Daily Archives: May 20, 2017

ATHENS Greece's energy minister held talks on Friday with representatives of U.S. oil major ExxonMobil and France's Total about gas exploration opportunities off Greek shores, the energy ministry said.

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a consortium of ExxonMobil, Total and Greece's biggest oil refiner Hellenic Petroleum are expected to submit an offer "in the coming period" for exploration south of Crete.

Friday's meeting focused on "prospects for exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbon deposits," the energy ministry said in a statement.

Greece has made several fruitless attempts over the last 50 years to find big oil and gas reserves, but its debt crisis has prompted it to step up those efforts.

Athens previously tendered blocks off Crete, its southernmost island north of Egypt and Libya and west of Cyprus, in 2013 but did not receive bids.

The country is also hoping to find gas off western Greece and last year named a consortium of Total, Hellenic Petroleum and Italy's Edison as the preferred bidder for an offshore gas drilling block in the Ionian Sea. Licensing is expected this year.

Exploring for gas in the Mediterranean has become more attractive since Italy's Eni discovered Egypt's offshore Zohr field in the Levant Basin in 2015, the biggest gas field in the Mediterranean and estimated to contain 850 billion cubic meters of gas.

(Reporting by Karolina Tagaris, Lefteris Papadimas and Angeliki Koutantou; Editing by Susan Fenton)

NEW YORK/LONDON/SINGAPORE After the first OPEC oil production cut in eight years took effect in January, oil traders from Houston to Singapore started emptying millions of barrels of crude from storage tanks.

LONDON The London Metal Exchange (LME) started publishing its Commitments of Traders Report (COTR) in July 2014.

VIENNA An OPEC panel reviewing scenarios for the oil producer group's meeting next week is looking at the option of deepening and extending a deal to reduce crude output, OPEC sources said on Friday, in an attempt to drain inventories and support prices.

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ExxonMobil, Total discuss offshore drilling opportunities in Greece ... - Reuters

Be careful what you wish for ...

So many young Australian soccer players, tempted by the prospect of big money or the chance to play in countries where football is the main sport, take their chances and move overseas to further their careers.

All seems well when they set out.

The ink on the contract has just dried, the coach has either told them or their agent that they are a crucial part of their new club's plans going forward, and the owner of the club is on hand to dispense warm greetings and a positive story about where his team is going.

And it's always up. To the top of the league, to promotion, to intercontinental competition.

Even though the young Australian may not be a star, he is assured that he will be a key component of the exciting journey they are all about to undergo.

If he's lucky, the player moves into an apartment, the club provide him with a car, and his salary arrives in his nominated bank account on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis.

The team does well, he gets plenty of minutes, begins to attract the attention of scouts and managers from bigger clubs in his new country or from more developed football markets, and his career takes off.

That happens quite often if a player is good enough, and if he goes to the right country, where basic legal frameworks and employment law cover his workplace conditions and rights.

If he is good enough, he can then make the leap to the big time as, in years gone by, players like Lucas Neill, Tim Cahill, Mark Schwarzer, Mark Bresciano, John Aloisi and Vince Grella, who started with lower tier clubs in England, Germany and Italy, did.

Sadly its not always the case.

Some agents are more diligent or simply have more staff and support than others and can smell a rat, or at least decide that the protagonists on the other end of a deal are too dodgy or dubious to work with.

Others, lacking those resources, may steer a young and impressionable player into a move that will quickly end up going sour and leave their career in limboand perhaps well out of pocket.

The downside works like this.

The player gets to a foreign country where he finds that, contrary to expectations, the apartment has not been hired, the car isn't there.

The coach, who seemed so keen in the negotiations, seems not to be bothered that much now, particularly as his attention is more focussed on keeping his job given a recent run of bad results.

The owner, who was so happy to talk the club up, is now reportedly in talks with interested consortia on selling out ostensibly to those with deeper pockets who can "deliver the sort of success the fans deserve".

The coach, who has given the young Australian a few outings off the bench but no starts in his first few weeks, pays the price for more disappointing results and is sacked. The owner is desperate to keep the team in the hunt so that it can be sold for a better price to would-be investors who are going cold now that relegation looks to be a real possibility.

Another older, more experienced coach, is brought in, a man who specialises in firefighting and getting teams out of the relegation zone.

He brings in his cadre of assistants and advisers, hardened men focussed on results and the short term.

He has never heard of the young Australian player, knows little or nothing about him and, desperate to keep the team in the division, signs some local veterans who may not have much career upside but know how to kick, fight and claw their way out of a sticky situation.

Having little use for the young foreigner, who is being paid more than the locals, the owner now decides to cut his losses.

The fact that the player has a two-year contract can mean little in some jurisdictions.

The coach tells him he doesn't want him training with or near the first team, and the youngster has to go and train with the under 18s. His promising career is in limbo, his development stalled, and his match fitness fading.

Then suddenly the rent on his apartment isn't paid, his salary isn't arriving on time, and, alone in a foreign land, lacking language skills and any support, things start to look very bleak.

In the end he cuts his losses, tells his agent to find a new client, tells the club owner that he will leave if they pay his air fare home and forego all or part of the salary he is owed, reasoning that he can return to the A-League and, if he is lucky, reboot his career if coaches there haven't forgotten who he is.

Okay, this is a composite horror story.

But all the elements it contains are true, and have (and probably still are), happening to many young Australian players who think the grass is greener elsewhere.

It surely is, if you can make it to the top, in one of the bigger leagues in a stable, well-run country where employment practices and customs are in place. But it's something of which even experienced players have to be wary.

The PFA, the players union, has been dealing with such cases for donkey's years.

It used to largely be eastern Europe and the Balkanswhere Australian players would be lured to chase the dream at second-tier clubs in some of the bigger leagues in that region Greece, Turkey, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Russia.

For some, like Mark Viduka and Josip Skoko 20 years ago, Mile Jedinak more recently, it might work out and prove to be a springboard to their dreams of a Premier League future.

For many, however, it presages a spiral of decline, disappointment and disillusion.

Where once it was eastern Europe, it is now the cashed-up leagues of south-east Asia where disappointment often lies.

The same cycle is being repeated there in boom-and-bust competitions where promises are made, and often broken.

Player unions around the world are left to pick up the pieces.

There was a stark reminder that this can happen to anyone here in Australia in recent days when Robbie Kruse and James Holland, two well-established internationals particularly the former walked out on their Chinese club, Liaoning Whowin, because their wages have not been paid.

Kruse had travelled to China as a Socceroo of several years' standing and with half a decade's experience in the German Bundesliga, most of it with one of the top teams, Bayer Leverkusen, under his belt. But it was to no avail.

In part the pair have been victims of China's new foreign player rules which changed as they arrived in the country, so that can't be laidback to them, or their agents.

But it's another example of what can go wrong if you are unlucky. They are now free agents and looking for other clubs. They have established track records, so should be successful. But for those who haven't, be careful what you wish for.

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Grass is sometimes greener, but offshore pitfalls abound for young players - The Sydney Morning Herald

PortCityDaily.com is your source for free news and information in the Wilmington area.

Video: The 2015 Hands Across the Sand event. (Courtesy Hendy Street Produxions)

CAROLINA BEACH People from across the Cape Fear area will join hands Saturday in opposition to President Trumps offshore drilling plans.

In late April, Trump signed the America-First Offshore Energy Plan, an executive order directing the Department of the Interior to review policyon drilling and seismic testing for oil along the Atlantic Coast.

Upon signing the order, Trump cited the desire to create jobs and wealth from American energy resources.

Our country is blessed with incredible natural resources, including abundant offshore oil and natural gas reserves, Trump said. But the federal government has kept 94 percent of these offshore areas closed for exploration and production. And when they say closed, they mean closed.

According to Ethan Crouch, chairman of the Cape Fear SurfriderFoundation, the risks to coastal Carolina from such activities are profound and twofold: economic and ecological.

Our community has a thriving recreation and tourism economy the relies on clean beaches and a healthy ocean, Crouch said. It makes no sense from a business perspective to put all that at risk for the sake of profits for some huge multinational corporation that is not invested in our community.

The ecological threats are equally important, and would threaten the region, according to Crouch.

Spills happen, its not a matter of if but when, Crouch said. The oil and gas industry has proven this over and over again, from large scale disasters like the Deepwater Horizon in the gulf, to regular low level spills from normal everyday operations. The Atlantic Ocean and Gulf Stream [are] home to one of the most biodiverse areas in the world. A spill would devastate our sea turtles, whales, and our vibrant fisheries here in N.C.

The Cape Fear Surfrider Foundation is holding an event on Saturday, May 20, to protest Trumps actions and to raise awareness about the risks of both drilling and seismic testing. The testing process involves high-pressure air blasts which, if implemented, would threaten over 100,000 marine mammals, according to Oceana USA, an environmental advocacy group. The Department of the Interior under the Obama administration had already begun moving in that direction with at 2014 report considering testing surveys in the Atlantic, the first in 26 years

Starting at 11:30 a.m. as many as 400 people plan to gather at Carolina Beach at the Harper Avenue beach access. At noon, participants will join hands on the beach to form a metaphorical and actual line in the sand. The Surfrider Foundation encourages visitors to come early, enjoy the beach and beat the traffic, and suggests participants carpool or ride bikes. For more information, you can visit the Cape Fear Surfrider Foundations event page.

Read more:

Carolina Beach event will protest Trump's offshore drilling plans - Port City Daily

What happened

Shares of Teekay Offshore Partners (NYSE:TOO)plunged on Thursday, down more than 15% at 3:15 p.m. EDT. Driving the sell-off was the company's first-quarter report, during which earnings fell versus last year because of a contract dispute with Brazilian oil giant Petrobras (NYSE:PBR). That sell-off was a key contributor to itsparent company's double-digit plunge today.

Teekay Offshore Partners generated $141.3 million in total cash flow from vessel operations (CFVO) during the quarter. While that was a 4.8% improvement from last quarter, CFVO is down 14.9% from last year's first quarter. Meanwhile, distributable cash flow also increased from last quarter, up 41.6% to $30.6 million. However, thatmetric is still down more than 50% from the year-ago period.

Image source: Getty Images.

Driving the sequential increase was higher cash flows from the company's shuttle tanker and floating production, storage, and offloading fleets. That performance made the company's results come in better than its expectations.

But that's where the good news ended. CEO Ingvild Sther stated in the press release:

Our results for the quarter continued to be impacted by the non-payment of charter hire on the Arendal Spirit UMS. We were recently notified by the charterer, Petrobras, of its termination of the charter contract on this unit. We are disputing the termination and are reviewing our legal options, while at the same time actively marketing the unit for alternative employment.

The company expects to record a $12 million increase in vessel operating expenses next quarter relating to this ship. As a result of this and other items, cash flow will fall sharply next quarter.

Teekay Offshore Partners has run into its share of problems over the past year because of the oil market's downturn. Not only has it had more than one customer end a contract earlier than anticipated, but one of its growth projects has also experienced delays and cost overruns that will probably push its timeline into early 2018. This string of problems has rattled investors, who are losing their patience with regard to the company's ability to turn things around.

Matt DiLallo has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Here's Why Teekay Offshore Partners LP Is Plunging Today - Motley Fool