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China’s slowdown deepens, stepping up pressure on Beijing

BEIJING (AP) — China’s economic growth slumped to a six-year low as manufacturing and retail sales cooled in the first quarter, stepping up pressure for Beijing to keep its overhaul of the world’s second-largest economy on track. Growth declined to 7 percent from the previous quarter’s 7.3 percent, official data showed Wednesday. That was China’s weakest performance since the global financial crisis, when growth fell to 6.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009. Much of the decline has been self-imposed as communist leaders try to steer China to more sustainable growth driven by domestic consumption following the past decade’s explosive expansion based on trade and investment. But an unexpectedly sharp downturn over the past year has fueled fears of job losses and social tensions. "China’s economy is slowing at a rate with which the government is probably uncomfortable," said Tom Rafferty of the Economist Intelligence Unit in a […]

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China’s First-Quarter Growth Slowest in Six Years at 7%

Iron ore is transported in Qingdao port in east China’s Shandong province, April 13, 2015. ENLARGE Photo: Getty Images BEIJING—China’s economy started the year on a downbeat note with its slowest quarterly growth rate since 2009, pointing to a further loss of momentum for the world’s second-largest economy. The 7% first-quarter year-over-year growth rate marks a slowdown from 7.3% in the fourth quarter . It puts more pressure on economic planners to ease fiscal and monetary policy even as they try to avoid excessive stimulus that could boost debt and fuel more overcapacity in real estate and heavy industry. The growth figure — the second-lowest since 2001 – affords Beijing little cushion in hitting its 7% annual growth target . Other figures released on Wednesday suggest further weakness in the economy, which economists say could prompt Beijing to act further. “They still have plenty of ammunition left,” said IHS […]

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Oil Layoffs Hit 100,000 and Counting

ENLARGE Chris Sabulsky lost his fracking job in Texas in February. ‘What we have to do is rebudget ourselves, re-educate ourselves, reinvent ourselves,” he says. Photo: Jeff Swensen for The Wall Street for The Wall Street Journal Like many other oil-field workers, Chris Sabulsky spent years working a schedule known as “14 on, 14 off:” two weeks at an oil or gas well somewhere followed by another 14 days at home in East Texas, fishing for bass and crappie. But now Mr. Sabulsky, 48 years old, is spending his days sending out résumés, calling acquaintances to see if they know of job openings, and pondering his future. His job managing hydraulic-fracturing, or fracking, operations at well sites evaporated in February after the oil-price plunge last year. Fracking, which uses water, chemicals and sand to free oil and gas from shale formations, has been a crucial factor in the U.S. […]

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China growth lowest since 2009 as property and manufacturing drag

This photo taken on March 29, 2015 shows heavy fog covering buildings in Qingdao, east China’s Shandong province. Falls in Chinese housing prices decelerated in March from the previous month, a survey showed on March 31, after authorities loosened mortgage and tax policies as growth in the world’s second-largest economy slows. CHINA OUT AFP PHOTO (Photo credit should read STR/AFP/Getty Images) China’s economy expanded at its slowest pace in six years in the first quarter this year, highlighting the challenge of finding new growth drivers amid a slowdown in the key pillars of construction and manufacturing. Gross domestic product grew 7 per cent in the first three months of 2015 compared with the same period a year earlier, the country’s National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday — the weakest quarterly expansion since the depths of the global financial crisis in the first quarter of 2009. China’s economy grew […]

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North Dakota’s oil output slips again on cheap crude prices

WILLISTON, N.D. (Reuters) – North Dakota’s oil production slid for the second month in a row in February as falling crude prices zapped producers’ incentives to keep the spigots fully open, according to data released on Tuesday by the state’s Department of Mineral Resources. Even more ominous for the No. 2 U.S. oil producer: While the number of producing wells in the state’s four most prolific counties jumped during February, the amount of oil output dropped in each of them. Shale, the major source of the state’s oil, is a notoriously fickle rock, and new wells must be constantly tapped to maintain output. But producers have been loath in recent months to launch the same number of wells they did last year, with many preferring (or being forced to) scale back spending amidst a more than 50 percent drop in oil prices since last summer. [ID:nL3N0WJ598] That’s a sign, […]

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Fossil Fuels Just Lost the Race Against Renewables

Photographer: Daniel Acker The race for renewable energy has passed a turning point. The world is now adding more capacity for renewable power each year than coal, natural gas, and oil combined. And there’s no going back.  The shift occurred in 2013, when the world added 143 gigawatts of renewable electricity capacity, compared with 141 gigawatts in new plants that burn fossil fuels, according to an analysis presented Tuesday at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance annual summit in New York. The shift will continue to accelerate, and by 2030 more than four times as much renewable capacity will be added.  "The electricity system is shifting to clean,” Michael Liebreich, founder of BNEF, said in his keynote address. "Despite the change in oil and gas prices there is going to be a substantial buildout of renewable energy that is likely to be an order of magnitude larger than the buildout of coal and gas." The Beginning of the End Power […]

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Summer could bring higher gas prices

Gasoline prices may inch a bit higher as summer travel plans strain demand, motor club AAA said. Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI WASHINGTON, April 14 (UPI) — Though gasoline prices are far below the historic average, there may be an increase ahead as demand increases this coming summer, motor club AAA said. "Despite falling for the majority of the previous month, retail averages maintain the potential to inch upward short-term as we approach the summer driving season," said in its weekly report on retail gasoline prices. The national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline Tuesday was $2.38, relatively unchanged from last week, but 2.5 percent, or about 6 cents, lower than this time last month. The average national price is 32 percent, or $1.25 per gallon, less than it was on this date in 2014. Prices fluctuated around early February as refineries started a seasonal maintenance period […]

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Bakken Production Expected to Decline

Bakken Production Will Decline in May For the first time since the Energy Information Administration (EIA) began tracking drilling productivity, the agency reported on Monday that oil and gas production will decrease for the Bakken and other shale formations across the country. Shale production has been a major player in boosting US output to more that 4 million bpd and has played a key role in the collapse of oil prices worldwide in 2014. Production from the Bakken formation has increased 28% year-over-year despite declining rig counts across the area. The EIA estimates that the Bakken will experience a decline of 23,000 barrels of oil a day to 1.3 million in May. Natural gas will also decline by 21 million cubit feet per day. Speaking with Bloomberg, Carl Larry, head of oil and gas for Frost & Sullivan LP  said, “We’re going off an inevitable cliff because of the […]

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U.S. Could Eliminate Net Energy Imports by 2030

The U.S. could soon export more energy than it imports, significantly changing the country’s appetite for foreign fuels starting as early as 2020, according to a new report from the Energy Information Administration. Despite energy prices that are sharply lower today than they were a year ago, the federal government’s new outlook forecasts that U.S. oil and natural gas production will continue to rise over the next five years. As American drillers keep pumping, the U.S. will meet more of its own energy needs. The trend will also boost the amount of natural gas, refined fuels such as diesel and ultralight oil the U.S. has available to ship overseas, reversing the country’s energy importing trend that has been in place since the 1950s. “Advanced technologies are reshaping the U.S. energy economy,” said Adam Sieminski, EIA Administrator. “The projections show the potential to eliminate net U.S. energy imports in the […]

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The Reported Death of Peak Oil Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

The NDIC Bakken Production Data and the NDIC North Dakota Production Data is in. Production in the Bakken was down 11,941 barrels per day and production in all North Dakota was down 14,104 bpd. The numbers for January were revised slightly. January Bakken was down 35,064 from December and all North Dakota was down 36,331 bpd from December. Bakken BPD As I have pointed out before, the EIA’s Drilling Productivity Report , for some unknown reason, estimates the last six or seven months, when the actual data is available. In the above chart they estimate from October on. This throws their current numbers way off.  The DPR data includes the Montana Bakken therefore their numbers will naturally be higher than the North Dakota data. Bakken Eventual Of course the EIA DPR will eventually bring their numbers into what North Dakota is reporting. The above is what the eventual Drilling […]

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