Webmaster, Author at SolarBuzz Jamaica

Awful Oversight … Environmental Interests Lament Scrapping Of Ministry

March 8, 2016 Webmaster

McCaulay … It appears the environment will be under the Office of the Prime Minister along with a lot of different, other important national areas and I fear the environment focus will be lost in the other priorities.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness has attracted the attention of environmentalists with the exclusion of the environment and climate change portfolio as a named ministry in his Cabinet.

For environmentalists, it does not send a positive signal.

“I am disappointed to see that there is no environment ministry and no environment minister. It appears the environment will be under the Office of the Prime Minister along with a lot of different, other important national areas and I fear the environment focus will be lost in the other priorities,” said Diana McCaulay, Chief Executive Officer of the Jamaica Environment Trust (JET).

“I don’t think this first signal is a very positive one. It used to be that the environment portfolio moved around from ministry to ministry. Now it would it seem to have disappeared entirely,” she added.

Only last week, JET, along with a number of other entities, including the Windsor Research Centre, urged the new Prime Minister to give priority to a host of environment issues, notably:

*climate Change
*Cockpit Country
*planning for sustainable development
*protected areas
*sanitation and public health
*enforcement of environmental laws

With the Jamaica Labour Party vowing in its manifesto to work with environment actors, McCaulay said she was eager to learn how the realities of the new Cabinet will gel with the identified priority areas.

“I would like to hear the details of how this would work sooner rather than later and I would like to hear a timeframe for doing some of the things stated in the manifesto,” she told The Gleaner.

Head of the South Trelawny Environment Agency Hugh Dixon was in agreement.

“I think with growth and prosperity being the sort of thrust of the new government, it seems to be an awful oversight as the issues that are at the forefront of development are predicated to a great extent on an awareness and sensitivity to [for example] climate change,” he said.

According to Dixon, the situation is will challenge civil society environment groups to gain traction in terms of the significance and value of climate change, and the environment.

“I would, with caution, say that I hope that wherever it has been dispensed to, it holds some order of priority consistent with its current standing globally and any sort of growth and development agenda,” he added.

Former Minister of Local Government and Community Development, and one-time Opposition spokesman on Environment Noel Arscott has himself questioned the rationale behind the lack of a designated ministry of environment and/or climate change.

“Jamaica and the Caribbean fall in one of the most vulnerable regions in the world affected by the vagaries of the weather. We certainly are victims of any kind of climate change impacts… So for a government not to put that on the front burner was really shortsighted…” he said.

The Gleaner

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New Fortress Secures LNG Ship For Jamaica Project

March 4, 2016 Webmaster

The JPS power station at Bogue, Montego Bay, which is being converted to run on LNG.

New Fortress Energy, the company seeking to supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Jamaica, has secured a two-year contract for an LNG vessel and is to start shipping gas this month.

Golar LNG Limited, a Bermuda-registered company which operates the vessel Golar Artic, revealed the contract details to its investors.

“Golar has now concluded a two-year charter agreement with New Fortress Energy Transport Partners LLC (NFE) for the employment of Golar Arctic in Jamaica,” said Golar its statements obtained by the Financial Gleaner.

New Fortress has an agreement with Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) to supply gas to its 120MW power plant at Bogue in Montego Bay, a contract New Fortress will service via gas infrastructure under development at the Montego Bay port. JPS has been mum on the price at which the gas will be supplied to Bogue.

The American company is also expected to develop gas infrastructure and supply JPS’ Old Harbour plant with LNG once it is built, but those negotiations continue.

Bogue is currently being converted to run on gas as well as diesel oil, the fuel on which it was originally commissioned in 2003. General Electric is doing the retrofitting under a US$22.74-million contract from JPS. Bogue will become a combined-cycle plant, capable of switching between gas and diesel.

New Fortress Energy assumes the costs for delivering gas to the burner tip. JPS has no stake in the gas infrastructure project.

New Fortress’ ambition Golar said the deal it has with New Fortress solves a long-standing problem regarding the cost of regasification, and that it fits with New Fortress’ ambition to become a regional supplier of LNG to Caribbean countries.

“Jamaica has long sought to replace liquid fuels with LNG, however, the size of the market has always made it difficult to justify the cost of a conventional floating storage and regasification unit,” said the fuel shipping company.

“New Fortress have now solved this challenge by utilising ship-to-ship transfer of LNG from Golar Arctic on to smaller LNG carriers to service a number of locations within the country of Jamaica.”

Golar Arctic is scheduled to load the first LNG cargo in support of this new business “during March 2016”. Golar and New Fortress believe this new approach to delivering LNG to niche markets has wide application within the Caribbean and other similar markets around the world, stated Golar.

“New Fortress have, with their entrepreneurial approach to business development, shown that downstream LNG markets can be developed within a much shorter time frame than is customary. Similar fast-track solutions will be essential if consumers are to benefit from the large incremental volumes of LNG that will be delivered to market over the next three-four years,” stated Golar.

The Financial Gleaner sought a project update from both JPS and New Fortress, but none came up to press time.

Golar LNG this week reported a fourth-quarter adjusted operating loss of US$35.9 million.

The Gleaner

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Jamaica To Do Its Share Of Climate Change Mitigation

March 3, 2016 Webmaster

Jamaica is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 1.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year by 2030 as part of its global commitment to take climate change mitigation action.

To bring this about, the island – as reflected in its nine-page Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) document to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – has undertaken to implement energy policies that ensure that the island uses energy wisely and aggressively to pursue opportunities for conservation and efficiency has a modernised and expanded energy infrastructure that enhances energy-generation capacity and ensures that energy supplies are safely, reliably, and affordably transported to homes, communities, and the productive sectors on a sustainable basis, and achieves its energy resource potential through the development of renewable energy sources by increasing their share in its primary energy mix of 20 per cent by 2030.

Such policies are also to ensure that government agencies and ministries are models and leaders in energy conservation and environmental stewardship and that the island has a well-defined and established governance, institutional, legal, and regulatory framework.

Private Industry Support

Fully implemented energy polices need, too, to ensure that private industry embraces “efficiency and ecological stewardship to advance international competitiveness and to move towards a green economy”, the document said.

Realising Nationally Determined Contributions is essential if the target of the climate deal, brokered in Paris in December, is to be reached.

That agreement – to which Jamaica is a party – looks to hold “the increase in the global average temperatures to well below two degrees above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels”.

New Activities

It is against this background that Jamaica is continuing its own mitigation efforts.

“Certain new activities have started up again under the memorandum of understanding we had with the Americans, for example, particularly around natural gas, that will allow us to have much more efficient plants …” a source from the Ministry of Water, Land, Environment, and Climate Change told The Gleaner at the start of the year.

“Natural gas generation, generally speaking, can be made to respond very well to changes in demand … . For example, if you have a solar plant and production dips, it is relatively easy for you to ramp up the production of electricity from a natural gas plant,” the source added.

There are also other efforts afoot.

“Recognising that energy is not just electricity, it is also transport, some of the work we will be doing in respect of sector planning will involve a closer look at transportation and transportation efficiency and how we can reduce the amount of oil consumed there,” the source noted.

Further, to achieve 20 per cent renewables in the island’s energy mix, the source said, “You can increase the amount of renewables or decrease the amount of other fuels in the mix. There, you are talking efficiency measures and the Government is looking at efficiency in a number of respects.”

The Gleaner

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Warren Buffett: Solar and Wind Could ‘Erode the Economics of the Incumbent Utility’

March 1, 2016 Webmaster

In his annual investor letter, Buffett addresses the new set of risks faced by electric utilities.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett says that renewable energy and efficiency are pushing utilities beyond a “sloppy” operational model and into a more competitive environment.

In his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Buffett outlined the risks posed by distributed generation to traditional power companies. Berkshire Hathaway, a multinational holding company worth nearly $200 billion, owns 10 energy companies, including three large electric utilities serving territories across 11 Midwestern and Western U.S. states.

The business of electricity is entering a period of uncertainty, wrote Buffett.

“In its electric utility business, our Berkshire Hathaway Energy (“BHE”) operates within a changing economic model. Historically, the survival of a local electric company did not depend on its efficiency. In fact, a ‘sloppy’ operation could do just fine financially,” wrote Buffett. “That’s because utilities were usually the sole supplier of a needed product and were allowed to price at a level that gave them a prescribed return upon the capital they employed.”

“That’s all changing,” he wrote. Sloppiness is no longer an option.

More and more regulated power companies are facing a world where third parties, like solar service providers, can compete with them directly on cost. (Although Buffett stresses that the only reason for this competition is because of federal subsidies.)

“Today, society has decided that federally-subsidized wind and solar generation is in our country’s long-term interest. Federal tax credits are used to implement this policy, support that makes renewables price-competitive in certain geographies. Those tax credits, or other government-mandated help for renewables, may eventually erode the economics of the incumbent utility, particularly if it is a high-cost operator,” wrote Buffett.

The Investment guru assured investors that Berkshire Hathaway’s utilities will remain competitive because of their adoption of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and increased focus on operational efficiency.

“BHE’s long-established emphasis on efficiency — even when the company didn’t need it to attain authorized earnings — leaves us particularly competitive in today’s market (and, more important, in tomorrow’s as well),” wrote Buffett.

Berkshire Hathaway Energy has poured $16 billion into renewables in recent years, according to Buffett. The company’s electricity portfolio now consists of 7 percent wind and 6 percent solar. The company also plans to increase its investments in large-scale renewable energy projects in support of international climate goals. “We’re not done,” wrote Buffett.

Buffett did not mention state policies like net metering, which his utilities have strongly opposed. Berkshire’s power companies, particularly NV Energy in Nevada, have been heavily criticized and even demonized by the solar industry for fighting to get rid of net metering.

Some argue that Buffett and SolarCity Chairman Elon Musk are locked in a battle over the future of solar energy. Both believe in the promise of the technology; however, Buffett thinks centralized solar power plants are the most economic choice, while Musk thinks rooftop solar will dominate.

Whatever the dominant model — distributed or centralized — Buffett believes his utilities will ride the transition.

“None of these problems, however, is crucial to Berkshire’s long-term well-being,” he wrote. Many other companies in Berkshire’s portfolio have adapted to change in the past. “And we will continue to do so.”

Greentech Media

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US Solar Market Sets New Record, Installing 7.3GW of Solar PV in 2015

February 26, 2016 Webmaster

For the first time ever, solar beat out natural-gas capacity additions.

In yet another record-breaking year, the solar industry in the United States installed 7,286 megawatts of solar PV in 2015. GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association announced the historic figures today ahead of the March 9 release of the U.S. Solar Market Insight report.

FIGURE: U.S. Solar PV Installations, 2000-2015

For the first time ever, solar beat out natural-gas capacity additions, with solar supplying 29.5 percent of all new electric generating capacity in the U.S. in 2015.

Led by California, North Carolina, Nevada, Massachusetts and New York, the U.S. solar market experienced a year-over-year growth rate of 17 percent. Geographically, the market continues to diversify with 13 states installing more than 100 megawatts each in 2015. States that made major solar strides include Utah, which jumped in the rankings from 23rd to 7th place, and Georgia, which moved from 16th to 8th in the nation.

FIGURE: Ranking States by Annual PV Installations

The residential solar market grew 66 percent year-over-year and, for the first time in history, eclipsed the 2-gigawatt mark. The residential solar segment now represents 29 percent of the entire U.S. solar market — its largest share since 2009.

For the fourth year in a row, the non-residential market broke the 1-gigawatt mark, but remained roughly flat year-over-year.
The utility-scale sector, the mainstay of the U.S. solar market, grew 6 percent year-over-year and represented more than half of all solar PV installed in 2015.
Cumulative U.S. solar PV installations have now topped 25 gigawatts, up from just 2 gigawatts in 2010.

FIGURE: Share of U.S. PV Installations by Segment, 2000-2015

“Without a doubt, 2015 was a monumental year for the U.S. solar industry, and perhaps what’s most amazing is that we’re only getting started,” said SEIA president and CEO Rhone Resch. “Over the next few years, we’re going to see solar continue to reach unprecedented heights as our nation makes a shift toward a carbon-free source of energy that also serves as an economic job-creating engine.”

“The U.S. solar market remains concentrated in key states, with the top 10 states accounting for 87 percent of installed capacity in 2015,” said Shayle Kann, senior vice president of GTM Research. “But growth has been widespread, and 24 of the 35 states that we track saw market growth in 2015.”

On March 9, GTM Research and SEIA will release the complete U.S. Solar Market Insight2015 Year in Review with detailed market analysis and updated forecasts.

Key findings:

The U.S. installed 7,286 megawatts of solar photovoltaics (PV) in 2015, the largest total ever and 17 percent above 2014
The 7.3 gigawatts installed in 2015 is 8.6 times the capacity installed five years earlier in 2010
Residential was once again the fastest-growing sector, installing over 2 gigawatts for the first time and growing 66 percent over 2014
Utility solar PV also had a record year with over 4 gigawatts installed, up 6 percent over 2014
110 megawatts (AC) of concentrating solar power (CSP) capacity came on-line in late 2015 when SolarReserve’s Crescent Dunes project began sending electricity to the grid
Non-residential solar was essentially flat for the third year in a row, installing just over 1 gigawatt
Cumulative solar PV installations reached over 25 gigawatts by the end of the year, up from just 2 gigawatts at the end of 2010

Greentech Media

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Nigeria backs efforts to ‘stabilise’ oil market

February 25, 2016 Webmaster

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) — The Nigerian and Saudi leaders yesterday supported efforts to stabilise the oil market but Africa’s top producer did not commit to a production freeze.

After talks in the Saudi capital Riyadh, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari and Saudi King Salman “committed themselves to doing all that is possible to stabilise the market and rebound the oil price,” Buhari’s office said in a statement.

Buhari was in Riyadh a week after Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela and Qatar agreed at talks in Doha to freeze production at January levels in a bid to stem the dramatic fall in oil prices.

The agreement is conditional on other major producers joining in, as oil heavyweights seek to ensure others not to take advantage of output limits to win market share.

The statement after yesterday’s talks made no mention of Nigeria joining the freeze but analysts say the OPEC member is likely to eventually support the move.

The official

Saudi Press Agency also reported that talks between Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Saudi deputy oil minister, and his Nigerian counterpart, junior oil minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, focused on “the best way for (market) stability” and “the cooperation of producing countries inside and outside OPEC” to achieve this.

Saudi Arabia and its gulf allies in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries had been refusing to limit or reduce production, leading to a supply glut that has seen prices fall by 70 per cent since mid-2014.

Poorer OPEC members, including Nigeria, have been hard hit by the price drop but even the wealthy Gulf states have been forced to adopt austerity measures to cope with falling oil revenues.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see them voice their support to the freeze agreed in Doha,” Abhishek Deshpande, lead oil market analyst at Natixis in London, said of Nigeria.

But he said that unless Iraq and Iran also commit to limit production such talks “carry very little weight”.

The two countries are OPEC’s second- and third-largest producers.

Iran, returning to world markets as sanctions are lifted under its nuclear deal, has insisted on boosting production to pre-sanctions levels.

“Some neighbouring countries have increased their production over the years to 10 million barrels per day and export this amount, then say let’s all freeze our oil production,” Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said yesterday.

“They freeze production at 10 million bpd and we freeze at 1 million bpd. This is a very funny joke.”

Saxo Bank analyst Christopher Dembik told

AFP that Nigeria’s position is “a bit ambiguous,” supporting the mooted freeze but at the same time wanting to increase its production to respond to domestic market needs.

Nigeria could be crucial

“In the longer term, there is no reason why the country won’t align itself with the position of Saudi Arabia and Russia,” Dembik said.

Nigeria and Saudi Arabia would also discuss their position towards Iran and Iraq, he added.

“Nigeria could have a crucial role in this respect because of its measured position” that Iran and Iraq should elevate their production before envisaging freezes, Dembik said.

“It is probable, then, that Nigeria meanwhile establishes a bridge for negotiations, notably between Riyadh and Tehran.”

According to OPEC’s Monthly Oil Market Report, Iraq produces about 4.4 million barrels a day, followed by Iran at more than 2.9 million.

Saudi Arabia’s output is close to 10.1 million barrels a day, according to January data.

Kachikwu, who is head of Nigeria’s state-run oil firm, also discussed joint oil and gas investments during his meeting with Abdulaziz, SPA reported.

Oil prices nudged higher Tuesday as the two OPEC members met.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for delivery in April was up one cent at US$33.40 a barrel. Brent North Sea crude for April rose 18 cents to US$34.87 compared with Monday’s close.

After the Saudi visit, the Nigerian delegation was to travel to Qatar for more oil talks.

Jamaica Observer

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SunPower Breaks World Record for Efficient Solar Panels

February 23, 2016 Webmaster

The more efficient the solar panel, the less space used.

Solar giant SunPower announced on Monday that it can now make a solar panel that can convert 22.8% of the sunlight that hits it into electricity. According to SunPower, that’s a new world record.

The efficiency of solar panels is an important metric to both solar companies and to its customers. When panels are more efficient it mean that rooftops can be covered in fewer efficient panels, which use less materials, but that can generate the same amount of energy as more less-efficient panels.

SunPower says its highly efficient panels can generate 70% more energy in the same space over the first 25 years, compared to less efficient panels. Many solar panels are somewhere between 15% and 18% efficient. SunPower and others have been working to boost the efficiency of panels using material science and optics tech innovations.

Solar companies are in a battle to boost the efficiency of their panels and tout new records. SunPower SPWR -5.85% says its 22.8% solar panel was verified by the federal National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Last year, SolarCity claimed that it had started making its own highly efficient panels, with an efficiency that “exceeded 22%,” verified by the Renewable Energy Test Center (which isn’t one of the more commonly used verification labs). But SolarCity’s SCTY -5.92% solar panels were also planned to be made in small volumes on a pilot solar panel manufacturing line in Fremont, Calif.

Creating solar panel efficiency breakthroughs in the lab or on a small scale, is far easier than making those efficient panels in very large volumes. But SunPower says the average efficiency of its solar cells (which make up panels) at the end of last year was close to 23%.

SunPower’s stock was up over 3% in morning trading to $21.84. Oil giant Total owns 66% of the Richmond, Calif.-based SunPower.

Last week SunPower announced fourth quarter and year 2015 earnings. SunPower says it generated $1.58 billion in revenue in 2015, with an annual loss of $299.44 million. The company was profitable on an annual basis in 2014 and 2013.

Check out Fortune’s recent interview with SunPower CEO Tom Werner.

Fortune.com

Climate Change Government News

Jamaica To Dissect New Climate Deal

February 19, 2016 Webmaster

Jamaica is, in the coming months, to assess the global climate deal brokered in Paris last December, before putting its final seal on it.

The first order of business, according to Colonel Oral Khan, chief technical director in the Ministry of Water, Land, Environment, and Climate Change, is to educate stakeholders.

“We are at the stage now of sensitising everybody, and some internal sensitisation has taken place. We have [also] been in the media and will be rolling it out to the public as well, so they get to understand what the agreement is about – what obligations it places on us and on other countries,” he told The Gleaner.

Thereafter, Khan said, “We will be taking steps, as soon as Cabinet gives direction, to ensure we can sign on to the agreement when it opens up later this year.”

A part of that ratification process will be a full assessment of the deal, which is currently captured in a 32-page document.

“There is a whole process of review [that will have to be done]. The attorney general [for example] will need to read the document to see what the Government will be bound by, to ensure that those things are things we want to be bound by, and also [to look at] the implications,” he noted.

Albert Daley, head of the Climate Change Division, attested to the work ahead, while emphasising the need to have the document thoroughly assessed.

“For this agreement, all the factors that affect any one area are not found in any one section. For example, there is one section that deals with mitigation and the general issues surrounding mitigation will be reflected there. But there is also a section on finance, and there is a link between mitigation and finance,” he explained.

“So one has to look through the entire document to understand what each section is saying about the other and to get an overall sense of what are the implications of the agreement in the various areas,” Daley added.

As such, in addition to a post-Paris meeting to be held towards the end of this month, he said the plan is to engage one-on-one with groups of actors.

The Gleaner

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Traditional Energy Industry Declares War on Solar Energy

February 18, 2016 Webmaster

Solar’s threat to the utility industry is deeper than not having to purchase electricity

Now that solar power is reaching prime time, the fossil fuel industry is doing all that it can to stop its growth.

For many years solar was on the periphery, installed by early adopters and helped along by government subsidy. But over the last several years, solar has emphatically become mainstream. It is still growing from a low base, but it is now one of the most preferred sources of new electricity generation. The cost of residential solar have been cut in half since 2010, and utility-scale solar has achieved even greater cost declines.

In 2015, the U.S. saw 16 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity installed, which accounted for two-thirds of the total. Solar alone accounted for about one-third of new capacity last year. Natural gas only captured 25 percent of the newly installed capacity despite several years of incredibly low prices. The banner year for clean energy occurred while 11 gigawatts of coal-fired electricity came offline as old plants were retired amid rising costs and stricter environmental regulation. The clean energy transition is very much underway.

TIME

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Four Oil Producers Offer To Freeze Oil Output

February 17, 2016 Webmaster

Oil powerhouses Russia and Saudi Arabia joined Qatar and Venezuela in pledging Tuesday to cap their crude output if other producers do the same, aiming to halt a slide that has pushed oil prices to their lowest point in more than a decade.

The decision followed an unexpected closed-door meeting involving the four countries in the Qatari capital, Doha, and reflects growing concern among big producers about the effects the slump poses to their domestic economies.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in a statement issued after the meeting that the four countries would be ready to cap production based on last month’s output levels if others join.

“We are ready to maintain, on average in 2016, the level of oil production of January 2016 and not exceed it,” he said in a subsequent statement.

Whether the plan is enough to put a floor under prices is uncertain. The proposal depends on cooperation from a range of producers with differing budget priorities all scrambling for market share since prices began falling in summer 2014.

Among the hardest to bring on board will likely be Iran. It was noticeably absent from Tuesday’s gathering even though it shares control of a major underwater natural gasfield with fellow OPEC member Qatar.

Iran is eager to ramp up its exports now that sanctions related to its nuclear programme have been lifted, saying recently it aims to put another 500,000 barrels a day on the market. Figures from the International Energy Agency show that it pumped 2.9 million barrels daily in December, before sanctions were lifted.

Iran’s petroleum minister, Bijar Namdar Zangeneh, signalLed the Islamic Republic has no intention of giving up its share of the market. He acknowledged that global markets are “oversupplied,” but said Iran “will not overlook its quota,” according to comments carried by his ministry’s Shana news service.

Venezuelan Oil Minister Eulogio Del Pino heads to Tehran next for talks with his Iranian and Iraqi counterparts today, Wednesday.

“The key OPEC members that need to take part are Iran and Iraq, where the big increases are likely this year, but there are big doubts over whether this can be achieved,” Barclays analysts Miswin Mahesh and Kevin Norrish said in a research note.

Efforts to make the plan work are complicated by deep levels of distrust between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, which has built close ties to Iraq’s government in the years since the 2003 US-led invasion.

The two countries are in opposing camps in regional disputes from Yemen to Syria. Last month, Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Shiite powerhouse Iran after the Saudi embassy and a consulate were torched by Iranian protesters angry over the kingdom’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi said producers would continue to assess the state of the market in the months ahead. He described freezing output at January levels as an “adequate” step for now.

All of the countries at Tuesday’s meeting, except Russia, are part of OPEC. Saudi Arabia dominates policymaking within the 13-member bloc of oil-producing countries, which has refused to cut its official production targets. Doing so could bolster faltering prices.

The aim of OPEC’s keep-pumping strategy has been to attempt to ride out the 12-year lows in prices and force higher-cost producers, including shale drillers in the US, out of the market.

The bloc collectively pumped 39 million barrels of crude and natural gas liquids a day in December, or about two out of every five barrels globally. Russia pumps around 11 million barrels a day.

After rising soon after the meeting, a barrel of benchmark New York crude was trading down 35 cents at US$29.09 by midmorning in New York. A barrel of Brent, the international standard, fell 59 cents to US$33.42.

The Gleaner

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