the past week. That’s well short of a shock. But in the past, strong prices rises have proved a hazard to economies, which would make yet further increases alarming. “The correlation between oil shocks and economic recessions appears to be too strong to be just a coincidence,” wrote James Hamilton , an economics professor at the University of Southern California, San Diego, in […]

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Natural-Gas Futures Edge Higher as Weather Heats Up

Natural-gas prices inched higher Monday as forecasts turned hotter for the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions this week, raising expectations for gas-fired cooling demand that could divert supplies from storage needed for next winter. Natural gas for July delivery was up two cents, or 0.4%, at $4.7590 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices were trading around the highest levels in a month despite a series of larger-than-average additions to storage, as some traders bet supplies won’t be enough to replenish depleted inventories. Gas stockpiles are 35% below average for this time of year, based on the most recent data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Analysts say the U.S. will need at least 3.4 trillion cubic feet in storage at the start of heating season, but they also question whether inventories will reach that level despite robust production and the […]

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World’s untested assumption on 6 mb/d Iraqi oil by 2020

Given the ethnic turmoil in Iraq triggered by ISIL’s recent seizure of towns in Iraq’s North and West it is uncertain how this will impact on oil production in the Shia controlled South, from where the bulk of Iraq’s oil exports come from. At present oil exports from Basrah’s new oil terminals do not seem to be affected by the unrest but this can change. We don’t know what is going to happen, especially if this conflict widens the proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran which was hitherto limited to Syria (where oil production had peaked). It would be prudent for governments which are still planning new oil dependent infrastructure like motorways and airports to shelve these plans and prepare for oil shortages instead. Almost a year ago I wrote this article: 9/8/2013   Iraq crude oil exports stall amid pipeline attacks http://crudeoilpeak.info/iraq-crude-oil-exports-stall-amid-pipeline-attacks This post is an update. 12/6/2014 […]

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Fifth round of Iranian nuclear talks kick off in Vienna

Iran and six major states on Monday resume a new round of nuclear talks in Vienna, trying to work on the drafting of the final agreement. Based on the interim deal reached in Geneva last November, Iran and six major powers including Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany are trying to find a final solution for the decade-old dispute over Iran’s nuclear issue by July 20. After meeting with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton Monday in the capital city of Austria, Iran’s chief negotiator and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters that he hopes the talks can "get ready for moving forward." He also told Iranian media that Iran and the six major states will review nuclear-related issues once again in their plenary meeting on Tuesday. Iran had held bilateral meetings with France, Russia and Germany before the talks […]

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The Kurds take Kirkuk, now what?

The long-standing dispute over an oil-rich Iraqi city may have reached a critical hour as Kurdish Peshmerga forces now claim to have taken control of Kirkuk. As neighbouring countries and the international community scramble for an appropriate response to the so-called Sunni rebellion rapidly gaining ground across Iraq, Kurdish troops have stirred controversy by stepping in to fill what they say was a “security vacuum” in Kirkuk. Indeed, while frightened residents welcomed the move, it has raised pertinent questions over whether Iraq, in its present form, will survive the mayhem. The Kurds, a nation of over 30 million spread across several countries, have maintained a semi-autonomous region in the north of Iraq since a Western no-fly-zone (above the 36th parallel) was imposed at the end of the Gulf war in 1991. In the years since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the […]

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Sunni Rebels in Iraq Kill Shiite Volunteers and Seize New City

Sunni rebel extremists ambushed and killed more than two dozen Shiite volunteer militiamen late Sunday just outside the holy city of Samarra, the first such killings since Iraq’s government started mobilizing thousands of untrained Shiites to stop the insurgent advance threatening the country. That advance appeared to gain momentum elsewhere on Monday. Sunni insurgents took over the small city of Tal Afar, in northwestern Iraq, according to Iraqi security officials and residents, sending both Shiite and Sunni residents fleeing. In another sign of diminished confidence in the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the United Nations said Monday it had temporarily relocated 58 staff from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan. Farhan Haq, a spokesman for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, told reporters in New York that more United Nations staff members may be extricated in coming days. On Sunday, the State Department announced it had begun a partial evacuation […]

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U.S. and Iran Signaling New Joint Effort in Iraq Crisis

The United States and Iran on Monday signaled increased willingness to work together to arrest the expanding Sunni insurgency in Iraq, with Secretary of State John Kerry openly suggesting such a collaboration would be constructive and another American official saying the subject could come up at talks this week on the Iranian nuclear dispute. Cooperation between the United States and Iran to contain the Iraqi crisis would represent the first time the two countries — estranged adversaries for more than three decades — have jointly undertaken a common security purpose since they shared military intelligence to counter the Taliban in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks 13 years ago. Mr. Kerry, in an interview with Yahoo News, called the advance by insurgents under the banner of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria over the past week an “existential threat” to Iraq and suggested American airstrikes […]

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Unrest in Iraq not Affecting Oil Markets – OPEC Head

The unrest in Iraq isn’t affecting oil markets or the country’s oil output, the secretary general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said Monday. Speaking on the sidelines of the World Petroleum Congress, Abdalla Salem el-Badri said: "Nothing is affected. production is still going well and exporting is going fine." He said he doesn’t expect the recent wave of unrest in the country to affect the balance of the supply and demand of the oil market. The U.S. and Iran have publicly committed in recent days to provide military support if requested to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and help his government repel an offensive the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham has launched against Baghdad and other Iraqi cities over the past week. "I hope that Iraq situation will go back to normal very soon," said the head of OPEC. Write to Alexander […]

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Rouhani: Iran's oil production rising

Iranian oil production has increased as multilateral nuclear negotiations continue, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said. Iran can export around 1 million bpd under the terms of a November arrangement that brought some relief from economic sanctions in exchange for a commitment to curb nuclear research activity. Rouhani said Saturday oil production has increased while nuclear talks with the members of the P5-plus-1 — Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States plus Germany — continue. "As negotiations go on with the P5+1 group, Iran’s oil production capacity has increased," he said Saturday. In early June, the U.S. government said it would "pause efforts to further reduce Iran’s crude-oil sales for a six-month period." Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said last week the country aims to more than double its crude oil production from 2.5 million barrels per day to 5.7 million bpd within the next three years. The Organization of […]

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Rouhani: Iran’s oil production rising

Iranian oil production has increased as multilateral nuclear negotiations continue, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said. Iran can export around 1 million bpd under the terms of a November arrangement that brought some relief from economic sanctions in exchange for a commitment to curb nuclear research activity. Rouhani said Saturday oil production has increased while nuclear talks with the members of the P5-plus-1 — Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States plus Germany — continue. "As negotiations go on with the P5+1 group, Iran’s oil production capacity has increased," he said Saturday. In early June, the U.S. government said it would "pause efforts to further reduce Iran’s crude-oil sales for a six-month period." Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said last week the country aims to more than double its crude oil production from 2.5 million barrels per day to 5.7 million bpd within the next three years. The Organization of […]

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Libya oil output gets lift

Two Libyan oil fields resumed deliveries to a key refinery in the country following a court order on political stability, two state energy companies said. State-owned National Oil. Co. said production resumed at the southern El-Feel field. Authorities at Sirte Oil confirmed oil was flowing from the Zilten oil field in the east of the country, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. Libyan oil production has slumped considerably from its pre-war peak of about 1.4 million barrels per day. Oil output has suffered amid internal political rivalries in a country working to rebound from years of dictatorship under Moammar Gadhafi . Resumption of production from the two fields follows a court order that shot down the election of Ahmed Miitig as the next prime minister. Acting Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani refused to recognize the Islamist leader’s appointment. El-Feel and Zilten combine for around 60,000 barrels of oil per day […]

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Jihadis Recruitment Drive in Riyadh Revives Biggest Saudi Threat

The al-Qaeda breakaway group that has captured Iraq ’s biggest northern city is on a recruitment drive in Saudi Arabia. The evidence showed up last month in Riyadh, where drivers woke up to find leaflets stuffed into the handles of their car doors and in their windshields. They were promoting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, which has grabbed the world’s attention by seizing parts of northern Iraq. The militant group is also using social media, such as Twitter and YouTube, to recruit young Saudi men. Already at war with the governments of Iraq and Syria , ISIL also poses a potential threat to the Al Saud family’s rule over the world’s biggest oil exporter. Saudi authorities gained the upper hand in their battle with al-Qaeda, which targeted the kingdom a decade ago, yet analysts said the latest generation of militants may be harder to crush. ISIL, […]

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U.S. has oil in spades, BP says

The increase in U.S. oil production last year was the largest annual rise the world has ever seen, BP Chief Economist Christof Ruhl said Monday. The British company published its 63rd annual energy review Monday. In its assessment of the oil sector, BP said Libya was one of the countries hardest hit in terms of production last year. Internal rivalries that grew out of civil war have spilled over into the Libyan oil sector. Production rates are less than 20 percent of their pre-war peak of around 1.4 million barrels of oil per day. Those disruptions, BP said, were offset by major production gains from shale deposits in the United States . "The U.S. increase in 2013, up by 1.1 million barrels a day, was one of the biggest annual oil production increases the world has ever seen," the chief economist said in a statement . BP’s report said […]

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Europe leans on Azerbaijan for gas security

Building a gas corridor from Azerbaijan is just as as it is Azeri economic development, a top European leader said in Baku. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso spoke before an audience at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy University, saying the country has undergone "radical and rapid change" since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. European leaders have said the huge volumes of natural gas off the coast of the former Soviet republic could help break Russia’s grip on the European energy sector. The so-called Southern Corridor envisions a series of pipelines from Caspian reserves to the European market. "This is a project that can encourage greater economic cooperation, improve energy security and create over 30,000 jobs in all countries along the corridor," Barroso said Saturday. British energy company BP is leading efforts to draw natural gas from the Shah Deniz gas field off the coast of […]

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IMF cuts U.S. growth outlook, says full employment years off

The International Monetary Fund cut its growth forecast for the United States on Monday and said the economy would not reach full employment until the end of 2017, allowing interest rates to be held near zero for longer than financial markets expect. In its annual health check of the U.S. economy, the IMF cut its 2014 forecast to 2 percent from the 2.8 percent it predicted in April, due to a weak first quarter. It kept its 2015 forecast unchanged at 3 percent, as job creation picks up after a harsh winter. "Recent data … suggest a meaningful rebound in activity is now underway and growth for the remainder of this year and 2015 should well exceed potential," the IMF said. Yet the country’s potential growth should only be around 2 percent going forward, below historical averages, as the population ages and productivity growth slows, it […]

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Bakken Shale Rig Count Decreases by Four to 172

The  Bakken-Three Forks rig count  decreased by four to 172 rigs running across our coverage area by the end of last week. The NDIC notes 185 rigs are active in North Dakota, but around 20 of those are in the process of moving in and rigging up. In recent Bakken news, Summit Midstream Partners announced in June of 2014 that it will spend $300 million on four new development projects involving oil, water and natural gas gathering in the Bakken Shale play. The new projects will further expand the companies footprint in Williams and Divide counties. Read more:  Summit Midstream Expanding Bakken System – $300 Million The U.S. rig count decreased by six to 1,854 rigs running by the end of last week. A total of 310 rigs were targeting natural […]

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U.S. Crude Exports Up Sixfold as Canada Taps Shale Boom

Oil exports from the U.S. in April rose to the highest level in 15 years as Canadian refineries replaced more expensive imports from Europe and West Africa with shale oil from North Dakota and Texas. The U.S. shipped 268,000 barrels a day in April, the Energy Information Administration reported today. That’s the most since April 1999, and a more than sixfold increase since April 2012. Federal law allows exports of unrefined crude to Canada and restricts them to most other destinations. The increase in exports follows a boom in oil production driven by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in places like North Dakota and Texas. The surge in output has increased supplies in the U.S., driving down prices relative to the rest of the world. “The boom in U.S. production caused a price differential to grow between foreign crude and U.S. crude,” said Carl Larry, president of […]

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U.S. crude exports in April rise to highest level in 15 years

Graph of U.S. crude exports, as explained in the article text Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Petroleum Supply Monthly The United States exported 268,000 barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil in April (the latest data available from the U.S. Census Bureau), the highest level of exports in 15 years. Exports have increased sharply since the start of 2013 and have exceeded 200,000 b/d in five of the past six months. The increase in crude exports is largely the result of rising U.S. crude production , which was 8.2 million b/d in March. To export crude oil from the United States, a company must obtain a license from the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Under export licensing requirements, the following kinds of transactions will generally be approved: Exports from Alaska’s Cook Inlet Exports to Canada for consumption or use therein Exports in […]

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After Oil, Natural Gas May Be Next On North American Rails

As politicians debate the dangers of a massive increase in oil carried by rail in North America, railroads and energy producers are considering the same for natural gas. Buoyed by the unexpected success of crude by rail, companies are beginning to consider transporting natural gas as remote drilling frontiers emerge beyond the reach of pipelines, executives said. Natural gas by rail is years away and likely to face strong public resistance after a series of explosive crude-by-rail accidents. But the potentially multibillion-dollar development could connect gas-rich regions like North Dakota with urban centers, presenting an opportunity for railroads, drillers and tank car makers already cashing in from hauling oil on trains. It could also be a cure for environmentally unfriendly flaring, a growing problem in far-flung areas where more than $1 billion of natural gas produced alongside oil is burned off […]

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Canada-South Korea trade deal would remove duties for Canadian oil, LNG exports

A proposed free trade agreement between Canada and South Korea would remove the current 3% to 8% tariff that Canadian oil and gas producers have to pay for exports into that Asian nation, a Canadian government spokeswoman said Monday. Claude Rochon, a spokeswoman with Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, said crude oil and LNG exports — with current duties of 3% — would become "duty-free immediately" upon implementation of the FTA. A duty of up to 8% imposed by the South Korean government on imports of Canadian refined products would be removed in stages, she said, noting 96% would be "free" right away with the FTA coming into effect and the remaining 4% over the next five years. Canada is not known to export large volumes of crude oil to South Korea, but Rochon said the deal would significantly improve market access for the Canadian oil and gas […]

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Ukraine Able to Maintain Domestic Gas Supplies for Several Months – Officials

Ukraine will be able to maintain domestic supplies of natural gas and ensure the transit of Russian exports to Europe for at least several months despite Moscow’s move Monday to cut off shipments to Ukraine in a dispute over prices and other contract terms, officials said. "The Ukrainian side has prepared for this eventuality and we are ensuring reliable transit as well as supplies to domestic consumers," Yuriy Prodan, Ukraine’s minister of energy and coal, told a cabinet meeting in Kiev, the Interfax news agency reported. Andriy Koboliv, head of state gas company NAK Naftogaz told the same session that, "We have time to resolve this issue at least until December." Transit volumes to Gazprom’s European customers are flowing normally at 185 million cubic meters a day, he said. The officials noted that Ukraine’s inventories of gas in storage–now nearly 14 billion cubic meters–and imports from […]

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Gazprom Demands Ukraine Prepays for Gas

Russian state gas giant OAO Gazprom said Monday it will only ship fuel to Ukraine if it pays in advance, making good on a threat that could lead to supply cuts affecting European customers after late-night EU-mediated talks on debt repayment failed to yield a deal . Gazprom said it hadn’t received payment for a debt it put at $4.458 billion by the Monday deadline it had set. "Ukraine will receive gas only in the amounts it has paid for," Gazprom said. There was no immediate reaction from Kiev. The shift to prepayment is likely to lead to a reduction in supplies to Ukraine and could affect Russia’s shipments to Europe, the bulk of which go through Ukraine. Industry analysts say the initial effect on European markets of any supply disruption may be limited because of current […]

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More tidal energy set for Scottish coast

| License Photo A decision to invest more than $3 million on a tidal array planned for Scottish waters is a testament to its green energy strength, the energy minister said. Tidal technology company Nova Innovation and Belgian renewable energy company ELSA secured $3.1 million from European investors to build tidal arrays off the Scottish coast. "ELSA’s decision to invest in Scotland is a testament to the confidence felt by international investors to help develop the huge wave and tidal energy resources from the waters around the Scottish coast," Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said in a statement Sunday. The tidal array, which will consist of five 100-kilowatt turbines, will be installed in three stages. Three of the turbines should be commissioned by the end of 2015. Scotland says it lays claim to about 25 percent of the wind and tidal energy potential and 10 percent of wave energy […]

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Russia expects major eastern oil investments

Major investments in oil operations in the eastern part of Russia will boost export potential by 2035, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said Monday. Dkorkovich said investments in the oil industry in eastern Russia are expected to grow by more than $1 trillion. "Oil production and supplies will grow in the eastern region of the country," he said . "The part of the eastern direction in the total exports of oil and petroleum products will increase from 12 percent to 23 percent." Russia is one of the world’s leading oil producers, producing more than 10 million barrels of oil per day on average. Most of the country’s oil fields are in the western region of Siberia. The head of a Russian joint venture between Shell and Gazprom Neft signed an agreement in January to use hydraulic fracturing to tap into an oil formation in Siberia. When combined with gas […]

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Looking past the death of Peak Oil

Production has not peaked, but prices could be volatile Peak Oil is dead. The news that US output of liquid petroleum has regained its previous peak , reached in 1970, is enough to read the last rites over the idea that a region’s oil production will follow a shape like a bell curve, rising to a peak and then inexorably falling away. Much of the theorising about Peak Oil failed to anticipate technological progress, or understand the power of economic incentives. The US boom in production from previously uncommercial shale reserves has been made possible by advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, and made a reality by oil prices that 15 years ago barely seemed possible. More On this topic Editorial Yet while the strong form of the Peakists’ argument can be consigned to the dustbin of history, they were not entirely wrong. Producing oil has become harder, […]

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Oil Up On Iraq Unrest, Seasonal Demand

Crude-oil futures continued to rally in Asian trading hours Monday after last week’s surge on escalating Iraqi violence. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in July traded at $107.45 a barrel at 0513 GMT, up $0.54 in the Globex electronic session. August Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose $0.62 to $113.08 a barrel. Nymex crude for July delivery gained over 4% last week, its largest weekly gain since the week ended Dec. 6, while Brent crude gained 4.4% last week, snapping a two-week losing streak on Iraqi violence. Over the weekend, radical Sunni militia advancing through Iraq bragged about the execution of hundreds of Shiite Iraqi soldiers. Oil markets are concerned that oil fields in Kuwait, another key oil producer in the region, could also be at risk as it borders Iraq. Meanwhile, the Obama administration is expected to open talks […]

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WTI Crude Advances a Fourth Day on Iraq Unrest; Brent Increases

West Texas Intermediate climbed for a fourth day and Brent crude gained on concern that escalating violence in Iraq threatens to disrupt supplies from OPEC’s second-largest producer. WTI futures advanced as much as 0.6 percent in New York after capping a 4.1 percent weekly gain on June 13. Iraq’s military struck the positions of insurgents who have captured territory north of Baghdad , trying to turn back battlefield advances that threaten to split the country. Brent may quickly rally to a range of $120 to $125 a barrel if production is affected, Societe Generale SA said. The country produced 3.3 million barrels a day last month, data from Bloomberg show. “The real concern is a disruption to production and exports in southern Iraq,” Mike Wittner , head of oil market research at Societe Generale SA in New York, said in a report today. “The threat of that happening is […]

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Oil Topping $116 Seen Possible as Iraq Conflict Widens

Brent crude was projected by Wall Street analysts to average as much as $116 a barrel by the end of the year. Now, with violence escalating in Iraq , how far the price will rise has become anyone’s guess. The international benchmark surged above $114 on June 13 for the first time in nine months as militants routed the Iraqi army in the north and advanced toward Baghdad , threatening to ignite a civil war. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, known as ISIL, has halted repairs to the pipeline from the Kirkuk oil field to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey . The conflict threatens output in OPEC’s second-biggest crude producer. The Persian Gulf country is forecast to provide 60 percent of the group’s growth for the rest of this decade, the International Energy Agency said June 13. Global consumption will “increase sharply” in the […]

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BP: U.S. Beats China's Oil Demand Growth in 2013

Oil demand in the United States grew at the fastest pace in the world in 2013, outstripping China for the first time since 1999 as the world’s top economy reaped the benefit of the shale boom, oil major BP said on Monday. BP also said the United States recorded its largest-ever annual rise in production for a second year in a row at 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd). In its annual review of energy statistics, first published in 1951 and considered an industry benchmark, BP said U.S. oil consumption in 2013 grew by 400,000 bpd, the sharpest increase in the world, followed by China’s rise of 390,000 bpd, BP said. The consumption growth was led by an expansion of the U.S. industrial sector as the world’s top economy emerged from the 2008 financial crisis, BP Chief Economist Christof Ruhl said. At the same […]

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BP: U.S. Beats China’s Oil Demand Growth in 2013

Oil demand in the United States grew at the fastest pace in the world in 2013, outstripping China for the first time since 1999 as the world’s top economy reaped the benefit of the shale boom, oil major BP said on Monday. BP also said the United States recorded its largest-ever annual rise in production for a second year in a row at 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd). In its annual review of energy statistics, first published in 1951 and considered an industry benchmark, BP said U.S. oil consumption in 2013 grew by 400,000 bpd, the sharpest increase in the world, followed by China’s rise of 390,000 bpd, BP said. The consumption growth was led by an expansion of the U.S. industrial sector as the world’s top economy emerged from the 2008 financial crisis, BP Chief Economist Christof Ruhl said. At the same […]

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BP says oil price at its most stable since early 1970s

Despite jitters over Iraq , the price of oil is at its most stable since the early 1970s, as a huge increase in US oil production offsets massive disruptions to supply from places such as Libya, according to BP. Christof Rühl, group chief economist, said the world had seen a cumulative 3m barrels a day of supply disruption since the start of the 2011 Arab uprising but that had been “cancelled out” by a similar extra amount of US production. More On this topic IN Commodities “There has been an almost perfect match between outages in north Africa and elsewhere and US production growth,” he said. The equilibrium had created an “eerie quiet” in global oil markets. “It’s sheer coincidence – they have nothing to do with each other so won’t last forever,” he added. Mr Rühl […]

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Global Oil Consumption Outpaces Production

Global oil consumption last year grew faster than oil production, BP PLC said in its annual snapshot of world energy statistics. The BP Statistical Review of Energy, unveiled Monday morning at a Moscow conference, found that world-wide, oil consumption grew 1.4%, or 1.4 million barrels a day, which is slightly above the historical average. But oil production grew by just .6%, or 560,000 barrels a day. The imbalance points to several big trends in the industry in recent years. The shale boom has boosted production in the U.S., BP said, largely offsetting disruptions elsewhere in the world. As a result, said Christof Rühl, BP’s chief economist, […]

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Iraq insurgent advance spreads to northwest

The insurgent offensive that has threatened to dismember Iraq spread to the northwest of the country on Sunday, when Sunni militants launched a dawn raid on a town close to the Syrian border, clashing with police and government forces. As the rapid advance south by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) towards Baghdad appeared to slow over the weekend, fierce fighting erupted in the town of Tal Afar 60 km (40 miles) west of Mosul near the Syrian border, security sources and a local official said. ISIL fighters and other Sunni Muslim armed groups have stormed several towns on the road to Baghdad after seizing Mosul nearly a week ago – an offensive which only stalled as it approached the mainly Shi’ite capital. The advance alarmed both Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite supporters in Iran and officials in the United States, which helped […]

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Iraq Army Tries to Roll Back Sunni Militants’ Advance

Iraq ’s military pummeled the positions of Sunni Muslim insurgents who have captured large chunks of territory north of Baghdad, trying to turn back battlefield advances that threaten to split apart the country. The army killed more than 279 “terrorists” with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and destroyed 50 of the group’s vehicles within 24 hours, military spokesman Qassim Ata said in a televised news conference yesterday. “The security situation is improving” and government forces are conducting pre-emptive operations in Baghdad, which is under their control, he said. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite Muslim-led government is seeking to reassert control over territory held by the breakaway al-Qaeda group, whose advances put in doubt his rule over a unified Iraq. Sectarian strife is pushing OPEC’s second-largest oil producer closer to civil war, three years after the U.S. withdrew its forces from the country. Jihadist forums and social-media […]

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Iraq conflict: US considers talks with Iran

The USS George HW Bush has been sent to the Gulf by the US along with two other military vessels Continue reading the main story Washington is considering direct talks with Iran on the security situation in Iraq, a US official has told the BBC. The move comes as US President Barack Obama weighs up options on action to take in Iraq. Meanwhile, the US condemned as "horrifying" photos posted online by Sunni militants that appear to show fighters massacring Iraqi soldiers. In the scenes, the soldiers are shown being led away and lying in trenches before and after their "execution". The Iraqi military said the pictures were real, but their authenticity has not been independently confirmed. The BBC’s Jim Muir, in northern Iraq, says if the photographs are genuine, it would be by far the biggest single […]

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Several Kurdish forces killed in Iraq as Shiites begin to slow advance of ISIS fighters

At least six Kurdish forces were killed in shelling overnight Saturday in northern Iraq in a shadowy incident that appeared to further muddy the waters of a conflict that threatens to split this country into autonomous Sunni-, Shiite-, and Kurdish-ruled territories. The deepening crisis in Iraq has highlighted the failings of both Iraq’s current government — which Iraqi Sunnis have long accused of fomenting a sectarian divide — and the U.S. forces that helped bring it to power after the American ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003. On Sunday, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair defended the U.S. and U.K.-led invasion of the country, telling the BBC that even without the eight-year occupation, “you would have still had a major problem in Iraq.” “You know, we can rerun the debates about 2003 — and there are perfectly legitimate points on either side — but where we are […]

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Militants Claim Mass Execution of Iraqi Forces

BAGHDAD — Wielding the threat of sectarian slaughter, Sunni Islamist militants claimed on Sunday that they had massacred hundreds of captive Shiite members of Iraq’s security forces, posting grisly pictures of a mass execution in Tikrit as evidence and warning of more killing to come. Even as anecdotal reports of extrajudicial killings around the country seemed to bear out the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s intent to kill Shiites wherever it could, Iraqi officials and some human rights groups cautioned that the militants’ claim to have killed 1,700 soldiers in Tikrit could not be immediately verified. But with their claim, the Sunni militants were reveling in an atrocity that if confirmed would be the worst yet in the conflicts that roil the region, outstripping even the poison gas attack near Damascus last year. In an atmosphere where there were already fears that the militants’ sudden advance near the […]

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Jihadis Recruitment Drive in Riyadh Revives Biggest Saudi Threat

The al-Qaeda breakaway group that has captured Iraq ’s biggest northern city is on a recruitment drive in Saudi Arabia. The evidence showed up last month in Riyadh, where drivers woke up to find leaflets stuffed into the handles of their car doors and in their windshields. They were promoting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, which has grabbed the world’s attention by seizing parts of northern Iraq. The militant group is also using social media, such as Twitter and YouTube, to recruit young Saudi men. Already at war with the governments of Iraq and Syria , ISIL also poses a potential threat to the Al Saud family’s rule over the world’s biggest oil exporter. Saudi authorities gained the upper hand in their battle with al-Qaeda, which targeted the kingdom a decade ago, yet analysts said the latest generation of militants may be harder to crush. ISIL, […]

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Rise of Shiite militias could fracture Iraq

Emboldened by a call to arms by the top Shiite cleric, Iranian-backed militias have moved quickly to the center of Iraq’s political landscape, spearheading what its Shiite majority sees as a fight for survival against Sunni militants who control of large swaths of territory north of Baghdad. The emergence of the militias as a legitimate force enjoying the support of the Shiite-led government and the blessing of the religious establishment poses a threat to Iraq’s unity, planting the seed for new sectarian strife and taking the regional Shiite-Sunni divide to a potentially explosive level. Iraq’s Shiite militias attacked U.S. forces during the eight-year American presence in the country. They also were in the lead in the Sunni-Shiite killings of 2006-07, pushing Iraq to the brink of civil war. Their death squads targeted radical Sunnis and they orchestrated the cleansing of Sunnis from several Baghdad neighborhoods. More […]

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US embassy in Baghdad to send some personnel out

With Baghdad threatened by the advance of an al-Qaida-inspired insurgency, the State Department is reinforcing security at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq’s capital – and sending some personnel out of town. Much of the embassy staff will stay in place, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement released Sunday. The statement did not say the number of personnel affected. The embassy, along the Tigris River in Baghdad’s Green Zone, has about 5,000 personnel and is the largest U.S. diplomatic post in the world. Some embassy staff members were being temporarily moved elsewhere to more stable places at consulates in Basra, in the Shiite-dominated south of Iraq, and Irbil, in the Kurdish semi-autonomous region in northeastern Iraq, and to Jordan, she said. "Overall, a substantial majority of the U.S. Embassy presence in Iraq will remain in place and the embassy will be fully equipped to […]

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Iran leaders look to US over Iraq crisis

Iranian leaders hope the US will intervene in the Iraq crisis to defeat the common enemy of Sunni extremism but have ruled out co-operation with Washington, officials told the Financial Times. As the Sunni insurgents made further territorial gains in northern Iraq over the weekend, diplomats have been assessing the wider regional implications of the crisis, and in particular on the fraught US-Iranian relationship. More On this story On this topic IN Iraq One senior Iranian government adviser told the Financial Times: “The US has no choice but to clear up this mess in Iraq, otherwise its achievements and credibility in the region would be gone. The US should help remove this infection [Sunni extremists] from the region.” However, Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, rejected co-operating with the US, describing it as “psychological war and totally unreal”. At a press conference on Saturday, Iran’s president […]

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U.S. Plans to Evacuate Many Embassy Workers

The American Embassy in Baghdad plans to evacuate a substantial number of its personnel this week in the face of a militant advance that rapidly swept from the north toward the capital, the State Department announced on Sunday. The embassy, a beige fortress on the banks of the Tigris River within the heavily secured Green Zone, where Iraqi government buildings are also situated, has the largest staff of any United States Embassy. The exact number of people being evacuated from Baghdad — the American government prefers to say they are being “relocated” — was not disclosed. But the embassy will remain open, and most of its staff will remain, according to the State Department. The United States has a staff of about 5,500 at the embassy and at two consulates in the north and south of Iraq. “Some additional U.S. government security personnel will be added […]

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Iraq’s largest oil fields reduce staff

The international oil companies in charge of Iraq’s two most prolific oil fields have significantly reduced their presence in Basra after a shockwave of violence struck northern Iraq and Shia militia activity and recruitment began to spike throughout the south. BP and ExxonMobil, which operate Rumaila and West Qurna 1, respectively, have sent most or all of their foreign staff out of the country, according to varying accounts given by Iraqi workers at those fields. There is no indication that… This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a registered user, you may purchase a subscription or sign up for a free trial .

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple