Two Major Oil News

U.S. sanctions imposed last month on subsidiaries of vast Chinese shipping fleet Cosco have given an unexpected boost to European refiners as less crude oil from the North Sea and West Africa heads east, traders and analysts said.Freight rates have soared as oil producers scramble for non-blacklisted vessels, discouraging longer-distance voyages.Complex refining margins for advanced facilities capable of extracting even more valuable products like diesel and gasoline, have been especially strong in Europe, industry sources said.The U.S.

Even though the coup attempt in Turkey  failed and the transportation situation normalized quickly thereafter, Poten & Partners take a look at the importance of Turkey to the tanker market. Turkey is not a large oil or gas producer; according to JODI its crude oil production amounts to about 48 thousand barrels per day (Kb/d) of crude oil and almost 400 million m3 of natural gas in 2015. The country’s oil consumption averaged about 927 Kb/d in 2015, about 1% of the global consumption. Neither of these statistics would make the country an important energy market player. However, the importance of Turkey to the energy market is related to its geographical location; the country is a major transfer hub for oil and gas.

Libya's U.N.-backed government in Tripoli is in negotiations with an armed brigade controlling two main oil ports to reopen the terminals and lift a force majeure to restart exports, a member of its ruling council said on Monday. Libya's oil industry has been battered by conflict among rival armed factions who control quasi-fiefdoms in a challenge to successive governments, and also by attacks by Islamic State militants which has expanded in the chaos. The Tripoli statement follows positive remarks about reopening the ports from Ibrahim Jathran, commander of the Petroleum Facilities Guard who control Ras Lanuf and Es Sider oil ports with an export capacity of 600,000 barrels per day. The two ports have been closed since 2014 after fighting between armed factions to control them.

A Libyan warplane attacked a fishing trawler carrying gasoline to the port of Benghazi this week after the internationally recognised government suspected it of supplying Islamist militants, a military official said on Thursday. Libya's recognized government, which has been driven out of the capital, is locked in escalating conflit with a self-declared government of a faction known as Libya Dawn that seized Tripoli last summer. There were no details about the ownership or origin of the vessel which military official Mohamed Hejazi said was attacked on Tuesday off the coast of the eastern city of Benghazi, which has seen heavy fighting for months between pro-government forces and Islamist militants.

Brent crude fell below $86 a barrel on Friday on news of strong supply from Middle Eastern OPEC producers and as a confirmed case of Ebola in New York spooked global equities markets. Iraq increased its oil supply in October, and Libya's production remained high, despite deep instability in both countries. Brent crude for December fell $1.02 a barrel to a low of $85.81 and was trading around $85.90 by 1205 GMT. U.S. December crude fell 85 cents to $81.24 a barrel. On Thursday Brent crude prices rose sharply on news of lower supply from Saudi Arabia…

Britain imported more oil products than it exported last year for the first time in 30 years, an official report shows, and analysts say the country is likely to stay dependent on overseas oil as its refineries close. Britain exported 26.2 million tonnes of products such as diesel, kerosene and jet fuel from its refineries last year, but imported 28.2 million tonnes, due to the closure of two major oil processing plants. "The U.K. was a net importer of petroleum products in 2013 for the first time since 1984, the year of the miners' strike," the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said in its annual report. Coryton oil…

Gulfstream Services Inc. (GSI), provider of equipment to the international oil and gas industry, has successfully completed two six figure decommissioning contracts with oil and gas service companies, Helix Well Ops U.K. and Dof Subsea. The Helix contract was part of the BP North West Hutton decommissioning project where GSI tools were used to remove 10- and 20-inch pipelines from the seabed. GSI’s Hydraulic Shear was an effective engineering solution in the situation due to the quick boat to boat times.

Reef Subsea has secured two contracts for offshore operations in the West Africa region with a combined value of more than US$15-M. The firm’s IMR and Construction division, based in Bergen, Norway, is working with two major oil and gas companies on the projects in The Republic of Congo and Equatorial Guinea. For both projects, Reef Subsea, which also has a presence in Aberdeen, Houston, Mandal in Norway and Surrey and Stockton-on-Tees in England, is providing operational support using one of its subsea construction support vessel’s…

The Liberian-flagged oil tanker Tintomara collided with a U.S.-flagged fuel barge DM932 on the Mississippi River near downtown . An estimated 419,000 gallons of oil spilled from the barge into the river. According to reports, the Coast Guard says it probably will be at least several days before the Mississippi River can be reopened at . Port officials reported that 25 ships were backed up. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has dispatched a Go Team to investigate the collision. The barge is partially submerged and is being kept in place by tugboats. No injuries have been reported. Congressman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.),…

Despite initial contentions that there were only two major oil spills in the wake of Katrina, details released by the U.S. Coast Guard indicate that the problem is much larger. According to the USCG, oil pollution containment and recovery operations continue in Southeast Louisiana resulting from the destructive force of Hurricane Katrina. The following information on each spill is current as of 5 p.m., September 15. Bass Enterprises Production Company – Cox Bay, La., near mile marker 35 Mississippi River· The product at the Bass Enterprises Production Company Cox Bay Facility is contained mechanically and naturally and is being recovered and pumped into barges for transport to reclamation facilities.