Norwegian Energy Co. ASA fell as much as 67% in Oslo trading after saying it may not meet financial commitments at the end of the year because of a shutdown at its Huntington oilfield this month.
Norway will for the first time start buying kroner with foreign currency from its oil revenue accounts as Scandinavia’s richest nation takes an historic step in covering growing budget needs as crude output declines.
Solar power might become the world’s largest source of electricity by 2050 as falling costs boost installations, according to the International Energy Agency.
Brent and West Texas Intermediate headed for the biggest quarterly decline in more than two years amid speculation that rising crude output would buffer the market from potential supply disruptions in the Middle East. Futures were little changed in London, down 13% from the beginning of July. The US and its European and Arab allies have conducted thousands of air missions since starting a bombing campaign to counter Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer. US crude stockpiles probably expanded by 1.5 million barrels last week, a Bloomberg News survey shows before an Energy Information Administration report tomorrow.
North Sea oil operators’ surging costs risk scaring away the more than £1trillion ($1.6trillion) of investment needed to meet their production goals, according to industry lobby Oil & Gas UK.
Encana Corp., Canada’s second- largest natural gas producer, agreed to buy Athlon Energy Inc. for $5.93 billion in cash, gaining a foothold in the most- prolific U.S. oil producing region. The $58.50-a-share agreement represents a 25 percent premium to Fort Worth, Texas-based Athlon’s closing price on Sept. 26, Encana said today in a statement. The deal includes the assumption of $1.15 billion in long-term debt. Athlon, whose largest shareholder is private-equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC, produces about 30,000 barrels a day in the Permian Basin in Texas.
Sumitomo will set up a special investigation into how it lost almost $1.8billion in Texas shale oil and Australian coal mining. The probe comes after the company, Japan’s fourth-biggest trading house, cut its annual profit forecast by 96% after writing down the value of the two investments.
When UK Prime Minister Tony Blair became the first leader of a major economy to meet Russia’s new president in March 2000, Vladimir Putin couldn’t have been more gracious. Accompanied by their wives, Putin showed Blair around the Hermitage museum in his hometown of St. Petersburg. At the Mariinsky Theater, they watched an operatic version of “War and Peace.” Blair praised Putin for seeking to modernize his economy and make it more open to foreign investment. Putin the week before had mentioned the idea of Russia joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The most powerful man in Russia’s oil industry says U.S. sanctions won’t prevent the development of discoveries in the Arctic Ocean.
The easing of tensions in Ukraine will offer little respite to Russia as the lowest oil prices in more than two years threaten to tilt the $2trillion economy toward recession, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts.
Saudi Arabia, the largest crude producer in OPEC, plans to keep output steady until the end of the year, a person with knowledge of the country’s oil policy said. It made the biggest cut in 20 months in August. Output through the end of the year won’t differ much from August, when the country pumped 9.597 million barrels a day, according to the person, who isn’t allowed to be identified. The nation reduced production by 408,500 barrels a day last month, the most since December 2012, according to its most-recent submission to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Demand will rise by the end of the year because of northern hemisphere winter, the person said.
Russian prosecutors filed suit to regain state ownership of the oil producer controlled by Vladimir Evtushenkov, as government lawyers stepped up their campaign against the arrested billionaire.
After Exxon Mobil Corp. mounted a campaign to warn U.S. officials that prematurely halting work with Russian oil giant Rosneft on an exploratory oil well could foul the Arctic, the Obama administration last week gave the company a two-week reprieve from sanctions on Russia.
Oil trading will continue unabated amid a UK review on whether to criminalize manipulation of the world’s most-traded crude-futures contract, brokers and analysts involved in the industry said.
Four energy companies are proposing an $8billion renewable energy project that would supply Los Angeles with more than twice the power generated by the Hoover Dam. The project includes a 2,100-megawatt wind farm in Wyoming, a 525-mile (845-kilometer) power line and a $1.5billion storage facility, the developers said today in a statement. Duke- American Transmission, a joint venture of Duke Energy Corp. and American Transmission Co., Dresser-Rand Group Inc. and two others will propose the project to the Southern California Public Power Authority by early 2015.
Plentiful oil supplies are pinning oil prices near a two-year low as the US extends its campaign against Islamic State militants into Syria. Brent crude, which has traded below $100 a barrel for more than two weeks, touched $95.60 a barrel yesterday, the lowest since July 2012, after the broadest Arab-US military coalition since the 1991 Gulf War struck Islamic State targets in Syria. U.S. aircraft began bombing the group six weeks earlier in Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer and holder of the world’s fifth- biggest reserves.
A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S said its container-shipping line, the world’s largest, can cut more costs amid declining freight rates in a number of ways, including by further slowing vessel speeds. In addition, Maersk Line’s partnership with Mediterranean Shipping which is still pending authority approval, will result in $350million annual savings, Copenhagen-based Maersk said today in a presentation.
As head of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund Yngve Slyngstad has invested in more than 80 countries. Yet when placing his own money, he sticks to his home country Norway. The chief executive officer of Norges Bank Investment Management, the unit inside Norway’s central bank that manages the $870billion fund, owns shares in 14 companies including Statoil ASA and Telenor ASA, according to information released by NBIM. Since heading the fund in 2008, Slyngstad has bought stock for 1.6 million kroner ($252,000) and sold shares for about 100,000 kroner.
Two Swiss pilots plan to fly a solar-powered plane around the earth, pushing human endurance as well as the boundaries of a technology that the aviators say isn’t anywhere near reaching its full potential for industry.
Wrapping up a $7.6billion acquisition is satisfying for any executive. Outmaneuvering your former boss to do so is even better. Siemens AG Chief Executive Officer Joe Kaeser did just that in a deal to buy Dresser-Rand Group Inc., a US oil-and-gas equipment specialist. Also bidding for the company was Swiss pumpmaker Sulzer AG, where former Siemens chief Peter Loescher is now chairman. Loescher “worked for Siemens, and I can well imagine that the attractiveness of Dresser-Rand was known to him,” Kaeser told journalists on a conference call on Monday.
Less than a year after establishing North America’s largest carbon market, Quebec and California are aggressively recruiting the province of Ontario and other U.S. states to join, Quebec’s premier said.
The newest oil refinery in Saudi Arabia reached full capacity last month, increasing the international competition that Vitol SA and Total SA said will force the closing of more European plants.
OPEC has yet to decide to cut its production target, the United Arab Emirates’ energy minister said, as crude prices extend a slide since June amid a boom in U.S. shale oil and signs of slower demand growth in China. All 12 members of the group must agree before any decrease in its official limit of 30 million barrels a day, the U.A.E.’s Suhail Al Mazrouei said today, a week after OPEC’s secretary- general said it may lower the ceiling in 2015. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, supplier of about 40% of the world’s oil, faces growing competition from North American shale deposits even as economic growth cools in China, the world’s second-biggest oil consumer after the US OPEC’s monthly report on Sept. 10 showed demand for its oil will decline to 29.2 million barrels a day in 2015 from 29.5 million this year. The group will review its target when it meets next on Nov. 27 at its Vienna headquarters.
Billionaire John Fredriksen boosted his stake in rig company Seadrill Ltd. after the stock dropped on a market downturn, a longtime adviser left, and amid uncertainty over a Russian deal.
Brent rose from a one-week low after a Chinese manufacturing gauge beat forecasts, signaling increased demand from the world’s second-biggest oil consumer. West Texas Intermediate climbed in New York.
