Free Republic

Yemeni Houthi armed forces today purportedly struck facilities of Saudi oil giant Aramco in the southwestern part of Saudi Arabia as well as the airport of Abha in the kingdom, Iranian Fars News reports. The attacks—the second such reported incident in a week--according to Iranian media reports citing Yemeni sources, came in retaliation for Saudi air strikes targeting civilians in Yemen. The attack that prompted the retaliatory move took place on Friday, when Saudi fighters, according to Iranian media, targeted residential areas in the district of Baqim, in the northwestern Sa’ada province. The attack resulted in 11 casualties and came...

Iraqi media are reporting that ISIS militants have opened the taps of an oil pipeline in the town of Qayyarah, in northern Iraq. Crude is flowing in the streets, as images from Qayyarah show, and people are worried about what will happen if someone decides to set the crude on fire. Iraqi News notes that this is not the first time that the ISIS militants have resorted to this response: before Qayyarah was liberated by the Iraqi army and the U.S.-led coalition forces, the terrorist group spilled crude from the local pipeline into the Tigris River, which runs through the...

Venezuela has not been able to import all the crude and fuel it needs this year to cover shortfalls at oilfields and refineries as state-run PDVSA struggles to pay suppliers on time, according to trade sources and internal company data seen exclusively by Reuters. The decline is the largest in five years as the worst economic crisis in decades undermines PDVSA's ability to buy oil imports, which fell 21 percent in the first seven months of this year to 154,465 barrels per day (bpd), the data showed. Venezuela is also on track to suffer its steepest annual oil output drop...

In one of the rare recent increases for a late-summer week, U.S. retail gasoline prices unexpectedly rose in the week to August 22, by US$0.044 to US$ 2.193 per gallon, according to data by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Gasoline prices have dropped during this particular week in eight of the past ten years, and last week saw the biggest increase for this week since a US$0.062 rise in 2005. In the previous two August weeks, U.S. average gasoline prices had stood at US$2.150 in the week to August 8 and at US$2.149 in the week to August 15....

Oil prices have surged more than 20 percent in the last two weeks but there is quite a bit of disagreement over whether or not the rally can continue. The spark that created the bull market was the decision from OPEC to hold an unscheduled meeting in Algiers in September to discuss a production freeze. On the one hand, it would seem odd that OPEC members would once again go through all the motions and trouble of holding another meeting without a high degree of confidence that this time will be different. On the other hand, it has been years...

In last month’s Short Term Energy Outlook (STEO), the Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected that it now expects record U.S. gasoline consumption this year This projected increase follows several years of lower gasoline demand that resulted from persistently rising gasoline prices over the past decade. From 2002 to 2012 the average retail price of gasoline rose nearly every year, from an annual average of $1.39/gal in 2002 to $3.68/gal in 2012. Consumers responded to these higher prices in multiple ways, which cumulatively led to falling gasoline demand. Some even suggested that U.S. gasoline demand had permanently peaked, as a result...

The investigation by a handful of attorneys general into ExxonMobil has much more to do with the oil major misleading investors than it does about covering up climate science. The legal headache stems from several news reports that ExxonMobil buried decades of internal climate science in order to protect its interests. That has environmental groups crying foul, blaming the oil company for decades of policy inaction to stop the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. That also was a key reason that New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman, along with several other AGs from different states, opened up an investigation into...

China wants to have closer military ties with Syria, state media on Tuesday cited a senior Chinese officer as saying during a rare visit to the war-torn Middle Eastern country. While relying on the region for oil supplies, China tends to leave Middle Eastern diplomacy to the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, namely the United States, Britain, France and Russia. But China has been trying to get more involved, including sending envoys to help push for a diplomatic resolution to the violence there and hosting Syrian government and opposition figures. …

With the world swamped by cheap natural gas, crude oil, and coal (with the mines in western countries are being relegated to heritage status), who, really needs expensive and intermittent electricity from the wind and sun? From climate doomsters to media politicos, the world is being bombarded with mis-constructs, unfounded claims and outright lies. Some listeners and readers may fall for such deceits but many others are thinking to themselves and quietly walking away. Time and again, I have experienced that phenomenon after giving a talk to (mostly) retired professionals from a variety of disciplines. They approach me in private...

Oil prices officially charged into a bull market Thursday as the prospect of an output freeze by major producers, data showing the first weekly fall in U.S. crude supplies in a month, and a decline in the dollar boosted prices. Crude-oil prices have advanced more than 20% from their Aug. 2 low over the past several sessions...September West Texas Intermediate crude CLU6, +0.23% climbed by $1.43, or 3.1%, to settle at $48.22 a barrel

“How much more productive can these new wells get?” I asked my host who had kindly invited me on a field trip to some of western Canada’s most prolific oil fields. Looking down the aisle of bobbing pump jacks, seven in a row on one side of the immaculate gravel pad, the veteran oil executive replied, “We can get up to 1,000 barrels a day out of some of the new ones, but that’s not a limit; we’re improving the economics and productivity with each new well.” Impressive I thought, subconsciously nodding my head in sync with the leading pump...

The fate of the European Union’s global warming commitments negotiated as part of the Paris Protocol may be in jeopardy as result of Brexit. The U.S. on the other hand, should take a page out of the U.K.’s playbook and not only withdraw from the Paris agreement, but also withdraw participation from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change altogether. ... countries made individual commitments to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, largely centered on shifting away from affordable natural resources such as coal, oil, and natural gas, and toward more expensive, intermittent, subsidy-dependent renewables. ... The...

Why would Qatar want to become involved in Syria where they have very few investments? This is the question the analyst Felix Imonti poses in an article recently published by specialized website 'Oilprice.com' and by Joshua Landis' Syria Comment. The kingdom, Imonti explains, ''is a geographic prisoner in a small enclave on the Persian Gulf coast. It relies upon the export of LNG, because it is restricted by Saudi Arabia from building pipelines to distant markets. In 2009, the proposal of a pipeline to Europe through Saudi Arabia and Turkey to the Nabucco pipeline was considered, but Saudi Arabia is...

t’s a tough business right now for oil and gas companies, with some companies faring better than others with most majors releasing in-the-red second quarter financials, but business mogul T. Boone Pickens has made a bold and heavy return to the energy market, upping his stake in energy holdings by more than a third in the second quarter, according to data tallied by Bloomberg. The value of BP Capital Fund Advisors LLC’s energy stock holdings increased by $55 million to $218 million. BP Capital Fund Advisors added stakes to eight energy-related companies at a time when oil prices were painstakingly...

The Kingdom is struggling with weak GDP growth, higher fees and taxes, and an economy that is unable to pay the dues to its workers, leaving thousands of workers from South Asia with an uncertain future. When a nation is unable to provide food to its migrant workers, it says a lot about their financial condition. The oil price crash has forced the oil-rich Kingdom to introduce austerity measures, and delay payments to already cash-strapped contractors.

The recent spate of ISIS-inspired terror attacks in Turkey and subsequent attempted coup, combined with foreign fighters’ incessant attempts to enter ISIS’s shrinking territory have kept Turkey’s border with Syria, once dubbed a “jihadist highway”, at the forefront of regional security issues. Has Ankara responded adequately to the international community’s demands to bring its 911-kilometer border with Assad’s regime under control, or are smuggling and border crossings by militants a continuing threat? Gasoline smuggling Earlier this year, gasoline smuggling from Turkey to Syria received international attention after Russia accused the Turkish government of facilitating contraband routes across the Syrian border....

A group of gunmen blew up a bomb at the Bai Hassan oil field in Iraq’s northern province of Kirkuk on Wednesday, China’s news agency Xinhua reported, citing a provincial police chief. So far no group has claimed responsibility for the attack. The Kurdish military forces, the Peshmerga, arrived at the scene after the militants had fled and found another two bombs at other installations in the oil field, but managed to defuse them. Last week, ISIS fighters killed five people in an attack on Bai Hassan, and attempted to take down a gas compression station nearby as well, where...

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly defended an embattled banker during an official visit to Bangladesh while Clinton Foundation officials tried to steer money from an Abu Dhabi oil company into the banker’s coffers. A Daily Caller News Foundation investigation traced the convoluted payment by TAQA — formally known as the the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company — to Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank. Yunus is a long-time friend and Clinton Foundation donor. The oil company deal eventually put as much as $500,000 into President Bill Clinton’s pockets via a speaking fee he got in Scotland. The complicated set of international...

The Swiss Supreme Court in Lausanne has ordered the Israel-controlled Trans-Asiatic Oil Company to pay a debt of $1.2 billion to Iran's national Oil Company. According to Global Arbitration Review, which published the Swiss court’s ruling, Iran’s oil company has been removed from the sanctions regime, so there is no legal obstacle to paying it any money. On June 27, the court directed Trans-Asiatic to pay the Iranians 250,000 Swiss francs (about 1 million shekels, or $260,000) of the monies that have been deposited with the court, and another 200,000 francs in court costs. Trans-Asiatic appealed, and lost, saddling the...

An arbitration court has ordered Israeli-held Trans-Asiatic Oil (TAO) to pay US$1.2 billion to Iran for oil that the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) had delivered to Israel before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the online edition of Israel’s Haaretz reported on Monday. Lausanne-based Swiss Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Iran in the case which Israel had appealed. In May 2015, Israel said it was refusing to comply with an order by a Swiss court that it pay US$1.1 billion to NIOC. The complex dispute stems from 1968, when Shah Reza Pahlavi ruled Iran. The Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Co....