Yemen attack on Saudi Aramco Oil Facilities may affect 5% world oil supply

The Yemenese strike back hard: This time their target being the world's largest oil facilities in Saudi Arabia - the Aramco, a joint Saudi-USA establishment.

Yemen claims that 10 drones had been used in the attack, hitting the oil fields in Abqaiq and Khurais. The attack is likely to affect almost 5% drop in Saudi oil exports. And may cause crude prices to jump between $5 and $10 a barrel.

Watch a video by Al Jazeera network:

Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman said that 5.7 million barrels a day of crude oil and gas production have been affected. The latest OPEC figures put total Saudi production at 9.8 million barrels per day.

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Huge Oil Reserves found in Australia may badly effect Saudi and Iranian Oil Exports in coming days

The discovery of 233 billion barrels of unconventional oil under an area spread over 16 million acres, located near the remote town of Coober Pedy, Australia, may trigger an energy war in coming days. The total reserves of Saudi Arabia stand at 263 billion barrels.

Coober Pedy is located in a nearly, uninhabitable region of Southern Australia where temperatures can reach 118 degrees, which forces many of the town's 1,695 residents are forced to live in underground caves. 

This has been disclosed by Dr. Kent Moors, an energy advisor to 20 world governments and consultant to OPEC, the IEA, EIA, and National Intelligence Community in an exclusive interview with Money Morning TV.

"This single, energy discovery could deliver an economic and geopolitical deathblow to Iran and Saudi Arabia, and that's exactly what the US government wants." he stated.

The find is equivalent of 12% of the world's entire reserves.

This revelation has also been backed up by South Australia's mining minister, Tom Koutsantonis who said, "what we're seeing up there is a very, very big deposit. They think they can extract vast reserves of oil out of South Australia which would have a value of about $20 trillion."

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Iran to reduce oil reliance and boost other exports

In view of sanctions on Iran, Iran has decided to reduce reliance on oil exports and instead rely on other exports from the country.

This was disclosed by the Iranian president  in a television interview late on Saturday.

"We have to go in a direction to reduce oil receipts in our economy and raise other incomes such as non-oil exports that are increasing rapidly," the Iranian president said.

The International Energy Agency estimated last week that Iran's oil exports may have dropped below 1 million barrels per day in January from 2.2 million bpd in late 2011, costing the country over $40 billion in reduced revenues last year.

In the meantime, Iran's government has sought to impose cuts to its spending by drastically reducing access by businesses and individuals to its generous foreign exchange sales rates and banned the import of luxury items to stem the flow of hard currency abroad.

Read more about it at: Yahoo Finance
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Turkey pays the price for US Sanctions on Iran by its dwindling gold-for-oil export

Turkey, which is a US ally, is paying the price of the US imposed sanctions on Iran as its gold-for-gas trade with Iran is shrinking.

As per Reuters, U.S. officials have sought to prevent Turkish gold exports, which indirectly pay Iran for its natural gas, from providing a financial lifeline to Tehran, largely frozen out of the global banking system by Western sanctions over its nuclear program.

Turkey, Iran's biggest natural gas customer, has been paying Iran for its imports with Turkish lira, because sanctions prevent it from paying in dollars or euros.

Iranians then use those lira, held in Halkbank accounts, to buy gold in Turkey, and couriers carry bullion worth millions of dollars in hand luggage to Dubai, where it can be sold for foreign currency or shipped to Iran.

The gold exports from Turkey to Iran rose to $6.5 billion in 2012, more than ten times the level of 2011, while exports to the United Arab Emirates - much of it for onward shipment to Iran or conversion to hard currency - rose to $4.6 billion from $280 million.

However, due to the US sanctions, the Turkish bullion exports have fallen to 10.5 tonnes in December from 15.2 tonnes in November.

Read more about it at: Reuters
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Oil Drops as European Finance Ministers Meet on Greece

Oil dropped as euro-area finance ministers meet to negotiate a bailout payment for Greece and as American leaders prepared to wrestle with a budget agreement.

Futures fell as much as 1.1 percent as officials gathered in Brussels to discuss Greek aid less than a week after a meeting failed to yield an agreement. 

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“The outcome of the European finance ministers’ meeting is the main focus of the markets today,” said Addison Armstrong, director of market research at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut. “Given the direction the market is moving, it appears most people aren’t expecting a positive outcome.”

Crude oil for January delivery declined 78 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $87.50 a barrel at 9:37 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices are down 11 percent this year.

Read more about it: Bloomberg
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Crude slips in Asia on US energy demand concerns

Oil fell in Asia on Thursday on demand concerns after US data showed a sharper-than-expected rise in crude inventories in the past week, analysts said.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November shed 10 cents to $92.02 a barrel and Brent North Sea crude for December delivery retreated two cents to $113.20.

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A larger-than-expected gain in US crude stockpiles raised demand concerns among traders, said Sanjeev Gupta, who heads the Asia-Pacific oil and gas practice at Ernst & Young.

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Clinton keeps pressure on India over Iran oil

Ratcheting up pressure on India to isolate Iran, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton on Tuesday sidestepped a question on whether New Delhi is eligible for a waiver of possible sanctions that will affect those nations continuing to buy oil from Iran, despite acknowledging that the Indian government had cut imports from the Islamic nation.

In New Delhi on the last leg of a three-nation Asian tour on Tuesday, Clinton lauded Indian refiners for their cuts in crude imports from Iran, adding that the US was working with energy-deficient India to find alternative crude supplies.

“We also look to India as a partner in the broad international effort to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The best way to achieve this is...for the international community to stay united and keep the pressure that has brought Iran back to the negotiating table until we reach a peaceful diplomatic resolution,” she said after talks with her Indian counterpart S.M. Krishna. 

Read more: Live Mint

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Saudi Arabia to burn less oil this summer

Saudi Arabia is likely to burn less crude in its power plants this summer as rising output from dedicated gas fields and gas would be associated with any increase in oil output to make up for lower Iranian production.

More supply from the Karan gas field and a likely rise in crude output, which would bring a bonus benefit of more gas as well, should save at least 100,000 bpd in crude use.

Last summer the world's leading oil exporter burned an average of 730,000 barrels a day (bpd) of crude for electricity to keep the population cool in the hottest months from July to the end of September, official figures indicate.

Hundreds of thousands of barrels of the kingdom's biggest export will again go up in smoke at power plants each day this summer, but the volume of oil used for power is likely to fall.

Read details: Reuters

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India, China to maintain ties with Iran despite US, EU sanctions

India and China on Wednesday indicated that they will continue to maintain normal relations with Iran, while citing high crude oil prices and energy security concerns.

The Chinese Commerce Minister, Mr Chen Deming, said China respects all the United Nations resolutions. However, in a veiled reference to the US sanctions on Iran, he added that Beijing is not obliged to follow the domestic rules and regulations of any particular country.

Incidentally, China, India and South Africa are dependent on Iran for their crude oil supplies. Brazil and Russia also raised concerns over the increase in crude oil prices following the sanctions being imposed on Iran by the US and European Union.

Echoing the Chinese Commerce Minister, the Commerce, Industry and Textiles Minister of India, Mr Anand Sharma, maintained that India is also not in violation of any UN resolutions. "Energy security is important. Iran is an important source of our energy supplies," Mr Sharma said.

Read more: Business Line

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Iran Nuclear Program: Big buyers shun Iran oil

[ via Reuters ] 

Iran faces the prospect of cutbacks in its oil sales to China and Japan as new measures to block Tehran's crude exports over its nuclear program appears to be driving its economy to the wall.

China, Iran's biggest trade partner, has already cut its purchases of Iranian oil by more than half this month and would extend the cuts to February, a Beijing-based trader who deals with Iranian oil said.

Japan is also said to be considering cutbacks in its Iranian oil purchases to secure a waiver from new U.S. sanctions signed into law on New Year's Eve by President Barack Obama, a government source said.

Read more: Reuters

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Iran plans to boost output at joint oilfield with Saudi Arabia

[ via Tehran Times ] 1 Jan

Iran plans to increase production at the Forouzan oilfield, which is shared with Saudi Arabia, by 40 percent by the end of the next calendar year (March 20, 2013), Iran Offshore Oil Company (IOOC) managing director said.

“Some 100 kilometers seabed pipeline has been laid and related platform will be installed in the middle of the next year,” Mahmoud Zirakchianzadeh added. 

Forouzan development plan is aimed at extracting 300 million barrels of oil in a 25-year period.

Read more: Tehran Times 

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China gets approval for Afghanistan oil exploration bid

[ via BBC News Business ] 27 Dec

China has gained potential access to millions of barrels of oil after it won approval for oil exploration and extraction in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan's cabinet approved a deal to allow China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to develop oil blocks in the Amu Darya Basin. The basin is estimated to hold around 87 million barrels of oil.

The deal comes as China is looking to expand its oil resources in wake of a growing domestic demand.

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Iran Warns of Oil at $250 a Barrel if Sanctions Imposed

[ The New York Times ] 5 Dec

Alarmed by the possibility of new Western penalties that could abruptly reduce or even halt its oil exports, Iran issued a warning on Monday that crude oil prices could more than double to $250 a barrel if such sanctions were given serious consideration. 

Iranian leaders are increasingly concerned that oil sales, Iran’s main source of income, are now at risk in ways that they were able to avoid in earlier rounds of Western sanctions. Those sanctions were imposed to press Iran, so far unsuccessfully, to halt its suspect nuclear program.

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USA asks South Korea to Cut Petrochemical Imports from Iran

[ The New York Times ] 5 Dec

A senior American diplomat urged South Korea on Monday to suspend imports of Iranian petrochemicals as Washington tried to rally international pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear program, reports the NY Times.

South Korean imports of Iranian petrochemicals amount only to $300 million a year. Still, the country fears damaging its other trade ties with Iran, especially crude oil imports. Iran is the fourth-largest source of  crude oil for South Korea, accounting  for 10 percent of its oil imports.

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