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Iraqi oil revenue drops in weak market

Iraq sees budget pressure from lower crude oil prices. World Bank report finds structural weaknesses persist in the country. Photo by cherezoff/Shutterstock BAGHDAD, Sept. 3 (UPI) — Iraqi revenue generated from oil exports in August was lower than the previous month by nearly $1 billion in part because of low oil prices, data show. The ministry, using data from a federal marketing company, said total crude oil exports for August was 95.4 million barrels. Roughly 98 percent of those exports left the country from southern ports, with the remainder traveling north across the border to a sea port in Turkey . A monthly newsletter from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said the federal government was making a "special effort" to increase exports through southern ports to compensate for delays from inclement weather. The Oil Ministry said southern ports faced short-term "technical obstacles" that interrupted some exports. A spokesman […]

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The Oil-Sands Glut Is About to Get a Lot Bigger

The last place oil producers want to be when prices plummet to profit-demolishing lows is midstream on a billion-dollar project in one of the costliest parts of the planet to extract crude. Yet that’s exactly where half a dozen oil sands operators from Suncor Energy Inc. to Brion Energy Corp. find themselves with prices for Canadian oil now hovering around $30 a barrel. While all around them projects have been postponed or canceled, their investments were judged too far along when the oil game suddenly moved from offense to defense. These projects will add at least another 500,000 barrels a day — roughly a 25 percent increase from Alberta — to an oversupplied North American market by 2017. For companies stuck spending billions in a downturn, the time required to earn back their investments will lengthen considerably, said Rafi Tahmazian, senior portfolio manager at Canoe Financial LP. “But the […]

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China buys Russian crude oil to ensure supply security: CNPC chairman

Buying crude oil from Russia allows China to ensure security of supply as cooperation between the two countries is likely "to gain new momentum," China National Petroleum Corp. Chairman Wang Yilin said Friday. Speaking on the sidelines of the Russian 1st Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Yilin said that while China was looking to diversify its crude oil sources, imports were mainly via sea routes. "Russian crude could be delivered via overland pipelines. This provides security for imports of crude oil for our country," Yilin said in reply to a question on how competitive Russian crude deliveries were in comparison to supplies from other countries that are also seeking to sell the Chinese market. Russia had a major advantage of geographic proximity to China in respect of crude oil supplies, he said. Article continues below… Oilgram News brings you fast-breaking global petroleum and gas news on and including: Industry […]

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Will oil’s collapse kill the Keystone pipeline?

While some Wall Street analysts now think the probability of the U.S. economy going into recession are nearly 50 percent , Canada is already there. That bad news comes as Canada gears up for a general election in October and at a time when the slide in global oil prices could spell continuing trouble for Canada’s energy-dependent economy. And that extends to the controversial Keystone pipeline to the U.S. America’s neighbor to the north is the planet’s 11th-largest economy and the U.S.’s biggest trading partner. Last year the U.S. did $634 billion dollars in trade with Canada, booking a $31 billion dollar trade deficit in the process. Canada is a natural resources and commodities exporter, which makes it particularly vulnerable to China’s slowdown. Canada sells China nickel, copper, wood, paper and fish products while importing appliances and consumer goods. In 2014, Canada shipped out close to $20 billion in […]

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The EIA Changes Data Collection Methods

EIA begins monthly survey-based reporting of U.S. crude oil production With the release of today’s Petroleum Supply Monthly , EIA is incorporating the first survey-based reporting of monthly U.S. crude oil production statistics. Today’s Petroleum Supply Monthly includes estimates for June 2015 crude oil production using new survey data for 13 states and the federal Gulf of Mexico, and revises figures previously reported for January through May 2015. Beginning with the June 2015 data, EIA is providing estimates for crude oil production (including lease condensate) based on data from the EIA-914 survey. Survey-based monthly production estimates starting with January 2015 are provided for Arkansas, California, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Wyoming, and the Federal Gulf of Mexico. For two states covered by the EIA-914—Oklahoma and West Virginia—and all remaining oil-producing states and areas not individually covered by the EIA-914, production estimates are […]

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Private-Equity Firms Plunge Back Into the Oil Patch

EOG Resources CEO Mark Papa Private-equity firms are doubling down on energy, despite heavy damage from their last adventure in the oil patch. These firms’ stakes in a dozen publicly traded energy exploration-and-production companies have lost more than $18 billion in value since last summer, when oil prices began their slide from more than $100 a barrel. Yet with U.S. crude prices down to about $46.75 a barrel at Thursday’s close, private-equity firms are looking for opportunities to spend the hundreds of billions of dollars they have amassed to make new energy investments. They are hoping the commodity-price crash will open up opportunities to pick up assets and entire companies on the cheap. “This is a temporary situation, and investments that are made in this low-price environment are going to look pretty good two or three years out,” said Mark Papa, who joined energy-focused firm Riverstone Holdings LLC earlier […]

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Rubio: Priority No. 1 is lifting U.S. oil export ban

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) pledges to lift 1970s ban on U.S. crude oil exports if elected president. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI OKLAHOMA CITY, Sept. 3 (UPI) — Lifting a ban on U.S. crude oil exports will bring "immediate" economic stimulus to the economy, Republican presidential contender Marco Rubio said. Sen. Rubio, R-Fla., addressed supporters in Oklahoma, saying one of the first things he’d do if elected president would be to lift the 1970s era ban on exports of domestic crude oil. "President Nixon signed it into law in the 1970s — long before the economy had been fundamentally transformed by globalization and technological innovations, long before the hydraulic-fracturing and shale revolutions had launched a new era of American energy," he said. "Lifting the crude-oil export ban will be an immediate boon to our economy." The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the interests of the oil and […]

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Delta’s Philadelphia refinery running at 110 percent, margins swell

Delta Air Lines Inc is running its Philadelphia area oil refinery at a near-record 110 percent of capacity, according to a person familiar with operations, a sign of the surprisingly strong summer profits U.S. refineries are generating. While collapsing global crude oil markets have cast a dark shadow over much of the energy industry, refiners are running flat out this summer to meet record U.S. demand for gasoline. Some have pressed beyond their theoretical limits as rivals suffered unexpected breakdowns or glitches last month. The refinery, in Trainer, Pennsylvania, has been running at a clip of roughly 204,000 barrels per day for the past month, the source said, resulting in higher yields of gasoline and distillates. The plant’s nameplate capacity is 185,000 bpd, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. “We have run that before, but not in a very long time,” the source said. The refinery is operated […]

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Maintenance season need not mean higher U.S. crude stocks: Kemp

Stacked rigs are seen along with other idled oil drilling equipment at a depot in Dickinson, North Dakota June 26, 2015. U.S. crude oil stocks are set to rise in the next few months as the summer driving season ends and refineries enter the autumn turnaround season, according to many analysts and traders. Rising stocks will emphasize continuing oversupply in the oil market and are expected to put renewed downward pressure on crude oil prices before the end of the year. The problem with this argument is that there is no evidence that the end of the driving season and autumn refinery maintenance, events which happen every year, normally cause crude stocks to build. Crude stocks and refinery throughput both exhibit distinct seasonal patterns which are evident in the weekly petroleum status reports published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But the end of the driving season and the […]

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Friendship Between Putin and Xi Becomes Strained as Economies Falter

Photo Presidents Xi Jinping of China, left, and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Beijing on Thursday. Credit Wu Hong/European Pressphoto Agency BEIJING — They have met more than a dozen times and stood shoulder to shoulder during Thursday’s military parade here. But the once-vaunted relationship between the Chinese president, Xi Jinping , and Russia ’s leader, Vladimir V. Putin , has come under strain as the economies of their countries have faltered. Two landmark energy deals signed last year for Russian natural gas to flow to China have made little progress and were barely mentioned when the two men met for talks after watching the show of weapons Thursday on Tiananmen Square. The bilateral trade that was predicted to amount to more than $100 billion this year instead reached only about $30 billion in the first six months, largely because of a reduced Chinese demand for Russian oil […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple