Stephen Powell News

Yemen's Houthis attacked a Saudi oil tanker in the Red Sea, causing slight damage, an Arab coalition said on Wednesday, after the Houthis reported targeting a Saudi warship in the area.Saudi Arabia and its coalition of Sunni Muslim allies have been fighting in Yemen for three years against the Iran-aligned Houthis, who control much of north Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa, and drove a Saudi-backed government into exile in 2014.One of the coalition's main justifications for its intervention is to protect shipping routes such as the Red Sea…

Libya's UN-backed government will declare force majeure on two ports to stop fuel smuggling from them, a statement from its presidential council said on Saturday. The statement gave no details on when the measure would come into effect, but it comes after officials accused a local armed group of fuel smuggling from Zawiya port. The measure will cover Zawiya and Zuwara ports. The armed faction guarding Zawiya port peacefully withdrew from the terminal earlier this week. Libya expects its oil production to rise to around 900,000 barrels per day after a series of agreements to reopen major oil ports and oilfields which had been closed for two years by armed factions, fighting and strikes. (Reporting by Ahmed Elumami; Editing by Stephen Powell)

Colombia will build a museum to showcase artefacts found in the wreckage of a Spanish galleon discovered near the historic Caribbean port city of Cartagena, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Saturday. The San Jose, thought by historians to be laden with emeralds and precious coins, sank in 1708. It was part of the fleet of King Philip V, who fought the English during the War of Spanish Succession. "We will build a great museum here in Cartagena," Santos said on national television from Cartagena's naval base. "Without a doubt, without room for any doubt, we have found, 307 years after it sank, the San Jose galleon," Santos said. A team of international experts…

Forces loyal to Libya's internationally recognised government on Saturday staged air strikes on the commercial port of Misrata, a western city allied to a group that holds the capital Tripoli, both sides said. Fighting was also reported near the country's biggest oil export port located in the east, part of a struggle between troops loyal to two competing governments and parliaments. The internationally recognised prime minister Abdullah al-Thinni has been forced to run a rump state in the east since a group known as Libya Dawn linked to Misrata took control of Tripoli last August and set up a rival government. Saqer al-Joroushi, commander of an air force unit loyal to Thinni, said war planes had hit Misrata port and an air force academy located in the western city.

Denmark should ban coal use by 2025 to make the Nordic nation a leader in fighting global warming, adding to green measures ranging from wind energy to bicycle power, Denmark's climate minister said on Saturday. Denmark has already taken big steps to break reliance on high-polluting coal - wind turbines are set to generate more than half of all electricity by 2020 and 41 percent of people in Copenhagen cycle to work or school, higher than in Amsterdam. "The cost (of phasing out coal) would not be significant," Climate, Energy and Building Minister Helveg Petersen told Reuters of a proposal he made this week to bring forward a planned phase-out of all coal use to 2025 from 2030. His ministry is studying details of how it would work before unveiling a formal plan.

Climate change may have "serious, pervasive and irreversible" impacts on human society and nature, according to a draft U.N. report due for approval this week that says governments still have time to avert the worst. Delegates from more than 100 governments and top scientists meet in Copenhagen on Oct 27-31 to edit the report, meant as the main guide for nations working on a U.N. deal to fight climate change at a summit in Paris in late 2015. They will publish the study on Nov. European Union leaders on Friday agreed to cut emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, in a shift from fossil fuels towards renewable energies, and urged other major emitters led by China and the United States to follow.

Yemen resumed exports from its main oil pipeline on Saturday, one day after an attack by tribesmen temporarily halted flows, industry sources said. Yemen's oil and gas pipelines have been repeatedly sabotaged, often by tribesmen who have feuds with the central government, causing fuel shortages and slashing export earnings for the impoverished country. The last attack was on Friday when tribesmen blew up the pipeline which transports crude from Marib oil fields in central Yemen to Ras Isa on the Red Sea. Yemen has said that oil flows through the Marib pipeline, one of its main petroleum export routes, at a rate of around 70,000 barrels per day (bpd). Before the spate of attacks began three years ago, the 270-mile (435-km) pipeline carried around 110,000 barrels per day to Ras Isa.

French state-owned nuclear power group Areva will likely decide this week to scale back investments in order to avoid having its credit rating downgraded to junk status, weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche said. The paper, citing unnamed sources, said Areva's board is expected to decide on investment and spending cuts on Tuesday, the day before credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) is due to decide on its long-term credit rating, which is just one notch above non-investment grade territory. An Areva spokesman declined to comment on the report and no one at S&P was immediately available. S&P put Areva on "creditwatch negative" on Sept. 9 and said it would decide on the rating within 30 days.

Colombia's oil sector on Saturday hit out at a proposed tax reform that the government has presented to Congress, arguing that higher duties on corporate earnings would damage the already troubled driver of the economy. A bill was presented to Congress on Friday that seeks to raise an additional 53 trillion pesos ($26.2 billion) over the next four years, including a tax on earnings above 1 billion pesos at 12 percent, up from 9 percent currently. The government also extended a bank transaction tax through 2018 and will ask Congress to approve a charge on individual assets above 1 billion pesos. "Changing the tax structure will affect the push made over the last five years that the sector has made to the economy," the Colombian Oil Association said in a statement.

A tanker delivered a cargo of disputed crude oil from Iraqi Kurdistan's new pipeline for the first time on Friday in Israel, despite threats by Baghdad to take legal action against any buyer. The SCF Altai tanker arrived at Israel's Ashkelon port early on Friday morning, ship tracking and industry sources said. By the evening, the tanker began unloading the Kurdish oil, a source at the port said. The Kurdistan Regional Government said on Saturday, a day after the news was first reported, it did not deal with Israel in the sale. "The KRG categorically refutes the claim that it has sold oil to Israel," a spokesman for the Ministry of Natural Resources said in an email.

The United States said on Saturday it will send its No. 2 diplomat to Geneva to meet senior Iranian officials on Monday and Tuesday in what appeared an effort to break a logjam in wider negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program. Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns, who led secret U.S.-Iranian negotiations that helped bring about a Nov. 24 interim nuclear agreement between Iran and the major powers, will head a U.S. delegation. Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, the primary U.S. negotiator with Iran, will accompany him on a team that will include senior White House national security staff. The most recent round of nuclear talks between Iran and six major powers in Vienna last month ran into difficulties…

Rosneft and BP signed an agreement on Saturday to jointly explore for hard-to-recover oil in Russia, the first major deal for the state-run Russian oil company since the West imposed sanctions over Ukraine in March. Rosneft chief executive Igor Sechin, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, has been targeted by U.S. sanctions along with some other members of Putin's so-called inner circle following Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March. Western energy bosses saved the St Petersburg International Economic forum from a complete failure by effectively standing by Russia as heads of top banks and many other firms did not show up for fear of reprisals over the sanctions.

Libya's eastern oil port of Zueitina, which had been occupied by rebels as part of an eight-month oil blockade, will reopen after damage at its facilities has been assessed, the country's justice minister said on Sunday. Salah al-Merghani also told reporters in the eastern city of Benghazi that a committee to investigate oil corruption had been formed, as agreed under a deal between the government and rebels to end a blockade of eastern oil ports. The reopening of four oil export terminal has been delayed with the rebels accusing the government of not fulfilling all parts of the deal, such as paying financial compensation. Under the…

Slovakia and Ukraine have reached an agreement on opening up limited capacity for reverse flow of natural gas from central Europe to Ukraine and will sign the deal on Monday, the Slovak Economy Ministry said on Saturday. Ukraine is trying to secure alternative supplies to those from Russia's Gazprom since Russia annexed Crimea last month and Gazprom nearly doubled prices for its gas to levels Ukraine is refusing to pay. Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine has set off the most serious East-West rift since the end of the Cold War, resulting in EU and U.S. sanctions and raising the threat of interruption of gas supplies from Russia to Europe.