Category: News & Announcement

Islamic State militants launched a rocket strike against an Iraqi refinery causing its shut-down, Reuters has reported, citing officials from the facility. In a statement on the terrorist group’s official channel, IS took responsibility for the attack, which caused a fire at a fuel storage tank, which has been put under control. “We completely shut down production units to avoid extensive damage that could result,” one of the Reuters sources said. The Siniya refinery, located in Northern Iraq, has a daily processing capacity of 300,000 bpd. Operations at the facility…

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The United States government is set to add Chinese state oil company CNOOC to a blacklist of companies with ties to the Chinese military, Reuters has reported, citing sources and a document. The move is the latest escalation in the U.S-Chinese trade spat and comes less than two months before the administration changes. So far, the Department of Defense has designated 31 Chinese companies from various industries as either owned or controlled by the country’s military. Earlier this month, Reuters reported the DoD will add another four. CNOOC and a…

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Australia-based iron ore giant Fortescue Metals Group Ltd plans to start producing renewable energy from wind, solar, hydrogen, and ammonia in 2022 or 2023, with an ultimate goal to have as much as 236 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy capacity, founder and chairman Andrew Forrest told Bloomberg in an interview on Monday. Fortescue Metals Group, set up in 2003, currently exports 175 million tons to 180 million tons of iron ore annually, and, according to Bloomberg, the firm is the world’s fourth-largest exporter of iron ore. Fortescue Metals Group plans…

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Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) will not be transferring the revenues from crude oil sales to the Central Bank of Libya until the bank adopts transparent policies on the spending of those revenues, the Libyan state oil firm said on Monday. NOC was responding to a statement from last week from the Central Bank, which, the oil firm says, provided false and misleading figures about the revenues and expenditures between January and October this year. According to NOC, the state oil firm deposited US$3.7 billion to the central bank in…

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French Total plans to increase its investments in Libya’s oil industry, the National Oil Corporation said, adding it had discussed with the company raising Libya’s production to “the highest levels.” Total has stakes in several Libyan oil fields, including the nation’s biggest, Sharara. The field, along with many others, was shut down for more than eight months this year after groups affiliated with the eastern government blockade oil export terminals, which pushed Libya’s oil output from above 1 million bpd to less than 100,000 bpd. In late September, when the…

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