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Advocates irked by British shale momentum

British advocacy group calls for refusal of a shale gas drilling permit, saying company behind the plans is manipulating local leaders. UPI/Kevin Dietsch Members of the Lancashire County Council agreed to hold off a final decision on planning applications for hydraulic fracturing submitted by shale gas pioneer Cuadrilla Resources. Cuadrilla asked for a delay after the council last week suggested it would deny the permit because of noise pollution concerns. Helen Rimmer, a campaigner with the British Friends of the Earth, said the council should listen to the chorus of voices expressing opposition to fracking. "Lancashire council must resist Cuadrilla’s ploys to push fracking through and listen to the tens of thousands of voices of opposition and reject these plans," she said in a statement. "Failure to do so will leave Lancashire as the UK’s guinea pig for this unnecessary and polluting technology." Cuadrilla, which estimates the region may […]

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Shell Chief Pledges Everything to Maintain Its ‘Iconic’ Dividend

(Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden pledged to do all he can to maintain payments to shareholders of Europe’s largest oil company after crude prices fell by more than half in the past six months. “We have a very long-term dividend policy and I’m not minded to change that,” Van Beurden said in an interview today with Bloomberg Television. “The dividend is an iconic item at Shell and I will do everything to protect it.” Shell, which missed analysts’ expectations for fourth-quarter earnings today, plans to pay a first-quarter dividend of 47 cents a share, unchanged from the previous two quarters, the Hague-based company said in a statement. The company is cutting its capital spending by $15 billion over three years to help it weather the collapse in oil prices and keep paying shareholders. The industry is scurrying to protect returns for investors […]

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BG Group, KBR align in low price era

BG Group, KBR, form alliance to streamline operations in low oil price environment. (UPI Photo/Gary C. Caskey) Both companies signed a deal to form a single-partner alliance that extends through at least 2021. KBR under the terms of the deal provides technical support and management expertise to front end engineering and design work for BG’s portfolio in the exploration and production sector. "In a lower oil price environment, this is an important aspect of the alliance which enables BG Group to help minimize its fixed costs whilst retaining access to high value technical expertise and support," the company statement read. Energy companies, and those in secondary industries like steel, are cutting back on spending as oil continues to trade in a bear market. BP, which cut staff from its North Sea division and enacted a pay freeze to cope with the low price environment, this week announced it was […]

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Shell earnings slide on plunging crude price

Royal Dutch Shell is to cut more than $15bn in spending in an effort to plug dwindling revenues from oil sales, as it reported a sharp slide in quarterly earnings due to the plunge in crude prices . The Anglo-Dutch energy group, the first of the world’s big oil companies to report full-year results for 2014, on Thursday signalled that a period of adjustment lay ahead for much of the industry following a near 60 per cent slide in crude prices since last summer to less than $50 a barrel. More On this topic IN Oil & Gas Excluding exceptionals such as tax adjustments from the sale of certain assets, profits for the fourth quarter of last year were $3.26bn, lower than analysts’ estimates of about $4.1bn and down from $5.85bn in the third quarter. But earnings were up 12 per cent from a year ago. Shares in the […]

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Gazprom Profit Falls on Ruble, Ukraine

ENLARGE Russian gas giant Gazprom has reported a sharp drop in third-quarter profit, hit by the slide in the ruble and a lack of deliveries to Ukraine. Photo: Reuters MOSCOW—Russian state-controlled gas group OAO Gazprom said net profit plunged 62% in the third quarter of 2014 compared with same period the previous year, hit by the slide in the ruble and a lack of deliveries to key customer Ukraine. Net profit fell to 105.7 billion rubles ($1.56 billion) from 276.1 billion rubles in the third quarter of 2013. Revenue dropped 6% to 1.13 trillion rubles, the company said on Thursday. Shares in Gazprom, which reports its earnings well after other listed Russian companies, were up 0.6% in early trading in Moscow after the results were released, broadly in line with the market. Write to James Marson at [email protected]

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Kremlin: Ukraine gas networks idled by 2019

Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov says Europe remains an important trading partner in the energy sector. UPI/David Silpa Europe gets about a quarter of its natural gas needs met by Russian suppliers, though the majority of that runs through a Soviet-era transit network in Ukraine. Simmering conflict, and gas contract issues reaching back to at least 2006, exposes that artery to risk. The Kremlin has worked to advance transit networks that avoid Ukrainian territory, most recently with Turkish Stream, a revamped project that replaces the now-scrapped South Stream pipeline. By 2019, Ukrainian networks will be idle and Gazprom Chairman Viktor Zubkov said Europe needs to be ready . "Considering the decision made on re-directing supplies from 2019, European partners do not have so much time [for infrastructure preparation]," he said from a European gas conference in Vienna. Gazprom officials met earlier this week in Ankara to discuss […]

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Have we reached ‘peak food’? Shortages loom as global production rates slow

Have we reached ‘peak food’? Shortages loom as global production rates slow thumbnail The world has entered an era of “peak food” production with an array of staples from corn and rice to wheat and chicken slowing in growth – with potentially disastrous consequences for feeding the planet. New research finds that the supply of 21 staples, such as eggs, meat, vegetables and soybeans is already beginning to run out of momentum, while the global population continues to soar. Peak chicken was in 2006, while milk and wheat both peaked in 2004 and rice peaked way back in 1988, according to new research from Yale University, Michigan State University and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany. What makes the report particularly alarming is that so many crucial sources of food have peaked in a relatively short period of history, the researchers said. “People often talk of substitution. […]

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They Really Do Want To Reduce The Population

They Really Do Want To Reduce The Population thumbnail Most Americans have absolutely no idea, but a very dark philosophy is spreading like wildfire among the global elite.  This philosophy is an obsessive belief that humanity has become a cancer that is destroying the earth.  There are now large numbers of global leaders that are convinced that the exploding population of the world has become like a virus or a plague, and that it must be combated as such.  In fact, it would be very difficult to understate just how obsessed many members of the global elite are with population control.  The United Nations puts out position papers about it, universities have entire courses dedicated to it, radical population control advocates have been appointed to some of the highest political positions in the world, and some of the wealthiest people on the planet get together just to talk about it .  Those who believe in this philosophy are constantly talking about […]

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Oil Resumes Slide as U.S. Supply Seen Rising Again

By Eric Yep Crude-oil futures resumed their fall in Asian trade Wednesday with another surge in weekly U.S. oil supply expected to keep oil prices under pressure. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in March traded at $45.47 a barrel at 0425 GMT, down $0.76 in the Globex electronic session. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, for March delivery fell $0.62 to $48.98 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures exchange. Oil production in the U.S. is surging on the back of its shale boom that has added to much of the global oil oversupply and pushed oil prices to their lowest in more than 5 1/2 years. Market watchers track several key indicators to gauge oil supply levels, including weekly U.S. oil inventory data, oil inventories at the Nymex delivery point of Cushing, Oklahoma, developed country oil stockpiles and most recently, the number […]

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Natural Gas Bounces as Weather Forecasts Grow Colder

By Timothy Puko Natural gas closed with strong gains on Tuesday, briefly cracking the $3 mark for the first time in more than a week on colder weather and options expiration. The front-month February contract settled up 10 cents, or 3.5%, at $2.981 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Trading went as high as $3.005/mmBtu, highest in intraday trading since Jan. 16. The more actively traded March contract settled up 8.7 cents, or 3%, at $2.935/mmBtu. Options expired at close and the February contract expires Wednesday at close. Many options traders sold puts with a $3 strike price, and they had an incentive to bid up the futures contract Tuesday to avoid paying out on their options deal, said Aaron Calder, senior market analyst at energy-consulting firm Gelber & Associates in Houston. Colder weather helped, too. The blizzard that hit the Northeast is part […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple