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U.S. throws more money at solar power
The U.S. Energy Department said it has $25 million in funding to help software developers and utility provides better integrate solar power to the grid. “Our ongoing grid modernization work will help accelerate the widespread adoption of the clean energy resources that will define our low-carbon future” Lynn Orr, the Energy Department’s undersecretary for science and energy, said in a statement. “This funding will help that mission by supporting industry partners working to integrate, store, and deploy solar energy throughout our electric grid.” The Energy Department said the dozen or so projects that could be developed with the new funding will help companies build demonstrations that will offer insight into how to incorporate solar power to the grid more […]
Halliburton’s Loss Deepens
Halliburton Chief Executive Dave Lesar said Tuesday in his first live remarks since the failed merger was announced Sunday that his company still wants to be a one-stop-shop for exploration and production companies, and said it would seek other ways to grow and increase its reach worldwide. “If we had been successful, adding the Baker Hughes assets would have given us that scale quickly,” Mr. Lesar said in a conference call. “But our strategy has not changed.” That was in contrast to remarks Tuesday from Baker Hughes Chief Executive Martin Craighead, who said his company plans a more specialized business model, pulling back from some markets and services such as fracking in the U.S., to focus on developing and selling new technologies. “There are certain markets where certain product lines frankly aren’t earning their […]
U.S. oil industry bankruptcy wave nears size of telecom bust
The rout in crude prices is snowballing into one of the biggest avalanches in the history of corporate America, with 59 oil and gas companies now bankrupt after this week’s filings for creditor protection by Midstates Petroleum MPOY.PK and Ultra PetroleumUPL.NL. The number of U.S. energy bankruptcies is closing in on the staggering 68 filings seen during the depths of the telecom bust of 2002 and 2003, according to Reuters data, the law firm Haynes & Boone and bankruptcydata.com. Charles Gibbs, a restructuring partner at Akin Gump in Texas, said the U.S. oil industry is not even halfway through its wave of bankruptcies. “I think we’ll see more filings in the second quarter than in the first quarter,” he said. Fifteen oil and gas companies filed […]
Venezuela Bonds Tumble After Oil Output Falls More Than Expected
Venezuelan bonds tumbled Tuesday after IPD Latin America said the country’s oil production fell more than investors had expected. The yield on the country’s benchmark dollar bond due in 2027 rose 48 basis points as of 2:29 p.m. in New York, the biggest increase on a closing basis in a month, to 25.1 percent. The bond’s price fell 0.88 cent to 41.07 cents on the dollar, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Output slid 188,000 barrels a day in the first quarter of the year to 2.59 million barrels a day, Miami-based energy consultancy IPD said in an e-mailed statement, adding that it’s the first time since 2008 that oil output has fallen across all regions in the country. While the fact that Venezuela was facing declining production was known, the magnitude was larger than expected, Bank of America Corp. economist Francisco Rodriguez said in a research note published […]
China Presses Economists to Brighten Their Outlooks
Chinese authorities are training their sights on a new set of targets: economists, analysts and business reporters with gloomy views on China’s economy. Securities regulators, media censors and other government officials have issued verbal warnings to commentators whose public remarks on the economy are out of step with the government’s upbeat statements, according to government officials and economic commentators with knowledge of the matter. Lin Caiyi, chief economist at Guotai Junan Securities Co. 601211 1.91 % who has been outspoken about rising corporate debt, a glut of housing and the weakening Chinese currency, received a warning in recent weeks, these people said. It was her second. The first came from the securities regulator, and the later one, these people said, from her state-owned firm’s compliance department, which instructed her to avoid making “overly bearish” […]
