Faced with slumping demand for liquefied natural gas in Asian markets, Qatar is shipping cargoes to Britain, deepening the biggest seasonal price drop for the fuel there in five years.
Qatar, the biggest producer, will send at least eight cargoes to the UK this month, taking the total since April to 35, six more than last year. Prices on the UK’s National Balancing Point, the largest trading hub outside the US, have fallen 25% since the summer started on April 1.
Spare crude-export capacity will limit any gains in oil prices after the US and European Union imposed sanctions on Russian energy companies over Ukraine, according to Nomura Holdings Inc. and Sapient Global Markets.
OAO Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil company, natural gas producer OAO Novatek and OAO Gazprombank, the third-largest lender, are among those hit by the penalties, the US Treasury Department said yesterday. The sanctions are the latest response to what US and European leaders say is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to end support for rebels who have been battling Ukrainian government forces in the east.
A four-decade-old ban on crude exports from the U.S. will survive another year, the chairman of the US House’s Energy and Commerce Committee said.
Policy makers need time to decide whether to lift the 1975 prohibition on exporting most crude, “and that won’t happen this year,” Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, said yesterday at an energy conference in Washington. The US allows shipments of refined products including gasoline and diesel.
Commodities from iron ore to copper and Brent crude will drop over the next five years as global supplies climb, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which highlighted oil’s recent losses as a sign of increased output.
There will be substantial declines in some metals, energy and bulk commodities, analysts including chief currency strategist Robin Brooks wrote in a report. The period of continued year-on-year price rises for most commodities is over, they said in the report.
A Chinese oil company has completed drilling in disputed waters off the coast of Vietnam and moved a rig that sparked skirmishes between boats of the two countries and deadly anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam.
Oil prices are creating the greatest incentive in four years to store crude at sea and sell it later as prices rise, prompting speculation there will be a revival in a trade once used by firms including BP Plc and Citigroup Inc.
North Dakota, the second-largest oil-producing state in the US, expects output to surge through the summer as more benign weather gives roughnecks extra time to work in the field.
Output rose about 3.6% to 1.04 million barrels a day in May, the state’s Department of Mineral Resources reported yesterday. It was the largest increase since August.
The growth came even as rain and high winds kept well- completion crews out of the fields for several days during the month. Better summer weather will lead to production growth in the region of 5 to 6% a month in June, July and August, said Lynn Helms, director of the state’s Department of Mineral Resources.
The dream of pollution-free coal plants is getting a boost from growing demand for carbon dioxide used to revive old oilfields.
In one of the first projects to harness the C02 waste of a coal plant for oil drilling, power generator NRG Energy Inc. announced today that it’s beginning construction on a $1billion retrofit of its East Texas coal plant. NRG will pump carbon dioxide pollution from the plant deep into a nearby oil field that it partially owns. The idea is to loosen trapped crude deposits, making old wells flow like new while burying the harmful greenhouse gas. Cash from the increased oil production will help pay for the project, NRG said in a statement today.
Global investment in clean energy increased to $63.6billion in the second quarter, boosted by the biggest deal in the industry’s history.
Financing swelled 9% from a year earlier, and 33% from the first quarter, the London-based research company said today in an e-mailed statement. The main driver was the $3.8billion backing of a 600-megawatt offshore wind farm off the coast of the Netherlands.
InterOil Corp., Total SA’s partner in a natural gas venture in Papua New Guinea, said it suspended drilling in a nearby exploration block due to high pressures that can threaten the safety of the rig.
Brent crude traded near the lowest price in three months as Libya’s oil output continued to increase, easing the threat of supply disruptions from the Middle East. West Texas Intermediate fell in New York.
Israeli stocks jumped the most since December after energy companies raised estimates for reserves at the Leviathan gas field by 15%, even as the conflict between Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip intensified.
Noble Group Ltd., Asia’s largest commodity trader by sales, formed an energy venture with private-equity firm EIG Global Energy Partners LLC to invest in assets worldwide.
Rosneft signed a deal to buy eight drilling companies in Russia and Venezuela from Weatherford International as Russia’s largest oil producer builds its own oilfield services business.
Premier Oil Plc’s newly appointed Chief Executive Officer Tony Durrant has three immediate priorities to consolidate a share price gain of more than 20% since he took the job this year.
He plans to bring on stream the $1.4billion Solan field located west of Shetland before the end of the year, find a partner to share a $5billion investment to develop the Sea Lion project off the Falklands, and exceed an oil production target.
New U.S. pipelines and a revival in Libyan supply are increasing the likelihood that oil prices will slump through year-end after climbing in the first six months.
OPEC predicted that demand for its crude will decline in 2015 to the lowest in six years as supplies from other producers, led by the US, are more than enough to cover the increase in global consumption.
For more than 30 years, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port LLC has been a symbol of US dependence on foreign oil, pumping Nigerian and Saudi Arabian crude from the world’s biggest supertankers into underground storage caverns beneath the marshes of southern Louisiana.
Libya, the north African country whose crude exports collapsed last year amid protests and political feuding, will seek to revive shipments in a way that avoids oil-market disruption, its governor for OPEC said.
The biggest natural gas inventories in Europe since at least 2010 are deflating the risk premium stemming from the crisis between Russia and Ukraine, sending prices for supplies during the winter to a four-year low.
Typhoon Neoguri headed toward Japan’s southernmost main island of Kyushu, prompting the evacuation of almost 90,000 people amid the threat of floods and landslides.
Brent crude fell below $110 a barrel, reversing a rally that started when Islamist militants seized the northern Iraqi city of Mosul almost a month ago. West Texas Intermediate also traded near a one-month low.
A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S said its oil and gas business will take a $1.7billion writedown on its oil assets in Brazil and no longer push for an expansion in the South American country.
Deutsche Bank AG plans to lend about $1billion for Japan solar projects, joining Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in funding cleaner energy as the government struggles to restart nuclear power plants after the Fukushima disaster.
