Michael Urquhart News

Belgian dry bulk shipping group CMB on Thursday said markets would remain volatile after a disappointing 2014 in which falling commodity prices reduced stock building by clients.   The group added that freight rates would come to a sustainable level once overcapacity in the shipping market was reduced.   For 2014, CMB posted a core profit of $44.1 million, down 57 percent from 2013.     (Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; Editing by Michael Urquhart)

French utility GDF Suez aims to double its power generation capacity from renewable energy in Europe between 2015 and 2025 and will focus in particular on marine energies, the company said on Tuesday. GDF Suez, with Spain's Iberdrola and Italy's Enel , is one of the industry leaders in renewable energy investment and has made Europe's energy transition the key plank of its European investment strategy. In 2009 it had aimed to boost its renewables capacity by 50 percent by 2015 - a target it says it will achieve - but now it wants to accelerate its renewables investment drive. The gas and power group currently operates 17.8 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity worldwide, or 15 percent of its total, of which 7.8 GW is in Europe and 10 GW is outside the region.

Oil prices fell on Wednesday as concerns about demand for fuel kept worries about a global supply glut intact. Both Brent and U.S. crude significantly pared losses just before government data showed U.S. crude oil inventories fell 1.8 million barrels last week, a bigger drop than analyst expectations for a 100,000-barrel dip in stocks. After initially paring more losses, crude futures pushed lower. U.S. gasoline stocks rose 3.0 million barrels and distillate stocks were up 1.9 million barrels last week, data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed, as refiners lifted capacity utilization 0.9 percentage point to 94.4 percent. The EIA data followed American Petroleum Institute data released on Tuesday that showed an increase in U.S. stockpiles.

Canada's Quebec province could start exporting crude from oil sands and also liquefied natural gas to Asia and Europe from 2017-2018, as buyers search for alternative suppliers to Russia, Quebec's energy minister said. The standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine has increased Europe's quest for alternative suppliers of oil and gas and Canada's exports to Europe have already started to pick up in the last few months. In September, oil sands giant Suncor exported its first-ever cargo of Western Canadian crude to Europe…

Asian spot liquefied natural gas prices ended their 2-month rally this week, interrupted by weak demand in Japan and South Korea as falling crude oil prices push importers to turn to oil-linked long-term LNG supplies. Spot LNG prices for November delivery lost ground to $14.60 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), versus $15 per mmBtu last week, amid still scarce demand from end-users in Asia. Most LNG trade takes place via 20-year supply deals offered by major oil companies and producer countries such as Qatar, where buyers pay a price linked to the cost of crude oil. With the benchmark Brent crude price slipping nearly as far as $92 a barrel, from $105/barrel several weeks ago, oil-linked LNG for delivery in January is becoming increasingly competitive against spot priced cargoes.

Poland's gas pipeline operator Gaz-System said the country received about 20 million cubic metres of natural gas on Friday from the eastern direction, less than requested by the state-controlled importer PGNiG. "The increased requests of PGNiG are still not being met," Gaz-System's spokeswoman Malgorzata Polkowska said on Saturday. "But Poland is receiving from all import points more gas than its daily consumption." Gazprom is the sole supplier of natural gas from the eastern direction for Poland. (Reporting by Marcin Goettig; Editing by Michael Urquhart)

Edison, the Italian power company controlled by France's EDF, is set to enter private talks with E.On to buy the German group's Italian unit E.On Italia, three sources close to the matter said on Friday. If talks are successful, Edison and E.On Italia would be merged together, the sources told Reuters. Edison and E.On declined to comment. The sources also said Italian regional utility A2A had presented a non-binding offer for E.On's hydropower assets and gas clients in Italy, while GDF Suez was interested in E.On's hydropower, solar and wind assets as well as its gas clients. Burdened by 31.1 billion euros in net debt, a collapse in wholesale power prices and the demise of its traditional generation business…

Iraq said it filed a lawsuit against Greek shipping company Marine Management Services (MMS) for its role in the export of crude from the Kurdistan region, which Baghdad says is illegal. The case is the latest move by Baghdad to deter customers and thwart independent exports of crude from the autonomous Kurdistan region. The federal government claims sole authority to manage sales of all the oil in Iraq. The Iraqi oil ministry said on Thursday that MMS operated five vessels that had transported oil on behalf of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) from a Turkish port.

Finland's top utility, state-controlled Fortum, on Monday said it has acquired a 14 percent stake in Finnish wave energy developer Wello. Wello has developed a floating vessel that captures energy from waves and converts it into electrical power with a generator, Fortum said. It did not disclose the value of the deal. (Reporting By Jussi Rosendahl; Editing by Michael Urquhart)

China and the United States appear headed for a damaging confrontation over the extent of China's territorial claims in the South and East China Seas. Now that China has become the world's largest importer of oil, and energy more generally, the country's need to develop more indigenous energy supplies has become urgent. Expecting China to put the South and East China Seas off limits to exploration and production until disputes over sovereignty can be resolved through some undefined legal or diplomatic process is unrealistic. Part of the problem is that western analysts and policymakers still fail to appreciate the strategic importance of these areas.

Iraqi Kurdistan has shipped 8.8 million barrels of oil from the Turkish port of Ceyhan since May, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said, as the autonomous region employs new tactics to establish independent oil sales in defiance of Baghdad. Sources and energy officials had told Reuters on Thursday that the sales from Ceyhan via the autonomous regions new pipeline were more than 8 million barrels in 11 tankers. A U.S. court on Monday threw out an order to seize some 1 million barrels of disputed Iraqi Kurdish crude oil from a tanker near Texas, a move that could allow the cargo to be delivered and end a nearly month-long impasse. "The U.S.

Airbus is considering a sale of its 49 percent stake in submarine supplier Atlas Elektronik as part of a reshuffle of its military business, German newspaper Die Welt reported on its website on Friday, citing industry sources. Aerospace and defence group Airbus - then called EADS - and German industrial group ThyssenKrupp jointly bought Atlas Elektronik from BAE Systems in 2005, beating out France's Thales. Die Welt said Airbus was to make a decision on a sale of its stake in the coming months. ThyssenKrupp likely has a right of first refusal, it said.

A second tanker is waiting to load oil at Libya's Es Sider port, state-run National Oil Corp (NOC) said on Thursday, as the country's biggest crude export terminal swung back into action after being closed for a year. The OPEC member's oil production has risen in the past few weeks as major ports in the east have resumed work under a deal with a group of federalist rebels, adding to a crude market that is already well supplied. A first tanker has been loading oil at Es Sider since Wednesday but a second had already arrived, NOC spokesman Mohamed El Harari said. Technical problems and mistrust between the rebels campaigning for regional autonomy and the government had delayed implementing an oil port deal but output has risen to 562,000 barrels per day (bpd), NOC said on Tuesday.

A tanker carrying crude oil from Iraqi Kurdistan reappeared unladen on Aug. 19 about 30 kilometres off the coast of Israel, ship tracking data on Reuters showed. This is the second time the Kamari has appeared in the area in the last two weeks carrying Kurdish oil. The tanker Kamari was partly laden north of Egypt's Sinai on Aug. 17, tracking showed, before it turned off its satellite transponder until early on Aug. 19. It was not possible to determine where the oil had been delivered to or who the buyer was. A spokesman for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Ministry of Natural Resources did not immediately respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment on Wednesday. The KRG has previously denied selling oil to Israel "directly or indirectly".