by Oilprice.com • • Comments Off on Exxon, BP Defy Obama; Extend Partnership with Russia
ExxonMobil, BP, Total, and other oil majors are doubling down in Russia despite moves by the West to isolate Russia; they just signed mega-contracts with state-owned Russian oil companies – sanctions be damned.
by Oilprice.com • • Comments Off on China’s Oil Giant At Center Of Corruption Probe
Grins were on the faces of CNPC executives as they celebrated a blockbuster 30-year deal for Russian gas. For some, however, those grins might turn to grimaces; CNPC has been caught up in a series of highest profile corruption investigations.
by Oilprice.com • • Comments Off on EU’s Case against Gazprom over “Extortionary” Prices Cracks Russian Influence
As Russian President Vladimir Putin tries to tighten his grip over Eastern Europe with Gazprom’s vast web of natural gas pipelines, one tiny European country gained a bit of leverage over Russia: Lithuania.
by Oilprice.com • • Comments Off on US on Self-Imposed Sidelines in South China Sea Standoff
Vietnam and China are in a red-hot standoff in the South China Sea over China’s oil rig in Vietnam’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone. But inaction in Congress has boxed the US into a corner.
by Oilprice.com • • Comments Off on Brazil’s Troubled Petrobras Becomes Hot Political Potato
Petrobras is the world’s most indebted and least profitable oil major. It has $114.3 billion in debt. Production stagnates. Its shares have lost half their value since 2010. It’s embroiled in scandals. And President Dilma Rousseff is on the hook.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on America And Oil: This Chart Shows Why OPEC’s Knees Are Trembling
What would have been a demented propagandist’s flight of fancy a decade ago has become reality: For the first time in history, the US imports more oil from our dear and reliable neighbor Canada than from OPEC. With major consequences.
by Oilprice.com • • Comments Off on Russia Loses Leverage with China on ‘Holy-Grail’ Gas Deal
Russia’s primary energy customer is Europe, which is now planning sanctions. That has accelerated the natural gas deal Russia is trying to hammer out with China. But they’ve been negotiating for years, the biggest sticking point being price!
by Oilprice.com • • Comments Off on DOJ Extracts $5 Billion from Anadarko “for 85 years of poisoning the earth”
It “tried to keep its rewards and shed its responsibilities by playing a corporate shell game, putting its oil-and-gas business in a new entity and leaving behind a bankrupt shell” with environmental liabilities of defunct, polluting businesses.
by Oilprice.com • • Comments Off on A US-Saudi Move to Lower Oil Prices To Punish Russia?
That the US could unleash a flood of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to drive down prices has been pushed for weeks, most recently by George Soros, but has been dismissed as not a serious option. Then Obama went to Saudi Arabia.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Boss, We Got a Situation in Natural Gas
This winter, polar vortices sent the price of natural gas into dizzying spikes and plunges, head fakes, and whiplash-inducing turnarounds. But now winter is petering out, and we’re left with a peculiar situation.
