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| Canadian regulators approve Enbridge's Line 9 plan Thursday, Mar 06, 2014 05:03 PM PST  By Julie Gordon VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Canadian regulators on Thursday approved Enbridge Inc's Line 9 oil pipeline reversal and expansion, conditional on the country's largest pipeline company undertaking additional work on consultation and safety. Enbridge plans to reverse its Line 9B pipeline, which extends from southern Ontario to Quebec, and boost capacity of the entire Line 9 line by 25 percent to 300,000 barrels per day (bpd), in order to ship western oil to refineries in Eastern Canada. The approval by the National Energy Board (NEB) was widely expected, as the plan uses existing infrastructure, requires no new pipeline and much of the work will take place on Enbridge property or right-of-ways. "The board's decision enables Enbridge to react to market forces and provide benefits to Canadians, while at the same time implementing the project in a safe and environmentally sensitive manner," the NEB said in its report. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. senator launches bill to go slow on LNG exports despite Ukraine Thursday, Mar 06, 2014 04:51 PM PST By Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Edward Markey introduced a bill on Thursday to make the Obama administration's approval of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports more complicated, saying expedited permits will not help Ukraine and Europe manage Russia's control of fuel supply. As Russia has tightened its grip on Ukraine's Crimea region this week, a slew of Republican U.S. lawmakers, including House Speaker John Boehner, have called on the Obama administration to speed up LNG approvals in order to protect Ukraine and Europe from Moscow's control over natural gas shipments via pipeline. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. mulls how to use natgas resources in Ukraine crisis: top official Thursday, Mar 06, 2014 04:51 PM PST By Patricia Zengerle and Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There are discussions going on at high levels within the U.S. government on how to use U.S. natural gas resources as the country addresses the crisis in Ukraine, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns said on Thursday. U.S. Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, asked Burns if "it would be fair to say" there are active discussions at such levels about how to use natural gas to ease European reluctance to enact sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, and to help Ukraine. Full Story | Top |
| Classic Jurassic: Dazzling Chinese fossils offer portal into the past Thursday, Mar 06, 2014 04:15 PM PST  By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A spectacular array of beautifully preserved fossils unearthed in northeastern China over the past two decades provides a unique portal on life 160 million years ago in the Jurassic Period, an international team of scientists said this week. Among them are outlandish feathered dinosaurs, a quirky flying reptile, the earliest known gliding mammal, the earliest known swimming mammal - and a salamander that turned up everywhere. Writing in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, they said the plant and animal fossils collectively represent a distinct ecological grouping - or biota - of life forms that existed alongside one another. That is not the case in what these scientists call the Daohugou Biota, named for a village in the region the fossils have been found. Full Story | Top |
| Study pinpoints source of Mars meteorites Thursday, Mar 06, 2014 03:11 PM PST After traveling millions of years, some eventually landed on Earth, becoming the biggest of three main types of meteorites hailing from the Red Planet. Now researchers say they have pinpointed the source of those Martian meteorites classified as the "shergottites." The finding, if confirmed, would give scientists fresh insights into Mars' history and evolution. "If one were able to say, 'Oh, this Martian meteorite is from exactly this spot on Mars,' then that would have significant added value to what you could get out of it," said Carl Agee, meteorite curator and director of University of New Mexico's Institute of Meteoritics. University of Oslo planetary scientist Stephanie Werner and colleagues say they have done just that. Full Story | Top |
| Occidental slashes CEO Chazen's compensation to $6.9 million Thursday, Mar 06, 2014 03:11 PM PST Occidental Petroleum Corp's board of directors cut Chief Executive Officer Stephen Chazen's total compensation by about 75 percent in 2013 as part of the U.S. oil company's overhaul of executive pay, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday. Chazen received $6.9 million in salary and stock awards last year, compared with $28.5 million in 2012, according to the company's proxy filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Ray Irani, the longtime chairman of Occidental who was voted out by shareholders last year, received total compensation of $20.6 million, a figure that included a $14 million separation payment and $572,503 for security services, according to the proxy. After the company's 2013 annual meeting where only 63 percent of shareholders supported the company's executive pay package, the board changed the compensation program significantly for Chazen and other executives, the proxy said. Full Story | Top |
| EPA chief says new U.S. energy rules won't hobble business Thursday, Mar 06, 2014 02:36 PM PST  By Ernest Scheyder HOUSTON (Reuters) - Carbon regulations can be crafted to help offset climate change without "shutting down business in its tracks," U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said at a major energy conference on Thursday. McCarthy's speech in Houston to IHS CERAWeek, the largest meeting of energy executives in the world, was the first by an EPA administrator since the conference began 33 years ago. "We don't have to choose between a healthy environment and a healthy economy," McCarthy, who has run the EPA for nearly a year, said about new rules she said would be proposed by this summer. "We know conventional fuels like coal and natural gas are going to continue to play a critical role in a diverse U.S. energy mix." The Houston visit came about a week after McCarthy toured North Dakota, trying to convince the state's coal, oil and ethanol producers that her agency was not trying to burden their industries with onerous regulations. Full Story | Top |
| Carlyle commodity fund Vermillion's assets halved to below $1 billion Thursday, Mar 06, 2014 02:27 PM PST  By Barani Krishnan NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. private equity group Carlyle said assets at its commodities hedge fund Vermillion fell by more than half in the nine months to December, suggesting investor redemptions at the fund after some negative returns. New York-based Vermillion Asset Management was managing about $2 billion in March 2013 but that fell to around $900 million by December, Carlyle said in regulatory filings to the U.S. Securities Exchange and Commission. Carlyle, which acquired Vermillion in October 2012 for an undisclosed sum, did not say in the latest quarterly filings released earlier this week what caused the commodities fund to lose the assets in a relatively short period. Randy Whitestone, a spokesman for Carlyle, declined to comment on the situation. Full Story | Top |
| Ukraine fears pull TSX lower; Canadian Natural rises Thursday, Mar 06, 2014 01:44 PM PST  By John Tilak TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index declined on Thursday as concerns about instability in Ukraine helped offset gains in shares of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd and the materials sector after the prices of some commodities rose. A U.S. government report showed that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits dropped to a three-month low last week. "I'm looking at a market that is very comfortable where it is," said Fred Ketchen, director of equity trading at ScotiaMcLeod. The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index closed down 32.25 points, or 0.23 percent, at 14,271.92. Full Story | Top |
| The dawning of the age of genomic medicine, finally Thursday, Mar 06, 2014 01:30 PM PST  By Julie Steenhuysen LA JOLLA, California (Reuters) - When President Bill Clinton announced in 2000 that Craig Venter and Dr. Francis Collins of the National Human Genome Research Institute had succeeded in mapping the human genome, he solemnly declared that the discovery would "revolutionize" the treatment of virtually all human disease. The expectation was that this single reference map of the 3 billion base pairs of DNA -- the human genetic code -- would quickly unlock the secrets of Alzheimer's, diabetes, cancer and other scourges of human health. As it turns out, Clinton's forecast was not unlike President George Bush's "mission accomplished" speech in the early days of the Iraq war, said Dr. Eric Topol of Scripps Translational Science Institute, which is running a meeting On the Future of Genomic Medicine here March 6-7. Full Story | Top |
| Chemo drug helps HIV patients respond to Sangamo gene therapy Thursday, Mar 06, 2014 01:21 PM PST  Treating HIV patients first with a chemotherapy drug improved their response to an experimental gene-modifying technique for controlling the virus, according to Sangamo BioSciences. Shares of Sangamo were up 17 percent at $22.92 in late trading on Nasdaq. On Wednesday, the New England Journal of Medicine published data from an earlier trial showed that Sangamo's strategy of genetically modifying cells from people infected with HIV could become a way to control the virus that causes AIDS without using antiviral drugs. "Sangamo's HIV 'suppression' is promising, but very early and far from a 'cure,'" RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael Yee said in a research note. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. House advances bill curbing EPA power plant emission limits Thursday, Mar 06, 2014 12:11 PM PST By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bill to curb the ability of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to set limits on carbon emissions from power plants cleared a hurdle in the House of Representatives on Thursday but faces bleak prospects of becoming law. The Republican-controlled House passed the bill by a 229-183 vote but the Senate, in which Democrats hold a majority, has no timetable to consider the legislation. President Barack Obama already has threatened to veto the bill. The legislation was the latest in a series of strong messages sent by lawmakers from large coal producing states to Obama, as his administration aims to cement a legacy of combating climate change by cracking down on carbon emissions. Full Story | Top |
| Duke ordered to stop groundwater pollution at North Carolina coal plants Thursday, Mar 06, 2014 12:10 PM PST  A North Carolina judge ruled on Thursday that Duke Energy Corp must immediately stop the sources of groundwater pollution at its 14 coal-fired power plants in the state. The issue of pollution from coal ash gained momentum in North Carolina last month, when a spill from a retired Duke power plant dumped at least 30,000 tons of ash in the Dan River. In the ruling, Wake County Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway reversed a decision by the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission. He said the panel failed to apply state law properly when it did not force the utility to clean up its coal ash ponds. Full Story | Top |
| Western countries alarmed as Libya slides towards chaos Thursday, Mar 06, 2014 11:45 AM PST  By Steve Scherer ROME (Reuters) - Western countries voiced concern on Thursday that tensions in Libya could slip out of control in the absence of a functioning political system, and they urged the government and rival factions to start talking. Two-and-a-half years after the fall of former leader Muammar Gaddafi, the oil-rich North African state is struggling to contain violence between rival forces, with Islamist militants gaining an ever-stronger grip on the south of the country. "The situation in Libya is very worrying," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters on the margins of a conference in Rome to discuss the Libyan crisis. The conference in Rome was overshadowed by the crisis in Ukraine, with a hectic round of bilateral talks at the margins culminating in a 40-minute meeting between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. considers how to use natural gas resources in Ukraine crisis: top official Thursday, Mar 06, 2014 11:42 AM PST There are discussions at high levels within the U.S. government on how to use U.S. natural gas resources as the country addresses the crisis in Ukraine, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns said on Thursday. U.S. Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, asked Burns if "it would be fair to say" there are active discussions at such levels about how to use natural gas to ease European reluctance to enact sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, and to help Ukraine. Full Story | Top |
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