Energy & Oil

• Tuesday, April 26th 2016 - 08:04 UTC

  Falklands renews VMS capability contract for tracking over 150 vessels

  

  Big OceanData has been awarded a contract to provide the Government of the Falkland Islands with its vessel monitoring system (VMS) capability for another five years. For the first time the system will include AIS data, which will be integrated with existing Inmarsat tracking data from the fishing vessels.

• Friday, April 22nd 2016 - 08:07 UTC

  Venezuela imposes daily four/hours blackout to save power; brewery out of barley will stop beer production

  

  Recession-hit Venezuela will turn off the electricity supply in its 10 most populous states for four hours a day for 40 days to deal with a severe power shortage, the government said Thursday.

• Monday, April 18th 2016 - 08:40 UTC

  Leading oil exporters can't agree to cap production; Iran did not attend

  

  The meeting of the world's leading oil exporters to discuss capping production has ended without agreement. After hours of talks in Qatar, the country's energy minister Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada said that the oil producers needed “more time”.

• Wednesday, April 13th 2016 - 05:03 UTC

  Ecuador signs US$ 1 billion investment deals to boost oil production in existing fields

  

  Ecuadorian state-owned energy firm Petroamazonas EP, which is looking to boost production at nine of its existing oil fields and on Monday signed a series of investment deals amounting to US$ 1 billion for those areas, enlisting the help of both domestic and foreign companies.

• Thursday, April 7th 2016 - 09:03 UTC

  Venezuela becomes strong client of millions of barrels of US WTI crude

  

  Venezuela's PDVSA will discharge in the coming days its first cargo of U.S. crude bought from British BP, who along with China Oil was awarded a tender to supply the state-run company with some 8 million barrels in the second quarter, traders close to the deal revealed on Wednesday.

• Monday, April 4th 2016 - 04:12 UTC

  Petrobras launches voluntary layoff program to cut 12.000 jobs

  

  Brazil's embattled oil company Petrobras said it will launch a voluntary layoff program to cut an estimated 12,000 jobs in a bid to save up to 33 billion reais ($9.20 billion) by 2020. The program will cost 4.4 billion reais and is open to all employees, according to a statement from Petrobras, which has been hard hit by low oil prices, refinery project problems and a massive price-fixing, bribery and political kickback scandal.

• Sunday, April 3rd 2016 - 07:52 UTC

  Mega corporation Odebrecht involved in Petrobras case, plans to sell assets to meet debt obligations

  

  Troubled Brazilian construction company Odebrecht SA plans to sell about 12 billion reais (US$3.4 billion) in assets to help meet its debt obligations, according to the builder’s chief executive officer. The company had a gross debt of 85 billion reais in 2014, the most recent figure available, but much of it is long-term debt and the biggest payments start only in 2025, Odebrecht CEO Newton de Souza said in an interview published Friday in the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper.

• Friday, April 1st 2016 - 06:07 UTC

  Total/Exxon/Mobil drilling offshore Uruguay a record-deep well; first since 1976

  

  A consortium led by France's Total and U.S.-based super major ExxonMobil Corp started this week drilling for oil off Uruguay, Industry, Energy and Mining Minister Carolina Cosse announced. Uruguay is totally reliant on imports for its oil and has for decades tried to discover possible hydrocarbons resources both in the continent and offshore.

• Wednesday, March 30th 2016 - 08:00 UTC

  Argentina wins a first round at the WTO over a biodiesel controversy with the EU

  

  The World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled on Tuesday in favor of Argentina in a series of complaints the country filed with the international body, challenging punitive duties by the European Union on its biodiesel imports. The WTO, however, said the EU was not violating its rules.

• Tuesday, March 22nd 2016 - 06:25 UTC

  Petrobras losses in 4Q climb to US$ 10bn; more staff cuts expected

  

  Brazil's state-run oil company, Petrobras, reported a record quarterly loss of $10.2 billion on Monday due to a large reduction in the value of some assets amid lower oil prices. Petrobras has been at the center of a sprawling corruption scandal that has ensnared some of Brazil's most powerful lawmakers and business executives.