Energy / Crude Oil

• Claimants Win Legal Battle with BP over Oil Spill

  In another major legal setback for British-based oil giant BP, a US court has ruled that businesses claiming losses due to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill will not have to put any further effort into tracing these losses to the disaster.  The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals this week ordered BP to restart payments from its $9.2 billion compensation fund, rejecting the company’s bid to block business from recovering money over the oil spill even if they failed to explicitly trace their economic losses to the disaster. BP was attempting to limit payments to claimants as a…

• Pipeline to Turkey Intensifies Dispute Over Iraqi Oil

  Turkey has bought oil from the Kurdish region in northern Iraq before, but oil transfer was carried out by trucks, which kept the amount of exports at a minimal level. Construction of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline between Turkey and the semiautonomous region of northern Iraq, however, is well beyond what the Iraqi central government is willing to overlook. It would allow Kurdistan Regional Government to drastically increase its exports.Officials at oil companies operating in the region see the new pipeline as a “game changer” because of its capacity to export “as much as 400,000 barrels a day of oil to Turkey,…

• Ukraine Refinery Halts Amid Tensions with Russia

  Russia’s Lukoil has reportedly halted all oil supplies to Ukraine’s Kherson refinery in Odessa ostensibly over unpaid debts as political chaos engulfs the country with the refinery’s director and top executives walking out. Lukoil sold the refinery last year to Ukrainian group VETEK, owned by a multi-millionaire whose fortunes grew under President Viktor Yanukovych until he was ousted from power in February.Now, Russia’s largest oil company, Rosneft, is said to be considering the acquisition of the troubled refinery, which is hostage to a Russian-state bank for outstanding debts owed by VETEK head Serhiy Kurchenko. With Yanukovych ousted and on the…

• Emergency Order to Avoid Oil Train Disasters

  US federal regulators on Tuesday issued an emergency order for tougher testing of crude oil before shipment by rail to determine sensitivity to potential explosion and fire. The new federal order follows some 10 derailments of trains carrying crude in North America during the past year. The worst accident was in July 2013, in Quebec, when a train derailed and exploded, killing 47 people. And a string of incidents since then, on both sides of the border, has given regulators cause for concern. On 13 February, a Norfolk Southern Railway train bound for New Jersey derailed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. About…

• Africa’s Next Oil Frontier – Ethiopia?

  Sitting athwart the headwaters of the Blue Nile, Ethiopia has long seen its energy future in its hydropower potential, being able to export electricity to neighboring countries. That picture may be about to be somewhat altered however. British oil firm New Age (African Global Energy) Ltd works a concession in Ethiopia’s southeastern Ogaden basin blocs 7-8 and its Adigala lease with its Canadian oil firm partner Africa Oil. On 12 February New Age (African Global Energy) Ltd found an oil and gas flow at its Elkuran-3a appraisal well depth of 3,900 feet. The company began drilling the appraisal well in October 2013,…

• First, The Bad News…

  This is my first article for Oilprice.com, so I tried to find something really upbeat to write about. I wanted to be positive and to re-assure those of you here that oil, and energy in general, is in an almost perpetual boom and that everything in the garden is rosy. I tried, I really did, but my role here is to help you make money from the energy markets, not to make you feel all warm and fuzzy, and reality kept intruding.There are, for me, a couple of bright spots; Cobalt International (CIE), for example, which I like for the…

• Sahel Energy Advisory

  Morocco and Western Sahara in the SpotlightWith the hunt for oil picking up momentum in Morocco—considered an investor’s haven compared to other Sahelian countries—we are closely watching controversial exploration licenses issued for the disputed Western Sahara territory. Morocco has issued exploration licenses for blocks in Atlantic waters off Western Sahara, and we expect there to be significant reverberations over this. The exploration licenses went to French oil giant Total SA and US explorer Kosmos. But this offshore territory is undefined and geopolitically loaded with booby traps. What both the juniors and supermajors are looking at is analog geology that suggests…

• Iran Talks Potential Nuclear-Oil Swap with Russia

  As talk of a potential oil swap deal between Russian and Iran allegedly pick up pace, mainstream media reports say that Russia is considering the construction of a second nuclear reactor at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant in exchange for Iranian oil. On Monday this week, Iranian ambassador to Moscow Mehdi Sanaei said the two countries had been negotiating over the delivery of hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day from Iran, though Russian officials have not confirmed this. Moscow has emphasized that it will not do anything to violate existing UN sanctions in Iran. The current Bushehr reactor…

• Bitter Irony in Venezuela's Oil Sector

  In a bid to show members of Venezuelan society the age of Chavismo was alive and well, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro decided to rename one of the largest oil fields in the world after his mentor and former President Hugo Chavez. The Maduro administration might not last the year, however, suggesting the former president's legacy is indeed out at sea. Maduro, the former vice president and foreign minister during the Chavez era, said the nation's oil sector was "rescued" by the former president, whose 14-year reign over Venezuela ended when he died from cancer last year. Now, it's time to honor…

• For Exports, and Oil, You Can’t Beat Texas

  Texas is on an export roll, recording a new record last year, with Houston leading the way and expecting more to come with the recent approval of a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility. According to a report by US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Texas was one of 16 US states to set new exports records in 2013, taking the top spot followed by California and Washington, while US exports reached a new high total of $2.3 billion for 2013. LNG is expected to provide an increasing volume of the area’s exports, with the approval by the US…