Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Another LNG Terminal Receives Approval To Export LNG To Non-FTA Nations

Updates

November 4, 2017: Cove Point should be up and running this week.

August 7, 2017: Cove Point construction is nearing completion; should be completed this year (2017). Another link:
Dominion Energy said work on the Cove Point LNG export facility near Lusby, Maryland is 95 percent complete and on track to start service in the fourth quarter of 2017.
All of the major equipment has been set in place with the focus now turning on commissioning activities, Dominion said in its July report.  
September 29, 2014: announced; FERC says Dominion can start construction of the Cove Point LNG-export terminal

Later, 7:26 pm CDT: Bloomberg News is reporting:
Dominion Resources Inc. (D), the third-largest U.S. utility owner, will form a master-limited partnership for natural gas assets next year that may generate as much as $2 billion annually in earnings. 
Initial holdings would include the Cove Point liquefied natural gas terminal in Maryland and Dominion’s stake in Blue Racer Midstream LLC, a joint venture in Ohio’s Utica Shale, Chief Executive Officer Thomas Farrell said today at a New York conference sponsored by Barclays Plc. (BARC) The partnership may generate as much as $1 billion of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization annually, he said.  
Original Post
Platts is reporting:
The US Department of Energy approved Dominion Cove Point LP’s application to export LNG from its terminal in Calvert County, Md., to countries that do not have a free-trade agreement with the US.
Dominion Cove Point is the fourth US LNG terminal to gain DOE approval of exports to non-FTA nations. Sabine Pass Liquefaction LLC, Freeport LNG Expansion LLC, and Lake Charles Exports LLC’s applications were approved earlier. DOE has another 19 non-FTA LNG export applications under review.
At this CarpeDiem graphic, one can see that Cove Point LNG is selling for less than $3 for one million BTUs; Asians and South Americans are paying as much as $15.

This additional comment I do not understand:
The installation previously received clearance to export LNG to non-FTA countries on Oct. 7, 2011, it noted.
Unless the original clearance had expired, or maybe I'm just missing something. Which would not be unusual.

The article said that the facility's capacity were fully subscribed; 20-year contracts were signed.

Detroit -- Third-World Problems

CBS Detroit is reporting:
A major power outage is affecting Wayne State University, the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, the City-County building, the Detroit Historical Museum, and the People Mover in downtown and Midtown Detroit.
“Some institutional public lighting customers are experiencing service interruption caused by extreme heat, cable failure, and routine maintenance — all combining causing system overload,” said Robert Warfield, a spokesman for the Detroit Mayor’s Office.
Wayne State spokesperson Jessica Archer said the campus would be closed for the rest of the day, Wednesday, after about half of all buildings — maybe 40 or 50 — lost power.
And nothing in the article to suggest it has anything to do with the city's financial problems.
“The Public Lighting Department is asking customers, once power is restored, to only turn on lights …. not to use air conditioners or other non-essential appliances,” Warfield said.
"Extreme heat"? The high for the day was 93 degrees. Hot. Very hot. But hardly extreme. 

All things being equal, it will be 94 degrees in Detroit in one hundred years due to global warming. Or not.

Twenty-One (21) New Permits -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA -- Halcon Has A Gusher; Newfield With A Nice Well

Active rigs: 181 (down significantly; nearing the post-boom low of 179)

Twenty-one (21) new permits --
  • Operators: Whiting (6), BR (4), WPX (3), WPX (3),  Slawson (2), Murex, Oasis, KOG,
  • Fields: Camel Hump (Golden Valley), Writing Rock (Divide), Alger (Mountrail), Ellsworth (McKenzie), Mandaree (Dunn), Sanish (Mountrail), Big Stone (Williams), Corral Creek (Dunn), Alkali Creek (Mountrail), Big Bend (Mountrail), Morgan Draw (Golden Valley)
  • Comments:
Wells coming off the confidential list were posted earlier; see sidebar at the right.

Three (3) producing wells completed:
  • 18005, 28 (no typo), Whiting, Jones 44-35, Wildcat; the Red River is dry (9/16/11; the Three Forks is TA (1/25/13), vertical well; at least three other dry wells in this township; one-stage frack;
  • 22979, 1,583, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-94-9C-04-5H, Eagle Nest, t7/13; cum 12K 7/13;
  • 23990, 3,657, Statoil, Beaux 18-19 2TFH, Banks, t8/13; cum --
Folks may recall my post on the Beaux-tiful wells in the Banks oil field.

Wells coming off the confidential list Thursday:
  • 20441, 592, OXY USA, State Marsh 1-34-27H-142-97, Willmen, t3/13; cum 25K 7/13;
  • 22980, 3,077, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-94-9C-0404H, Eagle Nest; average gas, 3,523 units; t7/13; cum 23K 7/13; another well in which the roughnecks don't get the credit they deserve for preventing a blow-out
  • 23196, drl, Statoil, Hospital 31-36 6TFH, Alger;
  • 23512, drl, Hess, En-Fretheim S-154-93-0805H-6, Robinson Lake, no production data;
  • 23727, 581, Fidelity, Peaceful Valley 13-24H, Dickinson, t3/13; cum 32K 7/13;
  • 24327, 626, CLR, Vera 1-1H, Beaver Lodge, t7/13; cum 17K 7/13;
  • 24528, 1,558, Newfield, Loomer State 150-99-5-8-3H, Tobacco Garden; t6/13; cum 35K 7/13;
  • 24700, 490, Samson Resources, Baja 2215-2H, Ambrose, t6/13; cum 21K 71/13;
  • 24785, drl, Hess, LK-Bice-147-97-1201H-2, Big Gulch, no production data

For The Archives: As Long As Americans Feel Slicers And Dicers Are Worth It, Who Am I To Argue

Updates

September 12, 2013: I will post these stories for the archives, but I have lost interest in them personally. If Americans and environmental wackos want to kill golden eagles, bald eagles, whooping cranes, migratory birds, insect-eating bats, who am I to argue. I am glad to see CarpeDiem keeps up the good fight And the environmental wackos see no problem with this needless carnage. Again, wind energy has not one redeeming feature. I've said that from the beginning.

September 12, 2013: so, the environmental wackos blame the oil and gas industry for slicers and dicers slicing and dicing birds:
Nice articles, too bad they are nothing but propaganda from the oil, coal, and gas companies trying to discredit and stop the wind, and solar companies from putting a crimp in their profit flow, They did it to the nuclear plants, which are safer than coal or gas plants, with nothing but invented statistics and false information and now they are trying to do it to these sources of clean, safe energy. One question, where is ethanol today? The oil companies killed it. Your articles are In one word: NONSENSE.
Have you ever noticed that when someone is losing an argument, they can only come up with one word to argue the point: nonsense? Sounds like this environmental wacko lost a lot of money on ethanol. LOL.
 
Original Post

From The Washington Times:
Wind energy facilities have killed at least 67 golden and bald eagles in the last five years, but the figure could be much higher, according to a new scientific study by government biologists.
Like drivers under the influence, probably 10% of all deaths are "captured." Rats, coyotes, other varmints probably carried off many of the carcasses before they could be counted. But as noted, who am I to argue: Americans want the slicers and dicers. Local governments have expedited them. Federal government has given them financial incentives.

Golden eagles, bald eagles, whooping cranes, migratory ducks don't vote. They don't have photo IDs.

45-Megawatt Williston Natural Gas Plant Comes On-Line; Pioneer Station; 45-MW/$64 Million

The Bismarck Tribune reports:
The first of three 45-megawatt natural gas-fired power plants is operational near Williston.
The unit 15 miles northwest of Williston is owned and operated by Basin Electric Power Cooperative, the company said in a release. The site will be known as Pioneer Station. Construction of the $64.5-million unit began summer 2012.
The unit is part of a power generation plan that includes two more units at Pioneer Station, three units west of Watford City and a transmission line.
Other natural gas plants:
  • in late November, Unit 1 at the Lonesome Creek Station, about 13 miles west of Watford City should also be operational
  • Basin also has submitted permits for two additional units at Lonesome Creek

The Next Big Thing: Déjà Vu All Over Again

I have posted more than 12,000 posts on the new and improved "million dollar way." I have probably provided three or four times that many updates. And yet, there are a handful of posts of which I am particularly fond. Many of my favorite Bakken posts are archived and/or linked at the sidebar at the right.

One of my favorite posts is a non-Bakken post, and is not linked at the sidebar.

It was posted March 21, 2013: the next big thing. In that post, I discussed Netflix.

It is interesting to see that Netflix has hit a new high and the story to go with it.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make investment decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here. 

I don't invest in AAPL or Netflix; never have, never will. I missed them both. My bad.  

EOG CEO Presentation At Barclays

Notes from EOG's CEO presentation at Barclays CEO Energy-Power Conference.

EOG Resources CEO: William Thomas

Note: there is much more at the transcript than what I have here
Note: every bullet in this post is huge; not one trivial comment

2014 - 2017: four years of very high margin oil production growth profile

Cash flow:
  • healthy dividend increases
  • reduce debt
  • accelerate their best plays: Eagle Ford, the Bakken/Three Forks, the Permian
Generating in excess of 100% direct rates of return on those three plays

What's new for the company?
  • increased crude oil projections from 28% to 35%
  • increased NGL from 10% to 14%
  • increased total company growth from 4% to 7.5%
Without increasing CapEx
  • wells keep getting better
  • completion technology is driving well performance; and it is astounding
  • reduced the cost of wells; well costs keep going down
"Internally we have been surprised how these horizontal plays continue to respond to improvements in completions" -- more later in this discussion.

Downspacing in the Bakken: very good success
  • allowed EOG to add additional locations to its inventory
  • inventory has grown from 7 years to 12 years
  • drilling in the core and the Antelope: excess of 100% rates of return
Average wells continue to increase: up to 940,000 EUR -- in the core, and the Antelope

In the Bakken and Eagle Ford: 26 billion bbls of oil net to EOG in place in the rock
  • every time we increased that 1%, that was 260 million additional bbls net to EOG
Cost side:
  • EOG considers themselves the lowest cost drilling in the three shale plays
  • they own their own sand
  • cost guidance continues to go down
CBR:
  • EOG was the first move on CBR
  • started over five years ago in the Bakken
  • loading facilities in the Bakken, the Permian, the Eagle Ford, and the Barnett
  • EOG owns loading and unloading facilities
  • "all" of our crude has been shifted from Cushing to St James
  • EOG gets the best price in St James
  • establishing markets on the both coasts (east and west)
US horizontal crude oil growth:
  • not concerned about over production as happened with natural gas
  • 80% of current horizontal oil production in the US comes from two plays
  • Eagle Ford: 821,000 bopd
  • Bakken: 750,000 bopd [In fact, according to the NDIC, June, 2013, production exceeded 821,000 barrels -- the most recent data available; I wonder if the CEO didn't get these two numbers turned around? 821,000 from the Bakken and 750,000 bbls from the Eagle Ford.]
"... really no other plays that are going to be found like these two plays."

In third place, and a very distant third place: the Permian.
  • a lot of oil
  • cost to drill much less than the Bakken and Eagle Ford
Quality of wells:
  • it takes 2.6 Permian wells to equal 1.0 Eagle Ford well
  • it is going to take a lot more capital to develop the Permian
Competitors:
  • production: EOG's production curve steeper than the peer group
  • in the Eagle Ford, a big lead, and getting bigger
  • growing production much more rapidly than peers
Inventory:
  • 12 years in the Bakken
  • multi-decades in the Permian (just getting started)
  • 15 years across all plays
Back to the Bakken:
  • good results from downspacing at 160 acres in the core and Antelope
  • IPs: anywhere from 2,000 to 2,500 bopd
  • rates of return in excess of 100%; black oil, 78% and 92%
  • average EUR: continue to increase
  • of the top 10 wells by peak oil rates in the Bakken, 7 were EOG wells
  • EOG surmises that maybe 10 out of 10 wells with best oil rates will be EOG wells with the next completion technique

On Track For 2,500 Oil And Gas Permits

With 1,730 new permits issued so far this year by the NDIC for oil and gas wells (this does not include salt-water disposal wells), the NDIC is on track to issue 2,496 permits this calendar year.

At this time last year, the NDIC had issued 1,573 oil and gas permits, which put it on track to issue 2,269 permits for the year. In fact, the NDIC issued 2,521 permits in 2012 (about 30 were ultimately cancelled); and the NDIC issued 1,926 oil and gas permits in 2011.

Snapshot:
  • projected for 2013: 2,496
  • actual, 2012: 2,521; about 30 cancelled
  • projected at this time one year ago for 2012: 2,269
  • actual, 2011: 1,926

Energy East: Oui; Keystone XL 3.0: Non

Marketwired is reporting:
TransCanada Corporation is moving forward with its plan to build a $12 billion west-to-east crude-oil pipeline across Canada, buoyed by firm commitments from shippers for nearly all of the pipeline's 1.1 million-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) capacity. The market response to the Energy East Pipeline was so strong that TransCanada has decided to partner with Imperial Oil Limited (Saint John, New Brunswick) on a $300 million deep-water port expansion in Saint John, New Brunswick.
$12 billion.

Energy East. Oui.

Keystone XL. Non. 

Around The Horn -- Very Early Morning Trading; Some Updates Throughout The Day

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here. 

KOG trades at new high ($11.00) but has now dropped back a few pennies. [Later: KOG hits new high -- $11.24 -- posted at 1:41 ET.]

Oasis down slightly; first with new highs. Oasis raised senior unsecured notes offering from $600 million to a cool $1 billion, due 2022, 6.875%. [Later: OAS now green; up almost 1% -- posted at 1:42 ET.]


CVX, COP, XOM: all up slightly; COP hits a new high, two days in a row. [Later: COP up almost 1%; new high at $69.35 -- posted at 1:41 ET.]

EOG up slightly. If we have a strong market today, it could hit a new high. [Later: in fact that happened -- EOG up almost 2%; up $2.79, trading at record highs, 166.30 -- posted at 1:40 ET.]

CHK. Wow. Up again, almost another 1.5%.

SD: flat.

AMZG flat.

TPLM down 2% -- profit taking; traded at new high earlier ($9.10). At Zacks, TPLM in focus, stock soars 17 percent:
TPLM was a big mover last session, as the company saw its shares surge more than 17% on the day. The move came on the back of solid volume too, as far more shares changed hands than in a normal session. The uptrend is continuing for the company, as the stock is now up nearly 32% in the past one-month time period.

The company has seen 3 positive estimate revisions in the past few weeks and its earnings consensus has moved higher over the past 30 days, suggesting that more solid trading could be in store for Triangle Petroleum. So make sure to keep an eye on this stock going forward to see if this recent surge can turn into more strength down the road.
UNP up slightly.

I don't follow BNSF (BRK) much any more; BRK follows the market in general.

ENB, EEP both down slightly; in a trading range. Remember, ENB announced a public offering of about 8 million new shares. [September 13, 2013: offering closed; sold 8 million; raised $223 million]. 

SRE continues to struggle. But paying 3%.

TransCanada down half a percent.
TransCanada Corporation  is moving forward with its plan to build a $12 billion west-to-east crude-oil pipeline across Canada, buoyed by firm commitments from shippers for nearly all of the pipeline's 1.1 million-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) capacity. The market response to the Energy East Pipeline was so strong that TransCanada has decided to partner with Imperial Oil Limited (Saint John, New Brunswick) on a $300 million deep-water port expansion in Saint John, New Brunswick.

Around The Net; The Permian For $35,000/Acre

It's hard to believe that the "once-moribund" Permian is now worth $35,000/acre.  And folks can still get 161,000 net acres in the Bakken (most of it with no depth restrictions) for less than $5,000/acre.

*********************

How "green" is Tesla, really? Slate is reporting:
So if you’re going to stack a Tesla’s per-mile emissions against those of a gas-powered vehicle, you’ll need to start by looking at the composition of the electrical grid. Nationally, the grid is roughly 40 percent coal, 25 percent natural gas, 20 percent nuclear power, and about 10 percent renewable sources, led by hydroelectricity. So it’s fair to say that your average Tesla is powered in large part by burning fossil fuels.
Yep -- coal-burning cars. But over time, the national grid will move more and more to natural gas, if President O'Bama doesn't screw it up. My hunch is the coal industry will hire John Kerry as their spokesman when he retires; he has a knack at handling "hypotheticals." LOL.

*********************

Apple is now in China. Huge. 700 million users on China Mobile. Those are just current users. Isn't the entire population of the US about 370 million? No, only 314 million. I must have counting all the uninsured. LOL.

Yesterday I could not access MacRumor Forum -- "denial of service" due to too many hits coming in. Today, I see the number of comments for the live blogging yesterday exceeded 1,400 comments, and I assume comments are still coming in. Based on some of the comments, it appears some of the folks missed most of the presentation.

Interestingly, this is the "big story" that investors are missing: Apple is now targeting Asia  -- China and Japan. Based on the comments coming into MacRumor Forum, folks are missing that story. The 5C is all about China and Japan, and I'm not talking cost. I'm talking "four-in-a-row."

*********************

The Houston Chronicle is reporting:
For the first time in 11 years, August came and went without a single hurricane forming in the Atlantic. The last intense hurricane (Category 3 or above) to hit the United States was Hurricane Wilma, in 2005. According to Phil Klotzbach, head of Colorado State University's seasonal hurricane forecast, accumulated cyclone energy is 70 percent below normal this year.
*********************

I think I've been saying this for the past year: the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" continues to widen. AP News is reporting:
The gulf between the richest 1 percent and the rest of America is the widest it's been since the Roaring '20s. The very wealthiest Americans earned more than 19 percent of the country's household income last year - their biggest share since 1928, the year before the stock market crash.
And the top 10 percent captured a record 48.2 percent of total earnings last year. U.S. income inequality has been growing for almost three decades. And it grew again last year, according to an analysis of Internal Revenue Service figures dating to 1913 by economists at the University of California, Berkeley, the Paris School of Economics and Oxford University.

Hunter S Thompson Is Smiling Somewhere This Morning

The Los Angeles Times is reporting:
In an unprecedented backlash, two state lawmakers who helped stiffen Colorado's gun laws were ousted Tuesday in a recall that turned into a nationally watched referendum on gun control.
Colorado Senate President John Morse, who shepherded the legislation to passage, was defeated on a 51%-49% vote. Sen. Angela Giron of Pueblo, a fellow Democrat who voted in favor of the measures, lost 56% to 44%. They were replaced by Republicans who opposed the new restrictions.
The recall was the first in the 100 years since Colorado adopted the constitutional provision and grew out of sweeping measures passed last winter after mass shootings at a school in Newtown, Conn., and at a movie theater in Aurora, outside Denver.
The laws limit gun magazines to 15 rounds and require universal background checks, to be paid for by the gun purchaser, among other restrictions. They passed without a single Republican vote. The laws, which took effect July 1, remain in force despite Tuesday's vote.
Hunter S. Thompson would be happy.

Three Rigs In The Far Southwest Corner Of North Dakota; Denbury Onshore Still In North Dakota

There are three rigs in the far southwest corner of North Dakota. Generally I see one rig in this area.

The permits:
  • 90294, conf, CLR, a salt-water disposal well,
  • 25896, conf, Denbury Onshore, LLC, CHSU 31B-27SHR 15, Cedar Hills;
  • 25940, conf, Luff Exploration, State Miller M-16H, State Line

The Bakken Doesn't Get The Respect It Deserves

I probably missed it but I didn't see any significant reporting in The Wall Street Journal or other mainstream media when Oasis did a $1.515 billion-deal in the Bakken. Generally speaking, a billion-dollar-deal in any industry gets the attention of Wall Street.

What Peak Oil?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Saudi Arabia is pumping record amounts of crude oil in decades to fill the gap left by Libya leaving the oil market.
Saudi Arabia has been pumping oil at its highest level in decades to offset a global shortfall fueled by another hot spot besides Syria: Libya, where unrest has slashed output.
A tumble in Libyan production to depths not seen since a civil war toppled the Gadhafi regime in 2011, combined with fears of a possible U.S.-led military strike against Syria, have sent oil prices sharply higher in recent weeks.
But unlike two years ago—when plunging Libyan output triggered a release of emergency oil stockpiles by the world's biggest consumers—soaring Saudi Arabian, U.S. and Iraqi output is helping cushion the blow, according to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, a group of some of the world's top oil producers.
Thank goodness for the Bakken.

And Platts is reporting:
Libya's oil and gas production could be wiped out indefinitely if the Libyan state collapses, Washington-based consultancy PFC Energy said this week, in a stark warning that the country risks falling back into chaos.

In a note to clients late Tuesday, PFC said the country's crude output had plummeted from 1.4 million b/d in early July to as little as 150-250,000 b/d in recent weeks as a result of the protests and shut-ins carried out by quasi-government forces, militias, civilian protesters, and oil and gas sector employees.
Ever since this story was first being reported, maybe six months ago, it was my contention that Libya was getting out of the oil business. Exactly.

An Inconvenient Truth -- Global Cooling

The Bottom Line

We all know the Paris agreement will not alter world temperature*, slow storms or stop floods but is potentially a trap for domestic legal action, it hurts the poor via high electricity bills, and reduces living standards (for those outside the $1.5 Trillion Green Industrial Complex).
*To put the impotence of Paris in perspective: if we use IPCC (the Paris protocol) estimates, and all industrialized nations make a 100% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2100, we can only cool global temperatures by 0.35C — a third of one degree at most. That’s no oil, no gas, or coal, in a world powered by handmade nuclear reactors using mud bricks transported by horse and cart.
And that assumes that the models are right despite them failing on regional, local, short term, polar, major feedbacks, humidity, rainfall, drought, and on clouds.  
Updates

October 13, 2013 Daily Mail is reporting:
A chilly Arctic summer has left 533,000 more square miles of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year – an increase of 29 per cent.
The rebound from 2012’s record low comes six years after the BBC reported that global warming would leave the Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013.
Instead, days before the annual autumn re-freeze is due to begin, an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia’s northern shores. 
Original Post
 
The Wall Street Journal is reporting: huge increase in Arctic ice.
The area of Arctic sea ice was nearly 30% greater in August than a year ago, according to recent satellite data, though projections based on longer-term trends suggest the sea ice will continue its decline over time.
Arctic sea ice covered 2.35 million square miles in August, up from 1.82 million square miles a year earlier, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, or NSIDC, in Boulder, Colo. The level recorded last year was a record low.
Arctic sea ice partially melts each summer and re-forms in the winter. "It's been much colder in the Arctic this summer, so not much ice has melted," said Julienne Stroeve, climatologist at NSIDC. The measurements were based on data obtained from U.S. weather satellites. The nearly 30% year-to-year increase partly reflects the extreme low level of sea ice in August 2012.
"If you get a record one year, you don't expect another record the next year," said Chris Rapley, professor of climate science at University College London. He also noted that data on the area of sea ice doesn't capture the whole picture, because it doesn't include the thickness—and therefore volume—of sea ice. Scientists say they need to obtain better data to gauge changes to Arctic ice volumes.
You have to love the deniers. Of global cooling.

Wednesday Morning Links, News, And Views

Active rigs: 184

RBN Energy: another in a series on pricing various grades of crude oil being shipped by pipelines.

Genesee & Wyoming reports traffic in Aug 2013 was 162,101 carloads, an increase of 79,415 carloads, or 96.0%, compared to G&W's traffic in Aug 2012.


WSJ Links

Alcoa, Hewlett-Packard and Bank of America will be dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the biggest shake-up of the 30-stock index in almost a decade.
Alcoa, a Dow component for 54 years, will be replaced by athletic-gear maker Nike Inc. Payments company Visa Inc. will replace H-P, which joined the index in 1997, and securities firm Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will supplant Bank of America, which spent five years in the blue-chip benchmark.
Joseph Granville, who died Saturday at age 90, was the founder of the Granville Market Letter, which thousands of investors relied on for stock-market advice.

The prospect of Syria surrendering its chemical weapons has fueled hopes the U.S. will avert its fourth conflict in a decade, but U.S. officials face a daunting array of political, diplomatic and security obstacles.

The area of Arctic sea ice this past August was nearly 30% greater than a year ago, according to satellite data, though projections suggest the ice will continue its long-term decline.

Saudi Arabia has been pumping oil at its highest level in decades to offset a global shortfall fueled by another hot spot besides Syria: Libya, where unrest has slashed output.

The Egyptian interim government has stripped tens of thousands of imams of their preaching licenses in what amounts to the most aggressive assault on religious freedom since the Islamist president was deposed.