Maersk Oil: DUC JV April Oil Production at 156200 B/DFox Business-Dansk Undergrunds Consortium, DUC, is a joint venture between: AP Moller-Maersk (MAERSK-B.KO)(31.2%), Chevron (CVX) (12.0%), Nordsofonden (20.0%) and Shell (RDSA) (36.8%). -Maersk Olie o…
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
SPOKANE, Wash., May 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Daybreak Oil and Gas, Inc. (OTCBB: DBRM) (“Daybreak” or the “Company”), a Washington corporation, is pleased to announce the results of the third well in the current drilling program at the East Slopes Project in Kern County, California. The Sunday #5 well was drilled to 2,044 feet and encountered approximately 20 feet of oil pay in the Vedder Sand. The Company owns a 37.5% working interest in the Sunday #5 well. This drilling rig has been moved to the Sunday #6 well which was spud on May 17, 2013. After the completion of the Sunday #6 well, the rig will move to the Company’s Chimney prospect to drill the Chimney #1-1 exploratory well.
The other drilling rig spud the Black #2 well on May 16, 2013 and is currently drilling.
James. F. Westmoreland, President and Chief Executive Officer, commented, “The use of our 3-D seismic has proved invaluable to us in pin-pointing the locations to drill these wells for optimum oil production.
We are very pleased with our results and look forward to the growth in production, revenue and cash flow as we continue our drilling program.”
Daybreak Oil and Gas, Inc. is an independent oil and gas company engaged in the exploration, development and production of oil and gas in California. The Company is headquartered in Spokane, Washington with an operations office in Friendswood, Texas. Daybreak owns a 3-D seismic survey that encompasses 20,000 acres over 32 square miles with approximately 13,000 acres under lease in the San Joaquin Valley of California.
SOURCE Daybreak Oil and Gas, Inc.
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Wednesday, May 22, 2013
KBR (NYSE: KBR) today announced it was awarded a contract by Pacific NorthWest LNG Ltd., a subsidiary of Malaysia’s state-owned oil company (PETRONAS) and Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., Ltd. (JAPEX), to execute front-end engineering and design (FEED) and early detailed engineering work for a world-scale LNG export facility at Lelu Island near Prince Rupert, British Columbia. KBR is partnered with JGC Corporation for the project.
“We look forward to working with Pacific NorthWest and our partner JGC Corporation on this historic LNG export facility.”
The purpose of the project is to process shale gas produced from British Columbia’s North Montney region into LNG that is suitable for export. The contract calls for FEED and early detailed engineering work for a two-train LNG plant with a yearly capacity of 12 million tons and associated shipping facilities. Associated facilities include utilities, storage, loading, ship berthing and personnel accommodation facilities. This project allows KBR to build on our extensive Canadian experience and resources including work that is already on-going in other parts of British Columbia.
“We are pleased to play an important role in this world-scale facility. This award is further indication of KBR’s position as a leading provider of gas monetization solutions for our clients around the world,” said Mitch Dauzat President, KBR Gas Monetization. “We look forward to working with Pacific NorthWest and our partner JGC Corporation on this historic LNG export facility.”
Source: Business Wire
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Tue May 21, 2013 5:39pm EDT (Adds comments from cybersecurity hearing) By
Alina Selyukh and
Jim FinkleWASHINGTON/BOSTON May 21 (Reuters) – Several power utilities say they face a barrage of cyber attacks on their critical systems, a report by two Democratic lawmakers found echoing warnings from the Obama administration that foreign hackers were trying to bring down the U.S. power grid.California Representative Henry Waxman released the report, co-authored with Massachusetts Representative Ed Markey, at the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s cybersecurity hearing on Tuesday.The pair asked some 160 utilities to describe their experiences fighting cyber attacks over the past five years. In response, more than a dozen said they experienced daily, constant or frequent attempted cyber attacks, according to a 35-page report summarizing their responses.(To read the report, see
r.reuters.com/sej38t)But utilities termed the report as overblown, saying their systems were adequately protected through mandatory standards set by the North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC) that ensure separation of control systems and consumer-facing or administrative networks.”The majority of those attacks, while large in number, are the same attacks that every business receives” through web-connected networks, Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation Chief Executive Duane Highley told the hearing.”Those are very routine kinds of attacks and we know very well how to protect against those…Our control systems are not vulnerable to attack,” he told Reuters after the hearing, saying current NERC standards make it illegal to interconnect the public-facing networks and the control centers.But many lawmakers echoed some senior White House officials in expressing fear that while they do not know of any successful attack on the power grid, hackers may have that ability.Senior Obama administration officials began warning late last year that foreign enemies are looking to sabotage the U.S. power grid, air traffic control systems, financial institutions and other infrastructure.Last week, NERC Chief Executive Officer Gerry Cauley told the Reuters Cybersecurity Summit that there has never been a destructive cyber attack on the grid, mostly probes and spying malicious software and that he worried more about physical attacks on the power grid than cyber ones.Tuesday’s report cited an unidentified Northeastern power provider as saying it was under constant attack from cyber criminals as well as activist groups who have been targeting firms in the energy sector over the past few years.A power provider from the Midwest said it experienced daily probes of its systems: “Much of this activity is automated and dynamic in nature, able to adapt to what is discovered during its probing process,” the company said.Markey is running for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts against Republican Gabriel Gomez, seeking the seat vacated by John Kerry, now U.S. Secretary of State.This year, the House has also passed a cybersecurity bill meant to ease the sharing of data between the government and the private sector, despite the threat of veto by President Barack Obama over privacy concerns. The Senate is working on its own version of the bill.Highley welcomed the work toward an industry-led solution and better communication with the government, but pleaded with the legislators that “NERC has it covered. Please don’t mess up.”"We’re all about reliability. We don’t want to have lights going out anymore than anybody else does,” he told Reuters.(Reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston and Alina Selyukh in Washington; Editing by Ros Krasny, Phil Berlowitz and Leslie Gevirtz)
Tue May 21, 2013 11:49pm EDT * Higher crude, gasoline stocks weigh on prices, weak dollar supports * Federal Reserve meeting minutes awaited for QE3 cues* Coming up: EIA weekly crude stocks at 1430 GMTBy Ramya VenugopalCHENNAI, India, May 22 (Reuters) – Brent futures pulled further below $104 per barrel on Wednesday on concerns that peak summer demand in the world’s top oil consumer may falter after data showing a stronger-than-expected rise in U.S. oil stockpiles.Losses were capped, however, ahead of new economic data and as investors awaited the Federal Reserve’s minutes later in the day after indications that the bond-buying stimulus to the U.S. economy has further to run.U.S. crude and gasoline stocks rose more than expected, a report by the American Petroleum Institute released after market hours on Tuesday showed, increasing expectations that markets will be well supplied this summer, know as the driving season.”Everyone is marking U.S. demand as we’re approaching that time of the year when oil markets are supported by U.S. drive timings,” said Jonathan Barratt, chief executive of BarrattBulletin, a Sydney-based commodity research firm.”We’ve seen a couple of upticks… people are thinking Brent has gone too far and we are at significant levels of (technical resistance).”Front-month Brent futures fell 24 cents to 103.67 per barrel at 0315 GMT, after shedding nearly a dollar in the previous session. U.S. crude fell 43 cents to $95.75.Brent is poised to drop to $102.38 per barrel after Tuesday’s decline, said Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao.The drop was “deep enough to form a bearish reversal pattern on the daily candlesticks chart, which is an evening start, along with the preceding two candlesticks,” said Wang Tao.Adding to fundamental pressures on the market, U.S. crude oil stocks rose by more than 500,000 barrels last week, trumping analyst expectations for a fall, while gasoline stocks jumped by 3 million barrels, API said.The U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) will release its data on inventories later on Wednesday.The dollar’s overnight weakness provided some support after officials allayed concerns that the Fed might be scaling back its quantitative easing programme, or QE3, which has been one of the factors fuelling rallies across asset classes.A weaker U.S. currency makes dollar-priced commodities such as oil cheaper for holders of other currencies.Oil traders will look to the minutes of the last Fed meeting, which economists expect to give further details of how it will eventually manage the exit from ultra-easy policyNew York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley and St. Louis Fed chief James Bullard, both of whom will vote at the June 18-19 meeting, made clear further economic progress was needed before they would support curtailing QE3.Investors will also watch initial purchasing manager’s indexes for May due on Thursday, for signs of economic revival in the three key consumer regions – China, the United States and the euro zone.Reuters surveys suggest they may show a slight pickup from April but not enough to dispel fears of a sluggish outlook.(Editing by Ed Davies)
SYDNEY | Wed May 22, 2013 1:20am EDT May 22 (Reuters) – The end of Australia’s resources boom is taking its toll on investment in the sector, with A$150 billion in planned projects delayed or cancelled since April 2012, government data shows. China’s economic slowdown has squashed a decade-long mining boom in Australia that drove gold, copper, iron ore and coal to record prices.Mining companies now face a painful transition to lower margins brought on by the retreat in commodities markets and weak investment interest.The drop leaves A$353 billion in investment in new work in the sector in various stages of pre-development, the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE) said in a statement.”In the past twelve months, around $150 billion of projects have either been delayed, canceled or have had re-assessed development plans,” it said in the statement, which accompanied a report on investment.There are now 73 projects at the committed stage with a combined value of A$268 billion, little changed from six months ago, the Bureau says.Though this is 14 fewer projects than reported last October, the value of committed investment has remained constant because of cost increases to several high-value projects, it said.Woodside Petroleum shelved plans for its $45-billion Browse liquefied natural gas project in Western Australia, saying it did not make economic sense.Global energy firms have invested more than $190 billion in six LNG plants in just 2-1/2 years as Australia ramps up production on its way to becoming the world’s largest exporter of the gas.But investor interest in Australia’s LNG sector has cooled because of huge costs overruns and competition from North America, where new supplies of gas have been exploited from shale.The Browse decision could spell an end to new onshore gas projects in Australia in favour of offshore plants that can be built more cheaply and face fewer environmental and landowner hurdles.The focus now turns to Australia’s May 30 private new capital expenditure report, with markets keen to see if non-mining sectors respond to record low interest rates by increasing investment.(Reporting by James Regan; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Tue May 21, 2013 8:01pm EDT * Shareholders oppose plan to strip Diamon of chairmanship * Three directors re-elected by unusually slim marginsBy David HenryTAMPA, Florida, May 21 (Reuters) – Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co took an unusual step to fight off investors seeking more oversight of his activities – he hinted he might quit.And it worked. At the bank’s annual meeting on Tuesday, JPMorgan shareholders voted down a proposal to strip Dimon of his chairmanship, giving the measure even less support than last year.Investors showed some unhappiness with the bank’s management by only barely re-electing three directors who oversaw a massive trading loss last year. But on the whole, the day was seen as a victory for management, which successfully navigated JPMorgan through the financial crisis, but has suffered some high-profile problems recently.”People were worried Dimon was going to walk,” said Leon Kamhi, executive director of Hermes Equity Ownership Services, one of the sponsors of the shareholder proposal to split the roles.Robert McCormick, chief policy officer for proxy adviser Glass Lewis & Co, added: “It’s rare that companies play that card.”Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services, the two biggest firms that advise investors on how to vote in proxies, both recommended that shareholders vote in favor of taking the chairman title away from Dimon.The results highlight how difficult it can be for investors to fight management in proxy votes. Some shareholders thought they had a good chance of winning on the question of Dimon’s chairmanship after the bank suffered $6.2 billion in losses last year from bad credit bets known as the “London whale” trades.But JPMorgan fought hard. The bank’s directors spoke to about a dozen major investors during their campaign. The shareholder proposal was non-binding – the board only had to consider it not enact it – but losing would have been a black eye for Dimon.The message from the board, investors said, was that Dimon might leave if he were not chairman and that JPMorgan generated record profits last year, despite losing $6.2 billion from “London whale” trades.The bank reached out to critics as part of its campaign as well. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, one of the investors that sponsored the proposal, said lead director Lee Raymond and director William Weldon sat down with it in early May. Board members had not previously met with AFSCME.”The company pulled out all the stops,” said Lisa Lindsley, director of capital strategies for AFSCME.An investor holding several million JPMorgan shares who declined to be named said the bank also reached out to portfolio managers with warnings.The investor said the bank “made sure investors were reminded of all the upside and all the potential downside” that could follow the vote.The battle at times turned bitter, as when shareholders found themselves cut off from information about how the vote was progressing in the days before the election. The New York Attorney General ended up pressing JPMorgan to give investors the ballot counts and shareholders are likely to continue to push for change.BIGGER MARGINUltimately the battle’s high profile worked in Dimon’s favor. At one large JPMorgan shareholder, an executive who spoke on condition of anonymity said it switched sides this year and voted against the measure to split the dual roles after supporting a similar measure last year when there was less attention.This year, the executive said: “The issue became a referendum on Jamie Dimon and, in our view, JPMorgman shareholders are best served by having Jamie Dimon run that company.”The executive added that “it would have been a disaster for the company” if Dimon left because the vote had not gone his way.JPMorgan won the vote on Tuesday by a greater margin than last year, when shareholders put up a similar proposal. About 68 percent of investors voted to keep Dimon as chairman and CEO, compared with about 60 percent last year. However, three JPMorgan directors who served on the board’s risk committee during the London whale imbroglio last year were re-elected by an unusually slim majority.Raymond, a former ExxonMobil Corp CEO, told shareholders before the tally was announced that the London Whale episode was not a reason to split the CEO and chairman roles.”Just the opposite,” he said during a question-and-answer session at the meeting. “We don’t think this is time for disruption.”Raymond, viewed as a counterweight to Dimon on the board, said changes were afoot for the board’s risk committee, but he did not elaborate.Dimon smiled as he left the meeting in Tampa and the bank’s shares rose 1.4 percent to close at $53.02.Some investors wondered if the publicity around the vote resulted in fewer investors listening to ISS and Glass Lewis, and more doing their own homework.”I’m guessing that because it was more visible this year than last year, the investment committees of stockholders were probably more thoughtful about it,” Jordan Posner, managing director of Matrix Asset Advisors Inc, a New York money manager with about 619,000 JPMorgan shares. Posner said his firm voted against the split proposal.GETTING CREDITAmong big-bank CEOs, Dimon ranks first for stock returns, and for delivering a strong balance sheet with no quarterly losses at a time when other global banks were reeling. But some investors feared the bank’s trading losses last year and tussles with regulators signaled Dimon could use more oversight.In the run-up to the vote, Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services issued reports critical of the board, particularly the members of the risk committee, whose experience they found wanting.At the time of the London Whale losses, the committee was made up of James Crown, president of a large family investment company; David Cote, the CEO of Honeywell International Inc ; and Ellen Futter, who heads the American Museum of Natural History in New York. All three remain on the panel, augmented by a new fourth member.Futter, who won only a 53.1 percent approval from shareholders, did not attend the meeting. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier on Tuesday that Futter would likely resign from the board if she won only a slim majority of the votes.”That’s a huge repudiation of them as directors,” Glass Lewis’s McCormick said. “That’s a strong signal that shareholders are unhappy.”Crown received 57.4 percent approval, preliminarily, and Cote received 59.3 percent. Apart from the three singled out by ISS and Glass Lewis, directors received at least 90 percent approval votes.Anne Simpson, director for corporate governance at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which owns JPMorgan shares, said the vote had set a “high watermark.”"The goal here is to get the board strengthened, stiffen its backbone and to get people with the experience that is needed to oversee Mr Dimon,” Simpson said.
Wed May 22, 2013 1:41am EDT * Crude imports from Iran in April at 4.18 mln bbls -data * Iranian imports for month below expectations* Total April crude imports at 69.12 mln bbls, down 5.6 pct y/y* Dec 2012-April 2013 Iran crude imports at 157,596 bpd …
Tue May 21, 2013 6:48pm EDT * Veteran Iranian political figure cannot stand * Rafsanjani and Mashaie considered threats to clerical elite* Ahmadinejad aide Mashaie says will try to appeal (Edits throughout, adds analyst comments, more from Mashaie, U.S.)By Marcus GeorgeDUBAI, May 21 (Reuters) – Iranian authorities barred two potentially powerful and disruptive candidates from running in next month’s presidential election on Tuesday, ensuring a contest largely among hardliners loyal to the clerical supreme leader.Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a veteran companion of the Islamic Republic’s founder, a former president and thought potentially sympathetic to reform, was denied a place on the ballot by the Guardian Council of clerics and jurists, state media said.So too was Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, a close aide to outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose hardline followers have jockeyed with those of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Both rejections may generate angry responses and Mashaie for one said he would appeal, while urging supporters to stay calm.Most of the remaining eight men on the ballot for the first round on June 14 are seen as loyalists to Khamenei, who seems determined to avoid a repeat of the popular unrest that followed Ahmadinejad’s re-election in 2009 – especially at a time when Iran is engaged in bitter economic, diplomatic and military confrontations with the West, Israel and its Arab neighbours.The outcome – and the extent to which voters will turn out to lend the election legitimacy – remain in considerable doubt.There is no clear frontrunner in a field that now includes Saeed Jalili, the chief negotiator for Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, Ali Akbar Velayati, Khamenei’s foreign policy adviser, and Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the mayor of Tehran.With economic hardships increasing as a result of Western sanctions over the nuclear dispute, some Iranians have favoured a change of tack and there is still substantial public support for reformist leaders who disputed their electoral defeat four years ago and are now under house arrest.Some of that might have been channelled to Rafsanjani, 78, a key figure alongside Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during the 1979 Revolution, who was president from 1989 to 1997 and in 2009 earned the wrath of hardliners by sympathising with reformists during the worst unrest since the state was founded.Two of Rafsanjani’s children have recently been imprisoned.Like Mashaie, an almost constant presence by the outspoken Ahmadinejad’s side, Rafsanjani registered his candidacy at the last moment, shaking up a race that failed to inspire enthusiasm among an electorate more concerned about economic difficulties.PROTESTSKhamenei could over-rule the Guardian Council and reinstate candidates but analysts said the moves at this stage, especially against Rafsanjani, appeared designed to nip protest in the bud.”The cost of disqualifying Rafsanjani now is significantly less than dealing with him down the road,” said Yasmin Alem, a U.S.-based analyst. “Allowing him to run and mobilise the electorate and then try to change the results would have been more costly. This is a lesson from 2009.”Four years ago, Ahmadinejad was declared outright winner in the first round against three other candidates including the reformist Mirhossein Mousavi, sparking weeks of protests. Mousavi and another leader of the liberal “Green Movement”, Mehdi Karoubi, have been under house arrest for over two years.The other five approved candidates on the Interior Ministry list were: Mohsen Rezaie, a former head of the Revolutionary Guards; Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, another close aide to Khamenei; Hassan Rohani, a former nuclear negotiator close to Rafsanjani; Mohammad Gharazi, a former telecommunications minister; and Mohammad Reza Aref, the only clear reformist left on the list.”All of the approved candidates are either loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei or are mostly irrelevant,” said Alireza Nader, an analyst at RAND Corporation. “Khamenei may still overturn the decision, but Rafsanjani’s disqualification shows that Khamenei is determined to wield all power. This appears to be a presidential selection rather than an election.”Rafsanjani is seen as a “pillar of the revolution” because of his closeness to the late Khomeini and has been near the heart of power since the revolution. His candidacy was regarded as a significant threat to all other contenders.Though the presidency is subordinate to Khamenei, who succeeded as supreme leader on Khomeini’s death in 1989, the possibility the Rafsanjani might recalibrate domestic and foreign policies to limit economic and diplomatic stresses had already led to a groundswell of public support for him and his candidacy was quickly endorsed by reformist groups.Given a rivalry between Rafsanjani and Khamenei that goes back 50 years, the former president may not go quietly.MASHAIEAhmadinejad ally Mashaie was quoted by Fars news agency as saying he would contest the Guardian Council’s decision: “I consider my disqualification unjust and I will pursue a resolution to it via the supreme leader.”His campaign office issued a statement calling for restraint by his followers: “We ask all grassroots and spontaneous staff and supporters of Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie to stay calm,” it said, “And organise their activities so that they do not provide the means for malice by enemies of the Islamic Revolution.”The Guardian Council, a 12-strong panel of clerics appointed by the Supreme Leader and Islamic jurists nominated by the judiciary and approved by parliament, has the power to reject any candidate it deems unfit. No reasons were given for its decisions to bar Rafsanjani and Mashaie. A statement quoted by state media said there would be no recourse to appeal.A new president would be unlikely to make any rapid change to Iran’s nuclear or foreign policy, both of which are controlled by the supreme leader, but analysts say Rafsanjani would have sought a thaw in relations with the West.In the United States, the “Great Satan” for Iran’s leaders, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell urged the Tehran authorities to give Iranians a free vote: “The Council narrowed the list of almost 700 potential candidates down to eight officials based solely on who the regime believes will represent its interests, rather than those of the Iranian people.” (Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Robin Pomeroy, Jon Hemming and Alastair Macdonald)