Category:

OPEC comes cleaner on how much oil its members pump

LONDON (Reuters) – OPEC members’ own versions of their oil output were for years greeted with such scepticism that the group resorted to publishing what others thought they were producing. That gave rise to a mini-industry of OPEC watchers, tapping secretive sources to track every barrel. Output was hotly contested when the group squabbled over member quotas, which have since been abandoned. But on Monday, OPEC issued a set of production figures as reported to its Vienna Secretariat by member-countries, without any countries missing from the total for the first time in months. These also showed the difference between OPEC output based on member-countries’ own submissions, and that provided by OPEC’s list of secondary sources, which include consultants and industry media, to be narrowing. "I can see some countries trying to address these problems and publish better data," said an oil market expert working for a European government. "But […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Tensions Flare Over Tanker Seeking Libyan Crude

ENLARGE A January photo of the Mellitah Oil and Gas terminal on the outskirts of Zwara in western Libya after fighters from the Islamist-backed Fajr Libya militia secured the perimeter of the oil complex. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images An oil tanker booked to load Libyan crude has sparked a fraught question over the North African country’s huge crude reserves: Who has the right to sell the oil when two governments are battling for control of the nation? The dispute is at the center of the struggle for control of Libya since the ouster and death of dictator Moammar Gadhafi and the nation’s descent into violence and instability. The issue has become muddier in recent weeks after a string of terrorist attacks and sabotage crippled the oil industry. The Vito, a tanker controlled by Aurum Ship Management of the United Arab Emirates, has been chartered to load 1.3 million barrels […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Saudi Arabia Wooing Fired U.S. Shale Workers to ‘Join Our Team’

A floor hand signals to the driller to pull the pipe from the mouse hole on Orion Drilling Co.’s Perseus drilling rig near Encinal in Webb County, Texas, U.S. For decades, the Saudis have recruited workers from the U.S. for its conventional drilling programs, offering hefty salaries and benefits as lures. Photographer: Eddie Seal/Bloomberg (Bloomberg) — Workers fired from U.S. shale fields after the collapse in oil prices could soon have a new boss: the nation some blame for driving that decline. The state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co., also known as Saudi Aramco, is posting new job ads online aiming to snap up experts in extracting oil from shale as the country seeks to become a leader in that rapidly expanding effort. Tens of thousands of U.S. workers have been fired since November as oil prices plunged because of oversupplies, driven in part by an OPEC decision supported by […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Saudi Arabia Needs More Oil to Feed Local Refinery Expansion

(Bloomberg) — Saudi Arabia’s plans to expand local refineries while maintaining its share of the global crude market point to one thing: higher production. The world’s largest oil exporter will probably increase output this year to feed new refineries, deepening a global supply glut, according to analysts at Societe Generale SA and DNB ASA. The kingdom may go as high as 10 million barrels a day by April, according to Torbjoern Kjus, an analyst at DNB in Oslo. That would be the most in more than two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “Saudi Arabia will do the same thing as other OPEC members have always been doing: They’ll produce as much as they can,” Kjus said by phone March 11. Fellow OPEC members, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, will probably do the same because “they don’t want to be holding back on any potential exports.” Crude’s […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Iran Can Add Million Barrels a Day of Oil Without Sanctions

(Bloomberg) — Iran could raise oil exports by 1 million barrels a day if international sanctions were lifted, its oil minister said, as talks resumed with the U.S. over its nuclear program. “If sanctions are lifted, we can raise our exports by one million barrels per day within a few months,” Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said Monday in Assaluyeh, Iran. The Persian Gulf nation shipped 1.2 million barrels a day last month, the International Energy Agency said in a March 13 report. Iran and world powers are negotiating an agreement to end a decade-long dispute over the Persian Gulf country’s nuclear program. Diplomats from the U.S. and Iran, working toward an end-March deadline, resumed talks Monday in Lausanne, Switzerland. “If we get an announcement of a framework deal within the next couple of weeks, obviously from a market psychology, we’re going to have a bearish knee-jerk reaction,” Mike […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Iran’s Nuclear Deal Could Open Oil Flood

ENLARGE An Iranian worker at an oil refinery south of the capital Tehran. Direct sanctions on international purchases of Iranian oil, enacted in 2012, have gutted Iran’s exports, cutting crude sales in half to between 1 million to 1.2 million barrels a day over the past year. Photo: Associated Press Iran, the U.S. and its allies are pushing ahead with talks over a nuclear deal that would change many things—perhaps none faster than the price of oil. Iranian exports in recent years have been essentially capped by Western sanctions aimed at pressuring Tehran over its nuclear ambitions. A deal easing those sanctions could eventually translate into half a million barrels or more in Iranian crude heading into a currently glutted global market, analysts estimate. With global crude prices already under pressure, a deal could quickly knock them lower. Some traders even cited the resumption of talks this week between […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

GOP Letter Emerges as Issue in Iran Talks

ENLARGE Supporters of the Iranian opposition protest ahead of the Iran nuclear talks held in Lausanne, Switzerland, during a rally in Brussels on Monday. Photo: European Pressphoto Agency LAUSANNE, Switzerland—Iranian diplomats voiced concerns in a meeting Monday with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry about a letter sent by Republican U.S. lawmakers to Tehran’s leadership this month in which they threatened to block any agreement reached on Iran’s nuclear program, according to U.S. and Iranian officials. The letter wasn’t “helpful” to the negotiations, said a senior U.S. official, and was raised in talks by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif with Mr. Kerry during roughly five hours of meetings at the Swiss lakeside city of Lausanne on Monday. But the American diplomat stressed the U.S. and Iranian sides remained committed to forging a comprehensive agreement to curtail Iran’s nuclear program by a March 31 diplomatic deadline. The official added that […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Iran nuclear talks intensify as sides face tough issues

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (Reuters) – Efforts to reach a political agreement on Iran’s nuclear program by the end of the month intensified on Tuesday as negotiations between the United States and Iran resumed, and Western officials warned that tough issues remained unresolved. The U.S. and Iranian delegations led by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif began another round of talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne after the Iranians returned overnight from Brussels where they had met European foreign ministers. Senior European officials were expected in Lausanne later on Tuesday, with foreign ministers possibly joining them at the end of the week if talks advance. A Western diplomat said "we’re still not there yet" on reaching an end-March deadline for a framework agreement between Iran and six major powers — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. "We’ll see what happens […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Iran Sent Arms to Iraq to Fight ISIS, U.S. Says

WASHINGTON — Iran has deployed advanced rockets and missiles to Iraq to help fight the Islamic State in Tikrit, a significant escalation of firepower and another sign of Iran’s growing influence in Iraq. United States intelligence agencies detected the deployments in the past few weeks as Iraq was marshaling a force of 30,000 troops — two-thirds of them Shiite militias largely trained and equipped by Iran, according to three American officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence reports on Iran. Iran has not yet launched any of the weapons, but American officials fear the rockets and missiles could further inflame sectarian tensions and cause civilian casualties because they are not precision guided. Their deployment is another dilemma for the Obama administration as it trains and equips the Iraqi military and security services to help defeat the Islamic State, but unlike Iran is unwilling to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

OPEC Warns U.S. Oil Boom Could Be Over by Year-End

OPEC said Monday the U.S. oil boom could be over by the end of this year, offering a pessimistic view of American producers’ ability to withstand a historic collapse in crude prices and predicting that global petroleum supplies would realign with demand. The cartel, in its closely watched monthly oil-market report, cited spending cuts by U.S. producers and the falling number of American rigs drilling for oil in recent months after crude prices fell by about 60% from last summer to January before rallying in February. For instance, rig counts fell faster in February than they did in January, according to the latest Baker Hughes report. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries report comes when oil markets are at a crossroads and demonstrates the uncertainty over the staying power of the American oil boom. Just last week, the International Energy Agency said that American producers were defying expectations […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple