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Iraq’s oil exports hit record high so far in June

LONDON Iraq’s oil exports have averaged 3.20 million barrels per day (bpd) so far in June, according to loading data and an industry source, setting shipments from OPEC’s second-largest producer on course for a record high. Another boost from Iraq underlines the focus of major members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in keeping market share, not restraining supply to support prices. OPEC met on June 5 and kept its policy unchanged. Exports from Iraq’s southern terminals have averaged 3.00 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first 15 days of June, according to shipping data seen by Reuters and an industry source, up from 2.69 million bpd in all of May. Shipments have jumped after Iraq’s decision to split the crude stream into two grades, Basra Heavy and Basra Light, to resolve quality issues. Some companies working at Iraqi oilfields have increased production following the move. […]

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New Basra Heavy crude raises exports – and complications

A tug boat maneuvers near an oil tanker at the Al-Basra Oil Terminal. (BEN LANDO/Iraq Oil Report) Halfway through Basra Heavy’s first month on the market, Iraq’s new crude grade is averaging nearly 629,000 barrels per day (bpd), and is on track to propel the country to another record month of exports.So far in June, Iraq’s southern exports are averaging almost 3.07 million bpd, according to tanker loading data obtained and compiled by Iraq Oil Report.* If that rate continues for the second half of the month, it would be an increase of 376,000 bpd – nearly 14 percent – over May’s 2.69… This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a registered user, you may purchase a subscription or sign up for a free trial .

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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ISIS Claims Responsibility for Deadly Bombings in Yemen

SANA, Yemen — A branch of the Islamic State in Yemen claimed responsibility for a series of car bombings here in the capital that killed at least 30 people on Wednesday, adding a new layer of peril to a city terrorized for months by airstrikes as well as by antiaircraft fire that has fallen on civilian homes. The bombings, outside mosques where many Shiite Muslims worship and a headquarters of the Houthi rebels, were the deadliest attacks claimed by the Sunni extremist group since March, when suicide bombers killed more than 130 people at two Shiite mosques here. The March attacks helped accelerate the country’s slide toward civil war, sharpening sectarian tensions and aggravating the confrontation between the Shiite Houthi rebels, who are from the country’s north, and supporters of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was ousted by the Houthis. Saudi Arabia entered the war days later, beginning […]

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U.S. Shifts View Over Iran’s Past Nuclear Work

WASHINGTON—Secretary of State John Kerry said that confronting Iran about its alleged past atomic weapons work isn’t crucial to reaching a nuclear deal, a shift of the U.S. position that fueled fresh fears on Capitol Hill over the terms of an accord two weeks before a diplomatic deadline. U.S. and European negotiators have for months said a full accounting of Iran’s past nuclear activities would be critical to sealing a final deal by June 30 and guarding against Iran cheating in the future. But Mr. Kerry, in a news conference on Tuesday, said a complete understanding of Iran’s past nuclear-weapons research wasn’t essential to sealing a final accord in advance of the deadline. “We’re not fixated on Iran specifically accounting for what they did at one point in time or another,” Mr. Kerry said. “We know what they did….We have absolute knowledge with respect to certain military activities they […]

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Rouhani: Iran isolated from weak oil market

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the nation’s economy is less dependent on oil revenue than ever before. Even with sanctions in place, Iran’s Central Bank expects some economic growth this year. File Photo by Maryam Rahmanian/UPI TEHRAN, June 17 (UPI) — Iran is less squeezed by the low price of oil than other export-dependent nations because of budgetary moves away from energy, the country’s president said. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the budget for the current Iranian year, which started March 21, is the least dependent on oil revenue ever for the country. Crude oil prices are robbing major exporters like Russia of revenue, though Iran’s president said his country was largely shielded from those constraints. "All oil exporting countries, even those who plotted for an oil price decline, are facing problems due to this issue and our problems might be even less than this group," he said. Valiollah […]

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Colombia’s No. 2 oil pipeline shut after rebel bombings

BOGOTA Colombia’s Cano Limon-Covenas oil pipeline, the country’s second biggest by volume, has been shut due to damage from bomb attacks by leftist FARC rebels which caused a significant spill that has contaminated two rivers, the army said on Wednesday. Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebels, known as FARC, have intensified attacks on infrastructure in the past few weeks after calling off a unilateral ceasefire. They have attacked pipelines and trucks carrying crude oil, as well as damaging transmission lines, cutting power to large towns. The army confirmed that four troops were also killed on Wednesday after being ambushed by the FARC who set off remote-controlled explosives and fired on them with machine guns while on patrol in the southern province of Caqueta. State-run Ecopetrol which operates the Cano Limon pipeline through its Cenit subsidiary, said in a statement it is taking measures to contain the spill as local […]

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North Korea Says It’s Facing Its Worst Drought in a Century

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea is in the midst of a severe drought, its state news agency reported, raising fears of worsening food shortages in the impoverished country, where child malnutrition is a persistent problem. “The worst drought in 100 years continues in the D.P.R.K., causing great damage to its agricultural field,” the Korean Central News Agency said in a report late Tuesday, using an abbreviation for North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. There was no evidence that the drought was the worst in a century. But United Nations officials recently expressed growing concern about the lack of rain. In April , the United Nations called for $111 million to fund its humanitarian operations in North Korea, saying that 70 percent of the country’s 25 million people were “food insecure.” Much of the Korean Peninsula has had unusually dry weather in recent weeks, at […]

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Refiner margins unable to fully offset low upstream earnings for integrated oil companies

U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on Evaluate Energy Source: Note: Upstream refers to crude oil exploration, production, and other operations prior to refining. Downstream refers to refinery operations, product sales, and marketing. First-quarter 2015 financial results for globally integrated oil companies—ones that focus on both the exploration and production of crude oil (upstream) and the refining of crude oil into petroleum products (downstream)—show that total earnings were $22 billion (54%) lower than in first-quarter 2014. Lower crude oil prices contributed to a decline in profits in the upstream sector of $28 billion (80%) compared to first-quarter 2014. Profits in the downstream sector, however, were the largest for any quarter since third-quarter 2012, almost $6 billion (95%) higher than in first-quarter 2014, which offset some of the decline from the upstream segment. Crack spreads refer to the differences between wholesale petroleum product prices and crude oil prices, and they can […]

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Cheaper prices spur U.S. gasoline demand: Kemp

LONDON Strong growth in demand for refined fuels such as gasoline and diesel is helping to rebalance the global oil market, according to most observers. “Recent oil market strength … stems partly from unexpectedly strong oil demand growth,” the International Energy Agency explained in its June monthly oil market report. In the first quarter of 2015, global oil consumption was 1.7 million barrels per day higher than in the prior-year period. “In particular, gasoline prices have found support from robust U.S. demand, leading to a surge in crack spreads,” according to the IEA. But if there is a consensus that demand is rising more quickly than predicted at the start of the year, there is fierce debate about whether growth is being driven by economic recovery, cheaper fuel prices or a combination of the two. And there is a mystery about why the consumption of gasoline is growing more […]

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Alaska’s glaciers are now losing 75 billion tons of ice every year

In a new study , scientists with the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and several other institutions report a staggering finding: Glaciers of the United States’ largest — and only Arctic — state, Alaska, have lost 75 gigatons (a gigaton is a billion metric tons) of ice per year from 1994 through 2013. For comparison, that’s roughly half of a recent estimate for ice loss for all of Antarctica (159 billion metric tons). It takes 360 gigatons of ice to lead to one millimeter of sea level rise, which implies that the Alaska region alone may have contributed several millimeters in the past few decades. “Despite Greenland’s ice covered area being 20 times greater than that of Alaska, losses in Alaska were fully one third of the total loss from the ice sheet during 2005-2010,” wrote the authors, led by Chris Larsen of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks’s […]

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