Joint venture makes $20 million bid for ailing EV company Fisker

A joint venture consisting of China-based Wanxiang group, former General Motors head Bob Lutz and industrial Gilbert Villarreal offers troubled electric vehicle manufacturer Fisker Automotive in a prefabricated insolvency purchase valued at $20 million, to deal according to reports.

Like Tesla Motors, which recently their loans repaid, $529 million in the form of received vehicles Fisker Automotive of loans from the Department of energy (DOE) under the advanced technology manufacturing loan program.

In contrast to Tesla Fiskers issued loans was seized but money by DOE if the company not to payments or to meet production quotas. The company has approximately 171 million $ in DOE loans still outstanding.

Fisker was founded in August 2007 by Henrik Fisker, who later left the company, that relying on differences of opinion over corporate strategy. Reuters reported that Fisker and a Hong Kong-based investor named Richard Li are common Fiskers DOE pay off loans and save the carmaker from bankruptcy.

Fisker dismissed three-quarters of its workforce in April. The company has its headquarters in Anaheim, California.

According to the company, Fisker was valued at around 2 billion $ until 2011.

The lone car, the Karma Fisker has a base price of more than $100,000. The company has sold a car reportedly since July 2012.

Wanxiang group bought Fisker's former battery manufacturer, A123 systems, at an auction in 2012, after the bankruptcy of the company.

Lutz was quoted in 2008 as saying that the electrification of the automobile "inevitable."

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Repsol makes its largest oil find

Repsol has confirmed its biggest ever oil discovery following the first exploratory efforts in the Vaca Muerta formation in Argentina’s Neuquen province, one of the world’s largest non-conventional reservoirs.

The company has confirmed recoverable resources of 927 million barrels of oil equivalent of non-conventional hydrocarbons, of which 741 million are high quality oil (40-45? API), in an area of 428 km2 of the Loma La Lata Norte formation in the Neuquen province.

A total of 15 vertical wells were drilled, and they produced an initial 5,000 boepd of high quality shale oil.

Repsol YPF has also begun exploratory and production activities in another discovery, in a 502 km2 producing area in the same Vaca Muerta formation. The well is producing 400 boepd of high quality shale oil (35° API).

This new area has significant potential for large volumes to be developed in the future once the appropriate studies and preliminary work to determine resources is completed.

Until now, the company has concentrated its exploratory efforts for non-conventional resources on an area of Loma La Lata Norte. This 428 km2 area is part of the 12,000 km2 to which YPF owns rights in the Vaca Muerta area, site of one of the world’s largest (30.000 km2) and highest quality non-conventional resources.

Wood Mackenzie identified the Vaca Muerta shale as one of the best in the world in its “Unconventional Gas Service,” describing the formation as “excellent” after evaluating areas in Australia, China and various European countries.

The evaluation included the development of the hydrocarbons market, infrastructure, regulation, availability of water, fiscal terms, quality, comparative volume, potential for enhanced recovery and organisation of the supply chain.

Wood Mackenzie said in its report that YPF is the world’s second largest company in non-conventional acreage, with 3 million acres (12,000 km2) in the Vaca Muerta formation.

Repsol in December 2009 launched its “Exploratory Programme 2010-2014” which begun in the middle of 2010. One of its objectives was the creation of a non-conventional resources exploration plan.

Additionally to the reported 428 km2, studies are being carried out to quantify the additional resources in a new 502 km2 area, where results obtained so far allow the company to estimate similar potential to the aforementioned area.

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Egypt makes delayed payments of Dana gas

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The Governor makes, shaping the future of the nuclear Japan

Governor, Yasushi Furukawa of Prefecture, saga, must decide in the coming days, whether you are a support request from Prime Minister Naoto Kan, nuclear winter for regular maintenance shut down to two reactors in a local plants that since the last start. Warnings, that if he decides no and other Governors his follow, idle could each nuclear reactor in Japan in less than a year end it grow here.

This is because Japan's reactors legal obliged to shut down all 13 months for routine maintenance. 35 The nation 54 reactors are now offline, some due to the damage on 11 March earthquake and tsunami, but the most due to maintenance. If some of them are turned back on, the last reactor at Japan by April of next year, will deprive the nation of the source of almost one third of electricity down.

Turning on the reactors hit back, the Central Government requires approval, which granted not for the accident of Fukushima. In the public backlash against nuclear power, which has followed the disaster, the Government of Kan calls for local political leaders, which also emerging restarts.

Mr Furukawa is the first Governor, who is called to make a decision. This was him way on Japan's nuclear future, in a bellwether, because his decision is closely observed by other local leaders that bottlenecks must weigh the same issues of the public fears about security against the threat posed by the current.

"I feel a great responsibility suddenly have placed on me," said Mr Furukawa, 52, in an interview. "Decision does not, start the reactors could turn into a non-nuclear country faster than Germany," scrap refers to that country's decision, nuclear power, 2022.

All eyes are Mr Furukawa, because most appear Governors on the fence to restart reactors. The newspaper Mainichi Shimbun reported last month that Governors of 10 prefectures, the home of nuclear facilities are had said in interviews that they not supported restart of its reactors with most say, that they needed more information about security measures. (The Governors not surveyed by two other such prefectures.) On Monday, the Governor of Fukushima went a step further, for an end to his Prefecture economic and energy dependence of nuclear power plants.

Mr Furukawa has publicly agonized decision, which he said he wanted to make until mid-July. On Wednesday, he said that he was pleased by the central government safety statements, indicate that he the reactors could be leaning toward fresh start in his Prefecture.

The situation in saga offers an eloquent look at some of the design of the debate about the nation nuclear future forces. While Japan has seen only a few large street demonstrations, which inspired the Fukushima accident abroad, it has a clear public backlash against nuclear power. The most recent polls show an overwhelming majority – 82 percent last month for Tokyo Shimbun - support in a poll which, get rid of the nation reactors.

The same polls show that most respondents prefer not immediate halt, but a gradual phasing out of nuclear power as alternatives are found. Talks here on the streets of the saga as a nation torn between the dangers of Fukushima accident and the need for a resource-poor nation show in Tokyo also with decision makers, their only serious energy alternative to keep available to imported coal and oil are made.

"There is deep concern over the safety of nuclear power, but there are also deep unease about getting rid of," said Izuru Makihara, political scientist at the Tohoku University in Sendai.

The prospect of the reactors, which goes offline has alarmed, the economy and the country's powerful nuclear lobby, which have issued warnings of the terrible economic consequences if nuclear power is lost. You warn higher price for electricity or even power failures that could harm Japanese earthquake-shaken economy.

In the sign of the looming energy reactor more also shortages here without shutdown, ordered the Government on Friday, factories and other large electricity users in Tokyo to use this summer by 15 percent compared to the previous cut.

"Would If the nuclear reactors are stopped, enormous be the effects on the economy," Mr Kan warned late last month.

Japan's still-tiny anti-nuclear movement has won credibility since the accident Fukushima, although it is also considered part of the left edge. Activists complain, that a deep apathy as a fear of the proscribed prevents that many Japanese measures to take.

"Many people support us out of the shadows, but they have before fear disliked as a radical," Hatsumi Ishimaru, 59, said a housewife who leads a group of anti-nuclear in saga.

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Oil rises above $87 as Mubarak takes to the makes

Singapore - rose oil prices of $87 a barrel Friday in Asia as the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak clung to power growing protests calling for his resignation.

Benchmark crude oil supply up to 30 cents to $87.03 was March a barrel at midday Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The Treaty increased to pay 2 cents to $86.73 on Thursday.

London Brent crude gained 49 cents to $101.93 per barrel on the ICE Futures Exchange.

Mubarak said late Thursday that he would pass some authority to his Vice President, but not immediately leave office would. Demonstrators to displace the search you said a massive rally after Mubarak later Friday in Cairo would keep.

Egypt is no big oil producing country, but it controls the Suez Canal and a nearby pipeline. Egypt's political crisis, the its 18. Day admission, has still no oil supply dealers are disturbed, concerned the upheaval in other countries in the region could spread oil-rich.

"There are renewed fears that the events in Egypt in the Middle East are copied elsewhere," Cameron Hanover said in a report. "The way other countries in the region, which come under similar attacks seems to grow."

In other NYMEX trading in March contracts, heating oil 1 cent to $2.72 rose a gallon and gasoline gained 1.7 cents to $2.49 a gallon. Natural gas of futures for March delivery down 2.2 cents to $3.96 per 1,000 cubic metres.

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