natural gas supplies 21.6% below seasonal average & falling; another US oil output record; oil imports drop to 23 year low

oil prices ended the week lower for the first time in three weeks as concerns about global economic weakness overwhelmed the OPEC-led supply cuts that had been driving prices higher...after rising $1.67 or 3% to $57.26 a barrel on th​os​e OPEC cuts and optimism for a US-China trade deal last week, prices for US crude for April delivery fell $1.78 to $55.48 a barrel on Monday after Trump tweeted “Oil prices getting too high" at OPEC, triggering a selloff that sent prices tumbling more than 3%...oil then traded in a narrow range on Tuesday on indications that OPEC planned to maintain their production cuts despite Trump's pressure, with April US crude finishing up 2 cents at $55.50 a barrel....oil prices rose early on Wednesday, after the Saudis brushed off Trump's tweet, with the Saudi Energy Minister responding to Trump by saying "We are taking it easy." and spiked higher later that day after the EIA reported the largest drop in US crude inventories in seven months, with oil closing $1.44 higher at $56.94 a barrel...that inventory rally continued into Thursday, but prices came under pressure from weak economic data from China and diminished expectations for a resolution to the US China trade dispute, but still ended 28 cents higher at $57.22 a barrel, even after the Energy Department announced it would ​pull 6 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and sell them into the market for delivery between April and May...after opening higher on Friday, the stream of weak economic reports from the US and Asia finally caught up with prices, as demand worries pushed oil down $1.42 or 2.5 percent to settle at $55.80 a per barrel, thus finishing the week​ roughly 3% ​lower than the prior Friday close, as even data showing a drop in OPEC output to its lowest in four years failed to support prices.

meanwhile, natural gas prices rose for a third straight week as weather forecasts continued to indicate winter like temperatures would continue into March...the contract for March natural gas spiked 11.9 cents or 4% on Monday as weather model guidance indicated even colder temperatures for the first third of March and added another 1.9 cents to end at $2.855 per mmBTU as trading in March natural gas expired...natural gas for April delivery, meanwhile, which ended last week at $2.739 per mmBTU, concurrently rose 7.6 cents higher on Monday and fell 1.9 cents on Tuesday, was little changed on Wednesday, and was trading nearly 3 cents higher at $2.827 on Thursday before the natural gas storage report came in weaker than expected and cut the day's increase to 1.3 cents...a cold-related spike in cash prices then pulled the April contract higher on Friday, topping $2.87 before it settled back to close at $2.859 per mmBTU, an increase of 4.7 cents on the day​..​

the natural gas storage report for the week ending February 22nd from the EIA indicated that the quantity of natural gas held in storage in the US fell by 166 billion cubic feet to 1,539 billion cubic feet over the week, which meant our gas supplies ended the period 154 billion cubic feet, or 9.1% below the 1,693 billion cubic feet that were in storage on February 23rd of last year, and 424 billion cubic feet, or 21.6% below the five-year average of 1,963 billion cubic feet of natural gas that have typically remained in storage after the third week of February....this week's 166 billion cubic feet withdrawal from US natural gas supplies was a bit less than the median 171 billion cubic feet ​withdrawal ​of stored gas that a Reuters poll of 19 market analysts expected, but was quite a bit more than the average of 104 billion cubic feet of natural gas that have been withdrawn from US gas storage during the same winter week over the last 5 years....

to put this week's natural gas storage report into perspective, we'll include the summary table that heads up the Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report page at the EIA below..

as mentioned, the above table comes from Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report for February 22nd, and it shows the amount of natural gas in storage as of February 22nd in billions of cubic feet in each of 5 major US regions and in total in the first column, the amount of natural gas in storage on February 15th in the 2nd column, and the difference between the two in the third or "net change" column, with negative numbers in that column representing a natural gas withdrawal during the week...then, the 4th and 5th columns show the amount of natural gas in storage as of February 22nd of last year, and the percentage change from last year to this year, while the last two columns show the five year average amount of gas in storage on February 22nd for the years 2014 to 2018, and again the percentage change from that 5 year average to this year's natural gas inventory on the same date...

hence, you can see​ from that table​ that natural gas storage facilities in the Eastern US saw a 41 billion cubic feet draw from their supplies over the week, which turns out to be more than their average 35 billion cubic foot withdrawal during the same week over the past five years, and hence the region's gas supply deficit rose to 12.2% below average for this time of year, up from the 9.8% shortfall​ shown​ last week....meanwhile, natural gas supplies in the Midwest fell by 51 billion cubic feet, also higher than their normal 39 billion cubic feet pull for that date, as their supply deficit increased to 17.7 below the ​average for the third weekend of February, up from 14.0% below normal last week...the South Central region saw a 55 billion cubic feet drop in their supplies, way above their normal 19 billion cubic foot withdrawal, as their natural gas storage deficit increased from 16.1% to 20.8% below their five-year average for this time of year...at the same time, 8 billion cubic feet were pulled out of natural gas supplies in the sparsely populated Mountain region, which has only averaged a 4 billion cubic feet withdrawal during this same week over the last 5 years, and hence their gas supply deficit from normal rose to 37.3%, up from 33.1% a week ago...finally, 16 billion cubic feet of natural gas were withdrawn from storage in the Pacific region, in contrast to the 5 billion cubic feet normally withdrawn ​in those western states ​during the same week of February, and hence their natural gas supply deficit rose to 42.7% below normal for this time of year, up from 36.7% a week ago.... 

the forecasts continue to show colder than normal weather for the next two weeks for most of the US, and colder than normal for the next month for the south central states, so the supply deficits will get worse before they get better....however, April is rapidly approaching, and natural gas withdrawals should ​no longer be needed once it gets here...after that, the amount of gas that's in storage compared to a year ago - now 154 billion cubic feet less - will be the number that we'll be watching, because sometime between now and the Fall ​we will have to improve on last year's storage numbers, or we'll start next winter in the same fix that we started this one..

The Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA

this week's US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration, reporting on the week ending February 22nd, indicated a big drop to a new 23 year low in our crude oil imports, while our oil exports continued near last week's record high pace, and hence our commercial supplies of crude oil saw their largest drop in ​7 ​months....our imports of crude oil fell by an average of 1,605,000 barrels per day to an average of 5,917,000 barrels per day, after rising by an average of 1,312,000 barrels per day the prior week, while our exports of crude oil fell by an average of 248,000 barrels per day to 3,359,000 barrels per day during the week, which meant that our effective trade in oil worked out to a net import average of 2,558,000 barrels of per day during the week ending February 22nd, 1,357,000 fewer barrels per day than the net of our imports minus exports during the prior week...over the same period, field production of crude oil from US wells was estimated to be 100,000 barrels per day higher at a record 12,100,000 barrels per day, so our daily supply of oil from the net of our trade in oil and from well​ production totaled an average of 14,658,000 barrels per day during this reporting week...

meanwhile, US oil refineries were using 15,890,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending February 22nd, 179,000 more barrels per day than the amount of oil they used during the prior week, while over the same period 1,235,000 barrels of oil per day were reportedly being pulled out of the oil that's in storage in the US....so for once, this week's crude oil figures from the EIA indicate that our total working supply of oil from net imports, from oilfield production, and from storage was close to what refineries reported they used during the week, and hence the figure on line 13 of the weekly U.S. Petroleum Balance Sheet, representing "unaccounted for crude oil", was only 3,000 barrels per day, the smallest error we've seen in years...

further details from the weekly Petroleum Status Report (pdf) indicated that the 4 week average of our oil imports fell to an average of 6,699,000 barrels per day last week, 10.9% less than the 7,521,000 barrel per day average that we were importing over the same four-week period last year.... the 1,235,000 barrel per day decrease in our total crude inventories was all pulled out of our commercially available stocks of crude oil, while the oil stored in our Strategic Petroleum Reserve remained unchanged....this week's crude oil production was reported to be 100,000 barrels per day higher at a record 12,100,000 barrels per day because the rounded estimate for output from wells in the lower 48 states rose by 100,000 barrels per day to 11,600,000 barrels per day, while the 4,000 barrel per day increase in Alaska's oil production to 491,000 barrels per day was not enough to make a difference in the rounded national total...last year's US crude oil production for the week ending February 23rd was at 10,283,000 barrels per day, so this reporting week's rounded oil production figure was 17.7% above that of a year ago, and 43.6% more than the interim low of 8,428,000 barrels per day that US oil production fell to during the last week of June of 2016...    

meanwhile, US oil refineries were operating at 87.1% of their capacity in using 15,890,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending February 22nd, up from 85.9% of capacity the prior week, which had been the lowest capacity utilization rate in 16 months....the 15,890,000 barrels per day of oil that were refined this week was still the highest on record for the last full week of February, but little changed from the 15,882,000 barrels of crude per day that were being processed during the week ending February 23rd, 2018, when US refineries were operating at 87.8% of capacity... 

with the increase in the amount of oil being refined, the gasoline output from our refineries was also higher, rising by 64,000 barrels per day to 9,553,000 barrels per day during the week ending February 22nd, after our refineries' gasoline output had decreased by 130,000 barrels per day the prior week....with that increase in this week's gasoline output, our gasoline production was 1.7% higher than the 9,391,000 barrels of gasoline that were being produced daily during the same week last year....meanwhile, our refineries' production of distillate fuels (diesel fuel and heat oil) increased by 57,000 barrels per day to 4,816,000 barrels per day, after that output had decreased by 5,000 barrels per day the prior week....after that increase, this week's distillates production was almost 7.8% above the 4,469,000 barrels of distillates per day that were being produced during the week ending February 23rd, 2018.... 

despite the increase in our gasoline production, our supply of gasoline in storage at the end of the week fell by 1,906,000 barrels to 254,941,000 barrels by February 22nd, after falling by 1,454,000 barrels over the prior week....our gasoline supplies fell again this week in part because the amount of gasoline supplied to US markets increased by 181,000 barrels per day to 8,981,000 barrels per day, after increasing by 152,000 barrels per day the prior week, even as our imports of gasoline rose by 53,000 barrels per day to 473,000 barrels per day and as our exports of gasoline rose by 3,000 barrels per day to 815,000 barrels per day...after having set a record high five weeks ago, our gasoline inventories are now just 1.2% higher than last February 23rd's level of 251,817,000 barrels, and roughly 3% above the five year average of our gasoline supplies at this time of the year...

even with the increase in our distillates production, our supplies of distillate fuels fell for the 16th time in twenty-three weeks, but just by 303,000 barrels to 138,379,000 barrels during the week ending February 22nd, after our distillates supplies had decreased by 1,517,000 barrels over the prior week...our distillates supplies decreased less this week than last because the amount of distillates supplied to US markets, a proxy for our domestic demand, fell by 149,000 barrels per day to 4,076,000 barrels per day, and because our exports of distillates fell by 77,000 barrels per day to 1,114,000 barrels per day, while our imports of distillates fell by 100,000 barrels per day to 131,000 barrels per day....with this week's small decrease, our distillate supplies ended the week fractionally above the 137,985,000 barrels that we had stored on February 23rd, 2018, but remained roughly 2% below the five year average of distillates stocks for this time of the year...

finally, with the big drop in our oil imports forcing refineries to pull oil out of storage to meet their needs, our commercial supplies of crude oil in storage decreased for the first time in 6 weeks, falling by 8,647,000 barrels over the week, from a 15 month high of 454,512,000 barrels on February 15th to 445,865,000 barrels on February 22nd...however, with weekly increases in 16 out of the last 23 weeks, our crude oil inventories are still roughly 3% above the recent five-year average of crude oil supplies for this time of year, and more than 35% above the prior 5 year (2009 - 2013) average ​​of crude oil stocks for the middle of February, with the disparity between those figures arising because it wasn't until early 2015 that our oil inventories first rose above 400 million barrels...since our crude oil inventories have mostly been rising since this past Fall, after generally falling until then through most of the prior year and a half, our oil supplies as of February 22nd were still 5.3% above the 423,498,000 barrels of oil we had stored on February 23rd of 2018, while falling to 14.3% below the 520,184,000 barrels of oil that we had in storage on February 24th of 2017, and 8.4% below the 486,699,000 barrels of oil we had in storage on February 26th of 2016...    

This Week's Rig Count

US drilling ​rig ​activity slowed for the second week in a row and​ is now several dozen rigs below the levels of this past Fall, when both oil prices and natural gas prices were somewhat higher....Baker Hughes reported that the total count of rotary rigs running in the US fell by 9 rigs to 1038 rigs over the week ending March 1st, which was still 57 more rigs than the 981 rigs that were in use as of the March 2nd report of 2018, but down from the shale era high of 1929 drilling rigs that were deployed on November 21st of 2014, the week before OPEC announced their attempt to flood the global oil market...  

the count of rigs drilling for oil fell by 10 rigs to 843 rigs this week, which was still 43 more oil rigs than were running a year ago, while it was well below the recent high of 1609 rigs that were drilling for oil on October 10th, 2014...at the same time, the number of drilling rigs targeting natural gas bearing formations increased by 1 rig to 195 natural gas rigs, which was also 14 more rigs than the 181 natural gas rigs that were drilling a year ago, but way down from the modern era high of 1,606 natural gas targeting rigs that were deployed on August 29th, 2008...

drilling activity offshore in the Gulf of Mexico increased by a total of 3 rigs to 22 rigs this week, as 2 more platforms offshore from Louisiana started drilling this week while one more rig was added offshore from Texas, where there are now three rigs drilling in state waters...the 19 rigs running offshore from Louisiana is up from the 13 rigs active there a year ago, while the 3 Texas offshore rigs are also an increase from the single rig active in Texas waters last year at this time, and the most drilling activity offshore from Texas since March 2016..

the count of active horizontal drilling rigs decreased by 5 rigs to 911 horizontal rigs this week, which was still 64 more horizontal rigs active than the 842 horizontal rigs that were in use in the US on March 2nd of last year, but was down from the record of 1372 horizontal rigs that were deployed on November 21st of 2014.....in addition, the vertical rig count decreased by 3 rigs to 60 vertical rigs this week, which was still up by 1 rig from the 59 vertical rigs that were in use during the same week of last year....likewise, the directional rig count decreased by 1 rig to 67 directional rigs this week, which was also down from the 75 directional rigs that were operating on March 2nd of 2018... 

the details on this week's changes in drilling activity by state and by shale basin are included in our screenshot below of that part of the rig count summary pdf from Baker Hughes that shows those changes...the first table below shows weekly and year over year rig count changes for the major producing states, and the second table shows the weekly and year over year rig count changes for the major US geological oil and gas basins...in both tables, the first column shows the active rig count as of March 1st, the second column shows the change in the number of working rigs between last week's count (February 22nd) and this week's (March 1st) count, the third column shows last week's February 22nd active rig count, the 4th column shows the change between the number of rigs running on Friday and those running before the equivalent weekend of a year ago, and the 5th column shows the number of rigs that were drilling at the end of that reporting week a year ago, which in this week’s case was the 2nd of March, 2018...     

as you can see, ​the drop in ​this week's rig count was anchored by the 7 rigs that were pulled out of the Permian basin, with most of the other changes in large producing states other than California and Alaska more on the order of statistical noise that we'd expect to see as rigs are in transit from one location to another...changes in the Permian included 8 rigs being pulled out of Texas Oil District 8, or the core Permian Delaware, which still has 309 rigs drilling there, while 1 rig was added back in Texas Oil District 8A, which would correspond to the northern Permian Midland...th​ose Texas changes strongly suggest​ that the rig that was shut down in New Mexico was in an 'other' basin among those not included in Baker Hughes' summary...the only evident change among natural gas rigs was the single rig added in the Haynesville of northern Louisiana; the rig that was added in the Ft Worth area Barnett shale was an oil rig, joining ​the natural gas rig that was already operating there...and other than the changes in the major producing states you see above, Mississippi drillers also added a rig this week and now have 4 rigs deployed, which is up from 3 rigs running in the state during the same week of a year ago...

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Plastics: The New Coal in Appalachia?— Along the banks of the Ohio River here, thousands of workers are assembling the region's first plastics manufacturing plant. It's a conspicuous symbol of a petrochemical future looming across the Appalachian region.More than 70 construction cranes tower over hundreds of acres where zinc was smelted for nearly a century. In a year or two, Shell Polymers, part of the global energy company Royal Dutch Shell, plans to turn what's called "wet gas" into plastic pellets that can be used to make a myriad of products, from bottles to car parts.Two Asian companies could also announce any day that they plan to invest as much as $6 billion in a similar plant in Ohio. There's a third plastics plant proposed for West Virginia.  With little notice nationally, a new petrochemical and plastics manufacturing hub may be taking shape along 300 miles of the upper reaches of the Ohio River, from outside Pittsburgh southwest to Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky. It would be fueled by a natural gas boom brought on by more than a decade of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a drilling process that has already dramatically altered the nation's energy landscape—and helped cripple coal.  But there's a climate price to be paid. Planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from the Shell plant alone would more or less wipe out all the reductions in carbon dioxide that Pittsburgh, just 25 miles away, is planning to achieve by 2030. Oil consumption for petrochemicals and plastics may account for half the global growth in petroleum demand between now and 2050. Increased drilling for natural gas, another plastics feedstock, leaks methane, a potent climate pollutant. Despite the climate and environmental risks, state and business leaders and the Trump administration are promoting plastics and petrochemical development as the next big thing, more than three decades after the region's steel industry collapsed and as Appalachian coal mining slumps."We have been digging our way out of a very deep hole for decades," said Jack Manning, president and executive director of the Beaver County Chamber of Commerce. "When Shell came along with a $6-to-$7 billion investment ... we were in the right spot at the right time," he said.

Plastic & Health: The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet -- The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) last week released a report, Plastic & Health; The Hidden Cost of a Plastic Planet. Its conclusion: “Plastic is a Global Health Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight.”  The principal contribution of the report: it takes a comprehensive look at the health impacts of plastic throughout its life cycle. This begins with  the extraction and transport of fossil feedstocks for plastic, continues onto refining and production of plastic, creating consumer products and packaging, fostering toxic releases from plastic waste management. Waste disposal isn’t the final stage either, as afterwards, there’s the fragmentation and creation of microplastics to consider, as well as cascading exposures as plastic degrades, and finally, ongoing and continuing environmental exposures over the hundreds of years plastic remains before it disintegrates completely.. This report breaks new ground, as thus far, there’s been little systematic attention to the collective problems created by the ubiquitous and increasing use of plastic throughout its lifecycle – from when the fossil fuel is extracted from the ground, to final waste disposal – and what happens to plastic that finds its way into the environment: To date, discussions of the health and environmental impacts of plastic have usually focused on specific moments in the plastic lifecycle: during use and after disposal. However, the lifecycle of plastic and its related human health impacts extends far beyond these two stages in both directions: upstream, during feedstock extraction, transport, and manufacturing, and downstream, when plastic reaches the environment and degrades into micro- and nanoplastics. Increasing research and investigation are providing new insights into the hidden, pervasive impacts of micro- and nanoplastics on human health and the environment (report, p.6).

TransCanada gets OK to put part of WV Mountaineer natgas pipe in service Feb 25 (Reuters) - U.S. energy regulators on Monday approved TransCanada Corp’s request to put part of the company’s $3.2 billion Mountaineer XPress natural gas pipeline in West Virginia into  service:

• * Specifically, the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) authorized TransCanada to commence service on about 21 miles (34 kilometers) of pipeline in Marshall and Wetzel Counties, among other things.
• * TransCanada said earlier this month that the Mountaineer pipeline was about 45 percent complete and expected to finish the rest of the project in February and March.
• * When TransCanada started work on Mountaineer early last year, it estimated it would complete the project by the end of 2018 at a cost of $2.6 billion.
• * The company boosted that cost estimate to $3.0 billion in April 2018 and $3.2 billion in February 2019 due to delays of various regulatory approvals, increased contractor construction costs, and inclement weather throughout construction, among other things.
• * In addition, the company has also said it plans to put its $600 million Gulf XPress gas pipeline into service along with Mountaineer.
• * The Mountaineer and Gulf projects are two of several pipes designed to connect growing output in the Marcellus and Utica shale basins in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio with customers elsewhere in the United States and Canada.
• * The 2.6-billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) Mountaineer project includes 170 miles of new pipeline in West Virginia, while the 0.88-bcfd Gulf project includes seven new compressor stations in Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi.
• * One billion cubic feet is enough gas to power about 5 million U.S. homes for a day.
• * New pipelines built to remove gas from the Marcellus and Utica have enabled shale drillers to boost Appalachia output to a record 31.6 bcfd in February versus 26.9 bcfd in the same month a year ago.
• * That represents about 38 percent of the nation’s total dry gas output of 83.3 bcfd in 2018. A decade ago, Appalachia produced just 1.6 bcfd, or 3 percent, of the country’s total output.

Energy Transfer CEO: ‘We’ve made mistakes’ in building Mariner East - Sunoco’s parent company admitted it made mistakes in building the Mariner East pipelines through Pennsylvania, and told investors that it will do better in future, but its assurances failed to persuade critics that the project will become any safer for the public or more protective of the environment. During a Feb. 21 conference call with financial analysts to discuss results for the fourth quarter of 2018, Energy Transfer’s chief executive, Kelcy Warren, appeared to acknowledge the succession of spills, shutdowns and sinkholes that have bedeviled the project during the two-year construction.“We’ve made mistakes and we are correcting those mistakes and will not make those mistakes again,” Warren said, in answer to an analyst’s question on whether the company has any “learnings from the past to execute better.”Warren acknowledged the problems the project has faced in Pennsylvania, and said that going forward, the company will “complete good projects” in a way that will control costs.“We’ve learned so much,” he said in a recording of the call on the company’s website. “We’re going to take our medicine and fix those mistakes and complete good projects going forward. We’ve made some mistakes we’re not proud of, so you’ll see that improve and when we don’t make those mistakes again then our costs are going to improve and the predictability of those costs are likewise going to improve.”He also implied that the company faces stricter regulation in Pennsylvania than in its home state of Texas, saying: “Every place is not Texas.” Warren did not specify any of the mistakes, describe the corrective action, or say what prompted his decision to admit the company’s mistakes during the construction project.

Mariner East 2 construction to restart in area of Chester County where water damage occurred -- Energy Transfer, parent company of Sunoco Pipeline, plans to restart drilling in an area of Chester County where previous Mariner East 2 construction activity damaged 15 private drinking water wells in July 2017. The company sent letters to residents near the Shoen Road drill site informing them that horizontal directional drilling could begin as soon as March 6. The notifications are required under a consent order agreed to by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and Sunoco officials in July 2017. Residents living along Valley View Drive in West Whiteland Township, Chester County, first noticed cloudy water flowing from their taps over the July 4 holiday weekend in 2017. It turned out Sunoco's drilling operations had broken through the aquifer, and disrupted the flow of clean drinking water to about 15 households at the time. They lost drinking water, as well as the ability to bathe. The company temporarily housed several residents in hotels, and some households permanently lost access to their private well water. On July 13, Sunoco stopped drilling at the site and has not drilled there since. The DEP laid out conditions for re-starting construction, which Sunoco had met in February last year. Given the notification requirements laid out in the original order, DEP spokeswoman Virginia Cain said the agency still has to confirm residential notices before the company can begin drilling in the Shoen Road area. Valley View Drive homeowners David Mano and Diane Salter say that although they received notification of the drilling activity, they did not receive information about how the company will protect their water. 

Mariner East pipeline target of possible Chester County Commission legal action - The Chester County commissioners said Thursday that they are seeking to join a legal challenge against Sunoco’s Mariner East pipeline and also are ending an agreement to grant the company access to some county land.“Time and again, Sunoco has been severely lacking in effective communication and transparency and we have no choice but to take these formal measures,” said Michelle Kichline, chair of the commissioners. “Even with the groundswell of activity and appeals from elected officials, grassroots organizations and residents affected by the pipeline, the company is not playing ball. We have no confidence that they ever will and we are done with trying to get answers on our own."The Mariner East is planned to bring natural gas liquids from the Marcellus and Utica Shale via a 20-inch pipeline. Natural gas liquids are defined as propane, ethane and butane. Plans call for new pipeline to be buried, as well as upgrades made to existing pipelines. Chester County commissioners had already notified the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) earlier this year about their “growing concern” over issues such as a lack of communication and failed repeated attempts by the county to get information related to Mariner East, specifically about a sinkhole. The PUC has regulatory authority regarding the pipeline.

Route modifications push one mile of PennEast pipeline into Monroe County -  Modifications to the Pennsylvania portion of PennEast’s natural gas pipeline reduced the project’s length by about a mile, but now place Monroe County in its path. The four proposed route changes require less land and call for shallower drilling in certain areas, causing less harm to the environment, PennEast officials said. But one mile of the 116-mile pipeline will extend into Eldred Township, crossing two properties there, one of which is owned by the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Pipeline opponents took issue with the changes announced Feb. 15, mainly because the public has only three weeks to comment on them. In a Feb. 20 filing, the Delaware River Keeper Network urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to extend the March 8 deadline for public comment. The network also made a similar request of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, which is reviewing permits for the pipeline. Delaware Riverkeeper Maya Van Rossum said it’s not clear to her organization whether the DEP is reviewing the modified route or the original one given preliminary approval by FERC last January. A spokesperson from the DEP did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Woman who sued natural gas driller Range Resources testifies before grand jury - Stephanie Hallowich, a Washington County woman who sued Range Resources and two other companies in 2010 over alleged air and water contamination at her Mt. Pleasant, Pa. home, testified before an investigative grand jury in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, said her attorney, Peter Villari.  Attorney General Josh Shapiro recently empaneled a grand jury to investigate “environmental crimes” in Washington County. A letter from one of his deputies, obtained by The Allegheny Front and StateImpact Pennsylvania, refers to an investigation involving Range Resources, one of the state’s leading natural gas drilling companies.  The existence of the grand jury was first reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. One woman, June Chappel of Washington County, told the Post-Gazette that she testified about health problems she’d experienced because of noise and odors from a waste impoundment and flaring from gas wells built by Range Resources near her home. The letter from Shapiro’s office asked attorneys in a different lawsuit involving Range Resources to preserve documents and evidence in their case. The letter, signed by Courtney M. Butterfield, deputy attorney general, said the Attorney General’s office had “assumed jurisdiction over several criminal investigations involving environmental crimes in Washington County” and that “one of the potential criminal investigations involves your respective clients.”  The letter is headlined “Stacey Haney/Range Resources Investigation.” In 2012, Stacey Haney, an Amwell Township woman, sued Range Resources, claiming the company and its contractors polluted the air, water and soil at a location near her home known as the Yeager site. The suit claimed the pollution resulted in health impacts for her family and the deaths of a family dog and goat.  In addition, the suit alleged Range Resources and two contracted laboratories committed fraud and conspiracy by manipulating test results to obscure their findings from the Haneys and their neighbors. The case was settled in September. The settlement is sealed, but the Post-Gazette is suing to have the agreement made public. In 2014, the DEP imposed a $4.15 million penalty on the company for violations at six waste water impoundments in Washington County, including one at the Yeager site.  The case was detailed by journalist Eliza Griswold in the book “Amity and Prosperity.”

Economy Residents Putting Up Fight As Fracking Company Trying To Turn Residential Road Into Access Road (KDKA) – “I bought a house in a residential neighborhood. It was never intended to be in an area where there is an industrial site whatsoever.” That is the feeling among many Economy residents as a drilling company is threatening to move in. Not only does the company want to put a drill pad next to the neighborhood, it also wants to take over a residential road and turn it into an access road. As drilling increases across Beaver and Butler countries so does the opposition. At the Chestnut Ridge housing development in Economy folks are organizing against a proposed drilling pad just beyond their own backyards. “This is the reason we live up here it’s nice and quiet and the peaceful existence here and to have this industry come in is going to overturn all of that,” said Steve White, the group’s organizer. PennEnergy Resources plans to build the pad off of narrow and twisting Amsler Ridge Road and residents fear the noise of heavy truck traffic and the attendant danger. Photo Credit: KDKA “It doesn’t belong here,” said Laurel Beitsinger. “We have families, children walking the road, bicycling whatever. It isn’t right.” The borough has already issued a permit for the pad, but for PennEnergy to use Amsler Ridge for an access road, council must also lift the weight restrictions. And these folks have been showing up en masse at council meetings to urge members to vote no. For its part, PennEnergy says it will repave the road, station flagmen to regulate traffic and erect sound barriers if the noise becomes a nuisance.

One Pennsylvania Town Shows How to Properly 'Zone' Fracking - Pennsylvania is home to more than 10,000 fracking wells, which forces communities to live with air pollution, water contamination and an array of health problems linked to drilling. The frackers want to drill more wells, and the state's Democratic governor is not going to do anything to slow it down. But local communities are finding ways to fight back—and win. Residents of Oakmont Borough, a small suburb of Pittsburgh along the Allegheny River have waged a years-long battle against the fracking industry, which has been making a determined push into Allegheny County. The fracking industry has problems turning a profit. The only way out for these financially stretched corporations is to double down—and that means moving to areas of the state that aren't as heavily fracked as some parts of western Pennsylvania.Residents in Allegheny County have seen the havoc that fracking has created elsewhere, and they are determined to fight to keep it away from their schools and homes. Their tool of choice has been municipal zoning codes. Every city or municipality creates a set of rules about what you can build, and where you can build it. Unfortunately, drilling companies often take advantage of the fact that many towns have not developed zoning ordinances that regulate fracking, or have outdated ordinances that do not address the issues facing their municipalities today. But if residents and local leaders get organized, they can put serious limits on the fracking industry before a well is approved.That's what Food & Water Watch's Municipal Ordinance Project (MOP) is set up to do. We know that local officials in Allegheny County are the ones who should make the decisions about how to protect their own communities, and that safety and environmental concerns are front and center.

BL England decision may doom N.J. pipeline but natural gas projects still on - The demise of the B.L. England power plant appears to doom a 22-mile gas pipeline through the Pinelands to the facility, an outcome widely welcomed by opponents, many of whom favor a moratorium on all new fossil-fuel projects in New Jersey.“By stopping the fossil fuel plant and rendering the unwarranted pipeline moot, it sets the right course for 100 percent renewables by 2050,’’ said Amy Goldsmith, state director for Clean Water Action, referring to a Murphy administration goal.Perhaps so. But on the day after RC Cape May Holdings announced it was abandoning plans to repower its coal units with natural gas, New Jersey Natural Gas asked the state to allow it to invest $507 million over five years to enhance the reliability of its gas system.South Jersey Gas, which had waged a long and expensive battle to build the pipeline to supply fuel to the B.L. England plant, announced it would seek alternative solutions to back up 142,000 customers in Atlantic and Cape May counties with supplies of natural gas, part of the rationale behind the 22-mile pipeline project.Elizabethtown Gas, also owned by South Jersey Industries, the parent of South Jersey Gas, also wants to spend $500 million to replace old cast-iron gas mains in its system. The decision to shut down B.L. England all but kills off the justification for the pipeline’s approval by the Pinelands Commission and New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, according to a letter from the New Jersey Attorney General’s office.

Company fined $6,100 for Naugatuck River oil spill - (AP) - The Environmental Protection Agency has fined a Connecticut company $6,100 for an oil spill that left the Naugatuck River covered in a sheen for days last year.The Republican-American reports that Global Brass and Copper agreed to pay the fine and take measures to prevent another spill.The January 2018 spill came from the company's Somers Thin Strip plant inWaterbury.EPA spokesman John Senn says a valve on an external cooling tank ruptured, likely from extreme cold. He says the company has since remodeled so the valve is no longer outside and updated its spill prevention plan.A company attorney says the ruptured valve was noticed within 30 minutes and workers took "immediate action" to address the problem. Naugatuck River Revival Group founder Kevin Zak called the fine "shameful."

Update On Natural Gas Hook-Ups In New England -- February 27, 2019 - From Chesto over at The Boston Globe: The municipal utilities that serve Holyoke and Middleborough just imposed separate moratoriums on new natural gas hookups, citing supply constraints. The two biggest gas providers in Massachusetts, National Grid and Eversource, say their supplies are adequate for now. But some in the industry speculate that we’re approaching a major inflection point, as the region’s strained pipeline system shows signs of failing to keep up with demand. Pipeline expansions get more difficult to build politically every year. To the anti-gas forces in the environmental community, the moratoriums reaffirm their arguments about the need to wean Massachusetts off the fossil fuel.That won't be easy. Natural gas remains a dominant fuel source for New England’s power plants. It also remains the preferred heat source for any new developments -- except in the growing list of communities with moratoriums in place. These bans on new hookups started popping up in Western Massachusetts about four years ago. Berkshire Gas imposed moratoriums in an eight-town region stretching from Greenfield to Amherst; Columbia Gas did the same next door, in Easthampton and Northampton. Northeast Energy Direct, the controversial Kinder Morgan pipeline proposal, could have helped ease the pain there. But resistance was too strong, and Kinder Morgan nixed it. Berkshire informed its waiting list of 300-plus potential new customers last fall that no help would be coming soon.The capacity issues in that area eventually caught up with Holyoke Gas & Electric, which imposed its own moratorium on new service on Jan. 28. Columbia Gas is pursuing projects to increase circulation in the Springfield area. But those, too, face formidable opposition.

U.S. Approves $3.2B Appalachian Natural Gas Pipeline - TransCanada said on Friday that the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had approved the full in-service of the Mountaineer XPress natural gas pipeline project, which will help link the Appalachian basin’s natural gas supplies and growing markets in the U.S. and beyond.The Mountaineer XPress (MXP) project includes a 170-mile natural gas pipeline in West Virginia that will increase natural gas capacity by 2.7 billion cubic feet per day and together with related infrastructure—new compressor stations and modifications to existing compressor stations—represents a total investment of US$3.2 billion.The approval of the full in-service of Mountaineer XPress will allow TransCanada to start partial in-service of its Gulf XPress Project, a network of seven new compressor stations in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, which will significantly increase the reach of low-cost, U.S.-produced natural gas from the Appalachian Basin. Investment in Gulf XPress is some US$600 million, according to TransCanada. The start of the Gulf XPress project includes placing into service four new compressor stations located in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, which are expected to provide additional capacity of 530,000 million cubic feet of natural gas per day on the Columbia Gulf Transmission System. Gulf XPress is expected to begin full service in the coming weeks, TransCanada said in a statement. Both the Gulf XPress and the Mountaineer XPress are underpinned by long-term contracts with customers, the Canadian pipeline operator noted. “Mountaineer XPress and Gulf XPress are extremely important to TransCanada as they provide much-needed takeaway capacity for our customers, while also growing our extensive footprint in the Appalachian Basin,”

MVP asks state board to discontinue process aimed at stopping pipeline construction - Facing another snag in a complex permitting process, the developers of the largest natural gas pipeline ever built in Southwest Virginia are pushing back. In a Feb. 12 letter to state regulators, an attorney for the Mountain Valley Pipeline asked the State Water Control Board to discontinue a process it started last year that could lead to the revocation of a water quality certification for project, which has been cited repeatedly for violating environmental standards. The water board is scheduled to meet Friday to discuss the details of a future revocation hearing. “Mountain Valley accepts that this project has been, and continues to be, perhaps the most heavily scrutinized construction project in Virginia’s history,” the company said in a letter to David Paylor, director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and executive secretary of the water board. With so much scrutiny already, and with the project more than halfway done, it would serve little purpose to consider revoking the certification at this point, wrote Todd Normane, deputy general counsel for Equitrans Midstream Corp., an affiliated company in the joint venture. And even if the board were to reverse its earlier approval, Normane wrote, Mountain Valley would still hold a valid license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the lead agency overseeing construction of the 303-mile pipeline through the two Virginias. “Unilateral action by the board at this time cannot amend or invalidate that license or otherwise block construction,” his letter stated. A spokeswoman for FERC declined to comment.

Bills to protect landowners in pipeline cases fail - Landowners fighting to keep their property from being taken by pipeline building companies will continue footing the legal bills after two bills failed in the House. Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, said he introduced the bills to give landowners who don’t want pipeline construction on their land a fair chance against Dominion, Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, Southern Gas and other companies involved in the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. SB 1404 would have required pipeline companies to pick the costs incurred by homeowners in eminent domain legal battles. SB 1403sought to amend state law and require the entities acquiring the property to pay all costs of court proceedings. It also would have required pipeline companies to provide compensation for homeowners. The compensation would have been at least 25 percent more than the company’s initial offer for the land. Because the pipeline project was approved by the Federal Energy Regulation Commission, the companies may invoke eminent domain — a right given to the government to take property for public use — if landowners refuse to accept compensation for their property. “The pipeline companies have all the power, in the General Assembly and in condemning the property of small landowners,” Petersen stated after the bills failed. “My bills would have leveled the playing field in a small way. The House just missed it. We’ll be back.” The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a 600-mile underground pipeline that would deliver natural gas from West Virginia to the southwest region of the state and North Carolina. Over 85 percent of affected landowners have entered into easement agreements to allow construction, according to the project website. Those landowners received compensation. The remaining easements needed to begin construction are being challenged in court.

Court won't revisit ruling that tossed Atlantic Coast Pipeline's permit to cross Appalachian Trail- A federal appeals court on Monday denied a request to reconsider a ruling throwing out a permit for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to cross two national forests, including parts of the Appalachian Trail. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a request from lead pipeline developer Dominion Energy and the U.S. Forest Service to hold a full-court rehearing. In December, a three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit sharply criticized the Forest Service, saying the agency lacked authority to authorize the pipeline’s crossing of the trail. The panel also said the agency “abdicated its responsibility to preserve national forest resources” when it approved the pipeline crossing the George Washington and Monongahela National Forests, and a right-of-way across the Appalachian Trial. “We trust the United States Forest Service to ‘speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues,’ ” the judges wrote in December’s ruling, quoting the Dr. Seuss classic “The Lorax” to summarize their decision. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of the Sierra Club, Virginia Wilderness Committee and other environmental groups. Representatives for Dominion Energy and the Forest Service declined immediate comment.

Dominion to ask Supreme Court to hear pipeline appeal (AP) — Dominion Energy said Tuesday it will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal after a lower court refused to reconsider a ruling tossing out a permit that would have allowed the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to cross two national forests, including parts of the Appalachian Trail. Lead pipeline developer Dominion said it expects the filing of an appeal in the next 90 days. On Monday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a request for a full-court rehearing from Dominion and the U.S. Forest Service. A three-judge panel ruled in December that the Forest Service lacks the authority to authorize the trail crossing and had "abdicated its responsibility to preserve national forest resources" when it approved the pipeline crossing the George Washington and Monongahela National Forests, as well as a right-of-way across the Appalachian Trial. The 605-mile (974-kilometer) natural gas pipeline would originate in West Virginia and run through North Carolina and Virginia. The appellate ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of the Sierra Club, Virginia Wilderness Committee and other environmental groups. The denial "sends the Atlantic Coast Pipeline back to the drawing board," the law center and Sierra Club said in a joint statement on Monday. The groups said they believe it is impossible to build the pipeline "without causing massive landslides and threatening the Appalachian Trail and our clean water." Dominion said it is pursuing "legislative and administrative options" in addition to seeking Supreme Court review. "We are confident that the U.S. Departments of Interior and Agriculture have the authority to resolve the Appalachian Trail crossing issue administratively in a manner that satisfies the Court's stated objection," the company said in its statement.

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline Fight Could Go to the Supreme Court - The fight over the controversial Atlantic Coast Pipeline may be headed to the Supreme Court.Dominion Energy, the lead developer of the project that would carry fracked natural gas for 605 miles through West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina, said Tuesday it would appeal to the nation's highest court after an appeals court refused to reconsider its decision to throw out a crucial permit for the project on Monday, The Associated Press reported.Dominion and the U.S. Forest Service had asked the fourth U.S. Court of Appeals for a re-hearing of the court's December 2018 decision to toss the U.S. Forest Service permit allowing the pipeline to cross the George Washington and Monongahela National Forests as well as part of the Appalachian Trail. The court refused.The court had ruled in December that the U.S. Forest Service did not have the authority to grant the pipeline company permission to cross the Appalachian Trail. “The Fourth Circuit's decision, now final, confirmed that this pipeline has to play by the same rules as everybody else," Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) Senior Attorney D.J. Gerken said in a press release. "The Forest Service has never approved a new pipeline across the Appalachian Trail — but, under intense political pressure, it did for Atlantic, while ignoring routes that would avoid the forest. Atlantic could reroute, but instead it should scrap this boondoggle and stop running up a bill it wants to stick to customers."The SELC brought the lawsuit that resulted in December's decision on behalf of the Sierra Club, the Virginia Wilderness Committee and other environmental groups. Dominion said it would file an appeal with the Supreme Court within 90 days, The Associated Press reported. It is also seeking "legislative and administrative options" in case the Supreme Court refuses to hear its case, thought it did not specify what those might be.

Need for Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) Under Suspicion Now - The demand the huge Atlantic Coast Pipeline was intended to meet is disappearing, according to documents from the corporations behind the project. Dominion and Duke Energy own almost all of the pipeline, as well as the electric utilities it would supply with natural gas. When applying for a federal permit, they argued it was needed to meet rising electricity demand in North Carolina and coastal Virginia. But Cathy Kunkel, an energy analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said utility filings in those states now show the outlook has changed dramatically – in part because of competition from cheap, renewable energy. “Dominion is not projecting any increase in natural-gas demand until 2032,” Kunkel said. “Duke is still planning to build some natural-gas plants, but most of that has shifted to the late 2020s.“ The energy companies say they need more pipeline capacity to move fracked gas out of the Marcellus and Utica fields of northern West Virginia, where the price for it is artificially depressed by a transportation bottleneck. Dominion is now telling regulators in Virginia that it expects demand for electricity from natural gas to stay essentially flat for the next decade and a half. The 600-mile pipeline across the three states has faced a number of setbacks, including lawsuits by landowners and conservationists. It was recently announced that the total cost of the project would rise to $7.5 billion, and its opening would be delayed until 2021. If the builders can get state utility regulators’ approval, they can shift the full expense of the line onto ratepayers, along with a guaranteed profit. But Kunkel said investors in the utilities may be starting to worry about the financial risks. “The project has been delayed by these court challenges, it’s also over-budget,” she said. “And if the state regulators say, ‘You clearly don’t need all of the gas capacity that you signed up for here; we’re not going to let you charge it to your ratepayers,‘ then that would be a very significant blow.“

Extreme cold in the Midwest led to high power demand and record natural gas demand - Extreme cold weather in the Midwest at the end of January led to high—but not record-setting—electricity load on Wednesday, January 30, 2019, the coldest day of the period, on the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) grid. However, consumption of natural gas, the main fuel used for heating in the region, reached estimated record levels on the same day. Natural gas and electricity prices were elevated but did not reach levels seen during previous cold weather events in recent years. Compared with the 2018 bomb cyclone and the 2014 polar vortex weather events, the January 2019 polar vortex was significantly colder, with Upper Midwest temperatures dropping to as low as -20 to -45 degrees Fahrenheit. However, hourly electricity load in MISO peaked at 100.9 gigawatts (GW) on January 30, 2019, based on preliminary data, compared with 100 to 104 GW during the 2018 bomb cyclone and MISO’s all-time winter peak of 109.3 GW reached during the 2014 polar vortex. Peak electricity loads during the 2019 event were lower than expected because of the deployment of load-modifying resources in MISO (which includes demand response and behind-the-meter generation), other voluntary load management actions, and the wide closure of schools and businesses, which reduced non-residential sector electricity demand. In contrast to electricity demand, an estimated record amount of natural gas was consumed by the residential/commercial sector (26.1 billion cubic feet (Bcf)) and overall (37.9 Bcf) in the Midwest on January 30, 2019, when many people stayed home. Natural gas is the main fuel used in the region for residential and commercial space heating.  Midwest natural gas withdrawals from storage for the week ending February 1, 2019, contributed to the largest net withdrawal of working natural gas in the Lower 48 states so far during the 2018–2019 heating season.

Prices End Higher As Winter Lingers On - Highlights of the Natural Gas Summary and Outlook for the week ending February 22, 2019 follow. The full report is available at the link below.

• Price Action: The March contract rose 9.2 cents (3.5%) to $2.717 on a 12.6 cent range ($2.726/$2.600).
• Price Outlook: After posting both a new high and low last week, a miniscule 12.6 cent range left prices within last week’s 20.1 cent range ($2.744/$2.543) for a rare inside week.   Considering the bullish weather forecasts and a still relatively low price level, it seems more likely that a new high is made next week.  CFTC data indicated a (13,735) contract reduction in the managed money net long position as longs liquidated and shorts added. Total open interest fell (317)to 3.511 million as of February 05. Aggregated CME futures open interest fell to 1.167 million as of February 22. The is the lowest open interest since January 25, 2017.
• Weekly Storage: US working gas storage for the week ending February 15 indicated a withdrawal of (177) bcf. Working gas inventories fell to 1,705 bcf. Current inventories fall (55)bcf (-3.1%) below last year and fall (379) bcf (-18.2%) below the 5-year average.
• Supply Trends: Total supply fell (1.4) bcf/d to 82.7 bcf/d. US production rose. Canadian imports fell. LNG imports fell. LNG exports rose. Mexican exports fell. The US Baker Hughes rig count fell (4). Oil activity decreased (4). Natural gas activity was unchanged +0. The total US rig count now stands at 1,047 .The Canadian rig count fell (12) to 212. Thus, the total North American rig count fell (16) to 1,259 and now trails last year by (25). The higher efficiency US horizontal rig count rose +1 to 916 and rises +74 above last year.
• Demand Trends: Total demand rose +11.2 bcf/d to +106.2 bcf/d. Power demand rose. Industrial demand rose. Res/Comm demand rose. Electricity demand rose +1,604 gigawatt-hrs to 77,789 which exceeds last year by +2,477 (3.3%) and exceeds the 5-year average by 994 (1.3%%).
• Nuclear Generation: Nuclear generation fell (1,625)MW in the reference week to 91,544 MW. This is +1,230 MW higher than last year and +1,386 MW higher than the 5-year average. Recent output was at 90,094 MW.

The heating season has begun. With a forecast through March 8 the 2018/19 total heating index is at (2,554) compared to (2,243) for 2017/18, (1,985) for 2016/17, (2,075) for 2015/16, (2,524) for 2014/15, (2,733) for 2013/14, (2,459) for 2012/13 and (2,331) for 2011/12.

March Gas Spikes On Early March Cold And Strong Cash Into Options Expiry -The March natural gas contract shot over 4% higher on the day today as cash prices traded over $2.85 and afternoon model guidance trended even colder for the first third of March.  The role of cash and the March options expiry was apparent in how much more the March contract ran out relative to the rest of the futures strip.  The result was a flip positive in the March/April H/J spread.  Our Morning Update highlighted a significant cold trend over the weekend that let prices gap up last evening.   Afternoon model guidance trended even colder in the medium-range too, helping prices run up into the settle (images courtesy of Tropical Tidbits).  Our mid-day Note of the Day for subscribers which went out a bit before 11 AM Eastern warned of bullish short-term data that would keep the March contract strong into tomorrow's expiry.  This verified well, as prices shot higher today. Part of this has been due to continued tight balances, with LNG exports at record levels playing a role.  It should be an exciting day tomorrow as volatility has returned to the natural gas market and the March contract heads towards expiry.

Winter Gas Is Off The Board - The March natural gas contract expired up half a percent on the day at 2:30 PM Eastern, and with that the last contract of Winter 2018/2019 went off the board.  The March contract was the only one up on the day, with April selling off the most on warmer mid-day model guidance.  The result was the strongest March/April spread expiration since 2014.   Yet other spreads, such as April/October, actually tried to put in a short-term high today.  Meanwhile, cash was incredibly strong, trading over $2.9 through the morning session and propping the front of the strip up.    Afternoon weather model guidance then moderated quite a bit, with the 12z GEFS far warmer in the 12-16 Day time period (images courtesy of Tropical Tidbits).  In our Morning Update today we held a "Neutral" sentiment as despite strong cash prices and the potential for a March bounce into expiry we highlighted risks that forecasts into Week 3 would warm with 12z model guidance being less impressive.  This worked out well, and we also released our weekly Seasonal Trader Report with our long-range gas forecast that looked at just how much March may be able to warm. In it we dove deeper into an increasing El Nino signal upstream.  The April contract now takes over as traders turn to March weather forecasts and Thursday's EIA number to see where natural gas prices should head from here.

EIA Reports 166 Bcf Storage Draw, April Natural Gas Gains Trimmed - The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a 166 Bcf withdrawal from storage for the week ending Feb. 22. The reported draw compares to the year-ago draw of 85 Bcf and the five-year average draw of 104 Bcf. The print was on the lower end of a rather tight range of estimates that ranged from a 160 Bcf to 180 Bcf pull. NGI’s model predicted a withdrawal of 167 Bcf. Natural gas futures traders responded immediately to the slightly lower-than-expected draw, trimming early-morning gains. The Nymex April gas futures contract was trading nearly 3 cents higher at $2.827 just before the storage report’s 10:30 a.m. ET release, but then slid to around $2.81 in the minutes after the print hit the screen. By 11 a.m., the prompt month was trading at $2.816, up 1.7 cents. “This was at the lower end of expectations and indicates slightly more holiday impact last week than expected,” said Bespoke Weather Services, which had called for a 174 Bcf withdrawal. A Reuters poll of 19 market analysts showed a withdrawal range of 160 Bcf to 179 Bcf, and a median of 171 Bcf, while a Bloomberg survey of 13 analysts showed a withdrawal range of 165 Bcf to 180 Bcf, with a median draw of 173 Bcf. Broken down by region, the EIA reported a 51 Bcf withdrawal in the Midwest, a 51 Bcf draw in the South Central, a 41 Bcf pull in the East and a 16 Bcf pull in the Pacific. Genscape Inc., which had predicted a 169 Bcf withdrawal, said its daily supply and demand estimates showed a 0.6 Bcf/d production increase week/week for the period, along with a 0.3 Bcf/d increase in imports from Canada. “Demand was relatively flat week on week, with a modest uptick in power burn,” and liquefied natural gas sendout “somewhat offset by lower residential/commercial demand and flat industrial demand and exports from Mexico,” Genscape said. While the overall 166 Bcf draw was not all that surprising to market observers, the large pulls in the South Central region and Pacific did give some pause to market observers on Enelyst, a social media platform hosted by The Desk. The Pacific region specifically has seen significant storage drawdowns in recent weeks as wet, chilly conditions continue to drive up demand at the same time that import restrictions have been in place. Working gas in storage as of Feb. 22 stood at 1,539 Bcf, 154 Bcf below last year and 424 Bcf below the five-year average of 1,963 Bcf, according to EIA.

Exploding Cash Pulls April Gas Higher - What started seemingly like a relatively slow day in the natural gas space quickly turned exciting as physical gas prices shot higher through the morning. Next day Henry Hub cash spent much of the morning over the $3.2 level, pulling the April contract slightly over $2.87 before it pulled back slightly. The cash-led nature of the rally was clear with the April contract leading through the day with winter eventually catching a bid later in the day. The result was that the April/May contract approached flat levels, which it has not been at since late January. This spread is far stronger than it has been at any point in the last several years besides 2014. In our Morning Update we highlighted that with "near term cold likely keeping cash firm, and stronger prices for next winter, we can test the 2.85 level..." which played out well this morning on cash strength. This was more on our reading of balance and spreads versus overnight GWDD additions, which were not particularly impressive. Afternoon model guidance was mainly mixed too, showing some lingering cold risks Week 2 despite warmth being able to return in the Southeast. This came as the market shook off what was a slightly unimpressive EIA number yesterday. Now, traders are positioning for the weekend after this cash move pulled prices higher. The Climate Prediction Center sees mixed risks in their long-range forecast; this forecast would look for colder risks in the center of the country with some warmer risks in the East. 

Bills Criminalizing Pipeline Protest Arise in Statehouses Nationwide - The oil and gas industry has started its 2019 lobbying efforts with a bang. Eight different statehouses across the nation are considering bills criminalizing protests on property owned by the the oil and gas industry which critics say could squelch pipeline protesters and others calling attention to climate change-causing infrastructure.The bills offer steep criminal penalties for trespass onto oil and gas industry-owned private property defined as “critical infrastructure” under state law. The legal definition of “critical infrastructure,” which incorporates essentially all assets serving as the bedrock of the current economic system, has greatly expanded in the post-September 11 era. With that expansion came increasingly harsh criminal enforcement mechanisms available to prosecutors in the name of protecting national security. It is no coincidence that the bills are rolling out simultaneously with nearly identical language, in various states. The Real News has traced these bills back to model bills emanating from two organizations, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Council of State Governments (CSG), both of which receive generous financial backing from the oil and gas industry. In turn, the organizations serve as facilitators for doling out model legislation to state legislators. In the first month of the year, Indiana, Wyoming, Illinois, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Idaho, and Ohio have all taken this template-based model legislation under consideration, which mirrors two bills passed in Oklahoma in 2017. Sandwiching them together as one, ALEC created the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act at one of its annual meetings held in December 2017. And the lobbyists and legislators involved in the organization in the room that day gave it a “yes” vote.

U.S. House passes bill funding conservation via drilling royalties (Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Tuesday easily passed a public lands bill on Tuesday, as the Senate did earlier this month, that permanently reauthorizes a fund that has funneled billions of dollars into land conservation, paid for by revenues from offshore oil and gas drilling. The bill passed 363-62, representing a rare moment of bipartisan agreement in Congress, with lawmakers eager to see money go to outdoors projects in their states. It permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which was created by Congress in 1964 but which has occasionally been allowed to expire, most recently last September. The Senate voted 92-8 earlier this month on the bill, and President Donald Trump is expected to sign it. Each year about $900 million in royalties paid by energy companies drilling on the U.S. outer continental shelf go to the fund that pays for items from improving ball fields to expanding national parks and wildlife refuges. Representative Raul Grijalva, a Democrat and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, called the bill “one of the biggest partisan wins for this country I’ve ever seen in Congress” and thanked Republican colleagues, including Representative Rob Bishop and Senator Lisa Murkowski for compromises on it. Trump is expected to sign the bill even though he has pursued a policy of energy dominance and opening public lands to coal mining and oil and gas drilling. His administration shrunk the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah and has pushed to open part of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. The bill creates four national monuments, including the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home in Mississippi, and prevents industrial mining around others. Medgar Evers was an African-American veteran and civil rights leader who was assassinated in 1963 by a white segregationist. 

Groups ask a court to block tests that could harm imperiled Atlantic whales - Conservation groups fighting the Trump administration’s bid to open the Atlantic Ocean to offshore drilling asked a federal court Wednesday to block companies from conducting seismic tests to determine the location of oil and gas deposits. Five companies are awaiting the approval of final government permits allowing them to start what the environmentalists call “ear piercing” tests that can be disruptive to marine life, particularly mammals such as whales and dolphins that use echolocation to communicate and feed. Claiming the issuance of those permits is imminent, as soon as March 1, the groups asked a judge in South Carolina to issue an injunction that would bar seismic testing until a lawsuit they filed against the administration in December can be decided. The December lawsuit claims the National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the Commerce Department, departed from its mission to protect marine life by issuing permits allowing the five companies to kill fish and mammals as they conduct the tests. The service, also known as NOAA Fisheries, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the permits are a procedural step and that it does not expect any animals to be harmed. According to the lawsuit, which relies on scientific studies, “at least 34 marine mammal species” swim in the area where testing would be allowed, south of New Jersey to Florida. They include the North Atlantic right whale, an imperiled species with about 400 remaining and about 100 breeding couples.  “Coastal waters from South Carolina to Florida provide the species’ only known calving grounds, and much of its migratory route lies within the survey area,” the lawsuit says.

Saudi Arabia’s Crude Supply to U.S. Gulf Falling Fast and Hard -- Saudi Arabia sliced its crude supply to plants located on the U.S. Gulf Coast, the world’s largest refining center, by more than half from a year ago. And shipments may grind to a complete halt soon. The Middle East’s largest producer is making good on its pledge to reduce deliveries to its biggest American customers in an effort to comply with OPEC’s deal to cut output. Saudi Aramco shipped just 1.6 million barrels of its oil to U.S. Gulf Coast buyers this month compared with 5.75 million a year ago, according to U.S. Customs data compiled by Bloomberg. In January, shipments were at 2.69 million. "We could see Saudi oil imports declining to zero into the U.S. Gulf Coast," said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates in Houston. U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent comment via Twitter that oil prices are too high won’t stem the current declining trend, as "OPEC and non-OPEC members feel prices are too low, and they will do what it takes to put the market back in balance." Government data showed Wednesday that total Saudi crude imports to the U.S dropped to 346,000 barrels a day last week, the lowest in data going back to 2010. However, total Saudi oil flows to America won’t likely flatten out completely because there will be demand from U.S. West Coast refiners, who are faced with limited supply options, Lipow said.

Geopolitical disruptions slash US Gulf crude imports -- OPEC’s reduced oil production and US sanctions on Venezuela and Iran have translated into a considerable fall in crude imports into the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port so far this year. January to date, 8 million barrels of crude have been delivered at LOOP’s delivery point in Morgan City, Louisiana, down 66% from the 24 million barrels recorded in the same period of last year, according to the latest S&P Global Platts Analytics and US Customs Bureau data. In early January, OPEC members committed to cut production levels in line with 1.2 million b/d in the first six months of 2019. As a result, volumes exported by some of its members to the US have diminished to historic levels. In January and February, for example, there have been no imports of Saudi crude to LOOP. The last Saudi cargo it received, some 1.6 million barrels of Arab Light, was unloaded December 19. However, LOOP has gone longer stretches without receiving Saudi crude in the past: none was received from that country for the first five months of 2018. The lack of Saudi crude coming into LOOP – and the US Gulf Coast more broadly – is a stark contrast to previous years, when Saudi Arabia was a major supplier. Some 7 million barrels of Saudi crude was imported at LOOP in 2018, a steep fall compared with 42 million barrels imported in 2017 and 81 million barrels in 2016, the US Customs data showed. Iraq was the main exporter of crude delivered at the port of Morgan City with 60 million barrels in 2018, which is 6 million barrels higher from 2017. Andeavor, which was later bought by Marathon, was the buyer of most of those Iraqi barrels.  However, so far in 2019, the volume imported at LOOP from Iraq amounted over 5 million barrels, which is below the 16 million imported in the same period of 2018. A similar situation can be seen with Kuwait, the second-largest exporter to LOOP in 2018, after delivering 11 million barrels in 2018. However, in the first two months of 2019, only one cargo with 963,443 barrels of Kuwait crude has been reported, below 6 million imported in the same period of 2018, the US Customs data showed. In addition to the fewer Saudi barrels available in the US, there have also been dwindling crude imports from Venezuela and Mexico as production has stagnated.Imports of Mexican Maya crude into LOOP amounted to about 6 million barrels in 2018, flat from 2017. However, only 1 million barrels have been recorded in 2019 at the Morgan City area, according to the US Customs data. Mexico is the top crude exporter to the USGC in general.Separately, US refiners in the LOOP region imported nearly 3 million barrels of Venezuelan crude in 2018, down sharply from 8 million barrels recorded in 2017. The last cargo of a Venezuelan grade delivered at the LOOP was October 12, 2018, with Marathon Petroleum as the buyer.  As a result of the short supply, sour crude prices along the USGC have skyrocketed in recent months. Front-month Gulf Coast medium sour crude Mars reached its strongest differential in recent history on February 14, when it was assessed at an $8.10/b premium to WTI cash. The differential has not been higher since January 22, 2014, when it was at WTI plus $9.30/b.

BP CEO Dudley- U.S. Shale Is A Market Without A Brain - The U.S. shale industry responds only to oil price signals and is like “a market without brain”, BP’s chief executive Bob Dudley said on Tuesday. “The U.S. is the only country that completely responds to market signals ... like a market without a brain. It just responds to price signals,” Reuters quoted Dudley as saying at the ongoing International Petroleum Week conference in London.“Unlike Saudi Arabia and Russia, which adjust their output in response to gluts or shortages in oil supplies, the U.S. shale market responds purely to oil prices,” said the CEO of the UK oil supermajor, which completed last year a US$10.5-billion deal to buy U.S. shale assets from BHP in what was BP’s biggest acquisition this century, and one that BP will rely on for boosting production and margins. The acquisition adds oil and gas production of 190,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) and 4.6 billion oil equivalent barrels (boe) of discovered resources in the liquids-rich regions of the Permian and Eagle Ford basins in Texas and in the Haynesville natural gas basin in East Texas and Louisiana, BP says.The U.S. shale sector is sensitive to oil prices and drillers respond to them by adding or reducing working rigs, also because shale production is shorter-cycle and easier to switch on and off than complex conventional oil projects. While OPEC and its Russia-led allies have been looking for two years now at supply and demand and adjusting production to avoid another oil glut similar to the one that crashed oil prices in 2014, U.S. shale has been benefiting from the OPEC/non-OPEC coordinated market action and the increase in oil prices over the past two years. Producers have been pumping record amounts of crude oil in the United States, which is already the world’s top oil producer ahead of Russia and Saudi Arabia.

The Permian Is A Double-Edged Sword For Oil Majors - The oil majors are scrambling to scale up their shale operations, and they are quickly becoming the most dominant producers in the shale sector, despite having arrived late to the party.The early days of shale drilling was done by small and medium-size drillers. Over the last few years, the oil majors like ExxonMobil and Chevron are taking on a much greater role in U.S. shale, particularly in the Permian basin.Chevron’s Permian production shot up to 377,000 bpd in the fourth quarter of 2018, up 172,000 bpd from a year earlier. The company’s production was up 70 percent on an annual basis.Looking forward, Chevron expects to keep its spending mostly flat in the Permian while ramping up in other basins. “We’ve seen significant reductions in development costs in the Marcellus, in the Duvernay and in the Vaca Muerta, as we’ve shared the learnings and improvements that are emanating from the large-scale activity we have in the Permian, the economics on each of these are compelling,” Wirth said.But even as Chevron boasted of achieving production growth in the Permian as well as transferring the lessons learned to other basins, there are still questions about the profitability of the company’s assets in West Texas. “In the Permian, we remain focused on returns. We’re not chasing our production target, nor are we altering our plans based on the price of the day,” Chevron’s CEO Michael Wirth told analysts on an earnings call.  Chevron maintains that it will be cash flow positive in the Permian by 2020 and that the company would allocate much of additional cash flow to shareholder distributions. The company appears confident about the path that it is on in West Texas.

Texas Oil Production Is High, So Why Are Gas Prices On The Rise, Too?Last week, prices at Texas gas pump spiked by 14 cents on average — the highest weekly average in about two years. At a time when the headlines are full of news about plentiful oil in the Permian Basin, shouldn’t gasoline prices in Texas be on the decline? Matt Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData says oil’s market price, not the amount being pumped, determines how much gas at the pump costs. “Well the reason for it. . . is because of the recent rise in oil prices,” Smith says. “The oil price move has the biggest impact on the underlying price of gasoline. And we’ve seen oil prices rise about a third since Christmastime, and so this is getting priced into the pump.” But the rise isn’t over. “The unfortunate thing is that it works on a lagged basis, so the bad news is we have higher prices ahead of us,” Smith says.  And oil prices in Texas aren’t being influenced by the flood of oil from the Permian.“A lot of U.S. refiners are still paying that global benchmark price for oil,” Smith says. “We still import about 8 million barrels a day. . . even though we’re hitting record production levels of 12 million barrels a day. The rising oil price on a global basis is due to a number of factors, including OPEC production cuts, the turmoil in Venezuela, and the sanctions on Iran. And then this global price is hitting the pump on a regional basis.”And the oil being produce in the Permian Basin is not “the right type of oil.” “In the Permian Basin, [it’s] light, sweet, domestic crude which is high-quality stuff. The issue is that the U.S. Gulf refiners are geared towards refining heavier, more sour, low-quality crude. . . that we get from the Middle East, from Venezuela, from these other OPEC members. Even though we may be seeing production continue to rise, U.S. refiners cannot use all of that,” Smith says.

Oil field boom comes with an increase in deadly and serious accidents, study says -  The booming Texas energy production has increased jobs in oil field communities across Texas. But it has also led to a rise in traffic fatalities and injuries, according to TXDOT. In 2017, the state's five main oil and gas production regions saw a rise in traffic fatalities (1,614) and injuries (7.422) According to a press release from the Texas Department of Transportation, there are several factors that contribute to these numbers, including weather and road conditions.TxDOT officials say speeding and driver inattention are the main reasons we are seeing a rise in traffic crashes in areas such as the Barnett Shale, Eagle Ford Shale, Granite Wash, Haynesville/Bossier Shale and Permian Basin. The release says alcohol is also a major part of the problem.The title of the release itself states "Traffic Fatalities, Injuries Edge Higher in Energy-Producing Areas of Texas."The statistics are compiled from data collected by the Texas Department of Transportation. This includes many counties in the Eagle Ford Shale, which covers a large part of central and southwest Texas.

Pipeline company paying to relocate residents near spill - The owner of the pipeline that ruptured in December near Berino, spilling 294,000 gallons of gasoline into an irrigation ditch, is now hoping to permanently relocate three residents located near the spill site. Officials of Kinder Morgan, owner of the pipeline, told the Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday that negotiations have been completed to relocate two renters of houses adjacent to the spill site. Negotiations are continuing with the third resident, who owns all three homes and which sit on a single parcel. Kinder Morgan representatives said those negotiations are progressing and could be completed as soon as this week. The company is seeking to buy the property. Residents were evacuated after the Dec. 13 spill. They have been housed for much of the time since then at hotels. Company officials said it made more sense to relocate them permanently rather than requiring them to continue to stay in hotels until cleanup efforts are complete. “It’s not required by any regulation,” Allen Fore, Kinder Morgan’s vice president of public affairs, told commissioners on Tuesday. “But for the extended inconvenience that it has been to residents, to us this seemed like a better long-term resolution.”

Conservationists fight oil shale plan in eastern Utah (AP) — A coalition of environmental groups objected Tuesday to the U.S. government’s approval of the early stages of an oil shale project near the Utah-Colorado border by a company with ties to Estonia. An intent to sue filed by a coalition including Earthjustice and the Center for Biological Diversity challenges the Bureau of Land Management’s September decision to allow Enefit American Oil to build transmission lines and pipelines on a 19-mile corridor on federal lands. It is the first step required by law before being able to sue. The BLM now has two months to respond. The project “would drain billions of gallons of water from the Green River, threaten endangered species and generate enormous amounts of greenhouse gas pollution,” the coalition said in a news release. Bureau of Land Management spokesman Ryan Sutherland said the agency doesn’t comment on pending lawsuits. Enefit American Oil CEO Ryan Clerico said in an email that production is years away and will require additional government approvals. The company cooperated with officials during the environmental review process, Clerico said. The approved plan is the “best environmental option,” Clerico said. The Utah-based company is a subsidiary of Eesti Energia AS, Estonia’s national energy company. Estonia, a country of 1.3 million people, gets a major chunk of its electricity needs from oil shale. The company has invested $60 million to date in the Utah project, which would produce an estimated 50,000 barrels a day if the site is fully built out, Clerico said. It took six years to get the first governmental approval. Oil shale mining involves higher operating costs than traditional drilling but can be profitable when crude prices are high. That’s not currently the case. The price of crude oil was $55 a barrel Tuesday, down from a peak of $147 in 2008. Oil shale comes from crumbly rock that contains a material called kerogen, which can be heated and separated from the rock and then processed and turned into liquid oil. Utah has been targeted before by oil companies for oil sands mines, but no company has made it all the way through the permitting process and to production. Low oil prices in recent years have reduced the financial incentive.

Weld County oil and gas spill report for Feb. 24 - The following spills were reported to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in the past two weeks. Information is based on Form 19, which operators must fill out detailing the leakage/spill events. Any spill release that may impact waters of the state must be reported as soon as practical. Any spill of five barrels or more must be reported within 24 hours, and any spill of one barrel or more, which occurs outside secondary containment, such as metal or earthen berms, must also be reported within 24 hours, according to COGCC rules. Spills and leaks typically are found during routine maintenance on existing wells, though some actual “spills” do occur among the 24,000-plus wells in the county.

• • HIGHPOINT OPERATING CORPORATION, reported Feb. 21 a hauling spill about 10 miles northwest of Wiggins, near Weld County roads 89 and 87. Between five and 100 barrels of drill cuttings and associated mud spilled. A truck driver hauling drill cutting from the rig to the spreadfield lost some of the load on the surface of Weld road 89. The cuttings were loaded too wet, causing the curve to shift when the truck drove around a curve, spilling materials over the side of the side-dump trailer. Materials, which were frozen, were scraped up and removed.
• • NOBLE ENERGY INC, reported Feb. 19 a historical tank battery spill about 2 miles east of LaSalle, near Weld roads 50 and 43. Less than one barrel each of oil, condensate and produced water spilled. Waters of the state were impacted or threatened. Crews found impacts after dismantling the tank battery.
• • NGL WATER SOLUTIONS DJ LLC, reported Feb. 16 a well spill about 5 miles southeast of Galeton, near Colo. 392 and Weld road 61.75. About 200 barrels of produced water spilled. Company officials do not know the details of the spill, but will continue to supplement the initial report.
• • KERR MCGEE OIL & GAS ONSHORE LP, reported Feb. 15 a historical tank battery spill about 4 miles south of LaSalle, near Weld roads 38 and 39. Less than five barrels of oil, condensate and produced water spilled. Crews found impacts after abandoning the production facility.
• • NOBLE ENERGY INC, reported Feb. 15 a historical tank battery spill about 5 miles south of Kersey, near Weld roads 46 and 55. Between one and five barrels each of oil, condensate and produced water spilled. Waters of the state were impacted or threatened. Crews found the spill after dismantling the tank battery.
• • KERR MCGEE OIL & GAS ONSHORE LP,reported Feb. 14 a centralized waste management facility spill about 3 miles northwest of Fort Lupton, near Weld roads 18 and 21. About 30 barrels of tank bottom fluids spilled. A third-party trucking company released the fluids on the ground.

Fracking Reforms Are Coming to the Capitol — and So Is a Climate Bill - Anticipation is mounting at the State Capitol as Democrats prepare to unveil a major package of reforms to Colorado oil and gas law — but as contentious as that fight will undoubtedly be, it might not be the most ambitious energy legislation that lawmakers take up this year.Alongside the long-awaited fracking bill, Democratic leadership is crafting what will likely be Colorado’s most significant piece of climate-change legislation to date: a proposal that would, among other things, dramatically increase the state’s goals for reducing carbon emissions. Details of both efforts are still being kept under wraps, but oil and gas legislation could be introduced as early as next week, with a climate bill following soon afterward. “We hope to introduce legislation in the next few weeks because the time for climate action is now,” House Speaker KC Becker, a Democrat from Boulder, said in a statement on Thursday, February 21. “The administration in Washington is failing to address this challenge, and the broader contours of legislation are still being worked out.” Activists from 350 Colorado and other climate advocacy groups visited the Capitol on Thursday to urge lawmakers to support a wide range of aggressive climate actions, including a halt to new oil and gas drilling, divesting the state’s pension funds, and rapid decarbonization of transportation and agriculture. “We’re really pushing hard for what we believe is in line with climate science,” says Micah Parkin, 350 Colorado’s executive director. “Future generations are dependent on what we do right now, so we’re calling for really bold, science-based action.”

Government: Highway shutdown not aimed at tribe, media (AP) — Government officials say the five-month shutdown of a North Dakota highway during protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline was not aimed at manipulating the media or the American Indian tribe that has led the protracted fight against the project. Authorities had justifiable cause for closing the stretch of state Highway 1806 that included limiting disruptions to a project deemed by President Donald Trump to be in the national interest, attorneys for Morton County and state officials, including former Gov. Jack Dalrymple, argued in recent court filings in a lawsuit over the shutdown. State Deputy Solicitor General James Nicolai said people he called violent criminals “had infiltrated the protest and turned it from a peaceful protest into a criminal riot.” Their argument comes in response to a lawsuit by Standing Rock Sioux tribal members and others who say the closure was aimed not only at protesters but also at influencing the tribe’s position and the media coverage. The protest in 2016 and 2017 resulted in 761 arrests in six months, most of them near protest camps between the pipeline construction route and the reservation. Two of the camps, including one that morphed into a small city with at times thousands of people, were bordered on another side by the highway. State officials blocked off a stretch of the highway in October 2016 after fires were set on a bridge and didn’t reopen it until March 2017, after repairs and the shutdown of the camps . The $3.8 billion pipeline began moving North Dakota oil to Illinois three months later. A reservation businesswoman, two pipeline opponents and a reservation church priest sued last October over the highway shutdown, seeking unspecified monetary damages from Morton County, its sheriff, several state officials and a company that oversaw private security for Texas-based pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners.

Injured pipeline protester argues for lawsuit to proceed (AP) — A New York City woman severely injured while protesting the Dakota Access oil pipeline in North Dakota says she deserves an opportunity to gather more evidence from the government to prove her claim in federal court that she was intentionally targeted with a concussion grenade. Attorneys for Sophia Wilansky are fighting a government effort to have her lawsuit thrown out for lack of proof that her civil rights were violated due to excessive force by law enforcement. Wilansky suffered a left arm injury in an explosion during a violent November 2016 clash between police and opponents of the $3.8 billion pipeline that Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners built to move North Dakota oil to Illinois. She maintains she has limited use of the arm despite five surgeries and seeks millions of dollars for alleged excessive force, assault, negligence, emotional distress and defamation. Wilansky sued local and state law enforcement officials and Morton County in November, alleging that an unknown law officer threw a flashbang device directly at her. Government officials maintain the explosion was caused by a propane canister that protesters rigged to explode, and last month they asked a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit , saying there is no evidence officers violated her rights through excessive force. Wilansky’s attorneys in their response filed Monday note that the two sides have not yet exchanged evidence and also assert that the government’s claims fall flat. “The law is unambiguous that intentionally targeting a peaceful protester with a flashbang constitutes excessive force in violation of the United States Constitution,” attorney Edward Barnidge wrote. “Every reasonable officer knows that hitting someone with a flashbang will likely cause serious harm, or even death. Thus, it is only reasonable to infer that Officer (John) Doe intended to injure Sophia,” Barnidge said. “If Sophia’s injury had been unintended, Officer Doe’s co-workers would have gasped in horror, not cheered.”

Tribe says Corps’ pipeline findings preordained (AP) — The Native American tribe leading the fight against the Dakota Access oil pipeline said Thursday that an Army Corps of Engineers document shows the agency concluded the pipeline won’t unfairly affect tribes before it consulted them. Standing Rock Sioux officials say the document, which they shared with The Associated Press, bolsters the tribe’s claim that the Corps disregarded a federal judge’s order to seriously review the pipeline’s potential impact on the Standing Rock Sioux and three other Dakotas-based tribes and to not treat the study as a “bureaucratic formality.” “This was a rigged process intended to justify a dangerous and illegal pipeline,” Standing Rock Chairman Mike Faith said in a statement to the AP. The Justice Department declined to comment Thursday. The Corps has said previously that the four tribes suing to shut down the pipeline that began delivering North Dakota oil to a shipping point in Illinois two years ago have been difficult to work with. And the agency did meet with the tribes before it presented its study findings to U.S. District Judge James Boasberg. The tribes fear the pipeline could spill oil into the Missouri River and pollute water they rely on for drinking, fishing and religious purposes. Boasberg said the Corps “largely complied” with environmental law when permitting the pipeline, but he also ordered it to further study the pipeline’s impact on the tribes. Boasberg later said he “expects the Corps not to treat (this) as an exercise in filling out the proper paperwork” after the fact, though he also said he thought there was a “serious possibility” that the agency would be able to substantiate its prior conclusions.

North Dakota energy bill criticized as 'flat-out taking' of private property rights - Attorneys who represent landowners are raising concerns about an energy bill that sailed through the North Dakota Senate, with one calling it a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” that takes away private property rights. Senate Bill 2344 follows a study that found it may be economically viable to temporarily store natural gas underground as an alternative to flaring. Supporters of the bill say it removes uncertainty related to mineral developers’ ability to use pore space, or the cavity or void underground where gas would be injected and temporarily stored. But Steve Easton, an attorney who represented landowners in a case upheld by the North Dakota Supreme Court, said oil and gas companies already have the right to use pore space, and the bill is not needed. The bill would take away the option for compensation for landowners. Ownership of the pore space belongs to the surface owner, not the mineral owner. In addition to gas storage, the bill also has implications for underground storage of carbon dioxide, enhanced oil recovery operations and saltwater disposal wells. “This is the oil and gas industry saying we should be able to take the property rights of a farmer and rancher in North Dakota without even paying for them,” said Easton, who served as U.S. attorney for the District of North Dakota in the early 1990s. The bill also adds a definition of land, specifying that land “means the solid material of earth, regardless of ingredients, but excludes pore space.” Easton said the words “but excludes pore space” seem innocuous, but is a major shift in North Dakota law.

Dakota Access developer sues Greenpeace in state court (AP) — The developer of the Dakota Access oil pipeline is going after the environmental group Greenpeace in state court in North Dakota, after a judge tossed the company’s $1 billion racketeering claim out of federal court. Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners on Thursday sued Greenpeace and several activists it also had targeted in the federal lawsuit that U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson dismissed on Feb. 14. Wilson said he found no evidence of a coordinated criminal enterprise that had worked to undermine ETP and its pipeline project. ETP had made claims under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and also under North Dakota laws. Wilson did not address the merits of the state claims. ETP seeks “millions of dollars of damages” in the state lawsuit, which makes similar claims to its federal lawsuit — that Greenpeace and activists conspired to use illegal and violent means such as arson and harassment to disrupt pipeline construction and damage the company, all the while using the highly publicized and prolonged protest to enrich themselves through donations. “Defendants thus advanced their extremist agenda ... through means far outside the bounds of democratic political action, protest, and peaceful, legally protected expression of dissent,” company attorney Lawrence Bender wrote in the complaint. Greenpeace on Friday had not yet been served with the lawsuit and declined to comment on its specifics. However, Greenpeace attorney Deepa Padmanabha said ETP “is clearly still trying to bully Greenpeace through the legal system.”

Protesters blast gas fracking needed for Kalama methanol plant — In a plea to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee to stop projects like the proposed $2 billion Kalama methanol plant, about 100 people gathered at the state Capitol on Thursday to oppose manufacturing facilities that use fracked natural gas. Speakers and organizers specifically called out the Tacoma LNG project and the proposed $2 billion methanol plant that Northwest Innovation Works (NWIW) aims to build at the Port of Kalama. Environmentalist group Columbia Riverkeeper, which organized the rally, said it also delivered 130,000 public comments to the Governor’s Office opposing “fracked” gas projects. Fracking is the controversial process of drilling into the ground and then injecting a high-pressure water mixture into the rock to release the natural gas inside. DesRosier said she was concerned about potential environmental, health and tourism impacts of the plant on the community. “We have new businesses coming to town,” DesRosier told the crowd. “We should be encouraging this movement, not putting in a business that would be a negative when people investigate moving to or visiting our community.” NWIW plans to convert natural gas into methanol, a key ingredient in plastics manufacturing, which would then be shipped to Asia. Chief Commercial Officer and General Counsel Kent Caputo said the rally was a form of communication that NWIW wants to be a part of. Over time, Caputo said, it’s necessary to find alternatives to natural gas. But the methanol plant is a step in the right direction, he said.

Sumas natural gas leaps $23 to trade at $40/MMBtu — Volatility returned to the Sumas, Washington, pricing point on the US-Canadian border as cash prices there jumped Tuesday on continued constricted flows into the location. Flows at Enbridge Westcoast Energy Station 4B South were 1.5 Bcf Tuesday, down from an average 1.7 Bcf for the rest of February. Flows were slated to fall to 1.4 Bcf/d from Wednesday through March 6 for a scheduled tool run and digs. As a result, gas at Sumas settled at $39.43/MMBtu a $22 day-on-day jump and the second-highest daily change so far this year, trading between $25/MMBtu-$50/MMBtu in the day. Further upstream, Westcoast Station 2 settled at negative C 3.5 cents/Gj, down 64 Canadian cents day on day as gas remains stranded in production areas. Cash prices jumped $28 February 9, when cash prices settled at $48/MMBtu as demand surged in Canada and the western US, pushing up prices. Further down the line, the maintenance work is expected to restrict inflows to the Pacific Northwest through Sumas as flows are expected to total to 722 MMcf Tuesday, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics data. On February 1, Sumas flows were 941 MMcf. Looking ahead, demand is likely to rise near term as the National Weather Service forecast calls for below-average temperatures across much of the western US for the next two weeks. Market participants seem to be expecting the spot market to come off from the $40/MMBtu level. In Inside FERC March bidweek action over the past two days, Sumas has averaged $6.65/MMBtu, some $33.35 below the current cash price.

One million litres of oil spilled in Manitoba train derailment - The Transportation Safety Board confirmed that at least one million litres of oil was spilled during a train derailment on Feb. 16. The TSB said the train was travelling east at 79 km/h, when it experienced a “train-initiated emergency brake application,” which prompted 37 out of 110 railcars to go off the tracks near St. Lazare, Man. The fifth and sixth cars stayed upright and weren’t damaged, while the other 35 piled up over a distance of about 300 to 400 feet. Around 16 cars broke open and spilled at least 1 million litres of oil onto a small area on top of deep ice and snow on a pond. The TSB said the spill was “mostly contained in a low-lying area adjacent to the track.” There were no fires, no one was hurt and there were no evacuations. The TSB has finished their on-site work, and said seven of damaged cars are going to be further examined further for a tank car performance evaluation. Some parts of the track and wheels are being sent to an engineering lab in Ottawa for further analysis as well. 

Trans Mountain pipeline gets energy regulator support -  Canada's national energy regulator has recommended the Trans Mountain pipeline project receive federal approval. The National Energy Board (NEB) says the project is in the public interest despite posing "significant" harm to the local killer whale population. It said the oil project is justified based on its economic benefits. The regulator was asked last year to revisit its recommendations of the controversial project after a federal court quashed an earlier approval. The NEB issued 156 binding modified conditions and 16 non-binding recommendations it says could mitigate the harmful environmental impacts to the region's endangered killer whales and the Salish Sea, a busy inland network of waterways ranging from just north of Vancouver to Puget Sound in Washington. The recommendations include offsetting underwater noise, oil spill response, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from increased shipping. Critics of the pipeline project on Friday called the NEB report "a rubber stamp" and vowed continued opposition. A new round of consultations with the 117 indigenous groups affected by the project is ongoing and it still needs to received approval from the federal government. The expansion project would triple the existing pipeline's capacity, increasing its capacity from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 per day from Alberta, the heart of Canada's oil industry, to Burnaby, British Columbia (BC). It would increase oil tanker traffic on BC's coast from five to up to 34 tankers a month, tankers that would carry the oil along from Pacific coast refineries to world markets.

Feds in 'very strong position' to wrap Indigenous Trans Mountain consultations within 90 days: Sohi - The federal government is well-placed to wrap up consultations with 117 Indigenous communities over the Trans Mountain expansion within 90 days.  But Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi says they will stay at the table if talks take longer.  In an interview with the West Block’s Mercedes Stephenson, Sohi said the recommendation of the National Energy Board on Friday that the controversial pipeline expansion go forward — with conditions — marks a “major milestone” and that he is hopeful a separate stream of consultations with impacted Indigenous communities will also conclude within the next three months.  “The work that we have done so far and the work we will continue to do in the coming months, I can tell you that I feel that we are in a very strong position to conclude these consultations within the next 90 days,” he said. “But we must get it right.”  Last summer, the Federal Court of Appeal slapped an injunction on work for the Trans Mountain expansion. At issue was what the ruling described as an inadequate review by the National Energy Board (NEB) of marine impacts of the expansion on the West Coast, as well as a failure by the Liberal government to adequately consult with Indigenous stakeholders along the pipeline route. The first prompted a new review by the NEB that recommended on Friday that the project proceed, subject to 156 conditions and recommendations including reducing the amount of emissions from tankers passing through the terminal area and decreasing underwater noise to reduce impacts on nearby whales. There is now a 90-day time frame for the federal cabinet to decide how and if the project should go forward.

Oil, natural gas sector project approvals seen tripling in 2019- Rystad - Project approvals for conventional oil and gas projects could almost triple this year in terms of volumes as operators catch up on delayed spending, new LNG projects move forward and Saudi Arabia greenlights major offshore projects, according to researchers at Rystad Energy. Excluding spending on shale and tight oil and gas prospects, collective FIDs were expected to unlock more than 46 billion barrels of oil equivalent in 2019, the Norwegian research group said, up from about 16 billion boe in 2018. Years of tough capital discipline by operators, lower industry costs and firmer prices are fueling an uptick in upstream spending after billions of dollars in projects were shelved in the wake of the 2014 oil price collapse. Most of the new planned projects are giant, capital-intensive LNG plants with multi-billion boe developments, such as Mozambique LNG and the Russian Arctic. LNG expansions in Qatar and Papua New Guinea are also eyeing FIDs, while those for deepwater oil off Brazil, Guyana, and Norway are also on the cards. "The only supply segment likely to shrink this year is the oil sands, whereas deepwater, offshore shelf and other conventional onshore developments are all poised to show substantial growth," Rystad upstream research analyst Readul Islam said in a statement. Saudi Arabia was also expected to approve three major offshore shelf expansion projects that would collectively account for nearly one-fifth of global FID volumes this year, Islam said. He said, however, there were downside risks to the FID forecast, noting that potential delays to just a few mega-projects expected in 2019 could significantly affect total volumes approved. In spite of the expected surge in big FIDs this year, Rystad also cautioned that growth opportunities for the oilfield service sector will remain limited, given that the actual FID count is only seen growing by 12% on 2018. Almost all the expected FIDs this year are for fields of 25 million boe and above.

Frackers Face Harsh Reality as Wall Street Backs Away - Key lifeline for smaller operators fades, as losses pile up and prospects dim for big investment returns. The once-powerful partnership between fracking companies and Wall Street is fraying as the industry struggles to attract investors after nearly a decade of losing money. Frequent infusions of Wall Street capital have sustained the U.S. shale boom. But that largess is running out. New bond and equity deals have dwindled to the lowest level since 2007. Companies raised about $22 billion from equity and debt financing in 2018, less than half the total in 2016 and almost one-third of what they raised in 2012. The loss of that lifeline is forcing shale companies—which have helped to turn the U.S. into an energy superpower—to reduce spending and face the prospect of slower growth. More than a dozen companies have announced spending reductions so far this year, even as crude-oil prices have rallied more than 20% from December lows. More are expected to tighten budgets as they release earnings in coming weeks. Shares of Continental Resources Inc. fell 5.4% Tuesday after the shale company, founded by billionaire Harold Hamm, disclosed that fourth-quarter spending was almost 10% higher than analyst expectations. Wall Street support allowed shale companies to persevere through a plunge in oil prices that began in 2014, eventually helping the U.S. surpass Saudi Arabia and Russia as the world’s largest producer of oil, with 11.9 million barrels a day in November, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. 

Wall Street Loses Faith In Shale --To Wall Street, the shale industry has lost a lot of its allure. A decade’s worth of promises have failed to materialize, and Big Finance is cutting some of its ties with smaller shale drillers who have not delivered.  The Wall Street Journal reports that the shale industry only saw $22 billion in new bond and equity deals, down by more than half from 2016 levels, which was a much worse time for the market.The steep decline in new debt and equity issuance is a sign that major investors are no longer rushing to finance unprofitable shale drilling. It’s worth noting that this is a new development. For years Wall Street financed unprofitable drilling, holding out on the promise that rapid production growth would eventually pay off.Shale wells suffer from precipitous decline rates, with as much as three quarters of a well’s total lifetime production coming out in the first year or two. After an initial burst of output, shale wells enter a steep decline.Of course, this has been known since the beginning and Wall Street has long been fully aware. But major investors hoped that shale companies would scale up, achieve efficiencies and lower breakeven prices to the point that they could turn a profit.However, that has not been the case. While there are some drillers that are profitable, taken as a whole the industry has been cash flow negative essentially since its beginning in the mid-2000s. For instance, the IEA estimates that the shale industry posted cumulative negative free cash flow of over $200 billion between 2010 and 2014.The red ink has narrowed since then, but so too has the patience from Wall Street. In 2018, even as oil prices hit their highest levels in years, new debt and equity issuance plunged. That makes it harder for small and even medium-sized companies to finance growth. It’s not all that surprising, then, that a wave of spending cuts have cropped up in the last few months.The WSJ notes that the credit environment also worsened when the market hit its nadir in 2016. Regulators tightened lending requirements, raising the cost of capital for indebted drillers. That, of course, made it even more difficult for these drillers to turn a profit.  To top it off, all of these pesky investors are much more demanding than they used to be, calling on companies to stop spending so much and instead return cash to shareholders. That leaves less capital available to inject back into the ground. Taking a step back, explosive shale growth was only possible because in the context of the post-2008 financial crisis and the response by the Federal Reserve to drop interest rates close to zero, something Bethany McLean argues in her book, “Saudi America.” Cheap money financed the debt-fueled shale revolution.

Shale Growth Is Nearing An Inflection Point - Drilling activity has plateaued in much of the U.S., with the rig count zig-zagging well below the peak from last November.The rig count often rises and falls in response to oil prices, but on a several-month lag. It takes some time before oil companies make drilling decisions in response to major price movements. As such, the price meltdown in the fourth quarter of 2018 is still working its way through the system. But the U.S. shale industry has already begun to tap the brakes. Total U.S. oil rigs are stood at 853 for the week ending on February 22, down from a peak of 888 in November. In particular, the Permian – often held up as the most profitable and prolific shale basin – has seen the rig count decline to a nine-month low.Production continues to rise, to be sure, but the growth rate could soon flatten out. “We estimate that the y/y change in US oil drilling will, for the first time since 2016, turn negative by late May, should the current trend of gentle declines continue,” Standard Chartered analysts led by Paul Horsnell wrote in a note. At the same time, oil prices are rising again, and are up roughly 25 percent since the start of the year. If WTI tops $60, many shale drillers could find themselves feeling confident all over again, and could pour money and rigs back into the field.That said, multiple drillers have laid out more conservative and restrained drilling programs, facing pressure from shareholders not to overspend. According to Bloombergand RS Energy Group, U.S. E&Ps have trimmed their spending plans by 4 percent on average, while at the same time they still expect production to grow by 7 percent.

Have We Already Passed World Peak Oil And World Peak Coal? - Gail Tverberg - Most people expect that our signal of an impending reduction in world oil or coal production will be high prices. Looking at historical data (for example, this post and this post), this is precisely the opposite of the correct price signal. Oil and coal supplies decline because prices fall too low for producers. These producers make voluntary cutbacks because the prices they receive fall below their cost of production. There often are supply gluts at the same time. This strange situation arises because prices must be high enough for the producers at the same time that goods and services made by oil (and other energy products) are inexpensive enough for consumers to afford. There is a two way battle taking place:

• (1) Prices producers require tend to rise over time, because of depletion. The easiest to extract portion of any resource (such as oil, coal, copper, or lithium) tends to be removed first. What is left tends to be deeper, lower quality, or otherwise more difficult to extract cheaply.
• (2) Prices consumers can afford for discretionary goods (such as cell phones and automobiles) tend to fall for a combination of reasons:
  • Wages of many workers fall because of competition from lower cost labor in other countries.
  • Some jobs are eliminated through the use of computers or robots.
  • Young people are increasingly being required to pay for higher education (beyond that which is provided free), leaving many with loans to repay, reducing their discretionary income.
  • Changes to US healthcare law (mostly starting January 1, 2014) lead to required health insurance premiums. While some citizens find cost savings in this approach, healthy young people often experience cutbacks in discretionary income as a result.
  • Rents and home prices keep rising faster than incomes.

When the discretionary income of the many non-elite workers of the world falls, they buy fewer finished goods and services. Finished goods and services are manufactured using commodities of many kinds, including oil, coal, copper, iron ore, and fresh water. When discretionary demand falls, commodity prices tend to fall. This is the problem we are encountering now. It tends to cause the prices of many commodities to fall below the cost of production. Eventually, producers decide to quit because production is no longer profitable. This is the issue that leads to peak oil, coal or copper.

The $32 Trillion Push To Disrupt The Entire Oil Industry -- Global oil and gas companies are increasingly facing an uphill battle as global warming policies are taking their toll. Most analysts and market watchers are focusing on peak oil demand scenarios, but the reality could be much darker. International oil companies (IOCs) are likely to face a Black Swan scenario, which could end up being a boon for state-owned oil companies (NOCs).Increased shareholder activism, combined with global warming policies of institutional investors and NGOs, are pushing IOCs in a corner, constricting financing options for oil companies. The first signs of a green revolution in the shareholder-investors universe are there, as investors have forced Dutch oil and gas major Shell to officially change its strategy, investing in more renewable energy and energy storage. The Dutch IOC wasn’t forced by to do so because of mismanagement or a lack of reserves but due to a well-orchestrated investor/stakeholder offensive. Several other peers, such as BP, ENI or Total, are expected to experience comparable situations. And it has become clear that not only oil and gas giants are being targeted, after one of the world’s largest mining and commodity trading companies, Glencore, decided to put a limit on its thermal coal investment. The group stated that this was done after it was confronted by a largely unknown shareholder network called Climate Action 100+, which claims to be backed by more than 300 investors, managing assets of around $32 trillion. The group was founded a little over a year ago but has already forced oil majors’ boardrooms to take radical decisions. For Climate Action 100+, which includes investors such as Calpers, Allianz SE, and HSBC Global Asset Management, making profitable investments remains a top priority, but they will no longer look accept a passive stance towards climate change. Without complying with the demands of NGOs and socially engaged investors, access to new capital for new oil and gas upstream projects will be reduced. To force IOCs, such as Shell or BP, to comply with policies that would halve their “net carbon footprint” by 2050 could result in a death-wish for these companies in the long-run.

Marathon Oil Exits UK North Sea In Continued Focus On U.S. Shale - Marathon Oil said on Monday that it would be exiting the UK North Sea as it continues to focus on high-return U.S. shale oil operations.Houston-based Marathon Oil has signed an agreement with independent UK company RockRose Energy to sell its UK businesses Marathon Oil U.K. LLC (MOUK) and Marathon Oil West of Shetland Limited (MOWOS), which hold interests in fields in the Greater Brae Area, in Foinaven Field unit, and in Foinaven East. RockRose Energy will assume all obligations associated with MOUK and MOWOS operations in the UK, including decommissioning liability, Marathon Oil said.The price of the sale—subject to customary adjustments—would be around US$140 million, the U.S. company said.The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2019, with an effective date of January 1, 2019. As of the end of 2018, Marathon Oil carried 21.4 million barrels of oil equivalent of proved reserves in the UK, and 2018 production averaged around 13,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.“Today’s announcement to divest our U.K. business represents our continued commitment to portfolio management and further concentrates our portfolio on high margin, high return U.S. resource plays,” Marathon Oil chairman, president, and CEO Lee Tillman said in a statement. In March last year, Marathon Oil sold its 16.33 percent non-operated interest in the Waha concessions in Libya to France’s Total for US$450 million, exiting Libya. Earlier this month, Marathon Oil said that it would be spending US$2.4 billion in 2019, with more than 95 percent of that capital budget being allocated to its four key U.S. resource plays—the Eagle Ford, the Bakken, STACK/SCOOP in Oklahoma, and Northern Delaware in the Permian.   Marathon Oil’s U.S. resource play production averaged 295,000 net boed in the fourth quarter of 2018, with oil production averaging 174,000 net bopd, up 22 percent from Q4 2017. For this year, the company expects its total oil production to rise by 10 percent, with U.S. oil growth at 12 percent.

Spain's Enagas expects 2.40 million cu m LNG imports in March — Spanish shippers have increased their scheduled March LNG intake by 500,000 cu m, or 26%, compared with initial nominations, according to data published by gas grid operator Enagas. The country is set to receive 18 tankers, or 2.40 million cu m, of LNG, up from nominations a month ago of 14 tankers, or 1.90 million cu m. The additional cargoes will be spread across the ports of Barcelona, Huelva, Sagunto and Mugardos. As a result, LNG send-out in March will be 2.9 TWh, or 20%, higher at 17.2 TWh (1.55 Bcm) compared with nominations at the end of last month. By contrast, pipeline flows were seen dropping 22% to 17.9 TWh, driven by a 24% fall in Algerian imports. The imports schedule at Tarifa has been reduced by 0.8 TWh to 3.0 TWh, while volume through Almeria has been revised down by 1.9 TWh to 5.3 TWh, according to the schedule. Trade flows within Europe were also seen lower in March, as imports from France were scheduled to be down 1.1 TWh to 5.7 TWh and exports to Portugal down 670 GWh. The demand forecast for March was revised slightly higher, by 0.2 TWh to 33.6 TWh, with storage withdrawals also increasing by 1.1 TWh compared with initial nominations. As a result, natural gas stock inventories at the end of March were seen at 18.8 TWh or 57% full, while LNG stock inventories were seen at 10.4 TWh or 49% full, according to Enagas. For April, Spanish shippers have nominated 2.5 million cu m aboard 18 vessels. That is 20%, or 421,000 cu m, higher than the amount delivered in April 2018 and also 6% higher than Enagas's initial forecast requirement.

ExxonMobil makes world's third-biggest natural gas discovery in two years off the coast of Cyprus - Exxon Mobil announced on Thursday that it has made the world's third-biggest natural gas discovery in two years off the coast of Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean at the Glaucus-1 well. The region is already know for some of the world's largest such discoveries. It wants to become an alternative energy source for Europe.Based on preliminary interpretation of the well data, the discovery could represent a natural gas resource of approximately 5 trillion to 8 trillion cubic feet (142 billion to 227 billion cubic meters). Further analysis in the coming months will be required to better determine the resource potential."These are encouraging results in a frontier exploration area," said Steve Greenlee, president of Exxon MobilExploration Co. "The potential for this newly discovered resource to serve as an energy source for regional and global markets will be evaluated further."Glaucus-1 was the second of a two-well drilling program in Block 10. The well was safely drilled to 13,780 feet (4,200 meters) depth in 6,769 feet (2,063 meters) of water. The first well, Delphyne-1, did not encounter commercial quantities of hydrocarbons.Block 10 is 635,554 acres (2,572 square kilometers). In 2017, Exxon Mobil and state-owned Qatar Petroleum won the rights to explore for oil and gas in offshore areas south of Cyprus. The east Mediterranean island is located in the Levant basin, where both Israel and Egypt have found some of the largest reserves of natural gas in the past decade.In 2017, Exxon Mobil and state-owned Qatar Petroleum won the rights to explore for oil and gas in offshore areas south of Cyprus. Exxon Mobil owns a 60 percent stake in the block, while Qatar Petroleum holds the rest. At a press conference in Nicosia, Cyprus Energy Minister George Lakkotropis said he is excited about the findings. "It is an amazing development for all of Cyprus. This is the greatest discovery within our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). In the coming months, the amount of natural gas will be more accurately estimated," he said.

Britain's blocked fracking pipeline - Fracking in Britain is once again on hold after the first exploratory testing for seven years, at Cuadrilla’s single well at Little Plumpton in Lancashire, went badly – and then the government compounded the firm’s misery by turning down planning appeals on a second site with four more wells. Under the terms of Cuadrilla’s licence, it is required to stop work if earth tremors exceed 0.5 ML on the Richter scale – a level imperceptible to humans. Alas, that limit was hit so often that the firm says it was only able to frack 5% of its well. The firm complains the rules are so overcautious that they risk “strangling” the UK’s fracking industry “before birth”: no one will ever be able to do enough tests to work out whether fracking is really economically viable, or what a “safe” seismic limit is given the particular geology of these precise sites.Jim Ratcliffe of Ineos, which holds as yet unexploited fracking rights at other sites, has weighed in too, claiming the “unworkable” rules had no basis in science. But the government, so far, is holding firm. And if the standoff isn’t resolved, fracking in Britain will indeed be a non-starter. Why does it arouse such passions? Because its proponents think it could revolutionise Britain’s energy mix and make us self-sufficient for decades; whereas opponents think it is unsafe, could presage environmental catastrophe, and think it’s nuts to extract more fossil fuels when we urgently need to stop burning carbon. To fracking’s supporters, the example of the US provides a clear economic case for getting on with it: fracking has boosted its oil production, transformed it into the world’s biggest producer of natural gas, and boosted its energy security in the face of geopolitical uncertainty. Britain is a net importer of gas with decades of North Sea experience in the industry it could put to good use onshore. “Fracking in the US has cut energy bills, created jobs and rejuvenated depressed regions,” said a recent Times editorial. “It could do the same for Britain, as well as helping low-income families with fuel costs. Frack on!”

What is causing the Surrey earthquakes, and is it related to fracking - In a surprising turn of events, this morning saw parts of Surrey and West Sussex affected by an earthquake. The 3.7 magnitude and struck at 3.40am near Southwater, around 10 miles away from Gatwick airport, and was felt the most strongly in the Crawley, Reigate and Horley regions. David Welch told MailOnline: ‘My wife and I were watching TV and I heard what I thought was a rumble of thunder. ‘Next thing, she says the sofa is shaking. I’ve never known anything like it in my entire life. My wife is about to have kittens.’ It’s certainly not a regular occurrence to see earthquakes in this part of the world, but it isn’t the first time. The area around Gatwick Airport experienced a series of earthquakes last summer. There were three tremors in eight days in July with some describing experiences similar to ‘two huge explosions’. Why do earthquakes happen in the UK, and is it anything to do with fracking? According to the British Geographical Society, it’s not completely clear why we get earthquakes, although they tend to happen on geographical fault lines in the earth.What they also say is that reasons for quakes can ‘include regional compression caused by motion of the Earth’s tectonic plates, and uplift resulting from the melting of the ice sheets that covered many parts of Britain thousands of years ago.’In this particular instance, anti-fracking activists have surmised that it may be down to recent drilling in the area. Frack Free Surrey said it was ‘time to reopen the inquiry into the link with drilling at Horse Hill’.

China county suspends fracking after earthquakes kill 2 - — A county in western China has suspended drilling for shale gas after a protest by residents who suspected fracking work was the cause of a series of earthquakes that led to two deaths.The first quake hit Sichuan province’s Rongxian county on Sunday morning, followed by two more, including a magnitude 4.9 temblor on Monday afternoon that caused the two fatalities. Twelve people were injured, the county government said in a message on its microblog.Mining activities and handling of dangerous chemicals were also suspended but would be gradually restored, it said. It didn’t directly link the quakes to fracking, but acknowledged residents’ “suspicions.”Those measures were taken after about 1,000 area residents accompanied by 2,000 onlookers rallied outside a local government headquarters to demand that fracking be stopped, the government said in its statement. It said the crowd later dispersed without incident. Street protests over pollution and other environmental hazards are increasingly common in China, often organized over social media. The government statement said quakes were occurring “frequently” but gave no other details. The U.S. Geological Service said the 4.9 magnitude quake struck at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6.21 miles). Sichuan is regularly shaken by earthquakes, including a 7.9 magnitude quake in its mountainous western region on May 12, 2008 that killed nearly 90,000 people in China’s worst natural disaster in recent decades.

Deadly quakes in Chinese town trigger anti-fracking protest – Inkstone A Chinese county has suspended fracking operations after a series of deadly quakes triggered protests against the natural gas project.Three earthquakes of magnitude 4.7, 4.3 and 4.9 occurred in Rongxian county in the southwestern province of Sichuan between Sunday and Monday, causing two deaths and 12 injuries.Earthquakes touch a particularly sensitive nerve in Sichuan, where a magnitude-8 earthquakeleft 87,000 dead in 2008.  On Sunday and Monday afternoon, more than 1,000 residents gathered at the local government building, demanding the fracking projects be halted, the Rongxian government said on its official website. The protesters left after talking with local officials, the government said. Industrial pollution and accidents regularly lead to public outcry in China, where residents are often kept in the dark about the potential harm that installations such as energy or chemical plants may cause.

Oil leaked from Petrobras P-58 platform off Brazil –company (Reuters) - An estimated 188 cubic meters of oil leaked from Petroleo Brasileiro’s offshore P-58 platform in the early hours of Saturday, the Brazilian state-run oil company said. According to a securities filing, the leak occurred because of the failure of a hose as the oil was being transferred from the platform to an offtake tanker. The oil firm, known as Petrobras, said the transfer process was stopped immediately. The platform is in safe condition, there was no impact on operations and no one was injured, the statement said. The P-58 is located in the Campos basin, about 80 kilometers from the coast of Espírito Santo state. Two vessels are in place for containment of the leak, and initial studies indicate there is no risk of the spilled oil reaching the Brazilian coast, Petrobras said.

Brazil oil regulator to investigate Petrobras oil spill - (Reuters) - Brazil’s oil regulator said on Monday that is has started an investigation into an oil spill at an offshore platform owned by Petroleo Brasileiro SA.  On Saturday, about 188 cubic meters of oil leaked from the offshore P-58 platform, which is located in the Campos basin, some 80 kilometers of the coast of Espírito Santo state.

Colombias Cano Limon pipeline bombed for 9th time in 2019 (Reuters) - A bomb attack on Colombia’s Cano Limon pipeline caused an oil spill in eastern Arauca province, state-run oil company Ecopetrol said on Thursday. The spill, which took place in the Saravena municipality near the border with Venezuela, was contained in and around the crater left by the explosion, the company said in a statement. The pipeline was not pumping at the time of the bombing. There have been at least a dozen attacks on Colombian pipelines so far in 2019, nine of them on Cano Limon. There were more than 80 attacks on the 485-mile (780-km) pipeline in 2018, which kept it offline for most of the year. Although Ecopetrol did not name the group responsible, oil infrastructure bombings are regularly carried out by leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. The ELN opposes multinational companies - saying they seize natural resources without benefiting Colombians.

Shell facing multiple charges over corruption, emissions, and an explosion - Shell will be prosecuted for criminal charges relating to a $1.3 billion settlement for an oil exploration licence in Nigeria, and has also been summoned by prosecutors to face charges over chemical emissions and an explosion. The Dutch Public Prosecutor's Office (DPP) informed Shell it is nearing the conclusion of an investigation into the case and is preparing to prosecute the oil giant, the company said in a statement on its website Friday. Shell and Italian oil firm Eni were accused of bribery in 2017 over a $1.3 billion payment that secured an exploration licence for an oil block, known as OPL 245, in 2011. It was alleged that although the funds were paid to the Nigerian government, the money actually went to Malabu Oil and Gas — a company linked to former oil minister Dan Etete. Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi and four ex-Shell managers are also facing charges of international corruption in Italy, where prosecutors allege they were aware that payments would be pocketed by individuals rather than the Nigerian government. Shell and Eni have both denied any wrongdoing. In an emailed statement, the DPP told CNBC Friday: "On the basis of the ongoing criminal investigation, the Public Prosecution Service concluded that there are prosecutable offenses. We are not yet able to make any announcements about the further course of the case." In November, a report from campaign group Global Witness said that Nigeria would lose $6 billion in oil revenue because of the terms of the allegedly corrupt deal. Shell declined to comment when contacted by CNBC about the DPP's decision to prosecute.

Crude oil spill in river - A stretch of the Umgeni River in Howick has been polluted with crude oil. Crude oil — spilled from a Transnet depot — was spotted by community members and reported to Transnet earlier this month. The oil has flowed into a tributary of the Umgeni at a point about two kilometres from the Umgeni itself. Local environmental activists and concerned citizens fear that the spill has compromised animals and plantlife around the river. The area is also popular for walking dogs and swimming. The Witness on Tuesday visited the site, which is alongside the N3 near Howick, not far from the railway bridge. Clean-up crews were on site to soak up the oil with wood pulp, which was then scooped out of the river. The crews have also inserted material into the water to stop the oil from flowing further downstream. Eve Hughes, who serves on the area ward committee’s environmental portfolio and has worked for the Wildlife and Environment Society South Africa (Wessa), was concerned for nearby animals. “People bring their cattle to graze here and drink from the river. Plants, frogs, insects and aquatic life are all in danger. What worries me is that the public was never notified about this pollution. “People come here to walk their dogs and people play in the water. Why was nothing said?” Another concerned citizen, Pam Haynes, who is also a volunteer for the Duzi Umngeni Conservation Trust, said she was notified about the spillage two weeks ago by cyclists who smelled oil in the area. “Cyclists were going past Tweedie and when they saw the spillage they called me. The question is: how long has this spill been sitting there? Would they be attending to it if we didn’t report it?

Solomon Islands oil spill threatens World Heritage site - A salvage operation is underway more than three weeks after the MV Solomon Trader ran aground on a reef in the Solomon Islands while loading bauxite on the remote island of Rennell during tropical cyclone Oma. People are being warned to stay away from the “toxic” oil spill. Sixty tonnes of oil is estimated to have already spilled with another 600 tonnes still in the tanks of the leaking ship. Australia is assisting the Solomon Islands government with the salvage and clean-up after a plea for help from care-taker prime minister Ric Hou. “Australia is extremely concerned at the scale of this disaster, the impact of this oil spill will have a devastating effect on the surrounding environment, including potentially on a protected UNESCO World Heritage site, as well as the livelihood of the people of Rennell,” Australian High Commissioner Rod Brazier in the capital Honiara told a local briefing of journalists. A Solomon Island National Disaster Council situation report said there is a “lack of in-country capacity to deal with a potential environmental disaster of this magnitude” and that “the primary responsibility to salvage and mitigate any spill rests with the charterer of the ship and the ship owners”. Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has updated its travel advice for Solomon Islands warning “reconsider your need to travel” to Rennell because “heavy fuel oil is a toxic substance and you should avoid exposure to it”. Island residents fear the complex salvage operation means Rennell will suffer serious long-term damage. “Oil spill makes it impossible to fish or bathe in the sea, oil is still leaking, people are worried, “ Derek Pongi from the Tehakatuu tribe on Rennell told SBS. “Loading of bauxite is still on in the bay. (We’re) calling on the company to halt loading.”Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) experts deployed to assist have confirmed oil contamination has spread into the surrounding waters and along the shoreline. The 225m long bulk carrier hit a reef on February 4 on Rennell, the largest raised coral atoll in the world with the largest freshwater inland lake in the Pacific, about 250 kilometres south of the capital Honiara.

New Zealand joins Solomons oil spill response - New Zealand joined an international effort Friday to limit damage from oil spilling out of a ship that ran aground near World Heritage-listed waters in the Solomon Islands almost a month ago. The MV Solomon Trader became stranded on a coral reef on February 5 while loading bauxite at remote Rennell Island, about 240 kilometres (150 miles) south of the capital Honiara. Efforts to salvage the 225-metre bulk carrier have so far failed and experts estimate about 75 tonnes of heavy fuel oil has leaked into the sea, with another 600 tonnes still on board. "Australia remains extremely concerned by the ongoing risk of a major oil spill," Canberra's High Commission in Honiara said in a statement. Rennell Island is the largest raised coral atoll in the world and includes a UNESCO World Heritage site which extends kilometres (miles) out to sea. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority is providing regular aerial surveillance of the stricken ship to monitor the unfolding environmental disaster. Pictures taken during the flyovers show a large oil slick running from the ship into the aquamarine waters and thick clumps of petrochemical sludge on the shore. New Zealand dispatched two oil spill containment specialists to the disaster zone on Friday and said they would help implement a response plan. Maritime New Zealand said more specialists may be needed as the situation evolved. The UNESCO World Heritage Centre has expressed concerns about the grounding said says it is working with local officials on mitigation measures. Australia has advised its citizens to reconsider travelling to Rennell Island, warning the heavy fuel oil leaking from the ship is a toxic substance and exposure to it should be avoided. 

Limited output disruption from fire at Malaysia's Bintulu LNG plant- sources - Limited output disruption from fire at Malaysia's Bintulu LNG plant: sources — Malaysia's Bintulu LNG plant is expected to experience limited production disruptions or cargo loading delays after a fire broke out at the plant on Friday morning, industry sources told S&P Global Platts. Authorities at the Petronas facility have gotten the situation under control and there is little likelihood of a significant production impact as a result, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Other market sources confirmed that there was minimal damage to plant facilities and substantial cargo loading delays are not to be expected. One northeast Asian end-user told Platts Monday that they had not received any communication from Petronas regarding a delay in their shipments. However, no vessels have left the Bintulu port since February 22, Platts trade flow software cFlow showed. LNG Lerici, a 35,760 dwt vessel, was scheduled to enter the Bintulu port on February 24, but has been anchored partially laden outside the port since February 23, cFlow showed. Another LNG carrier, Seri Alam, a 83,824 dwt vessel, has been anchored partially laden outside Bintulu's LNG complex since February 24, according to cFlow. The Bintulu LNG facility also sparked supply concerns before the fire broke out, with the monthly loadings in February dropping by about 28% to 57,270 mt, Platts Analytics data showed. Petronas was heard to have bought four LNG spot cargoes for end-February to early-March delivery, following slower loadings from the Bintulu LNG complex, market sources said.

Even China may not be able to soak up all 2019's new LNG: Russell (Reuters) - Not even China’s voracious appetite for liquefied natural gas may be enough to absorb the additional supplies hitting the market this year, with the price of the super-chilled fuel potentially a casualty. While China’s LNG imports got off to a rollicking start in 2019, it’s unlikely that will match the 41-percent growth experienced in 2018. Imports were 6.58 million tonnes in January, a record-high and up 27.8 percent from the same month in 2018, according to customs data released on Feb. 23. But the sharp rise in January imports is likely to unwind in coming months as much of the LNG is being used in coal-to-natural gas switching projects that run out of steam as the northern winter ends. Some 3 million Chinese homes were switching from coal heating to natural gas this winter, boosting demand for LNG. However, this demand drops sharply after the winter heating period ends on March 15. China will likely increase its LNG demand by about 8 million tonnes in 2019, not the 15.7 million tonne jump seen in 2018 from 2017. The problem for the LNG market is that it’s likely that more than 30 million tonnes of additional LNG supply will be available in 2019. Poten & Partners head of business intelligence Jason Feer told the LNGgc Asia event that his company expected 33 million tonnes of new supply in 2019, but only 16 million tonnes of extra demand. Wood Mackenzie’s Browne said a total of about 70 million tonnes of new LNG would reach the market this year and next, driven by the full ramp-up of the last of the eight new Australian plants and by the start of new U.S. projects, including Kinder Morgan’s Elba Island and Sempra’s Cameron venture.  While there is some potential for India and other emerging buyers in Asia to take more of the fuel, the outlook for traditional big buyers Japan and South Korea is more muted.

US oil is trickling back into China after export boom goes bust - The ongoing U.S.-China trade dispute stopped a surge in American oil exports to the Middle Kingdom, but as Washington and Beijing inch toward a deal, a trickle of U.S. crude appears to be making its way to Chinese shores. The development comes as U.S. and Chinese negotiators recently wrapped up talks that prevented tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in goods from rising sharply on March 1. The dispute has disrupted once robust trade in energy products such as crude oil and liquefied natural gas between the world's two biggest economies. China emerged as a major buyer of U.S. crude after President Barack Obama and Congress lifted the 40-year ban on exporting crude oil in 2015. During some months last year, China surpassed Canada as the top importer of American oil. Beijing has declined to slap an import tax on U.S. crude in retaliation against the Trump administration's tariffs on Chinese goods. But Chinese buyers nevertheless stopped purchasing American supplies last year as the trade dispute with Washington escalated. After the long pause in trade, China recently offloaded its first shipment of U.S. crude oil this year, although in a roundabout way. About 468,000 barrels of U.S.-origin crude oil was pulled from storage at Yeosu, South Korea, and shipped to China, according to tanker-tracking firm ClipperData. Hongrun Petrochemical, an independent refiner, received the shipment of Eagle Ford crude at Qingdao Port on Sunday, according to S&P Global Platts, which reported the transfer overnight. There are also signs that China may soon receive direct shipments of crude oil from the United States. According to ClipperData, a ship called the Hong Kong Spirit recently loaded almost 2 million barrels at Moda Midstream's Ingleside terminal near Corpus Christi, Texas, and in the U.S. Gulf. The VLCC — or very large crude carrier — is currently declaring for Yantai, China. "This destination may, however, change en route, but for now signals optimism on the trade war front. By the time the VLCC makes it to China in April, trade war concerns may have dissipated," said Matt Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData.

China plans new state pipeline company in massive energy reshuffle (Reuters) - China will announce a plan this year to form a national oil and gas pipeline group combining the long-distance pipeline assets of the country’s state-owned energy companies, in the sector’s largest reshuffle in two decades, said three persons with knowledge of the plan. The change is designed to open access to China’s pipeline infrastructure to private and foreign energy producers as a way to spur oil and gas exploration. The open pipeline network will allow companies to focus on exploration without any additional costs to move the fuel to market. China’s economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), approved the plan for the group last month, including details of assets to be incorporated, and final approval from China’s State Council is still pending, said one of the sources. The initiative is considered the biggest energy market reshuffle since 1998 when Beijing restructured the entire sector and established China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec) and PetroChina. The new entity will effectively become a fourth state-controlled energy company next to Sinopec, China National Petroleum Corp, the parent company of PetroChina, and China National Offshore Oil Corp. It is unclear when Beijing will officially announce the plan or when the new firm will be launched, but companies have been making preparations for the move, said a second source, an executive at a state-owned oil company. That includes PetroChina relocating its pipeline segment’s management team to a separate office tower in Beijing, the source said. The sources declined to be named due to the sensitive nature of the matter. The NDRC did not respond to Reuters request for comment. “It’s the largest-ever step in (the oil and gas) sector reform. At the core of it, it’s about removing a key bottleneck in the market and allowing producers and consumers equal access to infrastructures,” said Dong Xiucheng, director of energy policy research at University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. 

Oil spill spreads panic in Paradip - Leakage of oil from a pipeline of IOCL refinery here has led to panic among fishermen. IOCL has pressed a team into service to ascertain the cause of oil spill. Sources said leakage of oil was detected by some fishermen on the pipeline on Atharbanki- Neherubangla road. The oil had spilled into Kaudia river at Atharbanki. Locals alleged that it is the handiwork of some miscreants involved in stealing oil from the IOCL pipeline. Lack of security at isolated locations and absence of in-built automatic alert system in the pipeline is leading to theft of petroleum products in Paradip area. Assistant Engineer of Odisha State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB) Twinkle Mohanty said a joint team of OSPCB and IOCL had visited the spot and started inquiry to ascertain the cause of the oil spill. The official said the source of leakage has been located and no harm to marine species has yet been reported. In July last year, oil leakage was reported from the pipeline. It had resulted in deaths of several marine species. In 2015, oil pilferage from the pipeline of refinery of IOCL had occurred while some miscreants were trying to steal petroleum products. 

Saudi Arabia To Invest $100 Billion In India’s Energy Sector - Saudi Arabia will invest US$100 billion in India’s infrastructure and energy industry as it seeks to strengthen its position in the country that is registering the fastest growth in oil demand. "We want Saudi Aramco to be a household name in India," Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said as quoted by S&P Global Platts, adding that India was the number-one priority for the Kingdom’s oil giant. Saudi Arabia has already committed hefty investments in India, the biggest among them the US$44-billion refinery and petrochemical complex in Ratnagiri, which will be the largest in the country, with a capacity of 60 million tons annually. Aramco is participating in the project together with Emirati Adnoc, sharing a 50-percent stake in the project. The other 50 percent are divided between three Indian refiners: Indian Oil Corp., Hindustan Petroleum Corp., and Bharat Petroleum Corp.  The project is behind schedule, however, because the partners behind it had to pick a new location after strong opposition from farmers in the original one. Because of the delay, construction work will begin in 2021 and the facility should be operational by 2025, the chief executive of the company set up for the project told Bloomberg this week. India is a focal point for oil producers. Last year, its demand for the commodity went up by 245,000 bpd, accounting for 14 percent of global oil demand growth. This year, according to Wood Mackenzie, growth will continue strong. Over the longer term, according to OPEC estimates, oil demand in India will rise by 5.8 million bpd until 2040.

Saudi Aramco is finding so much natural gas it could export at least 3 Bcf/d by 2030: CEO — Saudi Arabia could be exporting 3 Bcf/d of natural gas before 2030, making it one of the world's major suppliers, Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said Tuesday, as the company continues to find more reserves and use less crude oil for power generation. "We have a lot of gas coming," Nasser told reporters on the sidelines of the International Petroleum Week conference in London. "The numbers keep changing because we keep finding more gas. For the time being, we are talking about 3 Bcf/d over, I would say, the next decades." He later clarified that would occur "before 2030, for sure", and that Aramco was exploring both pipeline and liquefied gas exports. The Saudi state-owned oil giant is expanding its gas sector under an ambitious $150 billion investment plan over the next 10 years that will see production rise to 23 Bcf/d from its current 14 Bcf/d. Eventually, Aramco aims to use gas for 70% of its power generation. Any surplus gas would be exported, Nasser said. "As we find more gas, we are satisfying our needs, and then we export," he said. Saudi Aramco last month said its natural gas reserves stood at 319.5 Tcf as of the end of 2017, according to an independent audit, up from a previously reported 302.3 Tcf. BP's most recent annual statistical review had Saudi gas reserves somewhat lower, at 283.8 Tcf as of the end of 2017, ranking it sixth in the world, behind Russia, Iran, Qatar, Turkmenistan and the US.

Japan's refiners seek clarity over Iran oil waiver extension in Mar— Japanese refiners are seeking clarity on whether there will an extension to the 180-day sanctions waiver from Washington in March, as they hope to continue buying Iranian oil without any disruption, Petroleum Association of Japan's president Takashi Tsukioka said Friday. Speaking at a press conference in Tokyo, Tsukioka said that the Japanese refiners are planning to load Iranian crude by March, as well as considering their options beyond May. In the absence of clarity over the extension of the US sanctions waiver in March, Tsukioka said the refiners' lifting of Iranian oil would stop in April. "It would be best to have clarity over the sanctions waivers by the end of March," Tsukioka said. "If decided in March, we will be able to continue loading [Iranian oil]." Tsukioka also added that Japanese refiners would continue to buy spot Iranian oil whether or not their term contracts are renewed if the sanctions waiver is granted. Showa Shell, Fuji Oil and Cosmo Oil were the first Japanese refiners to resume Iranian crude loadings in January -- the first in four months -- totaling around 4.9 million barrels. This was followed by JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy resuming loadings in early February. Idemitsu Kosan has also said it intends to resume its purchases of Iranian crude oil during the current US sanctions waiver. Asked about the outlook of talks with a top US State Department delegation in Tokyo, Tsukioka confirmed the visit as well as expressing his hope for progress toward securing the extension to the Iranian oil sanctions waiver. "It would be beneficial for Japan to secure the sanctions waiver by all means," Tsukioka said. "We are hopeful of the government."

US will stick to its zero tolerance policy on Iranian oil: US' Fannon — The US continues to pursue a zero-tolerance policy for its Iran oil sanctions and is urging importers to eliminate all purchases from the Middle East country, Francis Fannon, assistant secretary at the US State Department's Bureau of Energy Resources, said Monday during a visit to Japan. "The US policy is to drive Iranian exports to zero," Fannon said during a media briefing in Tokyo. "That policy has not changed. We are unwavering in our policy." Fannon was asked whether Washington would consider extending Iran sanctions waivers when they expire in May, given falling supplies from Saudi Arabia as a result of the production cut agreement by OPEC and allies, and the ongoing crisis in sanctions-hit Venezuela. He said it was premature to say whether the State Department would grant new waivers in May to the eight countries that were allowed to continue importing Iranian oil in return for promising to significantly cut their dependence on the supplies.   "We encourage all countries to diversify sources away from Iran." He said that message was for all of Iran's customers: "It's not unique to any one country." "We recognize that countries need supplies, and are continued to be encouraged that there are alternative sources," Fannon said, adding that the US Energy Information Administration is projecting a surplus of about 440,000 b/d in 2019 and 630,000 b/d in 2020. All transactions under the US State Department's current "significant reduction exemptions" must be completed by May 4. Fresh waivers would start May 5 for countries that the US determines to have been able to significantly reduce Iranian imports in the previous six months.

Japan's Cosmo to load Iranian Heavy crude early Mar as refiners step up lifting - Japanese refiner Cosmo Oil will load around 900,000 barrels of Iranian Heavy crude oil in early March as local refiners are rushing to lift as much barrels from Iran during the current 180-day US sanctions waivers, sources with direct knowledge of the matter told S&P Global Platts Tuesday. Cosmo Oil is now scheduled to load around 900,000 barrels of Iranian Heavy crude on a VLCC around March 4-5 and discharge the cargo in Japan around March 27-28 after calling at Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia, and Zirku Island in Abu Dhabi, the sources said. Cosmo Oil's scheduled loading of Iranian Heavy crude, however, will likely be the last loading of Iranian barrels before the current US sanctions waivers expire without clarity for extension beyond May, the sources added. The US continues to pursue a zero-tolerance policy for its Iran oil sanctions and is urging importers to eliminate all purchases from the Middle East country, Francis Fannon, assistant secretary at the US State Department's Bureau of Energy Resources, said Monday during a visit to Japan. "The US policy is to drive Iranian exports to zero," Fannon said during a media briefing in Tokyo. "That policy has not changed. We are unwavering in our policy." Fannon was asked whether Washington would consider extending Iran sanctions waivers when they expire in May, given falling supplies from Saudi Arabia as a result of the production cut agreement by OPEC and allies, and the ongoing crisis in sanctions-hit Venezuela. He said it was premature to say whether the State Department would grant new waivers in May to the eight countries that were allowed to continue importing Iranian oil in return for promising to significantly cut their dependence on the supplies. Fannon was in Japan after visiting South Korea early last week. Both oil-importing countries are asking Washington to grant them new 180-day waivers to import Iranian crude when the current exemptions expire May 4. Japanese refiners, meanwhile, are planning to load Iranian crude by March and expect to halt the liftings in April if there is no news of a US waiver extension.

India and China Defy Trump on the Iranian Oil Boycott - Energy security is a top priority for a nation unable to meet the demand for hydrocarbons domestically. That is the key to understanding why India and China have refused to fall in line with US President Donald Trump’s ban on dealings with Iran’s oil, banking and transport sectors.Last year, Iran was the third largest supplier of petroleum to India, after Iraq and Saudi Arabia. And it was the fourth third most important crude oil source for China after Russia, Saudi Arabia and Angola.As in 2012 during the presidency of Barack Obama in the US, so now, India and China declared that they are bound only by the sanctions on a country imposed by the United Nations Security Council.In 2012, to skirt having to deal with transactions in US dollars in which petroleum is traded, China used two small banks with no dealings in America to buy crude oil from Iran. Following Trump’s sanctions on Iranian oil in November 2018, China reverted to the earlier arrangement. Moreover, last year, the Shanghai exchange made arrangements to trade in oil in the Chinese currency, yuan.In August, the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) – ranked number 4 on the 2017 Fortune 500 list – took over French oil company Total’s 50.1% stake in the $4.8bn South Pars gas field project in Iran, raising its share to 80.1%, when Total decided to quit. The Chinese oil giant entered Iran in 2004, when it acquired the MIS oilfield in the central highlands, in which it now holds a 75% stake. In 2009, it signed contracts with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) to develop the North Azadegan oilfield near the Iraqi border. It began production in April 2016 of about 80,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil along with natural gas. It continues to take petroleum from both oilfields. With a very modest domestic petroleum production of 750,000 bpd in 2018, India imports 4.9 million bpd; the third highest figure in the world, after China and the US. To skirt the sanctions imposed on Iran by President Obama under the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act of 2012, Tehran agreed to accept payments for its petroleum from India in rupees.

Pence Urges Global Freeze On Venezuelan Oil; Vows Return Of "Every Last Dollar" To Opposition - As expected the Lima Group summit hosted in Bogota, Colombia on Monday became a collective Venezuelan regime change strategy session following the weekend showdown over US humanitarian aid entering the country, which led to riots on bridges at border points Saturday.  Previously promising to announce at the meeting of the over 12 American states — most of which have recognized US-backed Juan Guaido as "legitimate" leader of Venezuela —"concrete steps" and "clear actions", Vice President Mike Pence underscored that President Trump stands behind Guaido "100 percent" after a face-to-face session with the opposition leader, the first since unrest began. Predictably Pence unveiled new sanctions targeting Caracas while calling on allies to freeze all assets of its state-owned oil company PDVSA, and further called for the United Nations Security Council to act.  "We hope for a peaceful transition to democracy. But President Trump has made it clear: all options are on the table," said Pence at the summit. He indicated the pressure campaign would continue ramping up, especially while calling for all Lima Group nations to immediately freeze PDVSA’s assets.“In the days ahead... the United States will announce even stronger sanctions on the regime’s corrupt financial networks,” Pence said, according to the AFP.“We will work with all of you to find every last dollar that they stole and work to return it to Venezuela.” The US is seeking to put all Venezuelan assets under the control of Guaido's government-in-waiting.

US Deploys Special Forces To Puerto Rico, Colombia Ahead Of Venezuela Invasion, Russia Claims - Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev told Argumenty i Fakty that the US is deploying military assets to Puerto Rico and Colombia for a future military intervention in Venezuela to remove President Nicolás Maduro from power."Showing sarcasm and arrogance towards the Venezuelan people, the United States is preparing a military invasion of an independent state," Patrushev told the Russian newspaper.According to his statements, Washington is transferring "American special operations forces to Puerto Rico, the landing of US forces in Colombia," which "clearly indicates that the Pentagon is reinforcing the grouping of troops in the region."As he explained, Venezuela rejected humanitarian aid imposed on it by the US because it recognizes that Washington uses aid as a precursor to military intervention."And the Venezuelan people understand this well. Hence, such a reaction, the refusal to accept cargo from the aggressor country and the support of their president," Patrushev added.The Russian security official said that Washington recommended holding several talks on Venezuela, and Moscow accepted. However, Trump administration officials started using far-fetched pretexts to circumvent these discussions, Patrushev added. Last week, president Putin said that Russia is militarily ready for a "Cuban Missile-style crisis", commenting on nuclear first strike capability amidst growing tensions with the US. The remarks were given to Russian media following a prior speech wherein he warned Moscow will match any attempt by the US to station intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe in the wake of the now collapsing INF treaty.  Putin specifically threatened deployment of hypersonic missiles on ships and submarines which could enter US territorial waters without detection if American intermediate-range missiles move into Europe.   While it remains unclear just how far Russia's commitment to protecting the Maduro regime would stretch, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said Monday that his government would not tolerate foreign interference. "We are not going to allow intervention, we Venezuelans will solve our problems," he said.

Hedge funds bet cautiously on even higher oil prices: Kemp - (Reuters) - Hedge funds added more bullish positions in crude and fuels in the most recent week in the expectation that positive trade talks between the United States and China would keep the global economy expanding. Saudi Arabia’s substantial output cuts and U.S. sanctions on Iran and Venezuela also are restricting crude supplies and helping eliminate a previously expected surplus in the market in 2019. Hedge funds and other money managers were net buyers of Brent crude futures and options equivalent to 9 million barrels in the week to Feb. 19, data from ICE Futures Europe showed. Portfolio managers have been net buyers of Brent in 10 of the last 11 weeks, increasing their overall bullish position by a total of 139 million barrels since Dec. 4 (https://tmsnrt.rs/2BSNwnx ). But funds have become only moderately bullish on crude, with long positions outnumbering short ones by a ratio of less than 6:1 compared with as much as 12:1 or even 20:1 at times between 2016 and 2018. Fund managers were also net buyers of another 10 million barrels of European gasoil futures and options in the week to Feb. 19, for the seventh week running, buying a total of 49 million barrels since the end of 2018. As with crude, however, investors have become moderately bullish on the outlook for middle distillates such as gasoil, diesel and jet fuel. Funds hold seven bullish long positions for every bearish short one, up from a ratio of 1:1 at the turn of the year but still far below the 31:1 ratio at the start of October. The relatively cautious positioning in both crude and fuels likely reflects substantial uncertainty about the economic outlook for the rest of the year and into 2020. 

Oil prices firm on hopes for US, China trade deal: Oil prices rose on Monday as Washington and China appeared to edge closer to a trade deal, dampening fears over the outlook for global economic growth. International Brent crude oil futures were at US$67.26 a barrel at 0005 GMT, up 14 cents, or 0.2 per cent, from their last close. They ended Friday little changed after touching their highest since Nov 16 at US$67.73 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at US$57.38 per barrel, up 11 cents, or 0.2 per cent, from their last settlement. WTI futures climbed 0.5 per cent on Friday, having marked their highest since Nov 16 at US$57.81 a barrel. "Crude prices continue to be supported on optimism a trade deal will be reached in the coming days by the world's two largest economies, said Edward Moya, senior market analyst, Oanda. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he would delay an increase in US tariffs on Chinese goods scheduled for later this week thanks to progress in trade talks and said if progress continued, he and Chinese President Xi Jinping would seal a deal. Signs of reduced global oil supply also supported crude prices. US energy firms this week cut the number of oil rigs operating for the first time in three weeks week after US crude production hit an all-time high, boosting exports to a record-peak and stockpiles to their highest in over a year. Meanwhile, Mexico's Pemex produced 1.62 million barrels of crude per day in January, less than any month in almost three decades, the state-owned oil company said on Friday, underscoring the challenges facing a government that vows to pump far more in a few years.

Oil up toward 2019 highs on supply, trade talks optimism - Oil prices edged up on Monday toward a 2019 high achieved last week as sanctions and political uncertainty tightened supply in several producer countries and U.S.-China talks appeared headed toward success. But record U.S. exports and continued anxiety over poor economic data worldwide this year may curb gains. International Brent crude oil futures were at $67.28 a barrel at 0950 GMT, up 16 cents, or 0.24 percent, from their last close. On Friday, they briefly touched their highest levels since Nov. 16 at $67.73 a barrel.U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $57.39 per barrel, up 13 cents, or 0.23 percent, from their last settlement. WTI futures marked their highest since Nov. 16 at $57.81 a barrel. "Risk appetite across global markets should improve as President Trump extends the deadline of trade talks with China,""Supply risk is ever present with Venezuelan tensions brewing a notch higher ... the National Oil Corporation in Libya refusing to start production at the El Sharara field," he added, while also citing uncertainty over elections in top African oil exporter Nigeria. U.S. sanctions on Iranian and Venezuelan crude plus involuntary curbs in Nigeria and Libya are lending support to efforts to balance the market and support prices, efforts led by member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC producers such as Russia.Further brightening the global economic picture, U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday signalled a potentially bruising trade war with China could be averted.Trump tweeted he would postpone a March 1 deadline for higher tariffs on Chinese goods and looked forward to a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping when a Sino-American deal was sealed.Goldman Sachs analysts said on Monday that "the near-term outlook for oil is modestly bullish over the next two to three months", but added that the outlook for later in 2019 was weaker due to a surge in U.S. exports and an "an increasingly uncertain economic, policy and geopolitical backdrop".

Trump warns Saudi Arabia on oil prices as focus turns to re-election: Kemp - (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump has warned OPEC not to tighten the oil market too much and risk another spike in prices that could harm the global economy – and his re-election campaign in 2020. “Oil prices getting too high,” the president warned in a message posted on Twitter on Monday. “OPEC please relax and take it easy. World cannot take a price hike – fragile!” The president has kept up a regular commentary on oil prices over the last year and has pressed Saudi Arabia, de facto leader of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, to push them lower. Earlier interventions were triggered when prices climbed into the mid or high $70s per barrel but more recently the president has tweeted when prices were well below $70 (https://tmsnrt.rs/2EuhjF5). The president’s willingness to tolerate higher prices appears to be diminishing and his tweet-intervention zone has fallen over time (“Oil prices are re-entering the tweet zone”, Reuters, Sept. 13). But the most interesting part of Trump’s tweet was the third sentence, with its implicit recognition that global economic growth has slowed since the middle of 2018. The president’s characterisation of the economy as “fragile” shows that the administration is aware of the suddenness and severity of the slowdown since September. Like any first-term president, Trump’s top priority is being re-elected next year. No president wants to be confined to a single term and branded a failure. 

Oil falls after Trump says prices are too high and tells OPEC the 'world cannot take a price hike' - Oil prices tumbled more than 3 percent on Monday after President Donald Trump publicly urged OPEC to lower the cost of crude, putting pressure on the Saudi-led group to soften its price-boosting output cuts. "Oil prices getting too high. OPEC, please relax and take it easy. World cannot take a price hike - fragile!" the president said in an early morning tweet. The message comes two months into a fresh round of production cuts from OPEC and other nations. The producers meet in mid-April to review the deal, which is scheduled to last through the first six months of 2019. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures ended Monday's session down $1.78, or 3.1 percent, at $55.48 a barrel. On Friday, WTI hit a more than three-month intraday high at $57.81 a barrel. International benchmark Brent crude futures fell $2.36, or 3.5 percent, at $64.76 a barrel. Brent hit $67.73 a barrel on Friday, its highest intraday level since mid-November.

Oil Plummets After Trump Warns OPEC Prices Are Getting Too High - After months of radio silence, Trump the oil analyst has returned to complain about prices being too damn high. For the first time since OPEC+ agreed to cut production at its December meeting, Trump has chimed in on Twitter to tell the cartel to "relax and take it easy" because oil prices are "getting too high." Oil prices getting too high. OPEC, please relax and take it easy. World cannot take a price hike - fragile!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2019OPEC and members of an ancillary group led by Russia have been cutting production since the start of the year after striking an agreement during OPEC's December meeting in Vienna to lower output by an aggregate by 1.2 million b/d during the first six months of 2019.Of those cuts, 800,000 bpd will come from OPEC members, while Russia and its allied producers will cut 400,000 bpd.More recently, when Trump has tweeted about oil, he has been cheering the advances in US shale production that led the US to become a net exporter for the first time.But with retail sales and home sales slumping and the Fed warning that Q4 GDP - due out Friday -  might disappoint, Trump probably reckons that now would be a good time for a de facto "tax cut" - the kind that wouldn't blow out the deficit even further. Oil prices tumbled after the tweet, notching one of their biggest daily retreats since the beginning of 2019, virtually ensuring that this won't be the last we hear from Trump on this subject.

Goldman Sachs believes oil prices are about to go on a wild ride in 2019 -- Brent crude oil could hit $75 a barrel in the coming months, but the return of the "New Oil Order" will soon push down prices, Goldman Sachs said on Monday.The warning comes less than two weeks after Goldman forecast Brent would peak around $67.50 a barrel in the second quarter. Since then, the international benchmark for oil prices has surged by nearly $5 a barrel, or 7.5 percent, topping out at $67.73 on Friday.  Goldman based its earlier forecast on a fundamental reading of supply and demand in the oil market. But the investment bank now says crude prices have gained technical support after rising to three-month highs, and a number of bullish factors will likely boost the commodity in March and April."While prices could easily trade in a $70-$75/bbl trading range, we believe such an environment would likely prove fleeting," according to Goldman's global head of commodities research Jeffrey Currie and senior commodity strategist Damien Courvalin."As a result, we would view near-term strength as a window of opportunity for producers to sell forward prices to create earnings security before the return of the New Oil Order later this year," the analysts wrote in a research note.That new order is marked by surging U.S. oil production from the nation's shale fields and rising low-cost output from OPEC and its allies, including Russia. That will ultimately keep Brent and U.S. crude on track for Goldman's year-end targets of $60 and $55, respectively, the analysts say.But in the near-term, the so-called OPEC+ alliance is taking a "shock and awe" approach to cutting production, Goldman says. Saudi Arabia is leading this rapid pullback with plans to pump 500,000 barrels per day below its quota in March. Meanwhile Russia has signaled it will deepen cuts over the next two months.

12 Empty Supertankers Tell Us Everything We Need To Know About The Oil Market - As the US battles with its OPEC+ rivals over the direction of global oil prices (Trump wants to keep oil prices subdued, while Saudi Arabia and Russia, reeling from years of prices too low to balance their budgets, are desperately hoping to push them higher with another round of production cuts), 12 supertankers sailing across the Atlantic can tell us a lot about the changing supply dynamics in the global oil market. The tankers have been traveling a route spanning thousands of miles with no cargo other than some seawater needed for ballast. Of course, in normal times, the ships would be filled with heavy, high sulfur Middle East oil for delivery to refineries in places like Houston or New Orleans. But these aren't "normal" times. Following the OPE+ agreement to cut 1.5 mb/d, the ships are sailing cargo-less - forgoing profits on half of their journey - just so they can pick up the light crude that US shale producers - which briefly turned the US into a net-exporter of oil for the first time late last year - have been relentlessly pumping, according to Bloomberg.That's quite a sacrifice for the owners of the ships, which are traveling 21,000 with nothing to show for it.The 12 vessels are making voyages of as much as 21,000 miles direct from Asia, all the way around South Africa, holding nothing but seawater for stability because Middle East producers are restricting supplies. Still, America’s booming volumes of light crude must still be exported, and there aren’t enough supertankers in the Atlantic Ocean for the job. So they’re coming empty.“What’s driving this is a U.S. oil market that’s looking relatively bearish with domestic production estimates trending higher, and persistent crude oil builds we have seen for the last few weeks,” said Warren Patterson, head of commodities strategy at ING Bank NV in Amsterdam. “At the same time, OPEC cuts are supporting international grades like Brent, creating an export incentive.” As OPEC+ supply declines, shippers are turning to the US for profit growth, analysts said.Shippers are counting on the U.S. exports to help the tanker market withstand supply restrictions by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia. Industry analysts, who actually raised their estimates for what they think the ships will earn this year after the OPEC+ pact was announced in December, are citing rising American shipments as a contributing factor.

Oil prices steady after steep drop on Trump's OPEC tweet -  Oil traded roughly flat on Tuesday as Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC were expected to stick to their policy of cutting production, despite renewed pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump. Prices slid on Monday, when many traders were out of the office attending International Petroleum Week, a series of industry events in London, after Trump called on OPEC to ease its efforts to boost the oil market. Prices were "getting too high," the president said. "Yesterday was a typical price action you see during IP Week when you have a headline," said Olivier Jakob, oil analyst at Petromatrix. "But I don't think it will change anything in current OPEC supply policy."Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose 28 cents to $65.04 around 10:10 a.m. ET (1510 GMT), after losing 3.5 percent on Monday. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude fell 1 cent to $55.47, stabilizing after a roughly 3-percent fall.Expectations that U.S. crude inventories had risen for a sixth straight week limited the rally.U.S. crude stocks were seen 3.6 million barrels higher in weekly inventory reports, underlining that supply is adequate in the world's top consumer. The first such report is due at 4:30 p.m. ET (2130 GMT) from the American Petroleum Institute, following by more comprehensive government figures on Wednesday morning.Oil is up about 20 percent since the start of the year, when OPEC and non-member producers, such as Russia, began cutting production in an effort to reduce a global glut. Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members are likely to be cautious about relaxing their supply-cut plan, Jakob said, after a boost in output in the second half of last year ahead of U.S. sanctions on Iran led to a steep slide in prices.

Oil Inches Higher Ahead Of Inventory Data -  Oil prices fell on Monday but opened up flat on Tuesday, looking to stabilize. President Trump is trying to thread a needle by keeping the U.S. economy from slowing down, while also trying to head off further increases in oil prices.. President Trump’s tweets calling on OPEC to lower oil prices may have triggered a price decline on Monday. “His comment that the world is too fragile to take the rising prices is likely to have contributed to the price slump,” Commerzbank wrote in a note. “OPEC is pretty much caught between a rock and a hard place: either it cuts production as agreed, or even more sharply, thereby risking provoking the anger of the US president. Or it allows the oil price to fall back below $60 per barrel given that non-OPEC production, especially in the US, is on the rise.”  President Trump cited significant progress in his decision to delay the implementation of tariffs on Chinese goods. A comprehensive trade deal remains a very difficult task, but the Trump administration is keen to dial back on the trade war. The development removes, for the time being, one of the greatest bearish factors facing the oil market.. Nigeria has ordered foreign oil companies working in the country to pay nearly $20 billion in back taxes. Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Eni,  Total and Equinor were each asked to pay between $2.5 and $5 billion, according to Reuters. Several of the companies said they were reviewing the matter.  Venezuela has reportedly been forced to pay heavy premiums for fuel imports from Russia and Europe, according to Reuters. The U.S. cut off shipments of diluents to the country, and PDVSA has had to look elsewhere, but has been forced to pay higher prices as many sellers around the world decline to do business with the company Unable to find enough buyers for its crude oil, Venezuela is reportedly running out of storage space. Bloomberg estimatesthat more than 8 million barrels of oil are stashed on roughly 16 ships sitting idle along the country’s coast. Some of the joint ventures lowered production at their upgraders this week. For instance, the PDVSA-Rosneft upgrader is not processing heavy crude because of a lack of storage space. So far, data is lacking, but PDVSA will likely suffer from greater upstream production declines as it may have to shut in output.

Oil steadies as OPEC is seen ignoring pressure from Trump on output cuts - Oil futures steadied on Tuesday on signs that OPEC plans to maintain production cuts despite pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, whose comment criticizing rising crude prices sent the market into a tailspin a day earlier. Prices slid on Monday, when many traders were out of the office attending International Petroleum Week, a series of industry events in London, after Trump called on OPEC to ease its efforts to boost the oil market. Prices were "getting too high," the president said. An OPEC source told Reuters on Tuesday OPEC would stick to its agreement to tighten crude supplies regardless of Trump's recent tweet. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude ended Tuesday's session roughly flat, settling 2 cents higher at $55.50. WTI plunged more than 3 percent in the previous session. Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose 45 cents, or just over a half percent, to $65.21 on Tuesday. Brent lost 3.5 percent on Monday. "The market has started to realize that Donald Trump can't tweet more oil out of the ground, or out of OPEC," said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. "OPEC really wants to get the supplies ... back in line," Flynn said. Oil is up about 20 percent since the start of the year, when OPEC and non-member producers, such as Russia, began cutting production in an effort to reduce a global glut. The OPEC source said the cartel, along with non-member producers, would continue its supply-cut agreement to balance the market until they see inventories fall to their five-year average. "There is no doubt we will continue with our reduction as planned," the OPEC source said. The so-called OPEC+ alliance agreed in December to cut supply by 1.2 million barrels per day from Jan. 1 for six months.

OPEC, allies to maintain oil output cuts despite Trump: source (Reuters) - OPEC and its allies will stick with their agreement to cut oil supply, pushing for more adherence despite a demand by U.S. President Donald Trump that the producer group ease its efforts to boost crude prices, a Gulf OPEC source said on Tuesday. Based on current market data, the so-called OPEC+ group is “likely to continue with the production cuts until the end of the year”, the source told Reuters. The OPEC+ alliance will meet in April to decide its output policy. Trump, in the latest in a series of tweets about oil prices since April 2018, wrote on Monday: “Oil prices getting too high. OPEC, please relax and take it easy. World cannot take a price hike - fragile!” Following the tweet, oil prices registered their largest daily percentage drop this year, with Brent crude losing 3.5 percent on Monday. Brent edged up on Tuesday. [O/R] The source said OPEC+ would continue the supply-cut agreement to balance the market until “they see inventories going down from their current level” to their five-year average. “There is no doubt we will continue with our reduction as planned and we will push to reach the highest adherence to the cuts as we have decided before,” the OPEC source said. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and other non-OPEC producers agreed in December to reduce supply by 1.2 million barrels per day from Jan. 1 for six months. A committee set up to monitor participating countries’ adherence to the deal found compliance at 83 percent in January, according to OPEC sources. U.S. sanctions on the oil sector of OPEC member Venezuela, a top supplier of sour crude to the United States, have helped support oil prices recently and raised questions whether top oil exporter Saudi Arabia will raise output to fill the gap. But the Gulf OPEC source said there was no clear data on Venezuela’s crude output decline due to sanctions. There was also no risk that current crude prices would encourage more U.S. shale oil production, the source said. 

WTI Spiked Above $56 After Big Surprise Crude Draw Modest gains in oil prices today after yesterday's Trump-tweet-driven tumble.“OPEC didn’t listen to Trump back in December because they knew they needed to cut,” said Michael Loewen, a commodities strategist at Scotiabank in Toronto. “Trump’s tweets and his influence in the financial markets is quite apparent, but investors are starting to question whether or not they are relevant anymore. API:

• Crude -4.2mm (3mm exp)
• Cushing +2mm
• Gasoline -3.8mm
• Distillates +400k

After five straight weeks of crude builds, API reports a big surprise crude draw...  WTI hovered around $56.60 ahead of the print and spiked above $56 on the API data

Surprise crude oil draw sends oil prices higher - The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a surprise draw in crude oil inventory of 4.2 million barrels for the week ending February 22, coming in under analyst expectations that predicted that crude oil inventories would build by 2.842 million barrels.  Last week, the API reported a build in crude oil of 1.26 million barrels. A day later, the EIA reported a larger one of 3.7 million barrels. Oil price movements were fairly bland on Tuesday prior to the data release, with the WTI benchmark trading essentially flat on the day at $55.48 while the Brent benchmark trading up $0.37 (+0.57%) at $65.28 at 2:25pm. Both benchmarks were trading down a couple dollars per barrel week on week.While 2019 has been a wild ride for oil prices, inventory moves for crude have been innocuous, with a net build of 147,000 barrels for the eight reporting periods prior to this week, using API data, with only two big swings that essentially cancelled each other out. The API this week reported a draw in gasoline inventories for week ending February 22 in the amount of 3.8 million barrels. Analysts estimated a draw in gasoline inventories of 1.686 million barrels for the week.US crude oil production as estimated by the Energy Information Administration showed that production for the week ending February 15—the latest information available—averaged 12 million barrels per day –another high for the US, breaking yet another psychological barrier.Distillate inventories increased this week by 400,000 barrels, compared to an expected draw of 1.951 million barrels. Crude oil inventories at the Cushing, Oklahoma facility grew by 2.0 million barrels for the week.

WTI Spikes After Biggest Crude Draw In 7 Months - WTI jumped overnight after API reported a surprise crude draw and Saudi Arabia signaled that OPEC and allies will continue with production cuts despite pressure from President Trump earlier in the week. Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Energy Analyst Vince Piazza notes that crude balances are tightening under strict compliance with curbs by OPEC and its partners. We've said since last year that extending the curbs in 2H will be necessary to maintain elevated sentiment for oil. Our takeaways from 4Q earnings suggest heightened efficiency and productivity from U.S. producers in 2019, with lower spending and higher output. A backlog of almost 8,800 uncompleted U.S. wells informs our cautious stance on prices, and we remain concerned about the possibility that trade tensions could slow global economic growth. If EIA doesn’t confirm the drop, “we risk seeing part of today’s gains unravel, notably as U.S. crude production is expected to be near or at the record high of 12m b/d reported last week," says Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodity-markets strategy at BNP Paribas. DOE:

• Crude -8.647mm (3mm exp) - biggest since July 2018
• Cushing +1.63mm
• Gasoline -1.906mm (-1.25mm exp)
• Distillates -304k

Confirming API's surprise draw, DOE reported a huge 8.65mm crude inventory decline (the biggest since July 2018). The crude stockpiles in Cushing had a big build in last week's data, driven by a temporary outage on a segment of the Keystone Pipeline.

Oil rises on OPEC-led supply cuts, report of falling US crude inventories --Oil prices rose on Wednesday, buoyed by an unexpected decline in U.S. crude inventories and after Saudi Arabia appeared undaunted by pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump on OPEC to prevent steeper price rises. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said OPEC and its partners were "taking it easy" in response to a tweet from Trump on Monday that called on the group to slacken its restrictions on crude production. "We are taking it easy. The 25 countries are taking a very slow and measured approach. Just as the second half of last year proved, we are interested in market stability first and foremost," Falih said in Riyadh when asked to comment on Trump's tweet, CNBC reported.Falih added that he is leaning toward extending the deal to curb output into the second half of 2019, but OPEC remains flexible and will assess market conditions before making a decision.The oil price has risen by almost a quarter so far this year, after OPEC, together with other producers such as Russia and Oman, agreed to cut output to avoid the build-up of a global surplus, particularly as U.S. output has boomed. International Brent crude futures were up 86 cents, or 1.3 percent on the day, at $66.07 a barrel around 9:05 a.m. ET (1305 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose $1.10, or 2 percent, to $56.60 a barrel."Donald Trump tweeted and OPEC replied. It was not the message he wanted to hear so the story is not over yet," PVM Oil Associates strategist Tamas Varga said.  Trump tweeted on Monday, warning about the threat of high oil prices and called on OPEC to "take it easy", which triggered the biggest one-day drop in the futures price so far this year."Trump's tweet is likely to have been sparked in particular by the sharp rise in U.S. gasoline prices," Commerzbank said.U.S. gasoline futures have risen by more than 16 percent in the last month, compared with a near-6 percent rise in U.S. crude futures. Based on current market data, the so-called OPEC+ group is "likely to continue with the production cuts until the end of the year," a Gulf OPEC source told Reuters on Tuesday.

Oil surges 2.6%, settling at $56.94, as US crude stocks plunge and Saudis brush off Trump tweet -- Oil prices surged more than 2 percent on Wednesday after government data showed an unexpected and sharp drop in U.S. crude stockpiles. Prices were already higher after Saudi Arabia's influential energy minister brushed aside pressure from President Donald Trump to tread carefully as OPEC and its allies cut output.U.S. commercial crude stockpiles fell by 8.6 million barrels in the week through Feb. 22, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported. That was more than twice the drop of 4.2 million barrels reported by the American Petroleum Institute on Tuesday. It also confounded the forecasts in a Reuters survey for a rise of 2.8 million barrels.Meanwhile, U.S. gasoline stocks fell by by 1.9 million barrels, while inventories of distillate fuels like diesel ticked down by about 300,000 barrels.U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures jumped $1.44, or 2.6 percent, settling Wednesday's session at $56.94 a barrel.  International Brent crude futures rose $1.19, or 1.8 percent on the day, at $66.40 a barrel around 2:25 p.m. ET.   The weekly report also showed weekly U.S. oil production ticking up to a record 12.1 million barrels per day. Crude exports at nearly 3.4 million bpd also remained close to last week's all-time high of 3.6 million bpd.Crude futures have been supported this year by OPEC's deal with Russia and other producers to keep 1.2 million bpd off the market in order to drain a global oversupply. The move follows a collapse in crude prices in the final quarter of last year.But oil prices plunged more than 3 percent on Monday after Trump tweeted at OPEC, saying the the cost of crude is rising too much and urging the group to "please relax and take it easy."Trump hounded OPEC throughout last year, blaming the group for high oil prices and lobbying for it to end an earlier round of production cuts. OPEC ultimately lifted the caps in June, before agreeing to restore them in December.On Wednesday, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih responded to Trump, saying the kingdom and its partners are indeed proceeding cautiously during the fresh round of output cuts. "We are taking it easy. The 25 countries are taking a very slow and measured approach. Just as the second half of last year proved, we are interested in market stability first and foremost," Falih told CNBC.

Oil Prices Edge Down Amid Record US Crude Output - - Oil prices edged down on Thursday in Asia amid signs of surging U.S. crude oil production. Crude Oil WTI Futures dropped 0.1% to $56.89 per barrel by 12:27 AM ET (05:27 GMT). International Brent Oil Futures fell 0.3% to $66.41. Both WTI and Brent are up more than 30% from Christmas Eve lows, and about 25% or so higher since January after the OPEC+ production cuts announced on Dec. 7. Prices were under pressure on Thursday after the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed American crude output rose by more than 2 million barrels per day over the last year. On the other hand, the EIA also reported that crude oil inventories fell by 8.65 million barrels in the week to Feb. 22 compared to forecasts for a build of 2.84 million. It was the first U.S. crude stockpile drop in six weeks, coming after the production cuts by OPEC. In the previous week to Feb. 15, crude balances had risen by nearly 3.7 million barrels. Separately, weaker-than-expected Chinese PMI data also weighed on oil prices. Data on Thursday showed that the official Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI) fell to 49.2 in February, the weakest level since February 2016. It is the latest sign that China’s economy is still losing steam, after last year's growth cooled to a near 30-year low. China is the world’s biggest oil importer

Oil steadies after rally as Chinese data and trade dispute create headwinds - Oil prices were mixed on Thursday, following a volatile trading period that saw crude futures plunge more than 3 percent at the start of the week and rally more than 2 percent in the previous session.Crude futures recovered on Wednesday after Saudi Arabia's influential oil minister brushed off pressure from President Donald Trump to "take it easy" on price-boosting production cuts. Trump's warning to Saudi Arabia and its fellow OPEC members was the catalyst for oil's decline earlier in the week.An unexpected plunge in U.S. crude stockpiles added fuel to Wednesday's rally.But on Thursday, traders said the oil market was dealing with several headwinds, as U.S.-China trade tensions persisted, the Chinese economy showed signs of slowing and record U.S. production undermined OPEC-led output curbs. Brent crude was down 33 cents, or half a percent, at $66.06 per barrel around 10:45 a.m. ET (1545 GMT).U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was up 23 cents, or nearly half a percent, at $57.17.

WTI Tumbles Back Below $57 After US Offers To Sell Oil From SPR - Having failed to push the Saudis to stem prices (in fact being largely ignored), the Trump administration, according to Bloomberg headlines, has decided to counter high oil prices by offering to sell 5mm barrels from the SPR...WTI dropped on the headlines... We will see how long this dip holds as Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak and his Saudi Arabian counterpart Khalid Al-Falih discussed bilateral and multilateral cooperation on the phone, Russian ministry says in a statement on its website.

Is This The End Of A Record-Breaking Oil Rally- - Oil was down a few days ago, but is set to close out the week with another gain, pushing WTI and Brent close to their highest level in three months.   Citgo completed its breakup with PDVSA, cutting off a crucial stream of revenue for the Venezuelan government. The opposition, led by self-proclaimed president Juan Guaidó, hopes to obtain control of Citgo and its resources, which would provide the new government with a revenue base. Recent data from Kpler and the WSJ suggests that Venezuela’s oil exports have only declined to about 1.1 mb/d, evidence that the Maduro government is still finding buyers for its oil.   ExxonMobil replaced three times its annual production in 2018, the largest reserve-replacement ratio in over a decade. The increase largely came from a re-booking of reserves in Canada’s oil sands that had been written off in 2016 due to low oil prices. In total, Exxon added 4.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent last year, bringing its total to 24.3 billion boe.   ExxonMobil made a substantial natural gas discovery off the coast of Cyprus, adding to the bounty in the Eastern Mediterranean. According to Wood Mackenzie, Exxon’s Glaucus field could be one of the largest this year. “Glaucus is a giant,” said Robert Morris, senior research analyst at Wood Mackenzie, according to the FT. “The discovery maintains the east Mediterranean’s position as one of the world’s premier exploration hotspots.” Investors are souring on the oil majors, according to the FT. The majors face both short- and long-term headwinds, including low oil prices stemming from abundant U.S. shale supply combined with the long-term fears of peak oil demand. “There’s just this hate for this commodity right now,” Bernstein analyst Bob Bracket told the FT. That could affect how the industry proceeds going forward. “The structural challenges the industry faces aren’t going to go away, so energy companies of all sizes need to clearly articulate how they will allocate investors’ capital and prioritise shareholder returns in a manner that rebuilds confidence,”

Oil rises on OPEC's cuts, but soaring US exports and economic slowdown weigh -- Oil prices edged higher on Friday as surging U.S. supply and concerns of a global economic slowdown were offset by falling OPEC output.International Brent crude futures were at $66.38 per barrel, up 7 cents from Thursday's settlement. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures were at $57.50 per barrel, up 28 cents.The 14-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries pumped 30.68 million barrels per day (bpd) in February, a Reuters survey showed on Friday, down 300,000 bpd from January and the lowest OPEC total since 2015.In Venezuela, oil exports have plunged by 40 percent to around 920,000 barrels per day (bpd) since the U.S. government slapped sanctions on its petroleum industry on Jan. 28.OPEC, of which Venezuela is a founding member, is leading efforts to withhold around 1.2 million bpd of supply from the market to prop up prices. Venezuela is exempt from the cuts."OPEC and its 10 allies are doing their job and this time they are stubborn," London-based brokerage PVM said in a note, referring to the supply restrictions which have been in place since the start of the year.The fall in OPEC production comes at a time when the United States is pumping oil at record rates. The U.S. Energy Department said on Thursday it was offering up to 6 million barrels of crude from national emergency stocks to raise funds to modernise U.S. strategic oil reserves.  Canada's main oil-producing province of Alberta on Thursday raised the amount of crude that companies can produce in April to 3.66 million barrels per day, an increase of 100,000 bpd from the limit imposed in January. On the demand side, a Reuters poll showed analysts expect global fuel consumption to dip this year in the face of a broad economic slowdown.

Oil falls 2 percent as demand worries overtake supply cuts Reuters (Reuters) - Oil prices settled down about 2 percent on Friday, ending around 3 percent lower on the week as concerns over global demand growth after weak U.S. manufacturing data overshadowed OPEC-led supply cuts and sanctions on Venezuela and Iran. After strengthening early in the session to over a three-month high, U.S. crude futures turned sharply lower on demand worries. The ISM manufacturing activity index in February sank to the lowest since November 2016, and was below expectations. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) futures fell $1.42, or 2.5 percent, to settle at $55.80 per barrel, after hitting $57.88, its highest since mid-November. Global benchmark Brent crude futures for May settled $1.24, or 1.9 percent, lower at $65.07 a barrel. Despite hitting their highest levels since mid-November this week, Brent futures ended the week 3.3 percent lower and WTI dropped 2.7 percent.  “We were up all morning until that data hit,” he said. The data sent a strong message to a market that has been looking for direction, The data compounded worries that demand is falling globally. A Reuters poll showed analysts have grown more pessimistic over the prospects for a significant price rally this year, global fuel consumption is expected to dip this year in the face of a broad economic slowdown. China’s February factory activity fell for a third month as the world’s second-largest economy continued to struggle with weak export orders, a private survey showed on Friday. The weakness is also being felt across the wider region. South Korea’s exports contracted at their steepest pace in nearly three years in February as demand from China cooled further. Despite this, fuel consumption, especially in Asia’s developing economies which are key drivers of global oil demand, is so far holding up. 

Oil prices decline on demand concerns to lose roughly 3% for the week - Oil futures finished sharply lower on Friday, with U.S. and global benchmark prices down roughly 3% for the week as traders focused on a backdrop of weak U.S. economic data and record domestic production.Data showing a drop in OPEC output to its lowest in four years failed to support prices. Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries pumped 30.68 million barrels a day in February, down 300,000 barrels a day from a month earlier and the lowest since 2015, according to a survey from Reuters released Friday.“The market has priced in OPEC to extend their production cuts until year end and markets may need a new catalyst to take crude higher,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda. On Friday, April West Texas Intermediate crude fell $1.42, or 2.5%, to settle at $55.80 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract lost about 2.6% for the week. Based on the front-month contracts, prices climbed 6.4% for the month of February, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Global benchmark May Brent settled at $65.07, down $1.24, or 1.9%, on ICE Futures Europe. Prices based on the front-month contract saw a weekly loss of 3.2% after rising 6.7% for February.  The decline in oil prices likely caught “traders off guard,” said Scott Gecas, chief market strategist at Walsh Trading, particularly given the news on OPEC output. Still, “one could make the case for a lower price based on the ISM headline.” Weaker-than-expected data on U.S. manufacturing and consumer sentiment, on the heels of a fall in Chinese factory activity to its lowest in three years, raised worries about energy demand. Data Friday showed American manufacturing grew their businesses in February at the slowest pace since the election of President Donald Trump in November 2016, with the ISM manufacturing survey falling to 54.2 in February from 56.6. Meanwhile, the final reading of the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index faded in February, with a 93.8 reading, below the MarketWatch-compiled economist consensus of 95.6. 

Has Trump Overplayed His Hand With Saudi Arabia? - Last year, President Donald Trump successfully convinced Saudi Arabia to help keep a lid on global oil prices by ramping up production. The Saudis acquiescence to Trump’s tweets at the time were likely appeasement to the president for placing fresh sanctions against Saudi Arabia’s middle eastern nemesis, Iran. Moreover, most concede that Riyadh was a deciding factor in swaying the president to withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran. Consequently, Saudi Arabia’s kowtow to Trumps’ tweets was a returned favor. However, when Trump later granted waivers that allowed several countries to keep importing Iranian crude, oil prices started their nosedive during the last quarter of the year, catching Saudi Arabia flat-footed, and according to many accounts furious at the president for what they saw as a betrayal of trust.Now, Trump is tweeting again about high global oil prices and asking OPEC+ to reconsider its oil production cut deal that was implemented at the start of the year. On Monday, the president tweeted “Oil prices getting too high. OPEC, please relax and take it easy. The world cannot take a price hike - fragile!”However, in order to remove excess oil from global markets, particularly due to Trump’s Iranian oil exports waivers in addition to rampant U.S. production that just hit a once unthinkable 12 million barrel per day (bpd), it’s likely that Riyadh will think twice before appeasing the American president - who at the end of the day appears to lack in-depth knowledge of how global oil markets work.  In fact, in an apparent rebuke of the president, Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said yesterday that oil inventories in the U.S. are “brimming,” and reducing that glut remains the main goal for the group, adding that the kingdom plans further curbs to output in March.

OPEC rescued oil from 'total collapse,' Barkindo says, but the US prevented 'major chaos' - Oil producing group OPEC is responsible for salvaging the entire oil industry with its deal to curb output, OPEC's secretary general told CNBC, but the U.S. shale revolution has helped to prevent "major, major energy chaos" in the world."OPEC has been doing a great service," to producers and global oil markets, Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo told CNBC's Dan Murphy in Riyadh on Wednesday."The decisions that OPEC took, together with our non-OPEC partners, literally rescued this industry from total collapse," he said.Asked for his perspective on the U.S. Congress' consideration of antitrust legislation that could hurt OPEC – specifically, the "No-Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act" (NOPEC) bill that could allow OPEC to be sued for coordinating production and influencing oil prices – Barkindo said actions taken by OPEC had in fact helped U.S. producers.  "You can ask the producers in the shale basins in the U.S. whether they have benefitted from the actions we have taken over the years," Barkindo said. "In particular, during this longest cycle where we saw prices crash by over 80 percent at one point, where we saw the supply and demand balance in (a period of) disequilibrium that had never been witnessed, where we saw more than 100 U.S. companies file for bankruptcy with all the negative consequences on the industry, the regions where they operate … no party was insulated," he said. Oil prices fell dramatically from a high of around $114 a barrel in June 2014 to a low of around $27 a barrel in January 2016 amid a sharp imbalance in supply and demand. The fall in prices was largely attributed to weaker global demand amid a supply glut from the likes of the U.S. which has experienced what's known as the 'shale revolution' which has made it the largest oil producer in the world, as well as major producers Saudi Arabia and Russia. The fall in oil prices hit producing nations hard, especially in the U.S., whose producers have higher production costs.

Yemen family marries off 3-year-old girl for food – - A family in Yemen has married off their three-year-old daughter in exchange for food and shelter, international charity Oxfam warned yesterday.“Conflict, rising food prices and plummeting incomes in Yemen are forcing people to resort to desperate measures to stave off hunger,” Oxfam said in a press release.“Since the escalation in conflict in 2015, food prices in Yemen have soared while household incomes have plummeted, pushing the costs of basic foods beyond the reach of many,” the statement said.The warning comes as rich countries meet in the Swiss city of Geneva to pledge aid for the humanitarian crisis in Yemen which has left almost ten million people one step away from famine. “Oxfam spoke to families in Amran governorate in the North who, hungry and isolated after fleeing their homes, have been forced to marry off their daughters – in one case as young as three years old – to buy food and shelter to save the rest of the family,” the organisation said in its statement.Oxfam’s Yemen Country Director Muhsin Siddiquey said: “As this war has gone on, people’s means of coping with devastating levels of hunger have become more and more desperate. They’re being forced to take steps that blight their children’s lives now and for decades to come. This is a direct result of a man-made humanitarian catastrophe caused by the conflict.  Just over a week ago, Yemen’s internationally recognised government and the Houthis agreed on the first phase of a withdrawal from the key port city of Hudaydah, following talks between the parties in Sweden in December. Reaching the agreement has been slow and it’s not yet clear what, if any, impact it will have.

Theresa May Calls for End to Yemen War, but Continues Selling Weapons to Saudis - — British Prime Minister Theresa May will call on Saudi Arabia’s King Salman to use his influence to encourage Yemeni parties towards peace, telling a summit that governments must redouble efforts to secure a political settlement to the crisis.“My message in Sharm el-Sheikh is clear: let us now redouble our efforts to build on the progress made and get the Stockholm agreements implemented in full,” May was quoted by Reuters, on her way to the EU-League of Arab States summit in Egypt. Speaking at a summit in Egypt on Sunday, the British prime minister pledged £200 million ($261 million) in aid for Yemen, saying the new funding would be used to provide humanitarian aid for millions of people living without access to food or clean water. This comes just days after British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, urged Germany to rethink it’s moratorium on weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. Hunt wants the German government to exempt big defense projects from its efforts to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia, or face damage to both it’s economic and European credentials.

UN Watchdog Again Confirms Iran in Compliance With P5+1 Nuclear Deal — The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has issued a statement Friday confirming once again that Iran remains fully in compliance with the P5+1 nuclear deal, and is in line with all nuclear limits contained within that pact.Since the deal went into effect, the IAEA has issued monthly reports repeatedly confirming that Iran has remained in full compliance. To the extent that there has been difficulty in keeping levels of material below the caps, it was related to the US reneging on a promise to buy heavy water from Iran, and even that was quickly resolved.Since the US withdrew outright from the nuclear deal in 2018, they have been pressuring the other signatories to also abandon the deal. The IAEA, however, has defended the terms of the deal, and has been increasingly public about Iran’s compliance continuing in good faith.The US maintains that Iran is in some non-specific way in violation of the deal, though when pressed on the matter it appears to simply boil down to the Trump Administration objecting to the deal’s terms, not that Iran isn’t keeping its word.

Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif resigns --Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stepped down on Monday, announcing his resignation on Instagram."I am apologising you for all the shortcomings ... in the past years during my time as foreign minister ... I thank the Iranian nation and officials," he wrote on his Instagram page.There was no immediate reason giving for the resignation, which can only take effect if President Hassan Rouhani accepts it. Iran's state-run IRNA news agency cited a spokesman, Abbas Mousavi, confirming Zarif had resigned. Zarif was appointed minister of foreign affairs in August 2013, two years before Iran agreed to scale back its uranium enrichment programme and pledged not to develop nuclear weapons in return for the lifting of international sanctions as part of a landmark nuclear deal brokered with the United States, the UK, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union.A vocal supporter of the deal, Zarif has since come under pressure from more hardline power blocs within the Islamic Republic who were opposed to the agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Criticism of the accord has become more intense in recent months following US President Donald Trump's decision in May 2018 to withdraw from the deal and reimpose sanctions on Tehran.

Iran Hardliners Vindicated by Trump Take Aim at Zarif -- Just last week in Munich, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif looked to be in his element as he addressed his global audience from the podium, dismissing Israeli accusations and taking swipes at U.S. policy failures in his neighborhood. Zarif and his familiar animated style might have vacated the international stage for good after he announced his intention to resign, hinting at domestic political interference in his role. U.S.-educated Zarif’s ability to engage with diplomats and represent the Islamic Republic in fluent, idiomatic English made him a draw at events such as the annual Munich Security Conference. But his international regard has always belied a tortured relationship with his hardline opponents at home, who revile him as an architect of Iran’s stumbling nuclear deal and a symbol of the folly of engagement with the West. President Hassan Rouhani rejected Zarif’s resignation, saying it was against national interests, according to state-run media. But the back and forth shows the internal power struggle over Iran’s future is becoming more urgent, as hardliners are seen as vindicated in their anti-western stance by President Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the nuclear accord and reimpose U.S. sanctions. Perceived success on the battlefields of Syria alongside Russia and Bashar Al-Assad adds to a sense among hardliners that the West has nothing to offer. His supporters say Zarif has been exhausted into bowing out of the fight at home — a victim of Iran’s increasingly polarized politics, where absolutist, dogmatic views have ultimate sway over the levers of power in Tehran. Rouhani Braces for Sanctions With New Ministers in Key Posts Losing him at a time of economic upheaval would be a blow to Rouhani, a fellow moderate, and would mean the nuclear deal faced a real chance of collapsing -- both outcomes cheered by those against reformist moves. “When Rouhani’s term finishes, you will see a shift in Iranian politics,” said Fouad Izadi, assistant professor at the faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran and a vocal critic of the nuclear deal. “The remaining people who have not resigned will be forced out.”

Stay in your job, Iranian president tells moderate ally Zarif (Reuters) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani rejected his foreign minister’s resignation as “against national interests” on Wednesday, bolstering a moderate ally who has long been targeted by hardliners in factional struggles over the 2015 nuclear deal with the West. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, a U.S.-educated veteran diplomat, announced his resignation on Monday in what an aide said was anger at being excluded from meetings that day with Syria’s president, who was visiting Tehran. Two days later, he was back with his position strengthened by the president’s endorsement as well as a chorus of support from moderate lawmakers, a senior Revolutionary Guards commander and, implicitly, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In a letter published by state news agency IRNA, Rouhani told Zarif: “As the Supreme Leader has described you as a ‘trustworthy, brave and religious’ person in the forefront of resistance against widespread U.S. pressures, I consider accepting your resignation against national interests and reject it.” Senior Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani said Zarif, who helped craft the pact that curbed Iran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, was the main person in charge of foreign policy and he was supported by Khamenei. The support came at a time when the clerical establishment is in a vulnerable position amid growing pressure from the United States, and so in need of promoting unity and keeping the reform wing on its side. Iranian leaders reached the conclusion that Washington wants regime change after U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in May last year. In many of his speeches at the time Khamenei stressed that unity is paramount, and that remains his position as Tehran faces reimposed sanctions. 

Video- Iran Hacks Into CENTCOM, Crashes MQ-9 Reaper Drone – Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh revealed on Thursday that several American unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) flying above Syria and Iraq were remotely commandeered by the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)."Seven to eight drones that had constant flights over Syria and Iraq were brought under our control and their intel was monitored by us and we could gain their first-hand intel," General Hajizadeh said in the Western Iranian city of Hamedan on Thursday.Fars News Agency published a three-minute video taken on several different occasions by UAVs. Half of the content shows a General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper hacked by IRGC electronic warfare forces, then flown into the ground. The last segment of the video shows an American air strike targeting the crashed UAV.The footage below shows IRGC’s penetration into United States Central Command, could be seen as evidence that supports General Hajizadeh’s claims.  Iran has a long history of pioneering UAV technology. The country has manufactured UAVs since the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s.

Assad Meets Khamenei in His First Iran Visit Since Syrian War Began — Syrian President Bashar al Assad made his first public visit to his closest regional ally Iran since the start of Syria’s war in 2011, meeting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on Monday and championing their alliance, state media reported. Syrian and Iranian state television showed footage of Assad and Khamenei smiling and embracing, and Syrian TV said the two leaders agreed “to continue cooperation at all levels for the interests of the two friendly nations”. Assad regained the upper hand in Syria’s war with the help of Russian air power, Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah forces, retaking all key population centres from rebels and militants backed variously by some Western powers and Gulf Arabs. The insurgency against his rule is now seen to have collapsed. It was Assad’s first known foreign visit other than to Russia since the war began, and his first to Tehran since 2010.

Al-Qaeda Increases Control Over Syria’s Idlib Province — Late last year, Turkey-backed rebels were decisively overwhelmed by al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front in the Idlib Province, in northern Syria. While Turkey’s allies made mention of resolving this, as an attempt to prevent Syria attacking the area during a ceasefire with Turkey, al-Qaeda never left, and their control has only grown. So while Turkey controls some of northern Aleppo Province, the Idlib Province is now almost entirely under the control of al-Qaeda, and they are ruling under an increasingly strict Islamist rule.Al-Qaeda’s activities are forcing a lot of aid groups to cease activity in the area, and a lot of locals say that they object being ruled over by the faction. They say exactly who supports al-Qaeda is never clear, and so far there is no sign of any resistance. Some are expecting Turkey to intervene, because they’d promised to do so last year to keep Syria from overrunning the area. With Turkey preparing an invasion further east against the Kurds, however, that seems to be low priority, and al-Qaeda is given more and more time solidify its control.

The Most Wanted Millennial Terrorist- US Offers $1 Million For Info On Bin Laden's Son - The US State Department has issued a whopping $1 million bounty for information leading to the whereabouts of Hamza bin Laden, son of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was reportedly killed by US Navy Seals in Pakistan in 2011. US intelligence and counter-terror officials believe the son, now estimated to be 30 to 33 years old, has emerged as leader of the al-Qaeda terror network and is currently trying to track him, especially after new audio and video messages have emerged of him calling for terror attacks against the United States and its allies.  via AFPThe US State Department said in a statement this week, "He has released audio and video messages on the Internet, calling on his followers to launch attacks against the United States and its Western allies, and he has threatened attacks against the United States in revenge for the May 2011 killing of his father by US military forces." The new information was posted on the State Deptartment's "Rewards for Justice" program website further says he married the daughter of Mohammed Atta, who was the lead hijacker and a assumed mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Saudi Arabia Strips Osama Bin Laden’s Son of Citizenship After US Places Bounty — Saudi Arabia has stripped citizenship from Hamza bin Laden, the son of slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the interior ministry said in a statement published by the official gazette Umm al-Qura.The US State Department said on Thursday it was offering a reward of up to $1 million for information leading “to the identification or location in any country” of Hamza, seeing him as an emerging face in his father’s organisation.The location of Hamza bin Laden has been the subject of speculation for years with reports of him living in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria or under house arrest in Iran.“Hamza bin Laden is the son of deceased former AQ leader Osama bin Laden and is emerging as a leader in the AQ franchise,” a State Department statement said, referring to al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden, scion of the wealthy Saudi bin Laden family, was stripped of his citizenship in 1994 by King Fahd. Bin Laden, who according to the United States is around 30, has threatened attacks against the US to avenge the 2011 killing of his father, who was living in hiding in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad, by US special forces.Letters from Osama bin Laden seized from his compound indicated that he had been training Hamza, thought to be his favourite son, to replace him as leader of al-Qaeda.In 2015, bin Laden released an audio message urging radical fighters in Syria to unite, claiming that the fight in the war-torn country paves the way to “liberating Palestine.” In a message a year later, following in the footsteps of his father, he urged the overthrow of the leadership in their native Saudi Arabia, the AFP news agency reported.

US Army Takes 50 Tons of Stolen Gold From Syria in Alleged Deal With ISIS — As the remaining pockets of ISIS fighters faced imminent defeat in northeast Syria, the United States allegedly gave them an offer they couldn’t refuse: give us your massive caches of gold — or die.According to reports by Syrian state news agency SANA, U.S. forces struck a deal with ISIS whereby the terrorist group would give up 50 tons of gold across eastern Syria’s Deir el-Zour province in exchange for safe passage.The precious metal, worth about $2.13 billion, was plundered by the self-designated “caliphate” as its reign of terror spread across Syria and Iraq between 2015 and 2017.Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah reports that local sources claim U.S. Army helicopters have already transferred the gold from the U.S. forces’ base in Kobani, the Kurdish-controlled city that lies close to Syria’s northern border with Syria. A portion of the gold was also distributed to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which dominates the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).The news comes after SANA claimed that locals witnessed U.S. helicopters airlifting large cases of gold amounting to about 40 tons from the al-Dashisha area in Hasaka’s southern countryside earlier this month. The gold was purportedly looted by ISIS from Mosul in Iraq and other parts of Syria.The Syrian state media outlet claimed that ISIS leaders were on-hand to guide the U.S. helicopters to the places where the gold was stashed, “closing a deal by which Washington spared hundreds of the terror organization’s field leaders and experts.”

As US withdraws troops from Syria, France and UK remain in the back seat Trump's announcement on December 18 that the US would withdraw its 2,000 troops from Syria provoked consternation amongst its European allies – most notably France and the UK, the old continent’s largest military powers, both of which have special forces in the country. The former says it has “around 1,000” soldiers in Syria; the UK has not revealed how many troops it has on the ground. In the immediate aftermath of this declaration from the White House, Paris and London both refuted Trump’s claim that “we have won against ISIS” (another name for the Islamic State group), with French Defence Minister Florence Parly insisting that the “Islamic State [another name for the Islamic State group] has not been wiped from the map”, while the UK Foreign Office asserted that “much remains to be done and we must not lose sight of the threat [the IS group] pose”. Speaking to Reuters on December 20, a French presidential source went further, stating that “the coalition’s spine is the United States”. Adding to French and British concerns, the Kurdish forces who took back control swathes of northeastern Syria from the IS group warned that, if attacked without Western support, they may no longer be able to guard the hundreds of European jihadists held in their jails – leading to US calls for European countries to repatriate these prisoners. Yet despite the Franco-British protestations, neither country has committed to increasing its military presence in Syria. One French government official even told AFP on February 15: “It is totally out of the question to have French troops on the ground without the Americans there”.

Russia Wants to Get Iran Out of Syria, Netanyahu Says After Putin Meet - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday aftermeeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow that getting the Iranians and all foreign fighters out of Syria is also one of Russia's stated goals. A diplomatic source added that Putin did not place limitations on Israel's actions in Syria.Netanyahu said the meeting with Putin was "good and productive," emphasizing that Putin accepted his invitation to visit Jerusalem.In a Tweet on Wednesday, Putin said he would participate in the opening ceremony for a new monument in Jerusalem commemorating victims and survivors of the World War II Siege of Leningrad. There is no date set yet for this visit, which the two countries will agree on a later time.Netanyahu added that the two spoke mostly about Iranian entrenchment in Syria and the S-300 air-defense system that Russia delivered to Syria in September.The prime minister also said that the Israeli delegation brought with it to the meeting intelligence materials. He added that Russia seeks to get Syria back to the way it was before the civil war.Regarding Israel's actions in Syria, the diplomatic source told reporters that "the policy is that we will continue to act and it's accepted with understanding." Referring to the downing of the Russian spy plane in Syria in September 2018, the source added that the crisis is "behind us."

IDF Launches Surprise Military Drill Simulating War In Gaza - Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a three-day war drill along the Gaza Strip border simulating various military maneuver, including a full-blown war with terrorist organizations in the coastal enclave, the IDF said in a statementSunday.The field training exercise, which will measure the operational readiness of IDF soldiers for various combat scenarios “especially in the Gaza Strip,” will include infantry units, artillery, armored personnel carriers, main battle tanks, and aircraft, the statement read. The exercise will also include armored personnel carriers and helicopters moving large numbers of troops to different regions, live-fire exercises, and aerial bombing raids.Though a surprise announcement, the IDF said the drill had been planned for some time as part of its regular training schedule.“We emphasize that the exercise was planned as part of the training program and is intended to maintain the readiness and readiness of the forces,” the IDF statement said.The drill comes amid an increase of nighttime riots at the Gaza border fence, which includes throwing explosives over the barrier and the return of airborne arson attacks directed at Israel. The Jerusalem Post said Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi attended a meeting with senior officers at IDF Southern Command. Military leaders agreed on a new operational plan in the event of war, including the formation of a centralized administrative unit that would prepare a list of potential targets in Gaza for special forces.

Israeli Bulldozers uproot 300 Palestinian-Owned Trees near Jenin — Israeli bulldozers razed dozens of dunams and uprooted hundreds of Palestinian-owned trees, on Monday afternoon, on lands belonging to residents from the Bartaa village, southwest of the northern occupied West Bank district of Jenin. According to local sources, Israeli forces along with bulldozers stormed the area and began to raze about 28 dunams (6.9 acres) of land. In addition, bulldozers uprooted 300 almond and olive trees. Sources added that the razed land belonged to Jamal Sharif Amarneh. According to Palestinians and rights groups, Israel’s main goal, both in its policies in Area C, in which more than 60% of Palestinian land is under full Israeli control, and Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise, is to depopulate the land of its Palestinian residents and to replace them with Jewish Israeli communities, in order to manipulate population demographics in all of historic Palestine. The movement of Israeli settlers taking over Palestinian land, and further displacing the local Palestinian population has been a “stable” Israeli policy since the takeover of the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1967, B’Tselem said, underscoring that all “Israeli legislative, legal, planning, funding, and defense bodies” have played an active role in the dispossession of Palestinians from their lands.

Israeli Extremists Are Making a Comeback—With the Help of US Tax Dollars - As Israel’s April 9 election approaches, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has paved the way for a Jewish-supremacist party—which some are dubbing the Jewish KKK—to enter the next Israeli Knesset. He encouraged the merger of three small far-right parties, Jewish Home, National Union, and Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit in Hebrew), since each of them separately was not expected to receive enough votes to make the minimum Knesset threshold. If Netanyahu is reelected, the new far-right party, assuming it receives enough votes to make the minimum, would then help him secure a governing coalition of at least 61 seats. All three parties are nationalist, anti-Arab, and homophobic; however, Jewish Power stands out because its platform and leaders are inspired by the violent legacy of Meir Kahane and his Kach party, which was barred from running in the Knesset in 1988 on grounds of racism, and then outlawed in 1994 on grounds of incitement to terrorism after Baruch Goldstein, who was active in Kach, murdered 29 Palestinians in Hebron exactly 25 years ago Monday. The US State Department followed suit and listed Kach and an offshoot, Kahane Chai (Kahane Lives), as a foreign terrorist group in 1997. One of Jewish Power’s leaders, Michael Ben-Ari, who served in the Knesset from 2009 to 2013, was barred from entering the United States in 2012 because of his affiliation with a “terrorist organization.”  In the 20-plus years since Kach was banned, Kahane’s disciples have found ways to continue pushing a racist, anti-Arab, and antidemocratic agenda—and to fund it. A new investigation carried out in coordination with the Democratic Bloc, an Israeli nonprofit organization founded in 2018 to research and monitor antidemocratic trends in Israel, reveals a web of interconnected groups, individuals, and websites in Israel and the United States—including several American nonprofit foundations that appear to have been founded for the purpose of funneling tax-exempt dollars to Kahanist causes, some of which are directly linked to Jewish terrorist groups. “If in the past, they relied on political mechanisms for fundraising and recruiting activists, today we are talking about a network of organizations disguised as charity groups and social causes that are raising money from the State of Israel and abroad in order to continue inciting and undermining the foundations of democracy,” said Ran Cohen, one of the founders of the Democratic Bloc.

Israeli Troops May Have Committed 'Crimes Against Humanity' In Gaza Protests- UN  -  -Investigators from the United Nations said on Thursday that Israeli troops who shot unarmed civilians - including children - may have committed crimes against humanity during the "Great March of Return" protests last year at the border with Gaza.   According to the New York Times, the UN Human Rights Council formed a commission of inquiry, which reported that Israeli security forces had killed 189 Palestinians while injuring more than 9,000. According to a 25-page report by the commission, Israeli authorities have shown little willingness to hold those responsible to account.  Of the 189 Palestinians killed, investigators said, 183 were shot with live ammunition, including 35 children, three health workers and two journalists. It reported 6,106 people wounded by live ammunition, including 940 children, 39 health workers and 39 journalists. In addition, 3,098 people were injured by bullet fragments or other shrapnel, or were struck directly by tear gas canisters or rubber bullets.The panel found that four Israelis were wounded in the clashes, and none were killed. -New York Times"The Israeli security forces killed and maimed Palestinian demonstrators who did not pose an imminent threat of death or serious injury to others when they were shot, nor were they directly participating in hostilities," wrote the panel. "Less lethal alternatives remained available and substantial defenses were in place, rendering the use of lethal force neither necessary nor proportionate, and therefore impermissible."

Benjamin Netanyahu- Israel PM faces corruption charges - Israel's attorney general intends to indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption charges. Mr Netanyahu faces possible charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in connection with three cases. The prime minister is alleged to have accepted gifts from wealthy businessmen and dispensed favours to try to get more positive press coverage. Mr Netanyahu, who faces an election, said in a TV address that the case would "collapse like a house of cards". In a defiant broadcast, he repeated his assertion that he is the victim of a left-wing "witch-hunt" intended to topple him ahead of the closely contested election on 9 April. A final hearing, probably after the election, will determine whether the charges go forward. The prime minister will have an opportunity to make his case then. Mr Netanyahu is set to be charged with fraud and breach of trust for accepting expensive gifts - including cigars, pink champagne and jewellery worth $264,100 (£199,200) - from an Israeli-born Hollywood film producer Arnon Milchan and the Australian billionaire James Packer. The gifts from Mr Milchan are alleged to have been in return for help with a US visa and tax breaks. Mr Milchan and Mr Packer face no charges and have denied any wrongdoing. In two other cases, Mr Netanyahu is accused of trying to get more favourable press coverage for himself. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit says he is considering charges of fraud and breach of trust in both, and bribery in one of them. The most serious case is seen as that involving media mogul Shaul Elovitch, controller of Israel's largest telecom company, Bezeq. Mr Netanyahu is accused of seeking favourable coverage from an Elovitch-owned news site in return for regulatory decisions that would benefit the media mogul.

Israel’s Netanyahu Officially Indicted on Bribery and Fraud Charges — Three months after Israeli police recommended that the country’s attorney general pursue charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his alleged involvement in “Bezeq Walla Affair,” it appears an indictment is finally being handed down on Thursday, much to the longtime leader’s chagrin.Since Netanyahu and his wife have become embroiled in multiple scandals over the past few years, seemingly all of which have yielded recommendations of prosecution, let us pause a moment for a quick refresher on the most serious allegations.The crux of the case is that Netanyahu and his wife accepted bribes from Shaul Elovitch, the owner of Israel’s largest telecoms firm, Bezeq. Elovitch also owns the “Walla” news website. The prime minister crossed a line when he allegedly fired Communications Ministry Director-General Avi Berger and hired ex-Netanyahu campaign manager Shlomo Filber in a bid to help guarantee special treatment for Elovitch and his companies. In exchange, Netanyahu and his wife purportedly struck a deal with Elovitch for favorable coverage on his news website. In addition to the bribery and breach of trust charges stemming from Bezeq-Walla, Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit said Thursday that he intends to indict Netanyahu for fraud and breach of trust in two other cases. All charges are pending a hearing where Netanyahu will be given a chance to respond, according to Haaretz.  The indictments, which followed a three-year long investigation, mark the first time in Israel’s history that a sitting prime minister has been indicted, and come just six weeks before a general election (though Netanyahu is far from the first Israeli politician to face serious criminal charges). A brief explanation of the charges can be found below:

UN: American airstrikes contribute to record number of children, civilians killed in Afghanistan - Stars and Stripes - — More civilians were killed in the war in Afghanistan last year than any other year since records began, with child deaths alone also reaching an all-time high, partly due to a spike in U.S. airstrikes, the United Nations said in a report on Sunday. The findings added to a litany of discouraging data on the U.S.’s longest war and were released a day before American and Taliban officials were to resume direct talks in Qatar, which could lead to the U.S. pulling out of the 17-year conflict. The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan documented more than 3,800 civilian deaths in the country last year, including about 930 children, both annual records. Nearly 11,000 civilian casualties in total were recorded throughout the year. UNAMA attributed most of the casualties to anti-government forces, predominantly the Taliban and local Islamic State affiliate, with pro-government forces being blamed for about a quarter of the deaths and injuries. However, pro-government forces — which include the U.S. military — were shown to have killed more Afghan children last year than their adversaries, which UNAMA said was largely due to U.S. airstrikes. Responding to Sunday’s report, the U.S.-led NATO mission in Afghanistan said “all feasible precautions” are taken to limit civilian casualties and that it investigates all allegations. According to NATO investigations, airstrikes by foreign forces caused 117 civilian casualties last year, including 62 deaths. That’s about a fifth of the U.N.’s tally. In a statement of its own, the Taliban called UNAMA’s report “one-sided.” A ramped-up bombing campaign has been part of the Trump administration’s strategy for pushing the Taliban to the negotiating table. The U.S. dropped more munitions over the country last year than the previous three years combined, according to Air Force data. Airstrikes by Afghan and international forces killed approximately the same number of Afghan civilians in 2018 as the collective total of the previous three years, the UNAMA report revealed.

New US Peace Plan Would Remove All Troops From Afghanistan Within 5 Years- NYT - As the American military pulls its troops out of Syria, a process that's expected to wrap up over the next month, President Trump's focus will likely shift toward winding down America's most intractable "forever war": The ongoing battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan. After arriving at an agreement in principle with the Taliban last month, the New York Times on Thursday published a report about next steps, citing a group of anonymous European and US officials, who offered a broad-strokes accounting of a withdrawal plan that's rapidly gaining support in Washington and Brussels. The plan, which as become part of the negotiations with the Taliban over a possible power-sharing agreement with the government in Kabul that would bring about an end to the fighting, would involve halving the number of American troops in the country over the coming months - reducing their numbers from roughly 14,000 to 7,000, and shifting the focus of military operations from a "counterinsurgency" framework to focus on "counterterrorism" operations. Ultimately, the plan calls for all European and US troops to leave Afghanistan in 5 years, while the US and Europe would continue a measure of financial support for the troubled Afghan military. Until the withdrawal has been completed, US troops would continue attacks on Al Qaeda and ISIS forces in Afghanistan, including partnering with Afghan commandos for training and raids. Over the coming five years, European forces would continue their training work with the Afghan military, while US would shift more resources to providing logistical support - some of which could be based outside of Afghanistan - would still be made available. 

Despite sanctions, Russian tanker supplied fuel to North Korean ship-crew members (Reuters) - A Russian tanker violated international trade sanctions by transferring fuel to a North Korean vessel at sea at least four times between October 2017 and May 2018, two crew members who witnessed the transfers said. Such transactions could have helped provide North Korea with an economic lifeline and eased the isolation of the secretive communist state, whose leader, Kim Jong Un, is due to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in Vietnam this week. Primportbunker, the owner of the vessel the crew members said made the transfers, did not respond to requests for comment by telephone. No one answered the door when Reuters visited the building where Primportbunker has its headquarters in the port city of Vladivostok on Russia’s Pacific coast. On the four voyages between Oct. 13, 2017, and May 7, 2018, the Tantal tanker gave its destination as the Chinese port of Ningbo when it set sail, according to port documents seen by Reuters and tracking data from financial data company Refinitiv. It then met up in international waters with a North Korean vessel to which it transferred its cargo of fuel, the two crew members who witnessed the transfers said. The two crew said the fuel transfers took place when the Tantal’s transponder, which allows the vessel to be tracked at sea, was not operating. Shipping industry experts said this indicates the transponder was deliberately turned off or the Tantal had entered a zone not covered by ship-tracking radar. On each occasion, the transponder started operating again when the Tantal was close to port in Russia, the two crew said. They declined to give their names, citing fear of reprisals.

Vietnamese tanker bound for North Korea with gasoline cargo as Trump, Kim meet in Hanoi -- A Vietnamese tanker was bound for North Korea carrying 2,000 tonnes of gasoline, Refinitiv shipping data showed, just as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump prepared for key talks on security and cooperation in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.The vessel, the Viet Tin 01, arrived just outside the harbor of Nampo on North Korea's western coast on Feb. 25 carrying 2,000 tonnes of gasoline, according to the data compiled by Refinitiv. The data tracks ships' movements as well as providing details of their cargoes and official destinations as registered by shippers.It wasn't immediately clear whether the tanker unloaded cargo at Nampo.Under sanctions imposed by the United Nations, North Korea is heavily restricted in its imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products.Trump and Kim began a second day of talks on Thursday, with both sides expressing hope for progress on improving relations and the key issue of denuclearization in the pair's second summit meeting.The 5,000 deadweight tonne tanker - small by industry standards - was scheduled to deliver the fuel to Daesan in South Korea, according to its official destination registered in the shipping data. The vessel still showed Daesan as its destination as of Feb. 28, according to the data. The Viet Tin 01's previous stops were Taiwan, Singapore and Bangladesh. It was not immediately clear where the ship loaded the gasoline.

MbS In China- Strikes $10BN Refinery Deal, Chinese To Be Taught In All Saudi Schools - On Friday Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) met with Chinese President Xi Jingping hours after finalizing a $10 billion deal for Saudi Aramco to establish a refining and petrochemical complex in China. It was the culmination of the crown prince's two day visit to China, and the last stop in a three country tour geared toward expanding the kingdom's trade ties in the East, and as both Beijing and Riyadh face mounting pressure from the United States.  The Saudi national oil company Aramco has lately been seeking expansion outside of the kingdom and appears to be maneuvering to benefit from Xi's ambitious Belt and Road initiative. The deal follows the much more substantial $65bn in deals signed between the countries two years earlier and are part of MbS' efforts to diversify beyond his borders. Xi and MbS also spoke about combating extremism and joint counter terror efforts — an issue that's been met with increasingly critical coverage related to China's well known Muslim Uighur detention camps.   In total, Saudi Arabia signed 35 economic cooperation agreements with China worth $28bn at a joint investment forum during the MbS trip, Saudi state news agency SPA said, on a tour that also included participation of top Aramco executives. The planned site for the new refinery project is the coastal area near Panjin in China's northeast rustbelt province of Liaoning, an area seen as lagging in growth in recent years.   Following a tour of the Great Wall, President Xi Jinping told the crown prince at a press conference, “China is a good friend and partner to Saudi Arabia.” Xi has in recent years prioritized stepping up China's presence in the Middle East. He added further, “The special nature of our bilateral relationship reflects the efforts you have made.” MbS responded by noting Saudi Arabia’s relations with China dated back “a very long time in the past”. He said, “In the hundreds, even thousands, of years, the interactions between the sides have been friendly. Over such a long period of exchanges with China, we have never experienced any problems with China,” according to Reuters.  Related to this, and perhaps the more interesting aspect to the trip, is that cultural exchange appears to have been a key emphasis, given the Saudi Foreign Ministry announced after the Xi-MbS meeting on Friday that the kingdom has committed to implementing Chinese language programs in schools across the kingdom. 

China and Saudi Arabia- The Xinjiang Factor - As the Jamal Khashoggi affair and the ongoing war in Yemen continually increase the amount of criticism that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) receives in Western countries, he embarked this month on a three-leg Asia tour with stops in Pakistan, India, and China. The crown prince’s main objective was to secure greater Asian support for Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia’s grand economic reform agenda. His trip also took place against the backdrop of reduced American influence in the Middle East and the Trump administration’s incoherent foreign policy. Such factors have prompted Saudi Arabia, and virtually all of Washington’s Arab allies, to embrace a “Look East” foreign policy orientation in pursuit of closer relations with China and other economically vibrant Asian countries.    While MbS was in China, Saudi Aramco secured a $10 billion deal for a refining and petrochemical complex in Panjin (Liaoning province), and the kingdom signed 35 economic cooperation accords with Beijing worth $28 billion. Riyadh is increasingly interested in deepening the kingdom’s involvement in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, attracting more Chinese investment, and positioning Saudi Arabia as a hub for Chinese investment in Africa. The visit may have also pushed Riyadh closer to relocating its long-delayed Saudi Aramco IPO to a Hong Kong listing instead of New York or London. While MbS was in Beijing, Saudi and Chinese officials signed an agreement that will include the Chinese language in curricula across the oil-rich Gulf kingdom. This agreement is important in illustrating how the Saudis see China and the future of bilateral relations. Future generations of Saudis who are fluent in Chinese will gravitate toward working in China, not the United States.