Regional News

Bloomberg The UK North Sea is on track for the biggest year of oil and gas field startups in a decade, continuing the aging province’s surprising resilience to the crude-market slump. Fourteen projects with combined peak production of 230,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day will start in the region this year, according to data from consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd. …

Bloomberg Hurricane Harvey’s crushing blow to the US energy industry reveals just how dependent Mexico has become on natural gas from its northern neighbor. The storm’s wrath forced cross-border gas pipelines in Texas to shut and prevented tankers from loading cargoes of the fuel. Mexican consumers, who are burning record amounts of gas from America’s prolific shale basins, had no …

Bloomberg Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. is nearing a deal to acquire Cenovus Energy Inc.’s Pelican Lake oil asset for about C$1 billion ($807 million), according to people familiar with the matter. Canadian Natural advanced to the final round of bidding alongside Cona Resources Ltd. for the asset, which is located about 300 kilometers (186 miles) north of Edmonton, said the …

Bloomberg State-owned conglomerate China Merchants Group is exploring acquisitions of offshore rig operators, which have struggled to recover from a collapse in oil-industry spending, people with knowledge of the matter said. As part of this analysis, the Chinese firm has looked at various assets and companies including Seadrill Ltd. and Shelf Drilling Ltd., the people said, asking not to be …

Bloomberg Vestas Wind Systems A/S expects demand for wind power to rebound in Brazil, after a slowdown in Latin America’s top market prompted the turbine supplier to focus more attention elsewhere in the region. “I see Brazil coming back in the next year,” said Marco Graziano, president at Vestas Mediterranean. “You’ve got to be patient.” The world’s biggest turbine supplier …

Reuters Freight rates for very large crude carriers (VLCCs) on Asian routes continue to sink on a glut of available tonnage as owners wait for supply disruptions caused by Hurricane Harvey to help support the market, brokers said. Charter rates for VLCCs from the Middle East have fallen to around 36 on the Worldscale measure. “In terms of VLCCs we’ve …

Bloomberg South Africa’s state-owned electricity utility will sign delayed power-purchase agreements with independent producers by the end of October, but not before pricing on the deals is renegotiated, Energy Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi said. Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. is expected to conclude agreements for 26 projects, Kubayi said in Pretoria. The power company stalled for more than a year on the …

Bloomberg Gasoline rose to a two-year high as Tropical Storm Harvey hit the US Gulf coast again after already knocking out a fifth of the nation’s refining capacity. Motiva Enterprises LLC’s Port Arthur refinery, the country’s biggest, was said to be shutting because of severe flooding. The disruption helped send motor fuel as much as 3.3 percent higher in New …

Bloomberg Gazprom PJSC’s profit slumped in the last quarter, cooling the prospect of an increased dividend from the world’s largest natural gas producer. Net income plunged 80 percent as record gas exports to Europe were offset by foreign-currency losses, the Moscow-based company said in a statement late on Tuesday. Gazprom aims to keep its dividend payments in rubles no lower …

AMMAN / Reuters Jordan will open its main border crossing with Iraq on Wednesday for the first time since 2015, now that Iraqi forces have gained control of the main highway to Baghdad from IS militants, both governments said. Iraqi troops pulled out of the Tureibil post, on the 180 km (110 mile) border, in summer 2014 after the militants …