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Russian currency stabilizing despite oil’s fade

Russian currency holding steady despite fade in early 2015 rally in crude oil prices. File Photo by UPI/Alex Volgin. The ruble traded Monday at around 59.27 to the U.S. dollar, recovering from the historic low-water mark of around 62 reached in late 2014. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on the "Vesti on Saturday" television program the nation’s currency has stabilized . "Even if oil prices deviate to a certain extent from the current figures, the ruble will not react much," he said. Brent crude oil prices dipped below $50 per barrel in January, but gained more than 35 percent by early March. The price since the beginning of the month is down nearly 12 percent. A forecast for 2015 from the Russian Economy Ministry said export revenues would decline as Russian energy products wane from the world market, but Siluanov said last week it was unclear how long […]

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Ukraine to Temporarily Stop Buying Natural Gas From Russia

ENLARGE A natural gas line runs through the countryside near Donetsk, Ukraine. Kiev started to diversify away from its eastern neighbor as tensions between the countries escalated last spring. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images KIEV, Ukraine—Ukraine will temporarily stop buying natural gas from Russia on April 1 as the current interim deal expires , the country’s energy minister said on Monday, citing high prices. Kiev, which is heavily reliant on Russian gas, started to diversify away from its eastern neighbor as tensions between the countries escalated last spring, seeking independence from Russian gas shipments in three to four years. Currently “there’s no reason to buy [Russian gas] at a higher price than we can buy from Europe, so I think we’ll just stop buying it,” Ukraine’s Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn told a briefing in Kiev. In October, Ukraine and Russia struck a temporary deal to ensure uninterrupted transit of Russian […]

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Eurozone recovery signs grow stronger

More signs have emerged that the eurozone’s recovery is strengthening, with a closely-watched poll of purchasing managers indicating activity is now rising at its fastest pace in almost four years. The flash purchasing managers’ index for the eurozone, compiled by data firm Markit, registered 54.1 this month, up from 53.3 in February. The figure is the highest since the spring of 2011 and is well above the crucial 50 level that marks an expansion in activity. There were indications that activity would remain strong in the months ahead, with a separate reading for new orders also hitting its highest level since May 2011. The single currency’s decline against the dollar helped ease deflationary pressures, with the cost of input prices rising at the fastest pace for more than a year. While firms continued to slash prices in the face of weak demand, some managed to pass on the higher […]

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US Drillers Scrambling To Thwart OPEC Threat

Companies are leaning on new techniques and technology to get more oil out of every well they drill, and furiously cutting costs in an effort to keep US oil competitive with much lower-costing oil. NEW YORK (AP) — OPEC and lower global oil prices delivered a one-two punch to the drillers in North Dakota and Texas who brought the U.S. one of the biggest booms in the history of the global oil industry. Now they are fighting back. Companies are leaning on new techniques and technology to get more oil out of every well they drill, and furiously cutting costs in an effort to keep U.S. oil competitive with much lower-cost oil flowing out of the Middle East, Russia and elsewhere. "Everybody gets a little more imaginative, because they need to," says Hans-Christian Freitag, vice president of technology for the drilling services company Baker Hughes. Spurred by rising global […]

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First Oil, Now Shale Gas Set To Crash Amid “Orgy Of Over-Production”

Spending cuts for oil-directed drilling have dominated first quarter 2015 energy news but rig counts for shale gas drilling are too high . Investors should pay attention to this growing problem. Bank of America fears sub-$2 gas prices now that winter heating worries are over. Low natural gas prices affect the economics for gas-rich oil production in the Eagle Ford Shale and Permian basin plays as well as for the shale gas plays. Meanwhile, an orgy of over-production is taking place in the Marcellus Shale. Well head prices are now below $1.50 per thousand cubic feet of gas because of limited take-away capacity and near-saturation of regional demand. Even companies in the Wyoming, Susquehanna, Allegheny and Washington County core areas of the Marcellus play are losing money at these prices. The rig count for shale gas plays has decreased by only half as much as for the tight oil […]

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Oil slips close to $55 as Saudi output rises to near record

LONDON (Reuters) – Oil prices declined on Monday, holding near $55 a barrel after Saudi Arabia indicated it was now pumping near a record high of 10 million barrels per day, adding to concerns of global oversupply. Saudi Arabia has stood firm on output, saying it would only consider cutting it if other producers outside OPEC also joined. Brent crude oil futures were trading down 21 cents at $55.11 a barrel at 1217 GMT, after hitting a low of $54.12. U.S. WTI crude was down 55 cents at $46.02. Saudi oil minister Ali al Naimi also said the kingdom was now pumping around 10 million barrels per day (bpd), which could indicate an increase of 350,000 bpd over its February production. Analysts at Barclays forecast on Monday that if OPEC production held near current levels of near 30 million bpd, the market surplus would expand from 900,000 bpd to […]

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Iran’s Coming Leadership Crisis

ENLARGE Following surgery in Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is visited by President Hasan Rouhani, Sept. 8, 2014. Photo: Getty Images Negotiators from Iran and the P5+1 powers led by the U.S. are racing against a March 31 deadline to conclude a nuclear deal in Lausanne, Switzerland. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters on Saturday that negotiators had made “genuine progress” but that “important gaps remain.” Yet what happens if the Iranian leadership that the U.S. and others are dealing with now is not in place to implement any agreement? Two recent developments suggest that the Islamic Republic may be heading toward one of its cyclical spasms of intense factional competition. The outcome could derail any deal, or leave the West committed to an agreement that is even less verifiable or useful than it might be today. There is scant evidence that the Obama administration is taking this into […]

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Using Iraq and Libya as a Lens

WASHINGTON — Every presidential candidate should face pressure to answer, explicitly, these two questions: Given what we now know, was it right or wrong to invade Iraq in 2003 to oust Saddam Hussein and, eight years later, to help topple the regime of Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya? Force the contenders to skip the partisan talking points and make them provide an inkling of a would-be president’s instincts about military interventions. The Iraq invasion was undertaken by the brother of the leading 2016 Republican candidate. The Libya operations were advanced by the Democratic front-runner. Today, both Iraq and Libya are dangerously dysfunctional countries where terrorism is pervasive. At the same time, the threat of the Islamic State has made war-weary Americans, at least temporarily, more receptive to American involvement. Some prospective candidates have no trouble with these questions. Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is a hard-liner on […]

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OPEC won’t bear burden of propping up oil price: Saudi minister

RIYADH (Reuters) – OPEC will not take sole responsibility for propping up the oil price, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister said on Sunday, signaling the world’s top petroleum exporter is determined to ride out a market slump that has roughly halved prices since last June. Last November, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries kingpin Saudi Arabia persuaded members to keep production unchanged to defend market share. The move accelerated an already sharp oil price drop from peaks last year of more than $100 per barrel that was precipitated by an oversupply of crude and weakening demand. Since the oil price collapse, top OPEC exporter Saudi Arabia has said it wants non-OPEC producers to cooperate with the group. But Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said on Sunday that plan had so far not worked. "Today the situation is hard. We tried, we held meetings and we did not succeed because countries […]

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Germany’s Nuclear Costs Trigger Fears

Germany is trying to find a site suitable to store radioactive waste. ENLARGE Photo: Bloomberg News FRANKFURT—A new German government report is stoking fears that the country’s energy companies can’t shoulder the cost of a government plan to close the country’s nuclear-power plants. Germany aims to phase out its nine remaining reactors by 2022, faster than almost any country. But nobody knows exactly how much it costs to shut and clean up atomic-power plants and all the facilities used over decades to store radioactive waste. Building a depository for the waste deep underground and delivering the waste add additional unknown costs. Berlin promises utilities will foot the bill, but the new report, released Friday, raises the prospect of German taxpayers ending up on the hook. The issue is particularly acute because German power companies are already struggling financially. Chancellor Angela Merkel ’s campaign to wean Germany off nuclear and […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple