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Hague court rules in favor of Yukos shareholders vs Russia, awards $50 billion: source

The Hague’s arbitration court has ruled in favor of a group of shareholders in defunct oil giant Yukos against Russia, awarding compensation of around $50 billion, a source close to the ruling said on Monday. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague is expected to announce later today that Russia must pay the compensation – half of the original $100 billion claim – to former shareholders in the company, once Russia’s largest oil producer. The claim in the Hague was made by subsidiaries of Gibraltar-based Group Menatep, a company through which Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, controlled Yukos. Group Menatep now exists as holding company GML and Khodorkovsky is no longer a shareholder in GML or Yukos. (Reporting by Megan Davies , editing by Elizabeth Piper)

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Europe leans on Ukrainian energy company

A European energy administration agency said Monday the Ukrainian government needs to examine its contractual relationship with Russian energy company Gazprom. The European Energy Secretariat sent a letter to Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuri Prodan calling for an assessment of the contract between Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz and Gazprom. Parts of the contract, including the take-or-pay clause requiring Naftogaz to pay for a pre-determined volume of gas, serves to "prevent, restrict and distort competition on the natural gas market in Ukraine and affect trade in natural gas within the [European] energy community," the secretariat said in a statement . Gazprom in June switched Naftogaz over to the new payment scheme because of $4.45 billion in overdue bills. Russia supplies about a quarter of the European Union’s gas needs, though most of those supplies run through the Soviet-era transit network in Ukraine. Debt disputes in 2006 and 2009 prompted Gazprom to […]

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EU finalises Russian sanctions as BP warns of impact on its business

As the EU prepared to impose far-reaching sanctions on Russia on Tuesday, BP became the first big multinational to warn of the potential scale of the damage to its business in the country. The UK oil major, which owns nearly 20 per cent of Rosneft , the Russian oil group that is majority held by the Russian government, said that its increasing profits in Russia could be hit by the growing push for tighter sanctions. Rosneft is already on the US blacklist, but until now has not been covered by restrictions introduced by the EU. More On this story On this topic IN Europe “If further international sanctions are imposed on Rosneft or new sanctions are imposed on Russia or other Russian individuals or entities, this could have a material adverse impact on our relationship with and investment in Rosneft, our business and strategic objectives in Russia and our […]

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World Crude Oil Exports

OPEC has released their Annual Statistial Bulletin 2014 . Under the heading of “Oil and Gas Data” there are several tables you can download. I was excited to find one labeled “Table 3.21: World Exports of Crude Oil and Petroleum Products by Country”. It turned out to be useless however as it includes a lot of exports of imported products. And they have no table of “Net Imports”. However their their table labeled “ Table 3.18: World Crude Oil Exports by Country” turned out to be very useful as it seems to measure the same thing as the EIA does in their International Energy Statistics, Crude Oil Exports  which also includes lease condensate. The OPEC export data goes back to 1960 but I have only plotted it from 1990. The EIA data only goes back to 1993. The OPEC data is through 2013 while the EIA data only goes through […]

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Kemp: Forecasts for Higher Oil Prices Misjudge the Shale Boom

The world of energy may have changed forever," according to Professor James Hamilton of the University of California. "Hundred dollar oil is here to stay." Hamilton, who is one of the most respected economists writing about oil, made his bold prediction in a paper on "The Changing Face of World Oil Markets", published on July 20. "Old hands in the oil patch may view recent developments as a continuation of the same old story, wondering if the high prices of the last decade will prove another transient cycle with which technological advances will eventually catch up," he wrote. "But there have been dramatic changes over the last decade that could mark a major turning point." The shale revolution will turn out to be only a pause in the upward […]

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Energy Economist: The amount of oil the world uses, seen through different eyes

Counting barrels is always tough to do, as Ross McCracken discusses in this month’s excerpt from Platts Energy Economist. How much oil does the world consume? You’d think this would be a fairly straightforward question, given its economic importance to the world economy, and indeed answers are not hard to find. The problem is those answers differ significantly. Even with the development of the Joint Organisations Data Initiative –an evolving beast designed to bring improved transparency to oil markets–oil market data remains messy, inaccurate and opaque. For 2013, a year which by now should be transitioning from estimate to a matter of historical record, OPEC puts world demand at 90.00 million b/d, the International Energy Agency at 91.40 million b/d and the US Energy Information Administration at 90.49 million b/d. The difference is large in absolute terms–1.4 million b/d between the IEA and OPEC–but small if viewed in percentage […]

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Crude Oil Futures Trade Lower on Global Tensions

Crude oil futures traded lower Monday, as tension in several parts of the globe failed to shift the commodity out of a range it has traded in for the last eight days. ICE September crude was down 0.66% at $107.68 a barrel. WTI crude on the Nymex exchange was down 0.62% at $101.46 a barrel. "Challenges remain given weak crude demand in Europe and Asia combined with excess cargoes in the Atlantic Basin," analysts at Morgan Stanley wrote in a note to investors. Prices may need to fall further, they said, before buyers become interested again. A lower price could also shift trade flows or lead to a strategic reduction of supply, for example from a swing producer such as Saudi Arabia. Risks remain in the world’s hot spots. "Geopolitical developments are sure to keep the oil market on its toes," analysts from research firm JBC Energy wrote in […]

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WTI Trades Near Week-Low

West Texas Intermediate crude dropped for the fourth time in five days as economic data may signal slowing growth in the U.S., the world’s biggest oil consumer. Brent declined in London . Futures fell as much as 0.7 percent in New York after dropping 1 percent last week. A preliminary index of U.S. service industries is forecast at 59.8 for July, the lowest level in three months, a Bloomberg News survey showed before a report from Markit Economics today. The Federal Reserve is scheduled to review monetary policy at a two-day meeting starting tomorrow. “The PMI figures could be a good indicator of American economic growth ahead of the Fed meeting, U.S. GDP figures and payrolls later in the week,” Thina Saltvedt, an analyst at Oslo-based Nordea Bank AG, said by phone. WTI for September delivery dropped as much as 70 cents to $101.39 a barrel on the New […]

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Bulls Fleeing Natural Gas as Goldman Sees Further Decline

Speculators are fleeing natural gas after prices dropped below $4 for the first time since December and power plant production fell to a 13-year seasonal low. Hedge funds reduced net-long positions , or bets on rising prices, by 11 percent in the week ended July 22, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said. Bullish wagers have declined 51 percent since February. Futures slid as the output from electricity generators , the biggest consumers of the fuel, fell 11 percent in the week ended July 19 from a year earlier to the least for the period since 2001, according to the Edison Electric Institute. Mild weather and a record pace of inventory gains may push prices lower in the next three months, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said. “The move down in prices this early in the summer is surprising,” Breanne Dougherty, a natural gas analyst at Societe General SA in […]

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Tanker Carrying Kurdish Oil Plans to Offload at Texas Port

A tanker carrying a $100-million cargo of oil shipped from Iraqi Kurdistan is planning to discharge in Texas, bringing a dispute that is central to the future of Iraq as a united country to U.S. soil. The tanker, United Kalavrvta, is one of four major consignments of oil shipped by northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government since May in defiance of Baghdad. The government claims it has sole authority to market Iraq’s natural resources. The shipments represent a gambit by the KRG to carve out a nation for Iraq’s 6.5 million Kurds, even as the federal government in Baghdad struggles to defend its north against the Jihadist Sunni militant group, the Islamic state. The KRG’s goal to establish an independent state flies in the face of U.S. foreign policy, which is committed to maintaining a unified Iraq. So far, Washington has supported Baghdad’s efforts […]

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