China North East Petroleum Holdings Limited today announced the acquisition of controlling interest in Song Yuan Tiancheng Drilling Engineering Co. Ltd. (Tiancheng), via a $130-million USD purchase.

NEP is a trailblazer in the privatized, crude oil production sector of Northern China, and is the first privately owned oil exploration and production operation to be traded on NYSE Amex. NEP has guaranteed access to Chinese markets for their crude oil due to an arrangement with PetroChina, and currently operates 4 large fields, including China’s largest, a 2,696-acre field with geological reserves estimated to be in excess of 37.4 million barrels.

Tiancheng is the largest PetroChina-licensed private drilling operation in China, with seven operable rigs, a 220-well annual drilling capacity, and employing a staff of 320. NEP’s move will add substantial revenue streams, gaining access to Taincheng’s customer base which consists of two major oil producers as well as PetroChina, its largest client.

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One Natural Gas Company Worth Looking Into… Now And Later

Tony Daltorio, Investment U Research

These days, the US natural gas market finds itself weighted down by doom and gloom.

With North America choking on the stuff and underground storage of natural gas potentially approaching 4 trillion cubic feet, pundits keep saying that the market will see prices plunge to $2 per million BTU, where it will stay for years.

To contrarian investors such as myself, that type of talk couldn’t sound any more sweet…

Despite the gloom, we can still see a few glimmers of light in the natural gas market, such as drilling grinding to a multi-year low, barely a year after reaching its all-time high. Or the fact that some producers have voluntarily reduced output, deeming the present value of gas in the ground superior to current prices.

One way or another,

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Axial Vector Energy Corp., developer of advanced, high-efficiency energy engines, has access to two important fuel purification technologies associated with Petrosonics LLC, the privately held development stage oil refining technology company that is part of the PETROAVEC joint venture between Axial Vector and Petrosonics.

The first technology uses ultrasound at moderate temperature and atmospheric pressure to reduce sulfur and nitrogen in processed diesel. This is important because there is worldwide legislation aimed at decreasing sulfur emissions to zero, including emissions from off-road use such as marine and locomotive. There is also a shift in demand from gasoline to diesel. Hydrotreatment, the current technology, is not cost effective for mid to small sized refineries, and there is not enough capacity for increasing demand. The Petrosonics patent portfolio covers most of the world’s oil producers and refiners.

The second key technology removes sulfur, nitrogen,

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Reuters reports that next week Vladimir Putin will hold a meeting with global oil giants on how to exploit gas reserves on the Arctic Yamal peninsula.  Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev has told Reuters that Russia will consider easing laws regulating foreign participation in offshore energy projects, which had been restricted during the 2002-July 2008 boom in oil prices.  Rosneft has apparently said that it will not be able to maintain the high level of oil exports that has seen Russia overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest oil producer, as the domestic market will become more alluring to oil producers.  The President of OPEC has reportedly argued that the cartel must improve cooperation with Russia in order to keep prices stable.  Bulgaria has agreed to continue preparations for the Russian-backed Belene nuclear plant, South Stream and ...

Oil prices steadied on Thursday as economic optimism from data showing that the U.S. service sector and retail sales improved was tempered by disappointing news from the labor market.

U.S. crude prices for October delivery rose 2 cents to $68.07 a barrel by 11:44 a.m. EDT (1644 GMT), after earlier reaching a high of $69.40 on U.S. stock gains and a weaker dollar.

London Brent crude was down 32 cents at $67.34 a barrel.

“Right now, there’s not a whole lot of momentum here in either direction. I think the trend for the week, which has been down, is still in force,” said Tom Bentz, senior commodity analyst, BNP Paribas commodity Futures Inc in New York.

“Everything seemed to kind of slip right after the jobs data,” he added.

U.S. jobless claims fell last week, according to a report released by the Department of Labor on Thursday, but the prior week’s figure was revised up.

The number of

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This post is a guest contribution by Niels Jensen*, chief executive partner of London-based Absolute Return Partners.

It is not universally appreciated, but the last 25-30 years have, in general, been staggeringly good to most investors. Technology induced productivity enhancements combined with favourable demographic trends, minimal government involvement, accommodating labour unions and the globalisation of international trade have all contributed to a benign inflation environment and strong economic growth, leading to arguably the biggest bull market of all times in both bonds and equities.

So much for the good news. The long lasting tail winds have finally turned around, and we now face, and will most likely continue to face, head winds for years to come. The list is long, but some of the most important factors contributing to this change include:

The demise of the Anglo-Saxon consumer driven growth model:

The Anglo-Saxon consumer is exhausted; he

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Axial Vector Energy Corp. announced today that PETRO-AVEC, its JV Company, has accepted an invitation to the Saudi Arabia “Petrochem Arabia” conference. Held October 4-6, the conference is under the Patronage of HRH Prince Mohammed Bin Fahd Bin Abdulaziz, Governor of the Eastern Province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Federation of GCC Chambers as well as other major local and international organizations fully support Petrochem Arabia 2009. This conference will bring government, Saudi and international private sector companies together to examine the current opportunities and challenges being faced in the Kingdom’s petrochemical industry. According to the press release, it is the only conference focusing on petrochemicals in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer with more than nine million barrels produced every day.

PETRO-AVEC officials plan to present the third party technical due diligence from two of the world’s largest oil

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Bloomberg reports that Ghana’s Eurobonds have surged 93% since last November and may continue to rise given the country’s increasingly attractive fiscal position due in part to the production of a new oil field that is expected to put it in the world’s top 50 oil producers and to expand growth from an estimated 4.1% this year, to 6.1% in 2010 and 10.5% the year after. The yield on the 8.5% dollar-denominated bonds due 2017 fell from 9.83 to 9.73 percent during trading on Tuesday.

Ghana was the first post-HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Country) debt relief country to access the international capital markets, after being assigned a favorable credit rating of B+ in 2007 by the Fitch, the global rating agency. While a slew of other African nations such as Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria lined up in response, capital markets and risk appetite shriveled during the ensuing

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Leave it to the government. It’s proposing a “tax and cap” regime for energy producers which will require fossil-fuel generating plants to pay extra.  The idea is to encourage clean fuels and discourage dirty ones. That’s fine in theory. But instead of helping our future energy situation, it’s going to make it a lot worse.The price of oil has already doubled in the past six months to over $60 per barrel. But it’s just the beginning of oil’s next gigantic price surge. If you thought that oil was ridiculously expensive last summer, you haven’t seen anything yet.

It doesn’t matter whether you believe in “Peak Oil” because this isn’t about Peak Oil coming to fruition. Peak Oil believes that oil discoveries have peaked leading to oil production’s inevitable decline.

This crisis will be strictly man-made. Governments and oil companies have already planted the seeds of the next great energy crisis. And there’s

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Fed sees the bright side… Bernanke says worst it over, inflation not a worry… Warren Buffett can’t see any green shoots… even after eye surgery… Alan Knuckman on how to survive a sideways stock market… Byron King says now’s a good time to book profits on this sector… Housing still out of whack… one chart foreshadows the market’s next move…

Take two days off and look what happens… the recession has bottomed.

At least that’s what “they” would have you believe. While we locked ourselves in our bimonthly editorial meeting the last two days, we missed some new “the worst is over” calls. Here’s the rundown: “The pace of economic contraction is slowing,” declared the Federal Open Market Committee yesterday after emerging from a two-day meeting of their own. Even though Mr. Bernanke and his brood say, “economic activity is likely to remain weak for a time,”

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