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Oil prices fall as China share crisis worsens, traders hedge for further drops

A pump jack is seen at sunrise near Bakersfield, California October 14, 2014. Oil futures fell again on Wednesday as worries over the Greek debt crisis and China’s stock market turmoil outweighed an expected U.S. inventory drop, with traders anticipating further drops. China’s stocks tanked further on Wednesday in a deepening crisis in which China’s Securities Finance Corp said it would provide liquidity to ease "panic" as over 500 Chinese-listed firms suspended trading. Front-month Brent crude futures were 38 cents lower at $56.47 a barrel at 0452 GMT, and are down over 6 percent so far this week to levels last seen in April. U.S. crude was down 35 cents at $51.98, down more than 8 percent for the week. "A perfect storm of events has hit oil markets," Morgan Stanley said. The bank said "turmoil in China and Greece may put recent robust demand growth at risk," although […]

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Natural Gas Falls to One-Month Low on Oversupply

By Timothy Puko and Christian Berthelsen Natural-gas futures retreated to small losses and a fresh one-month low on Wednesday as analysts don’t expect the weather in the coming days to spur strong demand. The front-month August contract settled down 3.1 cents, or 1.1%, to $2.685 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. A three-session losing streak has pushed gas below the 18-cent range it had settled in every session for the past month. Traders and analysts are expecting the weekly storage addition to return to far-above-average levels, after the last addition missed that mark with smallest addition in two months. The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its weekly update on inventories at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday. Producers likely added 85 billion cubic feet to storage for the week ended July 3, according to the median average of 21 forecasters surveyed by the Wall Street […]

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Russia Says Iran Nuclear Deal ‘Within Reach’

UFA, Russia — A final deal on Iran’s nuclear programme is within reach, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday, adding that he is ready to return to Vienna for talks between Tehran and six major world powers to work on the agreement. "We are close to a comprehensive agreement," Lavrov told journalists on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Ufa. "It is within reach." He added that a new, permanent deal would open the road to lifting sanctions against Iran. Iran offered some new solutions to resolve the disputes in the nuclear talks on Wednesday, Iranian media reported, but Western officials suggested they had heard nothing new from Tehran. (Reporting by Katya Golubkova and Denis Pinchuk; Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Jack Stubbs)

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New Tensions Emerge in Iran Nuclear Talks

Police officers in front of the Palais Coburg where nuclear talks continue. VIENNA—Tensions in the nuclear talks between Iran and six powers have boiled over in recent days, producing heated exchanges among foreign ministers as Washington and Tehran struggled to overcome remaining hurdles to a final agreement, according to people involved in the talks. The German and British foreign ministers returned to the Austrian capital Wednesday evening as Western diplomats insisted a deal was still possible in coming days. However, time was running out for the agreement to be sealed before a deadline this week which would give the U.S. Congress an extra month to review a deadline. People close to the talks have warned that the longer Congress and opponents of the diplomacy get to pick over an agreement and galvanize opposition, the greater the political risks for supporters of the process, which aims to block Iran’s path […]

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Number of Syrian Refugees Climbs to More Than 4 Million

GENEVA — The number of Syrians who have fled into neighboring countries to escape the civil war has reached more than four million, the United Nations said Thursday, and with the fighting dragging into its fifth year the number is still rising. More than 24,000 people crossed into Turkey to escape fighting in northern Syria in June, pushing the number now sheltering in neighboring countries past four million, increasing the Syrian refugee population by one million in just 10 months, the United Nations refugee agency reported. International aid agencies say the fighting has driven at least 7.6 million people who remain in the country from their homes. “This is the biggest refugee population from a single conflict in a generation,” Antonio Guterres, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, said in a statement. Mr. Guterres, once again, warned that international aid was not keeping pace with the scale of […]

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West Africa: Next big deal in oil?

With the right investment strategies, calmer waters off the coast of West African could make economic sense of the oil industry. Photo by James Jones Jr./Shutterstock LONDON, July 8 (UPI) — With the right investment strategies, the emerging offshore oil prospects in West Africa could be the industry’s next big deal, an executive leader said. West Africa has drawn interest from international energy companies eager to tap into unexploited reserves. Africa-focused Tullow Oil is among the early players in West African basins , tapping into prospects off the coast of Ghana. The region’s deepwater Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme prospect, known also as the TEN project, should deliver its first oil by 2016. At its peak, the company said the prospect is expected to produce about 80,000 barrels of oil per day. The Jubilee field off the Ghanaian coast could eventually produce more than 125,000 bpd. Keith Millheim, a director at drilling and […]

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Premier Oil raises exploration budget to spend more in Falklands

Oil producer Premier Oil has increased its 2015 exploration budget by $20 million to account for higher investments in its drilling campaign in the Falkland Islands, the company said in a trading update on Thursday. The London-listed firm, whose operations stretch from the Falkland Islands to Indonesia, also said it had received an offer for its Pakistan business and was starting a process with interested parties to dispose of those assets. The company expects revenue in the first half of 2015 of $580 million, down 34 percent from a year earlier due to lower oil prices and lower production levels as the result of a disposal. Premier Oil is scheduled to report half-year results on August 20.

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China Stock Gains Gather Pace

Gains in Chinese shares gathered pace Thursday, restoring some confidence in Beijing’s suite of attempts to rescue its struggling stock market. The Shanghai Composite rose 5.8% to 3709.33 while the smaller Shenzhen market rose 3.8%. Both indexes have lost around a third of their value in the past month. The small-cap ChiNext board, which has shed some 38% from its June highs, rose 3%. Stocks in Hong Kong, which suffered their worst trading session since the global financial crisis on Wednesday, rose 4.1%. A gauge of Hong Kong-listed Chinese companies, known as H-shares, is up 4%. “The market shows signs of stabilizing because the regulator came to rescue small-caps, especially those on the ChiNext, which eased the liquidity crisis and gave investors a much-need dose of confidence,” said Tang Yonggang, an analyst at Shenyin Wanguo Securities. On Wednesday, regulators announced that the China Securities Finance Corp., a commission unit […]

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Big Chinese steelmakers lose $2.7 billion in core business for Jan-May: steel association

Large Chinese steelmakers’ losses in core business more than doubled during the first five months from a year earlier as tumbling steel prices plunged producers into red, a top official of the China Iron & Steel Association (CISA) said on Thursday. CISA members, comprising of 101 big mills, posted a loss of 16.48 billion yuan ($2.65 billion) in steelmaking business for January-May, which was 10.36 billion yuan more from the same period of last year, according Zhang Guangning, CISA’s chairman. "It’s obvious that China’s apparent crude steel consumption has reached the peak, and the large growth of demand has became a history," Zhang said in a speech that was published on the CISA website. Chinese steel prices are at their lowest in more than 20 years as the stuttering economy is hitting demand for a range of commodities including iron ore, steel and copper, threatening the survival of small […]

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Plunge in Chinese Stocks Is Resistant to Government’s Efforts

SHANGHAI — As the Chinese stock market slumps, the country’s government has stepped in boldly, unveiling a raft of measures to prop up shares. But those efforts have done little to stabilize the market, with stocks continuing to slide on Wednesday. The losses create a political and economic challenge for the nation’s leadership. Beijing could face social unrest if the sell-off accelerates, since tens of millions of ordinary investors have plowed their savings into the market. The psychological toll on investors, in turn, could erode consumer confidence, dragging down growth in the already slowing economy. “The stock market is connected to the real economy,” says Fraser Howie, a longtime Asia banker and co-author of “Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China’s Extraordinary Rise.” “When you see such violent moves, you don’t know what kinds of ripples are going to come down.” The Chinese government is moving swiftly to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple