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US

Biden bans Russia oil imports to U.S., warns U.S. gasoline prices will rise further

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U.S. President Joe Biden announces actions against Russia for its war in Ukraine, during remarks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 8, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

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WASHINGTON, March 8 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden announced a ban on Russian oil and other energy imports on Tuesday in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine, underscoring strong bipartisan support for a move that he acknowledged would drive up U.S. energy prices.

“We’re banning all imports of Russian oil and gas energy,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “That means Russian oil will no longer be acceptable in U.S. ports and the American people will deal another powerful blow to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s war machine.”

Oil prices jumped on the news, with Benchmark Brent crude LCOc1 for May climbing by 5.4% to $129.91 a barrel by 1345 GMT. read more

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Biden has been working with allies in Europe, who are far more dependent on Russian oil, to isolate Russia’s energy-heavy economy and Putin. Britain announced shortly before Biden’s remarks that it would phase out the import of Russian oil and oil products by the end of 2022. read more

Biden said sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies had already caused the Russian economy to “crater”. He said the latest moves had been made in close consultation with allies and partners around the world.

Russia exports between 4 and 5 million bbls of crude a day and about 8,500 billion cubic feet of natural gas annually.

The United States imported more than 20.4 million barrels of crude and refined products a month on average from Russia in 2021, about 8% of U.S. liquid fuel imports, according to the Energy Information Administration, and the ban is expected to send already high gasoline prices and inflation soaring. The United States also imports a negligible amount of coal from Russia.

Biden predicted prices would rise further as a result of “Putin’s war,” but pledged to do all he could to minimize the impact on the American people. He also warned U.S. gas companies against exploiting the situation to engage in profiteering or price gouging.

Reuters Graphics

U.S. Senator Chris Coons said the administration was coordinating with European allies “and making sure that we’ve done the groundwork to understand how to effectively implement a ban on Russian energy.”

“We are going to see increased gas prices here in the United States. In Europe, they will see dramatic increases in prices. That’s the cost of standing up for freedom and standing alongside the Ukrainian people, but it’s going to cost us,” Coons told CNN.

The White House had been coordinating with U.S. congressional leaders working on fast-tracking bipartisan legislation to ban Russian imports, but the ban of Russian imports would make any such bill moot.

Republican lawmakers took to social media to welcome the decision, while criticizing Biden’s green energy policies, and calling for the administration to support more oil and gas production at home.

U.S. Representative Susan Wild said Americans need to realize the larger sacrifice needed. “Obviously nobody wants to pay more for gas,” Wild, a Democrat on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said on MSNBC.

In announcing that it is phasing out imports of Russian oil and oil products by the end of 2022, Britain said it is giving the market and businesses more than enough time to find alternatives to the imports, which make up 8% of demand.

“The government will also work with companies through a new Taskforce on Oil to support them to make use of this period in finding alternative supplies,” British Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said.

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Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Steve Holland, Jeff Mason and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Heather Timmons and Alistair Bell

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

U.S. oil refiners, workers agree to continue labor talks past strike deadline

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A Marathon Petroleum banner outside the El Paso refinery in El Paso, Texas, U.S., October 1, 2018. REUTERS/Julio-Cesar Chavez/File Photo

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HOUSTON, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Negotiators for the United Steelworkers union (USW) and U.S. oil and chemical companies late Monday agreed to continue talks on a new contract after a strike deadline passed, according to a message sent to workers and viewed by Reuters.

The two sides temporarily halted negotiations ahead of the midnight deadline but plan to continue discussion on Tuesday. They agreed to a 24-hour rolling extension to give negotiators time to reach a final agreement, the USW message to workers said. That means the existing labor contract remains in place with a 24-hour notice required to end it.

The union rejected a 9% pay raise over three years, the message said. The USW represents about 30,000 oil industry workers, many of whose contracts were due to expire shortly after 12 a.m. (0600 GMT) on Tuesday.

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Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC.N), which is the lead negotiator for oil refiners, pipeline and chemical companies, did not immediately respond to a request for comment after normal business hours on Monday.

The talks have progressed slowly over the past 2-1/2 weeks but had made enough progress that both sides agreed to continue after the strike deadline, people familiar with the matter said. Company negotiators several times raised their pay offer to workers, the sources said.

The last nationwide strike by oil workers was in 2015.

At least four offers were exchanged on Monday, with the latest being a 9% pay raise over the three years of the proposed contract. The first pay offer, made last week, was for 3% over three years, the USW told members in a message last week.

Marathon has said it is committed to negotiating in good faith with the USW to produce a mutually satisfactory agreement.

The current contract, negotiated in 2019, provided an 11% increase in pay for refinery workers over three years.

If a strike is called, it likely will follow the pattern of the 2015 stoppage, which began on Feb. 1 of that year and expanded over time to 12 refineries, accounting for a fifth of U.S. crude oil processing capacity, and three chemical plants.

Strikes at several of the refineries continued for weeks after the nationwide strike ended in mid-March, with the longest at Marathon’s Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, Texas, ending in early July 2015.

During the 2015 strike, only one refinery shut down but others cut production to 50% of capacity.

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Reporting by Erwin Seba
Editing by Paul Simao, Jonathan Oatis and Gerry Doyle

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Oil prices could hit $100 as demand outstrips supply, analysts say

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Oil pump jacks are seen at the Vaca Muerta shale oil and gas deposit in the Patagonian province of Neuquen, Argentina, January 21, 2019. REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian

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LONDON, Jan 12 (Reuters) – Oil prices that rallied 50% in 2021 will power further ahead this year, analysts predict, saying a lack of production capacity and limited investment in the sector could lift crude above $100 a barrel.

Though the Omicron coronavirus variant has pushed COVID-19 cases far above peaks hit last year, analysts say oil prices will be supported by the reluctance of many governments to restore the strict restrictions that hammered the global economy when the pandemic took hold in 2020.

Brent crude futures traded above $84 on Wednesday, hitting two-month highs.

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“Assuming China doesn’t suffer a sharp slowdown, that Omicron actually becomes Omi-gone, and with OPEC+’s ability to raise production clearly limited, I see no reason why Brent crude cannot move towards $100 in Q1, possibly sooner,” said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, a group known as OPEC+, are gradually relaxing the output cuts implemented when demand collapsed in 2020.

However, many smaller producers can’t raise supply and others have been wary of pumping too much oil in case of renewed COVID-19 setbacks. read more

OPEC+ over/underperformance vs production quotas

“We don’t want to see $100 a barrel. The world is not ready for that,” Omani Oil Minister Mohammed Al Rumhi was quoted as saying by Bloomberg on Tuesday.

Morgan Stanley predicts that Brent crude will hit $90 a barrel in the third quarter of this year.

With the prospect of depleting crude inventories and low spare capacity by the second half of 2022, and limited investments in the oil and gas sector, the market will have little margin of safety, the bank said.

Standard Chartered, meanwhile, has raised its 2022 Brent forecast by $8 to $75 a barrel and its 2023 Brent forecast by $17 to $77.

Oil Market Heading for a Triple Deficit

J.P. Morgan analysts also expects oil prices to rise as high as $90 by the end of the year.

Current demand strength is acvting as a near-term tailwind, having proved largely immune to surging coronavirus infections, the bank said.

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Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin
Editing by David Goodman

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Sports

Chicago Bears LB Cassius Marsh says he was ‘hip-checked’ by ref before being hit with taunting penalty

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PITTSBURGH — Bears linebacker Cassius Marsh accused official Tony Corrente of “hip-checking” him moments before Corrente flagged Marsh for taunting in the fourth quarter of Chicago’s 29-27 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday night.

“On my way to the sideline, I got hip-checked by the ref. It’s pretty clear,” Marsh said after the game. “If I was to do that to a ref or even touch a ref, we get kicked out of the game and possibly suspended and fined. I just think that that was incredibly inappropriate.”

The contact occurred after Marsh sacked Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger for a 7-yard loss on third-and-8 and Marsh did a spinning jump kick to celebrate — the linebacker’s customary celebratory move.

Marsh then took several steps toward the Steelers’ bench before making contact with Corrente on his way back to Chicago’s sideline. Corrente reached for his flag and penalized the Bears 15 yards to extend Pittsburgh’s drive. The Steelers eventually kicked a field goal after they were given new life because of the penalty.

“I think that one was just bad timing. It’s pretty clear to everybody who saw it that I wasn’t taunting,” Marsh said. “I’ve been doing the celebration my whole career. It’s just sad to see stuff like that happen in a close game like that.”

For his part, Corrente said the contact with Marsh played no role in the penalty.

“First of all, keep in mind that taunting is a point of emphasis this year,” Corrente said in a pool report. “And with that said, I saw the player, after he made a big play, run toward the bench area of the Pittsburgh Steelers and posture in such a way that I felt he was taunting them.

“I didn’t judge [the contact] as anything that I dealt with. That had nothing to do with it. It was the taunting aspect.”

The Bears were penalized 12 times for 115 yards in the loss.

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Business

U.S. demand for oil surges, depleting tanks in Oklahoma

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Crude oil storage tanks are seen in an aerial photograph at the Cushing oil hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, U.S. April 21, 2020. REUTERS/Drone Base

NEW YORK, Oct 27 (Reuters) – Crude oil tanks at the Cushing, Oklahoma storage and delivery hub for U.S. crude futures are more depleted than they have been in the last three years, and prices of further dated oil contracts suggest they will stay lower for months.

U.S. demand for crude among refiners making gasoline and diesel has surged as the economy has recovered from the worst of the pandemic. Demand across the globe means other countries have looked to the United States for crude barrels, also boosting draws out of Cushing.

Analysts expect the draw on inventories to continue in the short-term, which could further boost U.S. crude prices that have already climbed by about 25% in the last two months. The discount on U.S. crude futures to the international Brent benchmark should stay narrow.

“Storage at Cushing alone has the potential to really rally the market to the moon,” said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho.

Cushing stockpiles have dropped to 27.3 million barrels, the lowest since October 2018, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday, or about half of where inventories were at this time a year ago. [EIA/S]

Inventories have fallen because of a ramp-up in U.S. demand, which has encouraged domestic refiners to keep crude at home to provide fuel such as gasoline and distillates to U.S. consumers, said Reid I’Anson, senior commodity analyst at Kpler.

In addition, U.S. production has been slow to recover from declines seen in 2020. At the end of 2019, the nation was producing roughly 13 million barrels of oil per day (bpd), but in recent weeks has been less than 11.5 million bpd. At the same time, product supplied by refineries – a proxy for demand – is about just 1% below pre-pandemic peaks.

Crude inventories at the Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub fell 31.2 million barrels in the most recent week, the lowest since October 2018.

As a result, the spread between U.S. crude and Brent, has collapsed. The spread narrowed to roughly $1.09 a barrel this week from $4.47 earlier this month, which had been about the widest spread since May 2020.

In an additional sign of high short-term demand for U.S. crude, the premium for U.S. crude delivered this December versus December 2022
reached a high this week of $12.48 per barrel, most since at least 2014, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

In the next three months, Rystad Energy expects refinery runs in the United States to increase by 500,000 to 600,000 barrels per day. This would outpace production gains of 300,000-400,000 bpd, and keep the spread between the two benchmarks narrow.

“Only if OPEC (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) intervenes with more supply of crude or if COVID rears its ugly head again, curbing demand, this high volatility will come off,” said Mukesh Sahdev, senior vice president and head of downstream at Rystad Energy.

The U.S. crude discount to Brent has reached its narrowest recently since September 2020. Meanwhile, the premium for U.S. crude delivered this December versus December 2022 reached the most since at least 2014.

Reporting by Stephanie Kelly; Editing by David Gregorio and Marguerita Choy

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World

EXCLUSIVE Iran resumes fuel exports to neighbouring Afghanistan

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Traffic jam and crowds are seen near Kabul’s airport in Afghanistan August 16, 2021. SATELLITE IMAGE 2021 MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES/Handout via REUTERS.

LONDON, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Iran resumed fuel exports to Afghanistan a few days ago following a request from the new Afghan government, which feels empowered by the U.S. withdrawal to buy the sanctioned nation’s oil more openly, an Iranian official told Reuters.

The Sunni Muslim group seized power in Afghanistan last week as the United States and its allies withdrew troops after a 20-year war.

The price of gasoline in Afghanistan reached $900 per tonne as many Afghans drove out of cities, fearing reprisals and a return to a harsh version of Islamic law the Taliban imposed when in power two decades ago.

To counter the price spike, the new Taliban asked Shi’ite Iran to keep the borders open for traders.

“The Taliban sent messages to Iran saying ‘you can continue the exports of petroleum products’,” Hamid Hosseini, board member and spokesperson of Iran’s Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union, in Tehran, told Reuters.

The Taliban sent messages to Iranian traders and to an Iranian chamber of commerce, which has close links to the government.

As a result, the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA), which is a part of the government, lifted a ban on fuel exports to Afghanistan, which had been in place since Aug. 6 because of Iran’s concerns about the safety of trading in the country.

Those concerns have been eased by the Taliban’s attitude, Hosseini said.

He also cited the Taliban’s decision to cut tariffs on imports of fuel from Iran and other neighbouring countries and shared with Reuters an official document issued by Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – the name by which the Taliban refers to itself.

The document specified a 70% discount on tariffs on imports of gasoline, diesel and LPG from the neighbouring countries to Afghanistan.

IRAN-TALIBAN COOPERATION

Iran sits on the world’s fourth-largest oil reserves, but the latest round of U.S. sanctions imposed by former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018, has significantly reduced Iranian oil exports.

Iran has nevertheless managed some trade, notably by trucking fuel to neighbours such as Afghanistan, and the U.S. troop withdrawal has made leaders of both Iran and Afghanistan less nervous about dealing more openly, Hosseini said.

The main Iranian exports to Afghanistan are gasoline and gasoil. Iran exported about 400,000 tonnes of fuel to its neighbour from May 2020 to May 2021, according to a report published by PetroView, an Iranian oil and gas research and consultancy platform.

Iranian fuel flows have been vital to Afghanistan in the last few years, according to traders and an Afghan government report, seen by Reuters.

Between March 2020 and March 2021, Iran accounted for $367 million of imports, mostly of fuel, according to the report compiled by the Afghan ministry of finance, chambers of commerce and data from private enterprises.

The next two most important oil suppliers are Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan with trade, mostly oil, valued at $257 million and $236 million respectively.

A source with direct knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named, said more than 1 million tonnes per year, or over 20,000 barrels per day, of Iranian fuel goes to Afghanistan.

EXPANDING COOPERATION?

The main destinations of Iran’s fuel have been eastern provinces near the Iranian border, and southern regions like Kandahar and Nimrooz where the Taliban had a strong influence even before the push of recent weeks, Hosseini said.

“I think the new Iranian government will significantly expand cooperation with the Taliban government. Iran can easily double its trade with Afghanistan. The government of (Ashraf) Ghani was always trying to limit cooperation with Iran since Iran was under U.S. sanctions,” Hosseini said.

Afghanistan has not developed an oil industry of its own. The country has six mini-refineries that only produce several thousand barrels per day of refined products each.

They run on light oil from Turkmenistan whose two refineries also directly supply diesel and jet fuel.

Uzbekistan’s two main refineries also supply refined products by rail and truck.

The source with direct knowledge said supplies of Turkmen condensate (light crude oil) has ceased a month ago because of the security situation, but predicted it would resume in about two weeks’ time.

“The problem is the banks stopped working three days ago so we might be back to bags of cash,” the source said.

Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Julia Payne
in London; Editing by Edmund Blair and Barbara Lewis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Health

Wife Of Hockey Ref, Who Died From COVID, Thinks He Contracted It During Carver Co. Games – WCCO

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MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — The wife of a youth hockey referee, who died from COVID-19, believes he contracted the virus while officiating games in Carver County.

Sixty-two-year-old Dan Culhane passed away in late February. His wife, Nancy Mitchell, also got the virus and was later told by health officials that she had the B.1.1.7 variant, which was first identified in the United Kingdom and is considered highly contagious.

READ MORE: Minnesota Urges Testing In Carver County Amid Variant Outbreak

“He loved the game itself. He loved the kids, especially the younger ones that were just kind of learning,” Mitchell said.

For 20 years, Culhane built a bond with players, coaches and fellow referees. He was also a cancer survivor who had been told by doctors that he could once again officiate games, with precautions.

Dan Culhane (credit: CBS)

“He took extra precautions. Multiple masks, electronic whistles,” Mitchell said. “We’ve been extremely careful.”

But in February, they both tested positive for COVID-19. While she got better, he progressively got worse and had a stroke.

“He was put on a ventilator for the procedure and never came off of it,” she said. “So it was very fast and very shocking, and I just, I don’t want any other family to go through this.”

Mitchell said she tested positive for the UK variant and believes her husband contracted the virus while officiating youth hockey games in Victoria and Waconia. Last week, the Minnesota Department of Health recommended a two-week pause for youth sports in Carver County. MDH said 27 cases of the COVID-19 variant are now linked to the county.

READ MORE: UK Variant Outbreak Linked To Youth Sports In Carver County, Officials Recommend 2-Week Pause

“I have empathy for all the parents and kids, but I personally think at the very least they should pause and just sort of analyze this,” Mitchell said. “You might be OK, but you just don’t know who is not going to be OK.”

In the meantime, she is choosing to remember the passion Culhane had for the sport he loved.

“That’s a part that’s so sad is that, you know, he basically died participating in an activity that he loved,” she said.

Dan Culhane (credit: CBS)

Eastern Carver County Schools made some changes beginning Monday and running through March 21, including a pause on all non-varsity winter sports and additional safety measures for varsity teams.

The district has not commented on Mitchell’s claims. There is no way to know for sure if Culhane contracted COVID-19 from his refereeing duties.

Carver County parents are pushing to keep sports open, safely. Christina Jax, whose son plays varsity hockey, said she is worried what a pause could do to the mental health of kids in sports. She believes Carver County shouldn’t be isolated, and she wrote a letter to administrators detailing why.

“I don’t think it makes sense to just isolate this poor group of youth athletes. If we’re going to do it, then we need to make blanket statements for everybody, and actually be able to justify it statistically,” Jax said.

MORE NEWS: As Spring Allergies Spike, Doctors Say Test For COVID As A Precaution

Last week, the Chaska-Chanhassen Hockey Association said last week that unless there is a direct order from the governor, Minnesota Hockey or community rinks, they will continue to play.

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