Category:

Natural-Gas Rally Gets a Boost from Warming Weather Forecasts

By Timothy Puko NEW YORK–Natural-gas prices are resuming their week-long rally Monday as weather updates warmed over the weekend, signaling the potential for an uptick in demand. Natural gas for September delivery is up 8.4 cents, or 2.2%, at $3.924 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Trading for the October contract has now surpassed trading for the September contract. September options expire Tuesday and the contract expires Wednesday. The October contract rose 8.1 cents, or 2.1%, to $3.964/mmBtu. The front-month contract has gained 5.3% in a week since intraday trading on Aug. 18 dipped to nearly a nine-month low. That rally has brought gas back to the middle of a 30-cent range it has traded within for more than a month. Monday’s lift was primarily from the weather, analysts said. Weather Services International in Andover, Mass., issued a heat alert for a swath of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Syria Declares Its Readiness in Backing Efforts to Fight Jihadists

BAGHDAD — Syria’s foreign minister said Monday that his government was ready to cooperate with international efforts to fight the extremists of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. But in a nod to the possibility of expanded American airstrikes, he warned that any action inside Syria without the government’s approval would be considered “aggression.” The offer by the minister, Walid al-Moallem, appeared to be a preliminary effort to rehabilitate the international standing of his government, which has been condemned by the United States and others for its brutal tactics in the country’s civil war and against the popular uprising that preceded it. In comments to reporters in Damascus, Mr. Moallem seemed well aware of how greatly the rise of ISIS in both Syria and Iraq had changed Western views toward the region. He presented his government as the natural partner in the fight against jihadist groups. “Syria is […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Obama Approves Air Surveillance of ISIS in Syria

WASHINGTON — President Obama has authorized surveillance flights over Syria, a precursor to potential airstrikes there, but a mounting concern for the White House is how to target the Sunni extremists without helping President Bashar al-Assad. Defense officials said Monday evening that the Pentagon was sending in manned and unmanned reconnaissance flights over Syria, using a combination of aircraft, including drones and possibly U2 spy planes. Mr. Obama approved the flights over the weekend, a senior administration official said. The flights are a significant step toward direct American military action in Syria, an intervention that could alter the battlefield in the nation’s three-year civil war. Administration officials said the United States did not intend to notify the Assad government of the planned flights. Mr. Obama, who has repeatedly called for the ouster of Mr. Assad, is loath to be seen as aiding the Syrian government, even inadvertently. As a […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Insurgency Deepens Iraqi Ethnic, Sectarian Divides

Displaced people from the minority Yazidi sect, who fled from the violence in the Iraqi town of Gwer, wait to return at a check point.. Reuters GWAIR, Iraq—Sunni families in northern Iraq are being prevented from returning to their homes, suspected by their neighbors and Kurdish authorities who control the area of collaborating with the extremist group Islamic State. The offensive by the Sunni militants is threatening to reshape the demographics of once-mixed communities by dividing territory along ethnic and religious lines, Iraqi and Kurdish officials say. Kurds, Christians and other minorities were driven from their homes by the insurgents’ rapid advance. But even after Kurdish forces, aided by U.S. airstrikes, wrested back control of some of the towns, many are refusing to move back if their Sunni Arab neighbors are also allowed to return. Kurdish security forces have been screening Sunni Arabs for ties to Islamic State fighters […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Kurds Get Seizure Order Thrown Out for Texas Oil Tanker

The Kurdistan Regional Government can bring $100 million of crude ashore in Texas after a U.S. judge threw out a court order that would have required federal agents to seize and hold the cargo for the Iraqi Oil Ministry until a court there decided which government owns it. U.S. District Judge Gray Miller in Houston said he lacked authority under federal laws governing property stolen at sea to decide the dispute. Both Iraq’s central government and the regional government claim control of 1 million barrels of Kurdish crude waiting in a tanker moored in international waters off the Texas coast for almost a month. Miller ruled yesterday that Iraq’s national oil ministry lost control of the crude when the Kurdish government pumped it without authorization from oilfields in the northern part of the country. Iraq failed to convince Miller that the oil was misappropriated when it was loaded into […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

EU Foreign Policy Chief Ashton to Meet Iranian Counterpart Zarif Next Month

BRUSSELS–The European Union and Iran will meet next Monday in Brussels to pave the way for a fresh round of international negotiations on Tehran’s disputed nuclear program, the European Commission said Monday. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will meet Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Brussels. Baroness Ashton is leading negotiations on behalf of six major powers to reach a comprehensive agreement with Tehran to address international concerns over its nuclear work. International negotiators had hoped to reach a landmark deal by July, but they agreed during talks in Vienna last month to extend the deadline to Nov. 24 . A new, full round of negotiations will take place in New York in the run-up to the opening of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 16. "This is an important meeting in the context of getting ready for that next big round of talks," said a […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Will Islamic State’s Rise Turn U.S. Public Opinion?

People gathered outside of the White House in June to protest against renewed U.S. involvement in Iraq. Associated Press Here in the nation’s capital, the question of the moment is whether the rise of the Islamic State extremist group has changed President Barack Obama ‘s reluctance to re-engage in Iraq militarily, or to really intervene for the first time in Syria—and that certainly is an important question. But equally important and far less discussed is this: Has the specter of a new, different and frightening kind of Islamic extremism changed the American public’s deep reluctance to engage anew in the Middle East? Privately, some administration officials think it probably will. But it is hard to tell that yet from either public polling data, which is sparse in August, or the sketchy discourse in the midterm elections, which tends to reflect the national conversation as much as shape it. What […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Iraqi oil exports increased in July

Iraqi oil exports in July, including oil sent from the Turkish sea port of Ceyhan, were 4 percent higher than the previous month, a marketing company said. The Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organization said Monday a total of 75.7 million barrels of oil were exported from the country in July. Total quantities include oil sent from the southern Iraqi oil terminal in Basra and from the Turkish sea port of Ceyhan, SOMO said. July exports were 4 percent higher than the total for June. SOMO said three American companies — Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Phillips 66 — were among the 31 companies that received Iraqi oil last month. Asian economies received the bulk of the oil exported in July, though the organization didn’t break down quantities per destination. SOMO is the only entity authorized to export oil from Iraq, the federal government in Baghdad says. The semiautonomous Kurdish government […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Iran Postpones Oil Deals Roadshow to 2015

LONDON—Iran is delaying a London oil contracts roadshow to next year to make it possible for Western companies to sign them, an Iranian oil official said Monday. The news comes after the Islamic Republic last month failed to reach a comprehensive nuclear agreement with six world powers, postponing a deadline to reach a deal to Nov 24. The delay has forced companies from the U.S. and the European Union to delay their return to the country’s vast oil and gas resources. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, the Iranian oil official said "the conference in London will be in February 2015." Iran’s oil ministry had already postponed the date from July to early November 2014. A committee set up by oil minister Bijan Zanganeh has proposed draft oil contracts designed to attract Western investors to Iran. But sanctions currently ban U.S. and European companies from entering the country’s hydrocarbon […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Libya crisis: US ‘caught off-guard’ by air strikes

Smoke rises from fighting at Tripoli airport. 23 Aug 2014 Life has come to a standstill in Tripoli after weeks of fighting Continue reading the main story US officials say Egypt and the UAE were behind air strikes in Libya last week that targeted Islamist militia. A senior US official told the BBC that Washington was not consulted about the attacks and was "caught off-guard". The air strikes on militia positions around Tripoli’s international airport were reportedly carried out by Emirati fighter jets using bases in Egypt. The Egyptian authorities have denied involvement, and there has been no direct comment from the UAE. The strikes failed to stop militias from Misrata and other cities, which operate under the banner Libya Dawn and include some Islamist groups, seizing the airport from a militia from Zintan that had controlled it since 2011. Damaged plane at Tripoli airport. 25 Aug 2014 Planes […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple