Yahoo! energy News

Average gas prices in West Virginia remain unchanged this week. AAA East Central says the price for a gallon of regular gas stayed at $3.60 per gallon. That's 9 cents cheaper than a year ago. Prices range ...

Brussels and Berlin have not yet agreed on exemptions for German industry from a surcharge to support renewable energy, Germany's Economy and Energy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Wednesday after talks with the European Union commissioner in charge. "We do not have a final result yet." Germany is trying to reform the way it supports its growing green industries that derive power from sources such as wind and solar, but any solution needs to suit the EU Commission and German industry.

The French Greens party will not take part in a newly formed government under Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls, it said on Tuesday, breaking away from a coalition marked by tensions over energy policy. The decision capped nearly two years of tense relations between coalition partners as the Greens sought to wind down use of nuclear energy and insisted on maintaining a blanket ban on shale gas exploration. It followed a rout of the ruling Socialist Party in local elections on Sunday which prompted an unpopular President Francois Hollande to appoint his tough-talking former interior minister Valls as prime minister. "The ecologists will back the government without fail when it acts for progress and ecology, but it will oppose it whenever ecology is not taken into account," the party said in a statement.

By David Randall NEW YORK (Reuters) - Even as its share price has slumped 8 percent in the year to date, hazardous waste manager Clean Harbors, Inc. has cleaned up in terms of fund-manager interest as more of them bet on one of the down sides of the energy boom. The refinery businesses along the Gulf Coast, including those of Valero Energy Corp, Marathon Petroleum Corp and Exxon Mobil Corp, have thrived as a result of higher oil output. That's helped to lure a swarm of fund managers to Norwell, Massachusetts-based Clean Harbors, which controls about 70 percent of commercial incineration capacity in North America and about one-fifth of the landfills that can accept hazardous material, according to analyst estimates, putting it ahead of competitors like Veolia Environmental Services SA. Indeed, 43 mutual funds added a position in Clean Harbors over the last quarter, sending its total ownership up 15 percent to 460 funds, according to fund tracker Morningstar.

Russian gas company Gazprom announced today that it will hike up oil prices in Ukraine by more than 40 percent, canceling a subsidy agreement struck while ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych was still in charge.  According to Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller, the decision "follows from Ukraine’s non-performance of obligations to repay the debt for gas supplies in 2013 and the lack of 100 percent payment for the current supplies." Currently, Russia sells gas in Ukraine for $268.5 per 1,000 cubic meters. According to Miller, Ukraine owes Russia a total of $1.7 billion for gas purchased since 2013, as the gas discount negotiated by Yanukovych "can no longer be used." According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Gazprom's harsh decision could be a sign that it won't sell to Ukraine in the future, something which would be bad news for the EU, as well: