Gashostage.com

The FBI and IRS have searched the home of Republican Sen. Ted Stevens in a ski resort in Alaska as part of an investigation into his links with an oil-services company, officials said on Monday.

“The FBI and IRS are conducting a court-authorized search warrant in Girdwood, Alaska,” an FBI spokesman said in Washington, but gave no further details.

The Alaskan politician, the longest-serving Republican in Senate history, issued a statement saying: “My attorneys were advised this morning that federal agents wished to search my home in Girdwood in connection with an ongoing investigation.

“I continue to believe this investigation should proceed to its conclusion without any appearance that I have attempted to influence the outcome,” the statement said.

Girdwood is about 40 miles south of Anchorage, the state’s largest city.

Stevens is the subject of a grand-jury investigation into his links with managers of VECO Corp., the state’s largest oil-services company, as well as numerous unrelated fisheries matters.

In May, Bill Allen, then the chief executive of VECO, along with a vice president, Rick Smith, pleaded guilty to several federal corruption charges. The two admitted paying over $400,000 to bribe Alaska lawmakers.

Allen had been a financial supporter of Stevens’ campaigns and a partner with him on a race horse. He also oversaw the a project to remodel Stevens’ Girdwood home in 2000, vetting bills and construction work.

Read more >>

Oil prices closed over $77 a barrel, near an all-time high on Friday on technical buying and news of faster-than-expected economic growth.
At the pump, meanwhile, gas prices fell to their lowest level since late May.

The Commerce Department said Friday the economy as measured by the gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 3.4 percent in the second quarter, removing some of the concerns about economic growth that sent oil prices down Thursday in sympathy with Wall Street’s plunge.

But some analysts discounted the economic growth numbers as a factor in Friday’s rally, noting that the government data was released hours before prices took off. Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch & Associates in Galena, Ill., said technical buying by large investment funds — or predetermined decisions to buy when prices reach certain levels — fueled Friday’s price surge.

“We’ve got a highly charged market here, and it doesn’t take much of a headline to spark a 5 percent price move,” said Ritterbusch.

Light, sweet crude for September delivery rose $2.07 to settle at $77.02 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The highest-ever settlement price for a front-month contract was $77.03 a barrel, set July 14, 2006. Reflecting how volatile trading in oil futures has been, oil ended the week up only $1.45 a barrel, or 1.9 percent, despite rising more than $2 a barrel on two separate days.

Concerns about lower economic growth drove Thursday’s sell-off on Wall Street, when the Dow Jones industrials closed down more than 310 points, analysts said. Oil prices fell 93 cents on Thursday in sympathy with the stock market, analysts said.

Oil’s rally pulled the rest of the energy complex higher on Friday. August gasoline rose 2.58 cents to settle at $2.1017 a gallon after falling earlier. Gasoline futures end the week 6.26 cents, or 2.9 percent, lower.

Meanwhile, the average national price of a gallon of gas fell 1.5 cents overnight to $2.92, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Retail prices, which typically lag the futures market, are at their lowest point since peaking at $3.227 a gallon in late May.

Gasoline futures and retail prices have declined in recent weeks as investors have come around to a view that the refining industry is finally producing enough gas to meet demand after a spring in which the industry was hampered by an unusual number of unexpected outages.

Read more >>

Shell has produced a stunning financial performance over the second quarter of the year with profits soaring by 20% to $7.6bn (£3.7bn) on the back of very high refining margins and despite a fall in production.

The record results – amounting to some £1.5m an hour – underlined Shell’s current supremacy over arch-rival BP which barely lifted its profits when measured on the same basis.

They also outpaced US oil giant Exxon Mobil, which caught Wall St on the hop this afternoon with a fall in its quarterly profits instead of the expected rise. At $10.3bn, Exxon’s profits remain comfortably ahead of Shell’s, however.

The Anglo-Dutch group raised its dividend 14% to $0.36 per share and gave an upbeat assessment of future prospects.

“We continue to see competitive growth opportunities based on our technological strengths by making disciplined capital choices in an industry landscape of both higher energy prices and higher costs,” said chief executive Jeroen van der Veer.

The $7.6bn earnings were calculated on the current cost of supply basis used by major oil companies but included a net gain from divestments of $660m. Without that boost, Shell still comfortably beat City expectations even though revenues were almost flat at $85bn.

Problems in Nigeria and lower demand in Europe due to warmer weather left production falling in the second quarter to 3.1m barrels a day compared to 3.2m in the same period of 2006. Total oil production was actually up 1% but gas was down 6%.

Civil unrest in the Niger Delta has left Shell without the 195,000 barrels of oil a day it can produce there and the company admitted “no firm date can be given for a return to full production”.

The results were well received, with Shell’s “A” shares up by mid-morning, only to be caught up in the afternoon FTSE sell-off. The shares closed down 32p to £19.37.

Shell has been going through a strong period of recovery after it was hit by a scandal over the way it had been overstating its reserves to the US regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and dismissed its then chief executive.

Read more >>