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OPEC oil output surge boosts surplus, despite higher demand

LONDON (Reuters) – OPEC said its oil output surged in March, adding to a global glut, despite more evidence that the producer group’s strategy of letting prices fall to hurt other producers is taking effect. OPEC’s report may reinforce the perception that major producers are staking out market share ahead of a potential rise in Iranian exports following its framework accord with world powers over its nuclear program. Thanks to lower output from the United States and other rival producers due to the oil price drop, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said demand for its oil this year would be 80,000 barrels per day (bpd) higher than previously thought. Its monthly oil market report also confirmed industry estimates of a surge in OPEC production in March, which jumped by 810,000 bpd – ten times the increase in 2015 demand for OPEC crude – led by record output […]

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Saudi Arabia Adds Half a Bakken to Oil Market in a Month

Saudi Arabia boosted crude production to the highest in three decades in March, with a surge equal to half the daily output of the Bakken formation in North Dakota. The kingdom boosted daily crude output by 658,800 barrels in March to an average of 10.294 million, according to data the country communicated to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ secretariat in Vienna. The Bakken formation, among the fastest-growing shale oil regions in the U.S., pumped 1.1 million barrels a day in February, according to data from the North Dakota Industrial Commission. Oil prices have rallied about 16 percent in New York this month on stronger fuel demand and as a record decline in U.S. rigs fanned speculation that the nation’s production will slow from its highest pace in three decades. Prices collapsed almost 50 percent last year as Saudi Arabia led OPEC in maintaining production in the face of […]

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Next Round of Nuclear Talks With Iran Set for Next Week

OPEN Graphic Graphic: The Iran Nuclear Deal’s Definition Depends on Who’s Talking TEHRAN — The next round of nuclear talks between world powers and Iran is scheduled for next week in Vienna, as the two sides begin to address the issues they left unresolved earlier this month in Lausanne, Switzerland, and try to conclude a comprehensive agreement by the end of June. The European Union, the host of the talks, said in a statement released on Thursday that its senior negotiator, Helga Schmid, will meet with Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, on Wednesday, to pursue an agreement that would restrict Iran to peaceful research in the nuclear area in exchange for the phased lifting of economic sanctions. After the parties reached a framework agreement in Lausanne, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , complicated matters by insisting that all sanctions would have to be lifted immediately and that […]

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Iran car lovers hope for nuclear deal dividends

EDITORS’ NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to film or take pictures in Tehran. A worker assembles a vehicle at a production line of carmaker Iran Khodro, west of Tehran June 20, 2011. Iran Khodro, Iran’s biggest car maker which runs what it says is the largest car factory in the Middle East, sees sales rising at home and abroad, despite economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl (IRAN – Tags: TRANSPORT BUSINESS) A tongue-in-cheek TV report this year highlighted just how fed up Iranians are with one of their most well-used cars. A Painful Choice — a segment on a news programme — showed several dozen Kia Prides lined up at the border for export to Iraq. “Now for Iraqi people, the question is whether Pride is more dangerous than Daesh (Isis),” the reporter joked, referring to the Islamic […]

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War in Yemen Is Allowing Qaeda Group to Expand

Photo People salvaged items from a government bank that was hit by an airstrike Thursday in the northern Yemeni province of Saada. Credit Reuters DOWAAN, Yemen — Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen took control of a major airport and an oil export terminal in the southern part of the country on Thursday, expanding the resurgent militant group’s reach just two weeks after it seized the nearby city of Al Mukalla and emptied its bank and prison. Local officials said that fighters belonging to the group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula , also known as AQAP, took control of the Riyan Airport and a nearby military base outside Al Mukalla, the fifth-largest city in Yemen . The group also seized the Dhabah oil terminal on the Arabian Sea coast, which the group had tried to capture before, according to Yemeni officials. Al Qaeda is capitalizing on the expanding multisided […]

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Half Yemeni population is going hungry as violence worsens: WFP

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Worsening violence in Yemen has made almost half the country’s population "food insecure", with flour shortages, closed shops and disrupted supply routes driving up food prices, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Thursday. The agency says someone is food insecure if they lack "all-time access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life". It estimates 12 million Yemenis are in this category today, up from 10.6 million last year. The United Nations says the conflict in Yemen has killed 600 people, wounded 2,200 and displaced 100,000 since Houthi rebels allied with Iran seized the capital Sanaa in September. The rebels now control most of Yemen and their advance toward the southern port of Aden triggered air strikes by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia to try to drive them back. People face a shortage of wheat flour, […]

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Tepco Dispatches Second Robot Inside Fukushima Reactor

A remote-controlled crawler robot, the same type as the one sent inside a nuclear reactor in Fukushima, is shown in this photo taken in February 2015 at a facility in Ibaraki, Japan. Associated Press Tokyo Electric Power Co. has sent a second robot inside one of the nuclear containment vessels at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, five days after losing complete control of the first one . The crawler robot, which started its work Wednesday, is the same model as the one Tepco dispatched last Friday. The initial machine became immovable after recording some footage from inside the reactor and covering about two-thirds of the originally planned route. The utility cut the cables connected to the machine after giving up on retrieving it. It was the first time a robot ventured inside one of the containment vessels following the 2011 nuclear crisis. According to Tepco, the second machine will […]

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US still too weak for rate rises, says Fed official

Eric Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, speaks at the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking Conference on Financial Markets and Monetary Policy in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, June 5, 2009 The US economy is still too weak for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, a senior official has warned, as he mounted a staunch defence of the central bank against a campaign in Congress to limit its independence . Eric Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston , struck a dovish tone, warning that conditions in the US economy had deteriorated since March and that inflationary pressures were still subdued for the Fed to begin tightening monetary policy. The warning comes only days after minutes from the March meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee showed policy makers were split over the right moment to start tightening monetary policy. “Several” members […]

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Schlumberger Profit Falls 39%; 11,000 More Jobs Cut

Schlumberger had a decline in earnings and revenue as lower oil prices slowed drilling activity…. ENLARGE Photo: Associated Press Schlumberger Ltd., the largest oil-field service company in the world, will cut an additional 11,000 workers from its ranks, bringing the firm’s layoffs to 20,000 employees. The company, a bellwether for the energy industry, announced the steep cuts late Thursday as it told investors that profit for the first quarter had plunged by 39% amid a slowdown in drilling for oil and gas. “The abruptness of the fall in activity, particularly in North America, required us to take additional actions,” said Paal Kibsgaard, chief executive of Schlumberger. Schlumberger, which has dual headquarters in Houston and Paris, announced 9,000 job cuts in January this year. The combined workforce reductions amount to a 15% reduction in its world-wide workforce, said Angie Sedita, an analyst at investment bank UBS. Schlumberger helps oil producers […]

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Low Prices Cool Boom in U.S. Oil Production

ENLARGE A gas flare burns near a crude oil facility outside Williston, N.D., earlier this year. Lower crude prices may be prompting American energy companies to cut their output. Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News The relentless increases in U.S. oil output appear to be coming to an end. Crude production remains robust, but new data and forecasts, including one Thursday from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, suggest the U.S. is at—or very close to—an oil-output peak. Starting in 2008, drillers raised U.S. oil production from five million barrels a day to 9.3 million barrels a day as of December. The U.S. surge accounted for nearly all the growth in crude output globally, and it contributed to the glut that sent oil prices tumbling 50% last year. Now there are growing signs that lower crude prices are finally prompting American energy companies to cut back their crude output. North […]

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