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Oil Plunge Seen Eroding Emissions Ambition: Carbon & Climate

While the falling price of crude oil is giving consumers cheaper energy, it’s threatening long-term global pollution-control efforts. Reduced national income from energy taxes and “a low-growth economic environment” might spur countries to curtail their emissions-curbing pledges for after 2020, leading to more emissions of carbon for a longer time, said Zoe Knight, head of the HSBC Holdings Inc.’s climate change center in London . These proposals will be submitted under a United Nations climate-protection process starting in March. Public money “for funding low-carbon energy scale-up and energy-efficiency retrofits could be scarcer,” Knight said yesterday in an e-mailed note. Reduced government funds “leads to difficult choices on capital resource allocation, which in turn could mean high carbon lock-in over the long run,” she said. The International Energy Agency said in November that the world would probably reach by 2040 an emissions ceiling recommended by a panel of scientists formed […]

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Oil Firms’ New Dilemma: Save, or Borrow More?

ENLARGE Big oil companies must decide whether to risk upsetting investors by cutting dividends, or take on big debt in the hope that oil prices will soon recover. Bloomberg News For years, big oil companies have been spending more money than they bring in. With oil prices down more than 50% since last June, that is becoming an ever trickier way to run their businesses. The cost of developing new fields has ballooned over the past decade, while investors have kept pressing for high dividends. The result: Companies have spent more on capital costs and mollifying investors than they reap in cash flow. Now, companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. , Royal Dutch Shell PLC and BP PLC must decide whether to risk future earnings by cutting developments, risk upsetting investors by cutting dividends, or take on big debt in the hope that oil prices will soon recover. The big […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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NYMEX February settles down 6.7 cents at $2.871/MMBtu

Houston (Platts)–7Jan2015/508 pm EST/2208 GMT The NYMEX February natural gas futures contract settled at $2.871/MMBtu Wednesday, down 6.7 cents, as the market continued to weigh current frigid temperatures against forecasts for milder weather later in the month. Wednesday’s settle price was the lowest since September 24, 2012, when the price closed at $2.837/MMBtu, but the February gas contract traded Wednesday in a range of $2.825-3.012/MMBtu. "When we came in this morning, the market had held out hope that after the coming warm-up, we would see a colder end of the month," said Teri Viswanath, BNP Paribas analyst. "[At] the noon update, you saw the [Arctic] ridge that the market had been expecting disappear for month-end." The Weather Channel forecasts sub-freezing lows across almost all of the lower 48 states on Thursday, stretching as far south as the Gulf Coast, northern Florida and South Texas, and sub-zero temperatures as far […]

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NOC oil heading to market via Kurdistan

The final welded section of the KRG’s Khurmala – Feyshkabour pipeline lies by trenching immediately south of oil storage tanks at DNO International’s pumping station, 3km from the Turkey border, in November 2013. It is now installed and on Jan. 1, 2014, began exporting Kirkuk oil on behalf of the NOC. (PATRICK OSGOOD/Iraq Oil Report) of Iraq Oil Report Recommend Sign Up to see what your friends recommend. Iraq’s federal North Oil Company (NOC) has begun exporting Kirkuk crude for the first time since militants led by the so-called Islamic State (IS) bombed the pipeline to Turkey nearly a year ago. The fields that still remain under the control of the state-run North Oil Company (NOC) – which since June has lost smaller assets to the IS group and larger fields to Kurdish appropriation – are sending 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) north via a pipeline network controlled by […]

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U.A.E. Energy Minister Says Oil Glut Could Run for Years

Oversupply in crude markets could take months or even years to fix depending on when producers outside OPEC cut their output, Abu Dhabi-based The National reported, citing comments by U.A.E. Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei. “We are experiencing an obvious oversupply in the market that needs time to be absorbed,” the newspaper reported Mazrouei as saying in e-mailed comments. The United Arab Emirates supported the November decision by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to maintain production, The National reported Mazrouei as saying. Brent crude, a pricing benchmark for more than half of the world’s oil, tumbled 48 percent last year, the most since 2008. OPEC decided Nov. 27 to maintain production instead of cutting output to eliminate a surplus left by increased supplies from the U.S. to Russia . “Depending on the actual production growth from non-OPEC countries, this problem could take months or even years,” the U.A.E.’s […]

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Iran’s Supreme Leader Is Skeptical of Nuclear Talks With U.S.

TEHRAN — Iran ’s supreme leader said on Wednesday that his country should find internal solutions for dealing with economic sanctions and that the United States could not be trusted to lift sanctions in the event that a nuclear agreement is reached. The leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , reiterated in a speech published on his personal website that he did not oppose the current negotiations with the United States and other world powers over Iran ’s nuclear program , but said that Iranians needed to rely on “bright and realistic glimmers of hope, and not on imaginary ones.” Those talks are scheduled to resume Jan. 18 in Geneva, Iran’s state Islamic Republic News Agency reported on Tuesday. In his first public criticism of the government of President Hassan Rouhani since his election in 2013, Mr. Khamenei said the government should “trust the people and domestic forces.” He also asked […]

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Budget debates focus on revenue worries

Members of Parliament gather to vote on Iraq’s new government in Baghdad on Sept. 8, 2014. (THAIER AL-SUDANI/Reuters) Iraq’s 2015 draft budget received a second reading in Parliament Wednesday, although concerns over the falling price of oil threaten to delay legislative progress."The most difficult issue now standing in the way of approving the budget is the deterioration of oil prices," said Tariq Sadiq, a Kurdish member of the federal Parliament’s Oil and Energy Committee. "There is a proposal to return the budget draft to the Cabinet."Several other MPs and Parliament staffers confirmed they discus…

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China Boosts Support for Latin Leftists

ENLARGE Venezuela’s Maduro, right, and China’s Xi in Beijing on Wednesday. Andy Wong/Press Pool China pledged billions of dollars of financing to Venezuela and Ecuador, two South American energy exporters battered by falling oil prices, as Beijing moved to secure resources and allies in the region. China has increased its diplomatic clout throughout Latin America by extending over $100 billion in credit to the region since 2005, according to figures from Boston University’s Global Economic Governance Initiative. On Thursday Chinese President Xi Jinping said China’s foreign investment in Latin America would hit $250 billion over the next decade, without offering details. Beijing has become the biggest foreign financier of both Venezuela and Ecuador, two oil-rich, leftist allies eager to help counter U.S. sway in the region. Following a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolás Maduro announced bilateral accords that would bring $20 billion in new […]

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Add Natural Gas Prices to Putin’s Long List of Problems

After last year’s plunges in oil and the ruble, Russian President Vladimir Putin now has another thing to worry about: the price of natural gas. While the fuel held up better than oil last year, weakening just about half as much, the average cost on Europe’s biggest open market will fall 13 percent this year to the lowest since 2010, according to the median of 13 traders, brokers and analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Part of the reason for the drop is that global production capacity of liquefied natural gas will jump the most in four years, boosting competition for Russian pipeline flows that meet almost a third of Europe’s demand. Brent crude , used to help price state-owned OAO Gazprom’s gas sales to Europe , slumped 48 percent last year on global oversupply. Russia gets two-thirds of its export revenue from oil and gas and Putin has warned […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple