Energy & Oil

• Wednesday, November 18th 2015 - 08:22 UTC

  Petrobras splinter union refuses to end strike and calls members to abandon offshore vessels

  

  Brazilian oil workers union local responsible for the bulk of the country's oil and gas output told its members on Tuesday to abandon Petrobras vessels operating in the Campos Basin, Brazil's most productive oil district.

• Wednesday, November 18th 2015 - 08:05 UTC

  Statoil follows Shell and drops search for oil in the US Arctic

  

  Norway's Statoil has decided to quit its Alaskan exploration efforts in the Chukchi Sea, following a recent move by Shell to drop its search for oil in the US Arctic after a key drilling target came back dry.

• Friday, November 13th 2015 - 14:04 UTC

  Premier Oil defers project development and exploration spending into 2016

  

  The successful Falkland Islands' exploration company Premier Oil has cut full-year capital expenditure as the oil producer deferred some project development and exploration spending into 2016, it said on Thursday. Like its peers, Premier Oil has to reduce spending to cope with a halving in oil prices since a peak in June last year that has eaten into revenues.

• Friday, November 13th 2015 - 10:56 UTC

  WTI oil falls below US$ 42; millions of barrels held in ships at sea

  

  Oil prices were testing fresh lows on Thursday, with a report that 100 million barrels of crude and heavy oil products are being held in ships at sea. West Texas Intermediate oil, the main North American contract, fell below $42 US a barrel, amid predictions that it would fall to the $20-30 level next year.

• Friday, November 13th 2015 - 09:23 UTC

  Mine disaster: Brazil fines BHP Billiton and Vale; expects companies to pay cleanup costs

  

  Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has slapped preliminary fines worth 250 million Reais ($94 million) against a BHP Billiton-Value owned mine in Minas Gerais state where two dams burst, killing at least seven people.

• Friday, November 13th 2015 - 09:10 UTC

  Petrobras reports huge 3Q losses: sharp devaluation of the currency blamed

  

  Brazil's scandal-plagued state oil giant Petrobras on Thursday announced third-quarter losses of about US$ 1 billion, mainly due to the sharp devaluation of the Brazilian currency.Petrobras, mired in a hugely damaging scandal involving bribes and high-level political payoffs, posted losses of 3.76 billion Reais in the quarter, compared with a loss of 5.3 billion Reais a year earlier.

• Thursday, November 12th 2015 - 08:07 UTC

  Petrobras striking workers consider salary offer but insist the company must reverse investment cuts

  

  Brazil's energy giant Petrobras offered striking workers a 9.54% wage hike on Wednesday in an effort to end a 10-day strike and prevent it from causing further production losses. But union officials said the deal makes almost no concessions on their most important demands. These include calls on Petrobras to reverse investment cuts and block planned assets sales designed to reduce Petrobras' debt.

• Wednesday, November 11th 2015 - 06:11 UTC

  Argentina's Supreme Court orders YPF to publicly release 2013 contract with Chevron

  

  Argentina's supreme court has ordered state-controlled YPF to publicly release all clauses of a 2013 contract with Chevron to develop shale oil in the country's vast Vaca Muerta formation. In a 3-1 ruling, the justices sided with opposition Socialist Senator Hector Ruben Giustiniani, ruling that the state's 51% stake in the firm effectively makes it a public company subject to transparency laws.

• Tuesday, November 10th 2015 - 07:39 UTC

  Oil megaprojects won't stay on the shelf for long

  

  One casualty of the oil price downturn could be the megaproject. For years, as conventional oil reserves depleted and became increasingly hard to find, oil companies ventured into far-flung locales to find new sources of production.

• Tuesday, November 10th 2015 - 06:49 UTC

  Another can of worms in Petrobras: 1.2bn dollars for a century old Texas refinery

  

  Brazilian officials are investigating allegations that Petrobras overpaid hundreds of millions of dollars for the Pasadena, Texas, refinery and funneled money into a massive kickback scheme that's led to dozens of convictions and arrests and fueled calls for the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff, who chaired the company until 2010.