Andre Grenon News

The world's fossil fuel reserves cannot be burned unless some way is found to capture their carbon emissions, Royal Dutch Shell Plc Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said on Friday. In an interview published in Britain's Guardian newspaper, Van Beurden forecast that global energy use would produce "zero carbon" by the end of the century, and that his group would get a "very large segment" of its earnings from renewable power. The interview came a day after Van Beurden slammed as a "red herring" calls to divest from energy companies as part of the fight against climate change, in particular the "Keep it in the Ground" campaign led by the Guardian.

Transocean Ltd shares are expected to move about 8 percent in either direction following its earnings results on Wednesday, options data showed, but positioning among traders suggests some worry. This would be the biggest post-earnings move for the shares in at least eight quarters. The outlook among traders was pessimistic, however, as seven of the ten most active Transocean options on Tuesday were puts, which are usually either a bet on or a hedge against the shares falling. "People are very cautious going into the earnings," said J.J.

BP Plc and Anadarko Petroleum Corp narrowly failed to persuade a U.S appeals court to reconsider its 2014 ruling that they could face civil fines under federal pollution laws over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. By a 7-6 vote, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals let stand a three-judge panel's decision to uphold a 2012 ruling from U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans, in which he said the companies could face Clean Water Act penalties. Barbier is scheduled on Jan. 20 to begin a non-jury trial to determine pollution fines. BP is appealing his Sept. 4 ruling that it was grossly negligent in causing the spill, exposing the London-based company to roughly $18 billion of potential fines.

Port workers in part of the Argentine grains hub of Rosario lifted a work stoppage on Friday, only a day after they went on strike over demands for higher year-end bonuses, a union official said. The strike briefly halted activity at the ports of Timbues, San Martin and San Lorenzo, all part of the Rosario shipping complex along the Parana River. "We just signed a deal with the export companies, which has allowed us to end the work stoppage," Edgardo Quiroga, spokesman for the CGT labor organization told Reuters. Argentina is the world's No. 3 soybean exporter and top supplier of soymeal livestock feed. It is also a major producer of wheat, shipped mostly to neighboring Brazil, and corn.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is expected to make a decision soon on how to make a new class of smaller warships more lethal and survivable, the Navy's top admiral said on Saturday. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert expected a quick decision based on a recommendation submitted by the Navy, but gave no details. "The Secretary is very close to a decision," Greenert told Reuters in an interview at a defense conference at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. He expected the decision to be announced in the near future, along with a description of the new plan. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered a pause in the Navy's Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program and asked for a review of options before the Navy ordered the last 20 ships in the 52-ship program.

Brent crude jumped almost $2 a barrel on Friday for its biggest daily gain in three weeks as support emerged a day after prices crashed to four-year lows below $80, but analysts were skeptical the rebound would continue, citing concerns over oversupply. Brent crude jumped almost 3 percent, recouping Thursday's drop and limiting losses from an eighth straight weekly drop that made the global benchmark a bargain for some. Brent remains below $80 a barrel, compared with a June high above $115. U.S. crude rose 2 percent, the most since Sept. 3 and after Thursday's 4 percent loss, on expectations there will be more heating oil demand from a cold weekend in the U.S. Northeast and Midwest.

Natural gas workers in Peru, South America's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, said on Friday they had pulled out of wage talks with Argentine energy company Pluspetrol and would vote on a possible strike in a few weeks. Pluspetrol leads the consortium that taps Peru's Camisea fields, the source of the country's daily natural gas output of around 1.2 billion cubic feet. Juan Carlos Vargas, a spokesman for the SUTRAPPEC union that represents 193 of the 494 Camisea workers, said a walkout would halt natural gas production. "There would be no one to pump the gas," Vargas said. Vargas said the union decided on Friday to end the talks that started in July. A vote on whether to strike will take place in three weeks. Pluspetrol did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

President Michelle Bachelet of Chile enacted new environmental tax legislation on Friday making the country the first in South America to tax carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Part of a broad tax reform, Chile's carbon tax will target the power sector, particularly generators operating thermal plants with installed capacity equal or larger than 50 megawatts (MW). These installations will be charged $5 per tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) released. Thermal plants fueled by biomass and smaller installations will be exempt. The new tax is meant to force power producers to gradually move to cleaner sources to help reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions and meet its voluntary target of cutting these gases 20 percent from 2007 levels by 2020.

Tropical storm Polo barreled nearer on Friday to the Mexican Pacific resort of Los Cabos where thousands of troops were restoring order following widespread chaos caused by Hurricane Odile at the start of the week. Odile plowed into the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula on Sunday as a category 3 hurricane, causing major damage to beach resorts and sparking widespread looting. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said a tropical storm warning was in effect from Santa Fe to La Paz on the normally arid peninsula, adding that Polo could dump rains from Jalisco state to the southern port of Baja California. At around 2100 GMT, Polo was moving northwest at 6 miles per hour (10 km per hour) and is expected to veer further westward over the next 48 hours…

The contamination of water supplies near U.S. shale gas fields appears to be the result of leaky cement wells and casings and not the controversial production technique of hydraulic fracturing, according to a study released on Monday. So-called "fracking" is a way of extracting natural gas from deep layers of rock using high-pressure fluid injections. The method has triggered a surge in U.S. gas production, but raised fears that breaking up rock formations underground could allow gas to seep into drinking water. Scientists from several universities, including Duke, Ohio State, Stanford and Dartmouth, analyzed more than 130 drinking-water well samples overlying the Marcellus and Barnett shale gas formations and attempted to trace the source of any contamination, according to the study.

Creditors of Brazilian tycoon Eike Batista's Oleo e Gas Participacoes SA approved a restructuring plan for the oil company that could lead to a quick resolution of the largest bankruptcy in Latin America's history, lawyers said on Tuesday. The plan was approved by creditors holding 90 percent of the Rio de Janeiro-based company's nearly 12 billion reais ($5 billion) of unpaid obligations. If a judge approves, creditors will swap debts for about 90 percent of Oleo e Gas stock, said Ricardo Knoepfelmacher of Angra Partners, the consultancy that handled talks with creditors. The judge's approval is expected within days, he said. Creditors include Newport Beach…

Rebels occupying major oil ports in eastern Libya said on Wednesday they would boycott Prime Minister Ahmed Maiteeq and keep two major export terminals shut for now, a blow to efforts to restore vital oil exports. The rebels even warned they would take action if Tripoli did not fulfil its part of a recent agreement to reopen the oil ports, a veiled threat to close the terminals again. "Nothing has been implemented," said Abd-Rabbo al-Barassi, self-declared prime minister of the rebel movement. He accused the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists in parliament of undermining the agreement and trying to take over the ports. The struggle over energy wealth is part of growing turmoil in the North African country three years after the overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Britain's Rolls-Royce Plc said it would sell its energy gas turbine and compressor business to German conglomerate Siemens AG for 785 million pounds($1.33 billion). Rolls, whose energy gas turbine and compressor business has around 2,400 employees, said Siemens would pay a further 200 million pounds for a 25 year licensing agreement granting access to relevant Rolls-Royce aero-derivative technology. "This agreement will give the Energy business greater opportunities as part of a much larger energy company and allows Rolls-Royce to concentrate on the areas of business where we can add most value," Rolls-Royce Chief Executive, John Rishton said in a statement.

Argentina's Neuquen province expects major global energy companies, including Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil Corp , to bid in a May auction of 11 oil blocks, its energy minister said on Wednesday. The exploration and development blocks include conventional and unconventional oil and gas resources, most of them in the vast Vaca Muerta shale formation, considered one of the world's biggest shale deposits. The results are expected for August. "For unconventionals, the players will be the majors," Neuquen Energy Minister Guillermo Coco said in Houston on a road show to attract foreign capital. "Chevron, Exxon, Shell have shown interest in Vaca Muerta.

A sample of albacore tuna caught off the shores of Oregon and Washington state have small levels of radioactivity from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, researchers said on Tuesday. But authors of the Oregon State University study say the levels are so small you would have to consume more than 700,000 pounds of the fish with the highest radioactive level to match the amount of radiation the average person is annually exposed to in everyday life through cosmic rays, the air, the ground, X-rays and other sources. Still, the findings shed some light about the impact of the meltdown on the Pacific Ocean following the March 2011 tsunami and subsequent power plant disaster, said Delvan Neville, a graduate research assistant at OSU and lead author of the study.

Reuters - Brazil's state-run oil company, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, said on Friday that it had discovered new, good-quality oil deposits in the so-called sub-salt region. Petrobras, said the discovery was made in the Florim and Iara fields in the offshore Santos basin. Petrobras expects to continue exploration around the two wells until September. (Reporting by Paulo Prada. Editing by Andre Grenon)