Regional News

BAGHDAD / Reuters Iraq has agreed to swap up to 60,000 barrels per day of crude produced from the northern Iraqi Kirkuk oilfield for Iranian oil, Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi said. The agreement signed by the two countries provides for Iran to deliver to Iraq’s southern ports, on the Gulf, “oil of the same characteristics and in the same …

Bloomberg Oil slipped to near $57 a barrel as US drilling expanded and OPEC nations Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates signalled they can phase out production cuts if the market improves. Futures fell 0.4% in New York after climbing 2.5 percent in the previous two sessions. Drillers boosted the rig count by two to 751, a three-month high, according …

Bloomberg Pilot production at Egypt’s Eni SpA-operated Zohr natural gas field will begin “in the coming few days,” the oil ministry said, as the country nears its goal of commercial output from the biggest gas discovery in the Mediterranean Sea by the end of this year. Gas is being pumped from the national distribution system to test pipelines in preparation …

Bloomberg China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) is restricting natural-gas sales to industries across the country to divert more of the fuel to heat homes in the northern part of the country. The move is a response to instructions from the Nati- onal Development & Reform Commission, which called on local governments and gas suppliers to combat gas shortages in the …

KUWAIT / Reuters Kuwait’s oil minister Essam al-Marzouq said on Sunday that OPEC and other oil producers will study before June the possibility of an exit strategy from the global oil supply-cut agreement. “There are still meetings every couple of months for the ministerial monitoring committee, and there will be a study formed for the possibility of an exit strategy… …

Bloomberg While the Trump administration’s efforts to bolster money-losing nuclear plants have hit a potential hitch, New Jersey may press ahead with a rescue plan of its own. Lawmakers are exploring legislation after the state’s biggest utility warned that its reactors are at risk of being shut down in the next two years without a “safety net” because they’ll be …

TRIPOLI / Reuters The head of Libya’s UN-backed government held a rare meeting with the head of the National Oil Corporation (NOC) and the governor of Tripoli’s central bank to discuss funding to raise oil production. Relations between the three institutions have been fractious over the past two years due to stand-offs over public spending and funding for NOC. Ties …

Bloomberg Almost all coal plants in the European Union will be outspending their income by the end of the next decade, relying on subsidies to stay open to back up wind and solar generation. About 54 percent of the region’s plants already fail to break even, according to a report by London-based Carbon Tracker Initiative. The facilities are kept online …

Bloomberg Exxon Mobil Corp is joining Chevron Corp and other US refiners to supply the newly free Mexican fuel market. Exxon sent two cargoes totalling 120,000 barrel of diesel and gasoline from its refinery in Beaumont, Texas, to a private terminal in San Luis Potosi. The company is moving cargoes along Kansas City Southern Railway Co.’s network and plans to …

SABETTA / Reuters President Vladimir Putin said that Russia was ready to sell gas to Saudi Arabia after he launched the first loading of liquefied natural gas (LNG) at the Novatek-led Yamal LNG project in the Arctic. Russia is the world’s biggest gas producer, but most of its exports are via pipeline rather than LNG, a super-cooled fuel that can …