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Apache Makes Big Oil Find Off Western Australia

PERTH, Australia—In what would be one of Australia’s largest oil discoveries in decades, U.S. energy company Apache Corp. said an exploration well offshore Western Australia state had found as much as 300 million barrels of crude. The drilling result from the Phoenix South-1 well in the offshore Canning Basin could reopen a frontier for oil exploration that some international energy companies abandoned decades earlier after wells turned up dry. "The oil and reservoir quality we have seen point to a commercial discovery," said Thomas E. Voytovich, a senior executive at Apache’s international arm. "If these results are borne out by further appraisal drilling, Phoenix South may represent a new oil province for Australia." Australia is in need of new sources of oil to replace fast diminishing reserves from existing fields. According to BP PLC, Australia’s oil production last year fell by 17% to 416,000 barrels a day—its lowest level […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Refinery Breakdowns Boost Gasoline as Labor Day Nears

Refinery breakdowns from Kansas to Texas are giving gasoline a boost, spurring speculators to increase bullish bets for the first time in six weeks as the Labor Day holiday approaches. Hedge funds raised net-long positions by 13 percent in the week ended Aug. 12, Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. The wagers slumped 56 percent in the previous five weeks, while gasoline futures dropped 10 percent since the Memorial Day holiday on May 26, the traditional start of the driving season. Bets on rising prices reached this year’s high in late April on speculation that peak summer demand would reduce supply. Inventories expanded to a four-month high in July, as refineries produced a record amount of fuel and consumption was stuck at the lowest seasonal level since 2012. The outages are unlikely to stem a decline in prices, according to AAA. “The refinery outages spurred some buying,” John Kilduff […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Iran Lures Investors Seeing Nuclear Deal Ending Sanctions

Bloomberg Markets Magazine On a May afternoon in Tehran, a Russian in a dark suit sits in the crowded lobby cafe of the Espinas Persian Gulf International Hotel with his Farsi translator, sipping coffee with potential Iranian partners while discussing the price of soy fiber. No sooner do they vacate their armchairs than another group of besuited businessmen takes their place, this time conversing in Italian and Farsi about industrial motors. The Espinas, one of Tehran’s few luxury hotels, opened in 2009, just as successive rounds of sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program were drawing an ever-tighter noose around the economy. With the restrictions biting, the Espinas’s lobby, adorned with pink-granite columns and faux Achaemenid sculptures, emptied out. Today, however, amid glimmers that sanctions will be lifted, finding a room at the Espinas isn’t easy, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its September issue. “All the five-star hotels are full […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Russia says agreement reached on aid to Ukraine but not on ceasefire

BERLIN (Reuters) – Russia on Monday said all objections to it sending a humanitarian convoy to Ukraine had been resolved but said no progress had been made in Berlin talks toward a ceasefire between government and rebel forces in the east of the country. Following the talks between Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine on Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said "finally, all questions have been resolved … related to the Russian initiative to send 300 trucks with humanitarian aid." "Everything has been agreed with Ukraine and the International Committee of the Red Cross," he said at a news conference in Berlin. Russia and Ukraine have been at loggerheads over a convoy of 280 Russian trucks carrying water, food and medicine. It has been parked for days in Russia near the border amid objections from Kiev, which believes the convoy could be a Trojan Horse for Russia to get […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Forget Peak Oil, We’re At Peak Everything

The idea that we’re running out of oil may have faded slightly from the list of concerns, but that’s just one of any number of precious natural resources we’re using up far too quickly. Peak oil is the concept that new discoveries of commercially exploitable oil resources do not keep pace with growing demand. By extrapolating the data, you can estimate when we will run out of it for all practical purposes. There are a lot of disagreements about whether we have reached peak oil or when the downhill slope will hit a point that brings a significant percentage of our vehicles to a grinding halt, but the concept has made scientists and policy makers ask the question: What other critical resources may be peaking? Asia Pulp & Paper Company, one of the world’s largest, announced last month that it will no longer use wood from natural forests for […]

Posted On : Published By : ASPO-USA
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Oil Prices Jump as Attack on Convoy Boosts Ukraine Fears

Brent and West Texas Intermediate crudes advanced after Ukraine said its forces attacked and partially destroyed a convoy entering the country from Russia . Ukrainian troops engaged the vehicles that had arrived overnight through a rebel-held section of the border, Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the country’s military, told reporters in Kiev today. Brent dropped to the lowest level since June 2013 yesterday while WTI settled at a six-month low amid signs of weaker demand and ample global oil supplies. “When there’s the prospect of ground war in Europe you don’t want to be short oil,” Bill O’Grady, chief market strategist at Confluence Investment Management in St. Louis , which oversees $2.6 billion, said by phone. “Prices have already fallen a lot and the market was ready for a rebound.” Brent for October settlement climbed $1.46, or 1.4 percent, to $103.53 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil complex arrests slide amid Russia incursion, US macro data

NYMEX September crude Friday rebounded from a seven-month low to settle $1.77 higher at $97.35/barrel amid overextended selling and profit taking among this week’s shorts. ICE October Brent bounced back from a 13-month low, rising $1.46 to settle at $103.59/b. In products, NYMEX September RBOB settled 3.2 cents higher at $2.6986/gal, while September ULSD finished 2.85 cents higher at $2.8480/gal. "It’s pretty puzzling," Tradition Energy analyst Gene McGillian said. "We’re seeing some profit taking from the shorts this week after getting a little overextended yesterday." ICE Brent fell below $102/b Thursday, lows not seen since June 2013. NYMEX crude fell as well as $95.26/b a day ago, lowest since January. McGillian said market fears regarding weak demand and slow economic growth had spurred Thursday’s selloff, but that left crude poised for a turnaround. He pointed to increased tensions between Ukraine and Russia after reports that Russian troops had crossed […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Natural Gas Slides as Summer Sizzle Fizzles

By Christian Berthelsen Natural-gas futures fell more than 3% on Friday after weather forecasts turned cool through the end of August, capping a season of tepid summer temperatures that have tempered demand for the fuel. The front-month September contract settled down 13 cents, or 3.3%, at $3.776 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its lowest level since July 28. Prices slid early in the trading session and remained in the red the rest of the day after new forecasts reversed earlier expectations for a belt of elevated temperatures over the Eastern Seaboard in the waning weeks of August. If the end-of-summer outlook holds true, it will serve as a fitting coda to a mild season that has kept demand in check and has allowed producers and utilities to rebuild inventories badly depleted by the severe winter. With Friday’s slide, natural-gas futures prices have lost […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Iraqi Kurdistan's Largest-Producing Oilfield Working To Boost Output

Oil production at Iraqi Kurdistan’s largest-producing oilfield is set to rise to as much as 14,000 barrels per day by the end of the month. TAQ TAQ OILFIELD, Iraq, Aug 15 (Reuters) – Oil production at Iraqi Kurdistan’s largest-producing field is set to rise to as much as 140,000 barrels per day (bpd) by the end of the month despite the advance of Islamist militants, the general manager of the operating company told Reuters. "We have a target to ramp up production towards 140,000 bpd and I believe we would achieve this by the end of the month," Onder Tekeli from Taq Taq Operating Co (TTOPCO), a joint venture of Anglo-Turkish Genel Energy and Sinopec’s Addax Petroleum said late on Thursday. Radical Sunni militants of the Islamic State last week advanced to within a half hour’s drive of Arbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region and a hub for […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Iraqi Kurdistan’s Largest-Producing Oilfield Working To Boost Output

Oil production at Iraqi Kurdistan’s largest-producing oilfield is set to rise to as much as 14,000 barrels per day by the end of the month. TAQ TAQ OILFIELD, Iraq, Aug 15 (Reuters) – Oil production at Iraqi Kurdistan’s largest-producing field is set to rise to as much as 140,000 barrels per day (bpd) by the end of the month despite the advance of Islamist militants, the general manager of the operating company told Reuters. "We have a target to ramp up production towards 140,000 bpd and I believe we would achieve this by the end of the month," Onder Tekeli from Taq Taq Operating Co (TTOPCO), a joint venture of Anglo-Turkish Genel Energy and Sinopec’s Addax Petroleum said late on Thursday. Radical Sunni militants of the Islamic State last week advanced to within a half hour’s drive of Arbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region and a hub for […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple