Regional News

Bloomberg China bought huge amounts of Middle East and West African crude as oil prices were collapsing in November. Oil tankers loaded 6.5 million barrels a day from ports in the two regions for Chinese buyers in November, a 26 percent increase compared with the average over prior 10 months, ship tracking compiled by Bloomberg shows. With deliveries taking between ...

Bloomberg Jagged Peak Energy Inc is considering expanding its footprint in the oil-rich Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The oil and gas company, with a market value of $2.2 billion, is working with an adviser to pursue bolt-on acquisitions, said the people, who asked not to be identified because ...

Bloomberg SSE Plc and Innogy SE terminated plans to create the UK’s second-biggest utility, the latest sign of pressure on the industry from increasing regulation. SSE’s board decided it wasn’t in the best interest of the company to proceed with the deal to combine its retail business with Innogy’s Npower unit after it emerged last month that more cash would ...

Bloomberg Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is boosting Petroleos Mexicanos’ budget to 464.6 billion pesos ($23 billion) next year to reverse flagging oil production and increase domestic fuel output. The proposal sent to the lower house of congress would increase Pemex’s total budget, including capital investments, by 14 percent in 2019 compared with 407 billion pesos this year, according ...

Bloomberg Dominion Energy Inc.’s $7.9 billion takeover of a troubled South Carolina utility was approved by state regulators, clearing way for a deal that nearly collapsed over costs from a failed nuclear project. The unanimous vote comes nearly a year after Dominion proposed buying Scana Corp, which spent about $4.9 billion to expand the V.C. Summer nuclear plant then walked ...

Bloomberg Occidental Petroleum Corp will look for ways to cut costs other than dropping rigs, in response to the recent slump in oil prices, according to Chief Executive Officer Vicki Hollub. “We’re going to keep our rigs running and we’re going to figure out how to reduce costs in some other way that’s not impacting people who are depending on ...

Bloomberg Premier Oil Plc is considering a bid for a package of North Sea oil and gas assets put on the block by US oil major Chevron Corp that’s worth about $2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The first round of bids is due before the end of the month, the people said, asking not to be ...

Bloomberg The government of Nigeria is suing Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Eni SpA and other companies for more than $1 billion over a 2011 oil deal it says was tainted by corruption. The suit, filed in London, alleges that money the companies paid to acquire an oil exploration license in the Gulf of Guinea was diverted to bribes and kickbacks, ...

Bloomberg Welcome to the new world market for natural gas, where computers never sleep and, apparently, neither do traders. With US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports set to surge by almost 80 percent in 2019, traders in America face a new reality: expansion exhaustion. As more and more inte- rnational players participate in US gas markets, the price of market ...

Bloomberg Alberta’s plan to boost crude prices through mandatory production cuts is working a little too well. Just over a week after Premier Rachel Notley announced that oil producers will be required to curtail output by 8.7 percent, the price of heavy Canadian crude has more than do- ubled, in some ca-ses rendering Wes-tern Canadian Sel- ect too expensive to ...