Energy

Bloomberg It’s gone from a dearth to a glut of oil pipeline projects competing to serve slowing production growth in the Permian Basin. Five new oil pipelines are set to open in the Permian Basin through 2021, expanding a gap between production and takeaway capacity that’s already forcing companies to cut fees and could mean lower profits and cutthroat competition ...

Bloomberg South African power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd, which generates about 95% of the country’s electricity, extended power cuts that started on January 4 until Monday after a conveyor belt failure at its Medupi plant — just as Andre de Ruyter officially takes over as head of the cash-strapped company. Eskom extended stage 2 load-shedding, the local term for ...

Bloomberg Duke Energy Corp reached a settlement with North Carolina regulators and environmentalists to close its remaining coal ash ponds in the state, ending a long-running fight over cleaning up waste from power plants. The settlement, which saves the company about $1.5 billion, requires Duke to remove nearly 80 million tons of coal ash. Seven basins will be fully excavated, ...

Bloomberg A wind turbine floating off the coast in northern Portugal began transmitting electricity to the grid, a crucial step for a technology that could vastly increase the potential for offshore wind power. The WindFloat Atlantic project is backed by European energy companies EDP Renovaveis SA, Engie SA and Repsol SA and uses the floating platform developed by Principle Power ...

Bloomberg Former US Energy Secretary Rick Perry is joining the board of the general partner that controls Dallas-based pipeline giant Energy Transfer LP. The move puts Perry, who departed the Energy Department in December, back at the table of one of the biggest pipeline operators in the US Billionaire Kelcy Warren’s Energy Transfer has made headlines for pursuing large projects ...

Bloomberg The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) science advisers rebuked the agency over its 2018 proposal to slash automobile fuel efficiency and emission standards, saying tougher rules charted during the Obama administration may have better outcomes than the plan to replace them. Members of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board, which reviews major agency actions, said there were significant weaknesses in the ...

Bloomberg A consortium led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Varde Partners LP will buy 65.75 billion rupees ($922 million) of debt from an Indian power company at a 38% discount, in one of the largest restructuring deals outside the nation’s bankruptcy court. Creditors of RattanIndia Power Ltd will sell the debt via an asset reconstruction company controlled by the ...

Bloomberg After a fairly abysmal 2019 for US energy mergers and acquisitions, investors are signalling to oil executives and investment bankers that the days of big-premium deals are over. Some of the year’s most notable mergers, including Occidental Petroleum Corp’s blockbuster takeover of Anadarko Petroleum Corp, were met with investor criticism and the sustained selling of the acquirer’s stock. Shareholders ...

Bloomberg Rio Tinto Group is resuming operations at its South African mine that was shuttered earlier this month because of escalating violence in surrounding communities. The Richards Bay Minerals unit should be back at full operations in early January, leading to regular production in early 2020, Rio said in a statement on Monday. The decision was taken after discussions led ...

Bloomberg The incoming head of the largest US power market is under pressure even before he begins his new job. A consumer watchdog has accused Manu Asthana — who starts as chief executive officer of PJM Interconnection LLC on January 1 — of mismanagement at his previous company. That risks casting a shadow over his new role, in which he ...