Regional News

QUITO / Reuters Ecuador will ask to withdraw from OPEC for two years if the organization does not approve its request to be exempt from production quotas, the oil minister said. The Andean country, which is facing a huge deficit and funding needs because of low oil prices and a devastating earthquake last year, is planning to present its request ...

Bloomberg Oil was little changed before the release of US inventory data, while OPEC and its allies reassured traders that they’ll complete their strategy to clear a global crude surplus. Futures slipped 0.5 percent in New York after rising 1.1 percent. Government data on is forecast to show that inventories of crude oil fell and gasoline rose, both for the ...

TOKYO/KUALA LUMPUR / Reuters Malaysian state energy company Petroliam Nasional Bhd, or Petronas, signed a three-year liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply agreement with JERA Co, with smaller volumes and for a shorter period than its previous deal with the biggest LNG buyer in Japan. JERA, the fuel purchasing joint venture between Tokyo Electric Power and Chubu Electric Power, will buy ...

Bloomberg Venezuela’s biggest market for crude sales — the US — is becoming a harder and harder place for the socialist nation’s oil producer to do business as sanctions and diminishing quality controls discourage would-be buyers. Oil sales to US buyers have fallen for two straight months and now are 56 percent lower than their 2016 average, according to ship-tracking ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia announced on Tuesday a $500 billion plan to build a business and industrial zone that links with Jordan and Egypt, the biggest effort yet to free the kingdom from dependence on oil exports. The 26,500 square km (10,230 square mile) zone, known as NEOM, will focus on industries including energy and water, biotechnology, food, advanced manufacturing and ...

Agencies Saudi Arabia reassured global investors that it’s on track to sell shares in oil giant Aramco in 2018 as the who’s who of global finance and business gathered in Riyadh for a conference dubbed the “Davos in the Desert.” The kingdom plans next year to sell a stake in Saudi Arabian Oil Co., as the world’s biggest oil exporter ...

Bloomberg Iraq began using a new offshore crude-exporting facility to boost shipments by sea and make up for a drop in pipeline exports from the country’s north due to a conflict with the self-governed Kurdish region. The supertanker Chloe, which can transport about 2 million barrels of oil, moored at the new loading point in the Persian Gulf off the ...

Bloomberg Equatorial Guinea, OPEC’s newest member, is taking steps to stem the decline in its oil production following the acquisition by Kosmos Energy Ltd. and Trident Energy Management Ltd. of fields currently operated by Hess Corp.For two to three years there has been a trend of US companies operating in Africa, but not re-investing there, said the nation’s Minister of ...

Bloomberg The biggest US grid operator is asking regulators to reject Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s plan to prop up ailing coal and nuclear plants. “I don’t know how this proposal could be implemented without a detrimental impact on the market,” Andrew Ott, who heads up PJM Interconnection LLC, told reporters by phone. Perry’s proposal is “discriminatory” and inconsistent with federal ...

BEIJING / Reuters Russia held on to its position as China’s top crude oil supplier ahead of Angola and Saudi Arabia for the seventh straight month in September, with shipments hitting a record as refiners rushed to buy lower-sulphur oil to meet cleaner fuels standards. Imports from Russia last month were almost 6.35 million tonnes, or 1.545 million barrels per ...