Category:

Oil Swings Near Six-Month Low Before China Data Tomorrow

Brent crude traded near its lowest closing level in nine months before the European Central Bank announced its monthly decision on monetary policy. West Texas Intermediate was near a six-month low. Futures were little changed in London. ECB officials led by President Mario Draghi are forecast by economists in Bloomberg News surveys to keep the main refinancing rate at a record-low 0.15 percent and the deposit rate at minus 0.1 percent. In Iraq , Kurdish exports remain unaffected by turmoil that also has spared supply from the nation’s south, home to more than three-quarters of its crude output. “I don’t expect any more rate cuts or measures right now, but if the ECB have something in the wording, it can impact the euro-dollar and so impact oil prices,” Andy Sommer, an analyst at Axpo Trading AG in Dietikon, Switzerland, said by phone. “Prices are a little bit below fair […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Oil Traders Flee Brent as Prices Signal Glut: Chart of the Day

Oil traders are fleeing Brent crude at the fastest pace in eight years as signs of a glut undermined bets that the Islamist insurgency in Iraq would threaten supply. The CHART OF THE DAY shows how the number of outstanding contracts in Brent crude collapsed in July as the forward curve on the ICE Futures Europe exchange moved into a structure called contango, where immediate prices are cheaper than later ones. The shift surprised traders, prompting them to close positions taken to benefit from an expected premium on immediate deliveries because of Iraq, according to Natixis SA. “Positioning had built up quite heavily on the escalation in geopolitics, but then as the physical market softened, it was a rush to the exits,” Miswin Mahesh, an analyst at Barclays Plc in London , said by e-mail. The move to contango may also hurt demand among financial investors as it removes […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Natural-Gas Prices Close at Two-Week High; Forecasts, Low Prices Spur Buying

Natural-gas prices closed at a two-week high Wednesday as weather forecasts and low prices gave buyers the upper hand. Prices for the front-month September contract settled up 3.6 cents, or 0.9%, at $3.933 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was the market’s third straight day of gains, the longest streak since the first week of June. Prices have recently stabilized and this week started to rebound slightly from a summer of losses. While unseasonably cool forecasts are still signaling soft demand, they aren’t as cool as they once were, inspiring some buying, analysts said. Utilities have also had time to adjust and, with prices below $4, are likely switching away from coal to use more gas, said Aaron Calder, senior market analyst at energy-consulting firm Gelber & Associates in Houston, in a note. Last week’s stockpile addition […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Iraqi Oil in South Keeping Dollar Bond Slump Contained

The slide in Iraq ’s dollar bond since June, when Islamic militants overran much of the country’s north, is being contained by rising oil revenue as exports increase in the south. The yield on Iraq’s January 2028 dollar security has jumped 109 basis points to 7.37 percent since tumbling to an 16-month low on June 9, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The rate remains below this year’s high of 7.74 percent in February, and compares with a 30 basis-point increase in the JPMorgan Chase & Co. Emerging Markets Global Sovereign Bond Yield Index. While insurgents from the Islamic State, an al-Qaeda offshoot, have seized oil fields and are battling for control of two dams as they threaten Prime Minister Nouri Kamil Al-Maliki’s government, most of the nation’s production is flowing without interruption in the south. Crude sales rose 5 percent last month to 2.44 million barrels a day. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Sunni Extremists Repel Kurdish Forces in Iraq

Sunni extremists repelled efforts by Kurdish pesh merga forces on Wednesday to push them back in areas east of Mosul in northern Iraq , and shelled a predominantly Christian village there, in what appeared to be a renewed push along the Kurdish border to take ground, control oil fields and water resources and expel minority groups. As artillery shells landed in the village of Qara Qosh, which is largely Christian, and plumes of smoke from the explosions drifted across the dry Nineveh plain just 25 miles from the Kurdish capital, Erbil, panicked residents fled in cars and pickups piled with their belongings, creating long lines at checkpoints guarded by the Kurdish pesh merga. “We heard the sound of artillery,” said Ahmed, a father of three. “It was very close to us; the windows were shaking, and when I looked at my family’s faces, I had to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Sunni and Kurdish Forces Battle for Control of Northern Iraqi Towns

As Sunni and Kurdish forces battled on Thursday for control of towns west of Erbil, the regional capital of northern Iraq, civilians fleeing the fighting flooded the airport here and swamped the Iraqi Airways office in a futile attempt to get tickets to Baghdad. In the early hours of Thursday, forces from the Kurdish pesh merga left checkpoints guarding several largely Christian settlements because they had been called to defend Kurdish towns closer to Erbil, according to a colonel in the Kurdish Defense Ministry. By late Wednesday night, Kurdish television was reporting that Mahmour and Gwar, two Kurdish settlements less than 20 miles west of Erbil, had fallen to Sunni extremists from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. By Thursday morning, a colonel in the pesh merga said that Mahmour had been retaken, while militants remained in control of Gwar. The latest ISIS […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Kurds, Islamic State clash near Kurdish regional capital

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Kurdish forces attacked Islamic State fighters near the Kurdish regional capital of Arbil in northern Iraq on Wednesday in a change of tactics supported by the Iraqi central government to try to break the Islamists’ momentum. The attack 40 km (25 miles) southwest of Arbil came after the Sunni militants inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Kurds on Sunday with a rapid advance through three towns, prompting Iraq’s prime minister to order his air force for the first time to back the Kurdish forces. "We have changed our tactics from being defensive to being offensive. Now we are clashing with the Islamic State in Makhmur," said Jabbar Yawar, secretary-general of the ministry in charge of the Kurdish peshmerga fighters. The location of the clashes puts the Islamic State fighters closer than they have ever been to the Kurdish semi-autonomous region since they swept through northern Iraq […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

As civilians die, Kurds decry international inaction

The combined efforts of the Iraqi and Kurdish governments have not rescued the thousands of civilians threatened with imminent death after the most recent ISIS offensive. As civilians die, Kurds decry international inaction Thousands of members of Iraq’s Yezidi minority remain stranded on Sinjar Mountain, as Kurdish and Iraqi efforts to provide support have failed in the face of a persistent insurgency.The U.S. and other foreign powers have not provided direct assistance to the Yezidis, either in the form of humanitarian air drops or military air support to the Kurdish soldiers fighting to free them. Kurdish leaders warn that such international inaction spells doom for the Yezidis and risks empowering anti-gove… 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
Category:

ISIS Marches On (And The Saudis Are Getting Nervous)

The chickens are now coming home to roost on Obama’s stupid middle east policy. Obama pulled US troops out of Iraq assuming everything was hunky dory. Then obama did nothing as ISIS rampaged in Syria, and he did nothing when ISIS took over northern Iraq. It would seem to be pretty obvious that the last thing the US would want to see is the Islamist nutjobs of the former al Quaida in Iraq reinventing themselves as a Caliphate and seizing huge swaths of territory and threatening a large part of the world’s oil supply, but thats what is happening while Obama golfs. Fishman on Wed, 6th Aug 2014 6:27 pm  Ah, the religion of Pieces bobinget on Wed, 6th Aug 2014 7:29 pm  Plantagenet, OK: I’ll bite, how in the world did President Obama’s ‘stupid’ Middle East […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Contract let to return Nigerian refinery to nameplate capacity

Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC), through a service provider, has let a contract to General Electric Co. to provide gas turbines to be used to generate a reliable, uninterrupted supply of power to NNPC’s refining complex in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, that would enable the complex to return to its full production capacity. GE will deliver three, 25-Mw, trailer-mounted TM2500+ aeroderivative gas turbines to GEL Utility Ltd., a subsidiary of independent power producer Genesis Electricity Ltd., with whom NNPC signed a 20-year power purchase agreement in November 2013 for the Port Harcourt refinery, GE said in an Aug. 4 news release. In addition to delivery of the gas turbines, whichwill provide both the baseload and backup power to support refining operations at Port Harcourt, the recent agreement also includes the future modernization of Nigeria’s other two existing refineries, GE said. The installation of the mobile gas […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple