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Volkswagen Emissions Investigations Should Widen to Entire Auto Industry, Officials Say

BERLIN–Investigations into Volkswagen AG’s alleged manipulation of U.S. emissions tests should widen to include the entire auto industry, German and French officials said Tuesday, as regulators begin to ponder whether such trickery is more widespread. Concerns that the scandal could lead to broader damage for the industry hit the shares of car companies across Europe on Tuesday, with Volkswagen’s stock down another 5% after dropping as much as 20% on Monday. The state of Lower Saxony, a major Volkswagen shareholder with 20% of the car maker’s voting stock, said the emissions allegations raised doubts about tailpipe data published by all car makers. The French government also called for a broader probe, suggesting a European-wide examination of the auto industry. "We need to do it at the European level," French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said Tuesday. In Germany, Olaf Lies, Lower Saxony’s economy minister and a member of the Volkswagen’s […]

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Gazprom Attempts to Settle EU Antitrust Case

BRUSSELS—OAO Gazprom on Monday said it has submitted proposals to the European Commission to settle accusations that the Russian energy giant hindered competition and charged unfair prices in several Eastern European countries. If accepted, a settlement could help the company avoid billion-dollar fines, but would likely require it to fundamentally change the way it has done business in its former backyard since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The commission in April filed formal charges against Gazprom , saying the state-controlled company broke European Union antitrust law in eight countries where it is the dominant gas supplier—Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia. The commission, which acts as the European Union’s antitrust watchdog, said restrictive terms in Gazprom contracts forced territorial constraints on customers, for instance by prohibiting them from re-exporting gas to another country. It also objected to Gazprom’s practice of tying the price of […]

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Volkswagen Denied Deception to E.P.A. for Nearly a Year

Photo Volkswagen said it would halt sales in the United States of 2015 and 2016 Volkswagen and Audi models equipped with 4-cylinder turbo diesel engines. Credit Friso Gentsch/European Pressphoto Agency FRANKFURT — For more than a year, Volkswagen executives told the Environmental Protection Agency that discrepancies between the formal air-quality tests on its diesel cars and the much higher pollution levels out on the road were the result of technical issues, not a deliberate attempt to deceive Washington officials. But early this month, Volkswagen executives finally made a startling admission: The diesels it sold in the United States used software deliberately designed to cheat on the tests. The company was evidently concerned that actually meeting the federal emissions standards would degrade the power of the diesels, which it marketed as comparable in performance to gasoline engines. Meeting the standard would also undercut the fuel efficiency that is one of […]

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New European gas pipeline closer to launch

Trans-Adriatic Pipeline procurement process puts new European gas pipeline one step closer to completion. Photo courtesy of Trans Adriatic Pipeline AG BAAR, Switzerland, Sept. 21 (UPI) — An invitation for bids for data control mechanisms on the planned Trans-Adriatic gas pipeline puts it one step closer to completion, developers said. The pipeline consortium developing the planned natural gas pipeline said it was inviting companies to pre-qualify for the supply and delivery of a centralized monitoring system as well as a fiber optic cable network meant to feed back to a supervisory control center. "With the launch of these final pre-qualification notices, TAP reaches another important milestone in its procurement process," TAP Project Director Norman Ingram said in a statement. TAP is slated to transport natural gas from the second phase of the Shah Deniz natural gas field off the coast of Azerbaijan as early as 2019. BP, leading Azeri […]

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Pacific Islanders Plead for Urgent Climate Action as Seas Rise

The village where Anote Tong attended school some 40 years ago is no longer there. As the Pacific Ocean encroached on the settlement, the villagers left for higher ground. “There is a church building and a meeting house, but nobody can go there because during high tide they’re sitting out in the middle of the water,” said Tong, now president of the atoll nation of Kiribati. Flooded homes in the village of Taborio on the island of Tarawa. Nowhere are the risks of climate change more evident than in the tiny island nations of the Pacific, where countless communities face inundation. Tuvalu has lost four islands since 2000. Islets have slipped beneath the waves in the Marshall Islands and Papua New Guinea. And in Palau, some houses — still occupied — flood daily. The islanders’ plight gives them a powerful moral voice at a December meeting in Paris sponsored […]

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Oil prices edge up as U.S. drilling declines

Oil pumps are seen at a MAX oil station in Yangon April 21, 2014. Oil prices edged up in early trading in Asia on Monday as U.S. drilling slowed and analysts estimated that $1.5 trillion worth of planned American production was uneconomical at prices of $50 per barrel or lower. Crude oil prices have plunged almost 60 percent since June 2014, when soaring global production started to clash with slowing demand. This includes losses of more than a quarter since June this year as a sharp slowdown in China has sparked concerns over the health of the world economy. Analysts said the low prices were beginning to impact production as drillers slow down new projects, especially in cost-sensitive North America where drillers react fast to changing prices. U.S. energy firms cut oil rigs for a third week in a row last week, a sign that the latest crude market […]

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Oil Prices Edge Higher As U.S. Rig Count Falls

By Jenny W. Hsu Crude-oil futures edged higher in Asian trade Monday, after data released over the weekend showed a further decline in the number of oil rigs operating in the U.S., a sign producers are making some effort to cut back supply amid low prices. Light, sweet crude futures for delivery in October traded at $45.05 a barrel at 0359 GMT on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up $0.36 in the Globex electronic session. November Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose $0.38 to $47.85 a barrel. Over the weekend, a Baker Hughes report indicated the U.S. oil-rig count fell by eight to 644 in the last reporting week, the third-straight weekly decline. The rig count is seen as an indicator of future oil production, and is closely watched by market participants given the importance of U.S. supply to global oil balances. Last week, data from the […]

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Oil Speculators Most Bullish in Two Months as OPEC Calls for $80

Hedge funds slashed their bets on falling oil prices, leaving them the most bullish in two months as OPEC called for a return to $80 crude. Money managers’ net-long position in West Texas Intermediate rose by 14,821 contracts to 147,678 futures and options in the week ended Sept. 15, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That’s the highest level since July 7. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries expects crude prices to rise to $80 by 2020 as output falls elsewhere. U.S. production could sink by the most in 27 years in 2016 as the price rout extends a slump in drilling. Speculators closed out short positions two days before the Federal Reserve decided not to raise key U.S. interest rates. “The market’s not as oversupplied as we think it is,” David Pursell, a managing director at investment bank Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. in Houston, […]

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Opinion: This Is What Needs To Happen For Oil Prices To Stabilize

« Volkswagen Group orders external investigation of emissions testing violations, pledges full support to EPA and ARB | Main | SEMPEED (Simulation of Electrical Machines, Power Electronics and Electrical Drives) Consortium launches » by Dan Doyle for Oilprice.com Dan Doyle is president of Reliance Well Services, a hydraulic fracturing company based in Pennsylvania. On September 10 th , the EIA reported a production decline in the Lower 48—essentially shale production—of 208,000 BOPD (barrels of oil per day). That is a staggeringly enormous number, approximately 10 percent of the estimated global over-supply. Additionally, it was a week-over-week number which makes it all the more impressive. Yet it received little attention through the week. Rather, Goldman Sachs was grabbing all the headlines with its $20 call on oil. This week, I was looking for a possible correction in that number with a zero decline or possibly even a gain (remember, the […]

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Plunging oil prices put question mark over $1.5tn of projects

Sign up for quick access to a wealth of global business news, including: Plunging oil prices put question mark over $1.5tn of projects Newspaper + Premium online Newspaper + Premium online Premium Full FT.com subscription Premium Full FT.com subscription Standard Full news & archive Standard Full news & archive Trial Try Premium online Trial Try Premium online Price Monthly Annual $66.30 $11.77 per week $53.00 $9.25 per week $36.00 $6.45 per week $1.00 for 4 weeks $1.00 for 4 weeks FT Alphaville plus selected FT blogs yes yes yes yes Unlimited FT.com article access yes yes yes yes Unlimited mobile and tablet access yes yes yes yes Unlimited fast FT yes yes yes yes 5 year company financials archive yes yes yes yes The LEX column yes yes no yes ePaper access yes yes no yes Three exclusive weekly emails yes yes no yes Daily newspaper delivery yes no […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple