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China Raises Red Flag on Its Stock Markets

Fund managers are looking for value in the state-owned behemoths traded on the Shanghai exchange. ENLARGE Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters China’s securities regulator issued its strongest warning yet about the country’s soaring stock markets and tightened rules on margin lending, while the country’s two stock exchanges said they would make it easier to bet against stocks, spurring worries that the world’s best-performing markets could tumble. The announcements late Friday by the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges and two industry associations raised fears of a selloff in China, where the main market index has doubled over 12 months and the riskiest index is up 70% this year. A selloff in China could affect markets around the world, analysts said. “If China is down 5%, it’s going to weigh on global sentiment,” said David Welch, head of equity distribution at brokerage firm Reorient Group. The CSRC warned […]

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China Cracks Down on Water-Polluting Industries

ENLARGE A woman washing a bag in a river in Zhenyuan, China on March 19. The Chinese government plans to close several water-polluting businesses in industries from oil refining to pesticide production. Photo: Zuma Press BEIJING—China plans to close numerous small-scale enterprises in nearly a dozen industries, including dyeing plants, oil refineries and pesticide producers, in an effort to clean up its water supply. The goal is to significantly improve water quality by 2020, according to a plan released Thursday by the State Council, China’s cabinet. It aims to ensure that at least 70% of the water quality of major river basins reaches Grade 3 on a five-point scale–considered good enough to use as drinking water. The plan also aims to make 93% of water supply for China’s several hundred largest cities reach the same level of quality. From the factory-discharged wastewater that turns China’s rivers into a rainbow […]

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Schlumberger to lay off 11,000

Oil field services company Schlumberger says markets should remain tight for the foreseeable future. File Photo by UPI/Shutterstock/Calin Tatu. HOUSTON, April 17 (UPI) — Most of the decrease in the quarterly revenue for the first quarter of the year came from the "severe" decline in North America, Schlumberger said. The oil services company said it would cut another 11,000 from its workforce, bringing the total to 20,000 since trimming expenses earlier this year to offset lower oil prices. That represents about 15 percent of the company’s staff. "Schlumberger first-quarter revenue decreased 19 percent sequentially driven by the severe decline in North American land activity and associated pricing pressure," Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Pall Kibsgaard said in a statement. Baker Hughes last week reported 988 active rigs in the United States for the week ending April 10, down nearly 4 percent from the previous week and 46 percent lower […]

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Regulators Urge Railroads to Make Changes to Improve Oil-Train Safety

ENLARGE A BNSF Railway freight train loaded with crude oil derailed March 5 in a rural area near Galena, Ill. Several cars ruptured and the oil caught fire, generating large explosions. Photo: Telegraph Herald/Mike Burley/Associated Press U.S. regulators are urging railroads to change the way they deal with wheel defects, saying the problem may have caused a fiery oil-train derailment in Illinois last month. Despite multiple warning signs, a train carrying crude oil from North Dakota to Philadelphia continued to travel on a potentially faulty wheel, according to a preliminary federal investigation. Twenty-one cars of a BNSF Railway Co. oil train derailed near Galena, Ill., 160 miles west of Chicago. Several cars ruptured during the accident and the oil inside caught fire, generating large explosions. On Friday, the Federal Railroad Administration issued a safety advisory pointing to a broken wheel and telling railroads to act more aggressively to fix […]

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New maps highlight geologic characteristics of U.S. tight oil, shale plays

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on data from various published studies Note: Click to enlarge. EIA is currently in the process of updating maps of major tight oil and shale gas plays , including the Eagle Ford and Marcellus plays, which will help to better characterize the geology of key areas of production in the United States. EIA’s most recent maps focus on shale and tight oil plays, and characterize plays based on geologic characteristics, including rock type and age. Understanding geologic history and processes helps exploration and production companies reduce the risk of drilling dry, nonproducing wells and better understand hydrocarbon resource potentials. Production of crude oil and natural gas occurs in two classes of rock: source rocks and reservoir rocks. Source rocks are sedimentary rocks in which hydrocarbons (organic chemical compounds of hydrogen and carbon) form. Reservoir rocks are both porous, meaning that there are open […]

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AEO 2015, The EIA’s Crude Production Expectations

The EIA came out with its final update of Annual Energy Outlook 2015 . It seems that the EIA is extremely optimistic concerning future US crude oil production. Here is a comparison with AEO 2014. The EIA still expects US crude production to peak in 2019 but at 10,472,000 bpd or 824,000 barrels per day higher than the expected last year. But the biggest difference is in the EIA’s change in decline expectations. They now expect the US to be producing 9,329,000 bpd in 2040 or 1,812 higher than they had 2040 production last year. This is the EIA’s reference, or most likely case. Production from tight formations leads the growth in U.S. crude oil production across all AEO2015 cases. The path of projected crude oil production varies significantly across the cases, with total U.S. crude oil production reaching high points of 10.6 million barrels per day (bbl/d) in […]

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BHI: US rig count cut in more than half since Dec. 5

By Matt Zborowski OGJ Staff Writer The US drilling rig count fell 34 units—all on land—to 954 rigs working during the week ended Apr. 17, according to data from Baker Hughes Inc. The slide has now lasted 19 consecutive weeks, during which time the count has plunged 966 units ( OGJ Online, Dec. 5, 2014 ). The total of 954 is the lowest since the week ended July 31, 2009, and 877 fewer units compared with this week a year ago. The impact of more and more rigs going offline on US oil production is showing, according to the US Energy Information Administration’s monthly Drilling Productivity Report (DPR), which expects overall output from US shale plays to decline 57,000 b/d in May compared with April to 5.56 million b/d ( OGJ Online, Mar. 10, 2015 ). The first declines in major US shale plays were projected by EIA to […]

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API: US demand for petroleum rose in March, first quarter

HOUSTON, Apr. 17 Total US petroleum deliveries, a measure of demand, averaged 19.2 million b/d in March, up 3.4% from a year ago and the highest level for the month since 2011, according to the American Petroleum Institute’s monthly statistics for March. Total demand in the first quarter gained 2.2% year-over-year. “Production of both oil and natural gas liquids last month remained at the highest levels in decades even as rig counts reached a 5-year low,” said John Felmy, API chief economist. “Demand for petroleum continued to show healthy growth compared to early last year,” he said. According to API data, US gasoline demand rose 2.2% last month from the prior year to average 8.9 million b/d—the highest deliveries for the month in 6 years. Deliveries of gasoline in the first quarter increased 2.9% vs. last year. Distillate deliveries in March averaged just below 4 million b/d, down 1.7% […]

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US Oil Rigs Slide For 19th Week As Record Retreat Drags On

(Bloomberg) — Oil explorers idled rigs in U.S. fields for the 19th straight week, prolonging an unprecedented retrenchment in drilling. Rigs targeting oil in the U.S. declined by 26 to 734, Baker Hughes Inc. said on its website Friday, a four-year low. Those seeking gas slipped by eight to 217, the Houston-based field services company said. The total U.S. count, which includes three miscellaneous rigs, fell by 34 to 954, the fewest since 2009. The six-month retreat in oil drilling is bringing the U.S. shale boom to a halt, with crude production falling twice in three weeks and the government projecting a decline in output from tight-rock formations next month. The country has lost more than half of its oil rigs since October as drillers cut spending and let go of thousands of workers following the worst collapse in prices since 2009. The spending curbs “are starting to impact […]

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The Keystone XL debate is highly partisan — unless you live near the proposed pipeline route

Our mental snapshot of the politics of the Keystone XL pipeline is pretty straightforward — Republicans and most independents want it built; so do some Democrats, but most Democrats and the environmental left are opposed. A new study in Energy Policy, though, suggests that this assumption about pipeline politics mainly holds on the national level — but not so much locally. Rather, the research finds, as you get closer to living near the proposed pipeline route, liberals and conservatives look less different in their views — and liberals as a whole become more in favor of the pipeline. The result suggests that anti-pipeline advocates may be losing the framing war to those who endlessly cite the pipeline’s alleged economic benefits. The research , conducted by Timothy Gravelle of the University of Essex and Erick Lachapelle of the University of Montreal, drew upon data from a series of three large Pew polls of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple