Archive for the ‘shipping’ Category

Commodities trading: not for the faint-hearted

By Melanie Wold | May 14, 2013 12:01 AM Comments (0)

Once the darling of hedge funds, commodities are now looking like a poisoned chalice. Last year, hedge funds such as BlueGold, which specialized in crude oil; Centaurus, in natural gas; and Fortress Commodities, across all raw materials, shut down. Several commodities fund of funds also closed last year after clients fled.

Commodities trading, it seems – and in particular oil – is not for the faint of heart. The field is littered with failed ventures and prison sentences.

International sanctions on exporting countries such as Iran can make trading crude an even more dangerous game. On May 9, the US Treasury said it was penalizing Sambouk Shipping for contravening these sanctions. Sambouk is allegedly associated with Dimitris Cambis, who, along with a network of front companies, was executing ship-to-ship transfers of Iranian oil to obscure its origin.

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Making money in Hawaii’s oil market is like pushing a boulder up a volcano

By Jeffrey Bair | May 10, 2013 12:43 PM Comments (2)

They like to say around the Platts office in Houston that California is an island.

An economic island, that is. The kind where the spot prices of gasoline and other refined fuels are insulated from the bob and weave of trades in the rest of the United States.

It’s an interesting analogy. But consider how fuel economics are affecting a real-live island right now: Oahu.

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Pickens, chickens and eggs: getting LNG on the road

By Melanie Wold | April 3, 2013 12:01 AM Comments (1)

When T. Boone Pickens takes a notion to invest in something, he tries to make sure that everybody else takes the same notion.  So, when he announced that he was putting his money behind LNG filling stations in the US for long-haul trucks, people took notice.

But rhetoric is just the beginning. There is a huge need for the actual infrastructure to support the idea, commonly known as the chicken-and-egg conundrum. If Pickens — and Canada and China and Europe — build LNG-filling stations, will they (trucks, ships) come? They should. After all, gas is cheap, clean and plentiful. But support from government and industry is essential to get the egg to grow into a chicken.

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Recent crude-carrying train derailments in US heat up crude by rail safety debate

By Bridget Hunsucker | March 29, 2013 06:16 PM Comments (0)

Two trains carrying crude oil derailed in the US this month, making headlines that garnered more attention to a recent debate over the in-vogue shipping method’s environmental impact.

The popularity of crude by rail shipments has opponents of major proposed crude pipeline projects (like Transcanada’s Keystone XL) asking the question: is rail transport safe?

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A sea change for US jet fuel: record net exports for 2012

By Matt Kohlman | March 5, 2013 09:43 AM Comments (0)

Think the jets to Europe and Latin America are packed? Try the ships carrying jet fuel.

 The idling of a major Caribbean refinery last year helped speed along a net export trend for US jet fuel, with a record amount shipped out of the US in 2012. The reversal of historic net imports happened despite events that would normally make one think the US would be a heavy importer: major refinery issues on the West Coast and Hurricane Sandy on the East Coast.

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At the Wellhead: Trend continuing to make natural gas pipelines into crude oil carriers

By News Desk | November 5, 2012 08:43 AM Comments (0)

As projections for US production of crude continue to far outstrip the capacity and location of the existing US crude oil pipeline system, and some natural gas carriers finding far less demand for their services, turning one into another seems to be the obvious choice. In this week’s Oilgram News column At the Wellhead, Bridget Hunsucker looks at some of the changes now under scrutiny.

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It’s all hush-hush on turning Trunkline into a new crude oil pipeline to the Gulf

By John Kingston | September 12, 2012 09:30 AM Comments (1)

Big pipeline projects tend to get announced with much fanfare. That’s not the case for Energy Transfer Partners, which is seeking to add one more north-to-south crude oil pipeline to drain the upper Midwest and Canada of its excess crude oil.

As reporting by Platts Meghan Gordon revealed, ETP has petitioned the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to allow it to make changes to its giant Trunkline natural gas line, which now runs south-to-north, into the upper Midwest. (You can see a map of the line on ETP’s webpage here.) For Trunkline to cut natural gas service to places like Michigan, FERC would need to permit it. Some of the affected states are protesting the move in front of FERC.

But the FERC move revealed the ETP plans in an indirect way, and it appears ETP otherwise doesn’t want to talk about its project, as Meghan reveals in her reporting. The company has put out no press release on it; its media people won’t talk about it. Outside of the FERC filing, there are no public declarations about the plans anywhere.

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The off-limits Iranian oil tankers, according to the US Treasury

By News Desk | July 12, 2012 06:30 PM Comments (0)

Looking for an oil tanker? Here are the ones the US Treasury says you should avoid.

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Japan: Caught between the insurance trap and EU sanctions on Iran oil

By Takeo Kumagai | June 5, 2012 07:33 AM Comments (0)

Come July 1, Japan will have to navigate through a maze of European Union sanctions against Iran and may have to make deeper cuts in its Iranian crude oil imports once the measures come into effect.

The biggest obstacle for Japan this year that may prevent it from maintaining already lower imports from Iran is if local buyers of Iranian crude oil lose the majority of their shipping insurance cover as a result of the EU sanctions and cannot secure alternative cover.

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Japan in a quandary as Iran tensions expose energy vulnerability

By Takeo Kumagai | February 27, 2012 07:39 AM Comments (0)

Japan faces a dilemma. It has to balance its changed energy needs in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster with the more urgent matter of cutting its imports of Iranian crude oil to avoid being shut out of the US financial system.

Whatever the outcome of discussions with Washington on the extent of the reduction in imports from Iran, Japan faces longer term energy security issues because of its heavy reliance on Middle Eastern crude, a vulnerability that has been exposed further with recent threats by Iran to block the Strait of Hormuz.

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