Stop Oil News

Scientists warn that climate change is the greatest peril that humankind has ever faced. Yet oil and gas exploration is set to clock the highest growth for more than a decade this year and next. Protesters cause disruption but, for the moment, hydrocarbon energy underpins life as we know it“Offshore oil and gas production probably matters now more than ever,” said Audun Martinsen. The Rystad Energy Partner and Head of Energy Research told Maritime Reporter & Engineering News.“It…

Hundreds of climate change protesters blocked oil terminals across Britain on Friday with some supporters climbing on top of oil tankers as part of their campaign to force the government to end its reliance on fossil fuels.Extinction Rebellion, which caused days of traffic chaos in central London three years ago, and another group Just Stop Oil blocked refineries around London, Birmingham, and Southampton.Police in Essex, just east of London, said they were dealing with three incidents and six people had been arrested.The protests are part of planned demonstrations by Extinction Rebellion, whi

Protesters entered Libya's Hariga oil terminal on Thursday and stopped a tanker from loading, the port head and another official said.On Wednesday protesters also blocked exports at the ports of Ras Lanuf and Es Sider.(Reporting by Ayman al-Warfali, writing by Angus McDowall; editing by Jason Neely)

Venezuela's oil exports fell to a historic low of 359,000 barrels per day (bpd) in October as most of state-run PDVSA's long-term clients paused trade to meet a U.S. deadline to halt business with the firm, according to data seen by Reuters on Monday.The United States set an October-November deadline for PDVSA's long-term customers - including Italy Eni, Spain's Repsol and India's Reliance Industries - to stop oil swaps it had authorized this year as exceptions to sanctions on Venezuela.None of those companies loaded cargoes of Venezuelan crude in October…

Australia is sending more help to the Pacific nation of the Solomon Islands to stop oil from a grounded cargo ship destroying a World Heritage-listed marine sanctuary, Australia's foreign minister said on Sunday.At least 75 tonnes of heavy fuel oil has spilled from Hong Kong-flagged bulk carrier Solomon Trader since Cyclone Oma drove it onto a reef at Rennell Island on Feb. 5.The ship was carrying 700 tonnes of oil when it ran aground and there are fears the remaining fuel will spoil Rennell Island…

When U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs said last year that oil could fall as low as $20 per barrel, it assigned a fairly low probability to that scenario. Fast-forward five months and in some parts of the world the forecast has already proved correct. Canadian physical crude has been selling this week at below $20 per barrel, less than it costs to extract and transport. Traders in the options market, meanwhile, are taking protection against prices falling below $25. The developments reflect growing concerns that a market already awash in too much oil is now suffering the double-whammy of a sharp slowdown in U.S. and Chinese demand.

Libyan state security guards have started a protest at the eastern Hariga oil port, banning any oil exports, a Libyan oil official said on Saturday. A tanker had been waiting for three days to lift oil but the guards did not allow it, the official said, asking not to be named. The port is only open for fuel imports, he added. (Reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli; Writing by Ulf Laessing, editing by William Hardy)

Sheriff Craig Apple assured a room of concerned citizens that county emergency crews were prepared to handle an oil-train accident involving three or four tank cars. Firefighters have been training to combat railcar fires with foam, and evacuation plans are detailed in a 500-page emergency response plan, Apple told residents in a May 12 address. Albany's tracks handle as much as a fourth of the oil pumped from North Dakota's booming Bakken Shale, or up to several 100-car trains per day, each carrying 70,000 barrels. It is one of several spots along North America's new oil-by-rail corridors where residents and officials are restless, following six fiery derailments in the past 10 months.

TEHRAN (FNA) - A Greek tanker returned home unloaded after Iran refrained from supplying crude oil to the crisis hit European state, FNA learned on Sunday. According to FNA dispatches, Iran refrained from supplying the 500,000-barrel cargo to the Greek tanker which was due to deliver it to Hellenic Petroleum refinery. The development came days after Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qassemi called on the European countries to make a final decision on oil imports from Iran, warning that they will be sanctioned by Tehran otherwise.

To stop oil from leaking from the stern tube seal assembly of a general cargo vessel, a Hydrex diver-technician team was mobilized to perform permanent repairs on the vessel during its scheduled stop in Gulfport, Miss., last month. The team together with the diving equipment was mobilized from the Hydrex office in Tampa to set up a diving station at the berthing location. By the time all necessary preparations had been made, the team had been reinforced with additional technicians from the headquarters in Antwerp and was ready to assist the vessel as soon as it arrived at Gulfport.

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) last week introduced the “Stop Oil Spills Act,” a bill to fund research into new oil spill prevention and response technologies. Following BP CEO Tony Hayward’s admission that his company did not have a “tool-kit” to respond to a sizeable spill from a deep-water well, Markey introduced the bill to create a research program to develop 21st century oil safety and spill response technologies. “As the big oil companies have continued to push the limits to drill ultra-deep…

To stop oil from leaking from the stern tube seal assembly of a general cargo vessel, a Hydrex diver-technician team was mobilized to perform permanent repairs on the vessel during its scheduled stop in Gulfport in the state of Mississippi, U.S.A., last month. The team together with the diving equipment was mobilized from the Hydrex office in Tampa to set up a diving station at the berthing location. By the time all necessary preparations had been made, the team had been reinforced…

The National Incident Commander for the BP oil spill, Admiral Thad Allen, approved the implementation of a section of Louisiana’s barrier island project proposal that could help stop oil from coming ashore and where work could be completed the fastest—as an integrated part of the federal response to the BP oil spill. This step will save Louisiana the cost of construction for this section by integrating it with the federal government’s ongoing oil spill response—thus paving the road for payment by BP, as a responsible party, or the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.

The U.S. Arctic Research Commission believes that the U.S. needs a robust research program to address spill response in broken ice, as shipping moves into the Arctic Ocean and offshore oil drilling - in several Arctic nations - moves forward. Mead Treadwell, chair of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, prepared testimony for the August 20 field hearing in Anchorage of the U.S. Senate's Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Treadwell told the committee that, contrary to laws passed by Congress after the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster in 1989, a significant national oil spill research program does not exist, nor is one planned to fit the special needs of the Arctic. It was anticipated that the U.S.

Pemex said it may tear down an offshore platform if its structure, hurt by a series of recent fires, weakens further to prevent more damage to adjacent oil-pumping facilities. On Tuesday, a fire broke out at the Kab-121 well on the Kab-101 platform in the Gulf of Mexico, which was damaged in a blaze last month that killed 21 workers. The platform is being repaired but the fire has not been extinguished yet. Pemex would consider tearing down the Usumacinta platform, connected by a bridge to neighboring Kab-101 where most of the wells are located, to control the fire and stop oil leaks into the sea. Pemex, a top-three supplier of oil to the United States, has suffered repeated disruptions to its production and shipping operations this year due to stormy weather in the Gulf of Mexico.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects OPEC countries to continue producing above their quotas, pushing the cartel's average output 770,000 bpd above official levels for the quarter. OPEC's actual production would also be just 619,000 bpd lower during the first quarter from output levels at the end of last year, the agency said in its monthly OPEC update. That would be much less than the 1.5 million bpd that OPEC members (excluding Iraq) agreed to cut from their production quotas during a meeting last month in Vienna. The cartel set its production at 25.2 million bpd beginning Feb. 1 in order to stop oil prices from falling from what is expect to be lower oil demand in the first half of this year.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects OPEC countries to continue producing above their quotas, pushing the cartel's average output 770,000 barrels per day (bpd) above official levels for the quarter. OPEC's actual production would also be just 619,000 bpd lower during the first quarter from output levels at the end of last year, the agency said in its monthly OPEC update. That would be much less than the 1.5 million bpd that OPEC members (excluding Iraq) agreed to cut from their production quotas during a meeting last month in Vienna. The cartel set its production at 25.2 million bpd beginning Feb. 1 in order to stop oil prices from falling from what is expect to be lower oil demand in the first half of this year.

Greenpeace activists boarded an oil tanker in Norway on Tuesday in a bid to stop it sailing for the United States, in their second such protest this week against President George W. Bush's rejection of the Kyoto pact on cutting greenhouse gases. Fifteen protesters boarded the Greek-registered tanker Cosmic from the dock before it could leave the Statoil Mongstad terminal in Norway for a Sunoco terminal on the U.S. East Coast, the Amsterdam-based environmental group said. Activists perched on two of the ship's anchors hanging above the water line while four inflatables surrounded the ship, according to a Greenpeace campaigner. The group also hung a banner reading "Stop oil to Bush - ratify Kyoto".

Age limits being imposed on tanker chartering by oil companies do not address the use of ships like the Erika, which broke up off France in December, shipping industry sources said. Companies are opting not to use large vessels, above either 80,000 or 100,000 dwt, more than 20 years old unless they have extra safety certificates. However, the age limit is higher for smaller tankers - at 25 years - partly because there are not enough newer ships. As a result, the restrictions might not stop oil companies using vessels like the 25-year-old 37,283 dwt Erika, sources said. Additionally, oil traders and tanker brokers warned that the cautious approach might fade once the public outcry over the Erika had died down.