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Oil Industry Takes Aim at Coal, Pushes Gas Ahead of Climate-Change Talks

By Sarah Kent and Inti Landauro PARIS–Europe’s largest oil companies on Tuesday came out forcefully against coal, taking aim at a competing fossil fuel as they push cleaner-burning natural gas ahead of climate-change talks. Executives from Royal Dutch Shell PLC, BP PLC, Total SA and others told industry officials at a conference that their increased production of gas could help reduce carbon emissions and lessen the world’s reliance on coal for heating homes and creating electricity. Coal, they said, was a pollutant that set back environmental efforts. "Together with renewable energies it is important to promote the use of gas to replace coal," Total CEO Patrick Pouyanné said. "It would contribute at a low cost to meet carbon emissions targets." The message was delivered at the World Gas Conference in Paris six months before United Nations climate-change talks that could result in an agreement to curb carbon emissions and […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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How Long Can OPEC Maintain Its Current Strategy?

The six-month clock is up. OPEC is convening this week in Vienna, as it does every six months, to discuss and decide on how the group will coordinate. The November 2014 meeting was one of the most widely covered in years. After leaving its collective output quota unchanged for several consecutive meetings in a row, much of the world watched for a major policy change. The glut of oil had led to a crash in prices, falling from well over $100 per barrel, down to the $70 range. As it had in the past, surely the cartel would pull the production lever downwards, switching off a million barrels per day or so in order to stop the bleeding? That decision never came. In a move that shocked the oil markets, and enraged many of OPEC’s own members, production levels were not touched. Saudi Arabia looked into the history books […]

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Oil exports keep pushing record highs

Iraqi Minister of Oil Adil Abd al-Mahdi (R) takes a tour of Basra Gulf export platforms on Sept. 21, 2014, (HAIDAR MOHAMMED ALI/AFP/Getty Images) Iraq notched its third straight record-setting month of oil exports in May, and is poised for further growth in June due to an overhaul of how oil is blended and marketed in Basra.May exports averaged 3.145 million barrels per day (bpd), according to the Oil Ministry, up from 3.077 million bpd in April. The average sale price was also higher – $55 in May compared to $51 in April – and revenues rose from $4.8 billion to more than $5.3 billion.The export gains could continue.As of … 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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OPEC finds oil output consensus: ‘Don’t rock the boat’

VIENNA OPEC is set to carry on pumping oil nearly flat-out for months more, content that last year’s shock market therapy has revived moribund demand and knocked back growing competition. With oil prices having stabilized, for now, at around $65 a barrel, some $20 off their January lows, there’s little appetite within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to modify production limits, as some analysts have suggested is an outside possibility. "There is consensus among Gulf OPEC countries, and others, to keep the ceiling unchanged," a senior Gulf OPEC delegate told Reuters late on Tuesday after an informal meeting of the four core Gulf Arab OPEC members earlier in the day. The group meets on Friday following a two-day seminar featuring the chief executives of the world’s biggest energy groups, including BP ( BP.L ) and Exxon ( XOM.N ), companies whose fortunes have been abruptly altered by […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Is OPEC About to Step Up Production?

Could there be some real news out of OPEC? The global oil market has been pretty clear that it doesn’t expect the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to make any adjustments to its production quota, which currently stands at 30 million barrels a day, when its members meet in Vienna on Friday. There is the old refrain about OPEC cutting its production quota so as to push up global prices. OPEC members have said they’ll consider a cut if other major producers such as Russia also agree to cut back. That has all but been ruled out. Now, however, there is a slight shift in the other direction. Maybe OPEC might double down, and increase its production quota? In recent days, a number of analysts have started to suggest that’s exactly what the OPEC members may decide. If they do, it would at best be symbolic, as its members […]

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Russia, Non-OPEC Producers Met with OPEC Last Month

VIENNA—Officials from Russia’s energy ministry last month met with other oil producing countries at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries headquarters in Vienna to discuss a global oil glut that has sent prices tumbling. The secret conversations ended on May 13 after two days of discussions and without the release of a public statement, people familiar with the matter said. The discussions underscore the distance between OPEC and Russia, the world’s largest oil producer, ahead of Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak’s unusual visit to Vienna for OPEC’s semiannual meeting. Though Mr. Novak is expected to meet with OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem el-Badri and some OPEC ministers from outside the Persian Gulf on Wednesday, he has signaled Russia won’t do what some OPEC hard-liners want: namely cut its own production. “At the meetings, it is not planned to agree on production volumes,” Mr. Novak told the Interfax news […]

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OPEC Is Winning the Oil War

As OPEC ministers meet in Vienna this week they’ll be debating whether the strategy that’s upended oil markets is working. The last time the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries met, in November, it jolted markets by leaving production unchanged instead of staunching a glut by trimming output. Prices collapsed to the lowest in six years. OPEC said it wanted to “restore market equilibrium” with stable prices. That means flooding the market so oil drops to a level that forces higher-cost producers to scale back, ultimately pushing prices back up. Now the 12-member group, which controls about 40 percent of world supplies, has to decide whether to change course or stick to its target. These charts illustrate to what extent the strategy has been paying off. Producers are cutting back… Data from the Energy Information Administration shows a contraction in monthly production growth from the top three shale producing regions […]

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OPEC hopes for further oil price recovery despite glut

VIENNA Angola’s oil minister said on Tuesday that $80 per barrel may be right for crude, joining a chorus of OPEC officials and delegates hoping for a further price recovery in months to come despite a global glut. "I would like the price (to) go up, but it is not easy," Jose Botelho de Vasconcelos told reporters. OPEC meets on Friday and is widely expected to maintain its production policy. Last November, OPEC refused to cut output and chose instead to defend market share, adding to the supply surplus arising from booming U.S. oil output. The decision prompted a crash in oil prices to as low as $46 per barrel in January, although crude has recovered to $65 in recent weeks on hopes of a slowdown in U.S. output growth. On Monday, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Ali al-Naimi said he saw supply thinning and demand improving although he added […]

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Iraq PM says allies not doing enough to counter Islamic State

PARIS Iraq’s prime minister on Tuesday accused the international coalition fighting Islamic State of not doing enough to tackle the group, and said important members such as Saudi Arabia are not curbing the flow of foreign fighters to his country. Western and Middle Eastern countries in the coalition are meeting this week in Paris. Part of their agenda is to persuade the Iraqi government to repair its relationship with Iraq’s Sunni minority. The meeting follows the Iraqi government’s biggest military setback in nearly a year. On May 17, Islamic State seized Ramadi from the weakened Iraqi army. The capital of the overwhelmingly Sunni Anbar province is just 90 km (55 miles) west of Baghdad. Since then, government troops and Shi’ite militias have been building up positions around the city. Many of Iraq’s minority Sunnis dislike hardline Sunni Islamic State but also fear the Shi’ite militias after years of bloody […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple