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2014 Is the Year of the Energy-Water Nexus

Page added on September 3, 2014 2014 Is the Year of the Energy-Water Nexus 2014 is shaping up to be the year of the energy-water nexus. First, the United Nation’s World Water Day centered on this topic. Then, the U.S. Department of Energy released a 250-page report on the energy-water nexus and indicated that it will be included in its Quadrennial Energy Review . And, this week, the biggest international water conference, World Water Week , is taking on the nexus. Held every year in Stockholm, Sweden, World Water Week is led by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) and serves as a platform for over 200 collaborating organizations and 2,500 participants from 130 countries around the world to discuss global water and development issues. In choosing the energy-water nexus as this year’s theme, SIWI and its supporters are affirming – on a global stage – what policy experts […]

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WTI Rises From January Low Before U.S. Supply Data; Brent Climbs

West Texas Intermediate crude rose from the lowest price in more than seven months before U.S. supply data that may signal the strength of fuel demand in the world’s biggest oil consumer. Brent climbed in London. Futures rebounded as much as 0.5 percent in New York. Crude stockpiles probably shrank by 1 million barrels to 359.5 million last week, a Bloomberg News survey showed before an Energy Information Administration report tomorrow. Authorities in Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest producer, said they arrested 88 members of a group that was planning attacks inside and outside the kingdom. “The drive season was pretty good, and that’s kept the price from collapsing,” David Lennox, a resource analyst at Fat Prophets in Sydney, said of the peak U.S. driving period that typically ends on Labor Day. “The market will be watching for the EIA numbers and the jobless claims to see the current direction […]

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Oil Prices Fall Sharply on Weak Demand Outlook, Stronger Dollar

Oil prices dropped more than $3 a barrel Tuesday as disappointing Chinese and European economic data and a stronger dollar weighed on demand expectations. Oil prices have tumbled in recent weeks as weak demand from European and Asian refineries forced sellers to cut prices and global supplies remained ample despite violence in some regions. Recent data indicates that tepid demand could continue in the coming months. U.S. oil prices rose last week for the first time in five weeks as traders who had bet on lower prices closed out their wagers, in case unrest in any geopolitical hot spots worsened during the long holiday weekend. The Nymex market was closed Monday for Labor Day and reopened Tuesday. "What kicked us off was, obviously, nothing bad happened over the weekend" to disrupt global oil supplies, said John Kilduff, founding partner of Again Capital in New York. On top of that, […]

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Natural-Gas Futures Drop as Heat-Wave Forecasts Fizzle

By Christian Berthelsen NEW YORK–Natural-gas prices suffered their largest single-day drop in more than six months on Tuesday after forecasts for a heat wave turned more moderate, ending hopes for a late summer surge in gas demand to cool homes and offices. Natural gas for delivery in October fell 17.5 cents, or 4.3%, to $3.89 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The decline erased more than a week’s worth of gains in the market, and the drop was the largest in percentage terms since Feb. 27. The market opened lower, and the losses accelerated throughout the session. Prices had climbed on forecasts of scorching temperatures throughout the U.S. in the first two weeks of August. But natural-gas futures fell Tuesday after newly revised forecasts said temperatures would moderate after this week, with hot weather remaining only in pockets of the South, the Southeast and […]

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Gazprom Neft exporting new Iraqi oil

Russian energy company said oil from the Badra field in southern Iraq is making its way to the Persian Gulf for exports. The company, the oil arm of Russian gas company Gazprom, brought Badra online in December and testing of new pipeline infrastructure to the export terminal at Basra began in May. Now, the company said, the field is sending 15,000 barrels of oil per day to the southern port city. "Over the period of just a few years, a consortium of companies led by Gazprom Neft has fully prepared Badra, one of the most complex geological field structures in Iraq, for full-scale commercial development," Alexander Dyukov , Gazprom Neft board chairman, said in a statement Monday. "This is the first major international project in the upstream sector the company has implemented from scratch." In June, the company started preliminary oil production from the Badra oil field in Iraq, […]

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Group: Islamic militants killed 770 Iraqi troops

BAGHDAD (AP) — An international rights group says Islamic State militants carried out a mass killing of hundreds of Iraqi soldiers captured when the extremists overran a military base north of Baghdad in June. Human Rights Watch said Wednesday that new evidence indicates the Islamic State group killed between 560 and 770 men captured at Camp Speicher, near the city of Tikrit. The New York-based watchdog says the number of slain Iraqi soldiers is several times higher than previously reported. Earlier, Human Rights Watch said between 160 and 190 men were killed. Human Rights Watch says the new number is based on analysis of new satellite imagery, militant videos and a survivor’s account. In June, the Islamic State group claimed it had "executed" about 1,700 soldiers and military personnel captured from Camp Speicher.

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U.S. not open for Kurdish oil, Baghdad says

The semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government last week declared victory in a Texas court case involving the status of oil loaded onto the vessel United Kalavrvta, circling currently near the port city of Galveston. The Iraqi Oil Ministry published a letter saying the KRG was making misleading statements on the case. The court’s decision was "quite narrow," the ministry said, and does nothing to prevent U.S. authorities from seizing what Baghdad said is illegal cargo. "The U.S. market is far from being open for illegal KRG exports," it said. Both sides make competing claims over whether or not Kurdish oil exports are legal. The U.S. government has sided with Iraq, saying Baghdad has exclusive rights to determine exports. The issue over United Kalavrvta, however, is a commercial matter , Washington said. Baghdad said an independent Iraqi court is the best forum to settle the dispute. It added, however, it has […]

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Statoil restarts Algerian gas work after terror attack

Norwegian energy company Statoil said it was ready to return to work in Algeria more than a year after terrorists stormed a gas facility there. Terrorists sympathetic with al-Qaida stormed the country’s In Amenas natural gas facility in January 2013, leaving 38 civilians and 29 militants dead. Statoil and its joint venture partners said they’re ready to resume ordinary operations at the plant after implementing new security measures at the facility. "The decision to resume ordinary operations at In Amenas is the result of a thorough and stepwise process of identifying necessary security measures, implementing them and validating that they are in place and operational," Lars Christian Bacher, executive vice president for production at Statoil, said in a statement Monday. In Amenas has a production capacity of approximately 315 million cubic feet of natural gas per year. Algeria’s state-run energy company Sonatrach operates the facility alongside British energy company […]

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Iran boasts of nuclear energy potential

| License Photo Following an announcement of new U.S. sanctions on Iran, an energy official in Tehran said the country is looking to vastly expand its nuclear power capacity. Ebrahim Karkhaneh, the director of a nuclear energy subcommittee in the Iranian parliament, said Iran is already generating 1,000 megawatts of power from its Bushehr nuclear power facility. Studies are under way to expand that output , in part with the help of Russia, which already supplies nuclear fuel to Bushehr. "We hope that the country would be able to increase nuclear power generation to 8,000 megawatts," Karkhaneh said Monday. The U.S. Treasury Department last week unveiled what it said was a diverse new set of sanctions meant to curb Iran’s nuclear and missile ambitions. Iran secured relief from some sanctions last year in exchange for curbing its nuclear research activity, though U.S. Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David […]

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Aging oil fields can turn the Arabian Peninsula into a powder keg

300×300 Monetising Summit If one studies the world’s oil resources and oil production then the Arabian Peninsula is of central interest. The remaining monarchies of the region have established the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). This was formed in 1981 as a response to the Iranian Revolution and Iraq’s attack on Iran. The GCC is comprised of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, The United Arab Emirates and Oman. Within the GCC exist enormous oil resources. According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 40% of the world’s remaining conventional oil reservs exists within the GCC. The world’s largest conventional oil field is Ghawar in Saudi Arabia and there are also many other gigantic oilfields in the region. Since the 1950s it is mainly oil from the Arabian Peninsula that has been decisive for the economic growth of the global economy. The problem at the moment is that the fields […]

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