World Oil (Bloomberg) –Oil exports from Venezuela doubled in December from a year earlier as the country raises production of revenue-generating hydrocarbons in defiance of U.S. sanctions. Shipments averaged 619,000 barrels a day in December. The OPEC-founding member increased exports for a third straight month with the support of ally Iran, which boosted the supply of a key ingredient that
World Oil (Bloomberg) –The budget bill for Iran’s next calendar year is based on an oil price of $60 a barrel, up from $40 this year, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. The country expects to export around 1.2 million barrels of oil daily in the year that starts on March 21, Fars reported, according to outlines of the country’s
Reuters CARACAS -With U.S. sanctions spooking key oil buyers and depriving its government of cash, Venezuela last year inked a deal with a little-known local company to swap crude for food, Reuters has learned. That agreement saw state oil company PDVSA, beginning in December 2020, deliver more than 6 million barrels of crude worth nearly $260 million to a company
World Oil (Bloomberg) –The Biden administration faces the sobering reality that returning to the Iran nuclear deal may no longer be feasible, as the Islamic Republic finds ways to cope with U.S. sanctions and races toward the capacity to build a bomb. U.S. officials are reviewing their options after months of talks on reentry into the accord failed to produce
Reuters LONDON/MEXICO CITY – Top oil shipping companies say they have tightened operational guidelines and deployed technology to prevent accidental breaches of sanctions, as the countries hit by ever tougher restrictions fight back with elaborate strategies to dodge them. Washington has ramped up shipping-related sanctions over the last two years to make it harder for countries, such as Iran and
CNBC DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi gave his first press conference since the country’s election, saying Monday his priorities would be to improve ties with regional neighbors and revive the 2015 nuclear deal — and at the same time squarely ruling out meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden. “We support the negotiations that guarantee our national
Reuters DUBAI – Iran is planning a speedy increase in its oil output, a senior oil ministry official said on Wednesday, as talks continue between Tehran and six major powers to lift U.S. sanctions that have seen it pumping far below capacity since 2018. Iran and the six powers have been in talks since April to revive a 2015 nuclear
CNBC Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak on Thursday said the oil and gas-rich country may soon be tempted to move away from U.S. dollar-denominated crude contracts if President Joe Biden’s administration continues to impose targeted economic sanctions. “Well, ideally we would prefer not to move away from the dollar as it is an international currency used for settlements,” Novak told CNBC’s Hadley
Reuters DUBAI -Iran will not stop its 20% uranium enrichment before the United States lifts all sanctions, Iranian state TV quoted an unnamed official as saying on Tuesday, after a U.S. media report said Washington would offer a new proposal to jump-start talks. The Biden administration has been seeking to engage Iran in talks about both sides resuming compliance with
Reuters LONDON – “Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.” Goodhart’s Law was first articulated by the British economist Charles Goodhart in the 1970s. Goodhart was expressing policymakers’ frustration that as soon as a particular aggregate of the money supply was chosen as an intermediate target its previously stable relationship
Reuters MOSCOW – The chairman of Russian gas producer Gazprom’s board was cited by the TASS news agency on Friday as saying that construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany would be completed this year despite U.S. opposition to the project. The United States said this week that sanctions against the pipeline were a real possibility. The
Reuters BERLIN – There is an exchange between the U.S. government and Germany regarding the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to take Russian gas to Europe, a German government spokeswoman said on Friday without giving details. Germany and Russia say Nord Stream 2 is just a commercial project. Washington has long argued the pipeline will dangerously increase Russian leverage over Europe.
