Energy & Oil

• Thursday, May 5th 2016 - 11:27 UTC

  Petrobras sells stakes in Argentina and Chile, part of major divestment plan

  

  Brazil’s state-run oil firm Petrobras said it has concluded the sale of its 67.2% stake in Petrobras Argentina to Argentina’s Pampa Energía for US$ 892 million, according to a securities filing. Petrobras also sold all of Petrobras Chile Distribución to Southern Cross Group for about US$ 490 million as part of its divestment program, the company said.

• Wednesday, May 4th 2016 - 08:46 UTC

  Attorney General accuses Lula da Silva of a key role in Petrobras huge corruption scandal

  

  Brazil's Attorney General Rodrigo Janot has asked the Supreme Court to authorize an investigation against former President Lula da Silva for alleged corruption. Janot accused Lula of playing a key role in the huge corruption scandal at the state oil company, Petrobras.

• Monday, May 2nd 2016 - 08:51 UTC

  With a subsidy production scheme, Argentina is back exporting oil, mainly to China

  

  Argentine oil producers are shipping record volumes of crude this month, spurred by a new government subsidy that has also prompted state-owned oil company YPF to return to the export market for the first time in years.

• Monday, May 2nd 2016 - 05:34 UTC

  Venezuela moves local time 30 minutes up, back to normal

  

  Venezuelan government on Sunday moved local time up 30 minutes, to four hours behind UTC, with an eye toward dealing with the emergency caused by the ongoing severe drought. The time change will enter into effect as of this month and brings Venezuela back to the time schedule that prevailed until 2007, when the government shifted the nation's clocks back by half an hour.

• Saturday, April 30th 2016 - 11:45 UTC

  YPF will fight back legal claim seeking US$ 500 million for rescinding contracts

  

  Argentina's state-run energy company YPF said this week it will fight a legal claim seek more than US$500 million in damages for rescinding natural gas export contracts in 2009. “YPF shall use all its legal resources to defend its interests and those of its shareholders,” the company said in a filing with the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange.

• Thursday, April 28th 2016 - 07:34 UTC

  Maduro blames the “crazy right” for riots sparked by daily several/hours blackouts

  

  Venezuelan cities cleaned up from a night of looting and fiery protests on Wednesday as government offices closed their doors for the rest of the week in the face of a worsening energy crisis that is causing daily blackouts. In Caracas, hundreds of angry voters lined up to sign a petition beginning the process of recalling the deeply unpopular President Nicolas Maduro.

• 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.