News bites: Oil demand forecast trimmed, BP trial looms, and more

AFP reports that the gloomy global economy has prompted the International Energy Agency (IEA) to trim its estimate of oil demand growth in 2012.

But the Paris-based IEA is “largely sanguine about the impact of tighter international sanctions on Iran, including an EU import ban which takes effect in July,” the story notes.

Reuters reports that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in China, “made his strongest comments yet” Friday in support of a pipeline that would send oil sands from Alberta to the Pacific Coast for export to Asia.

“Harper stepped up talk of oil sales to China in the wake of a U.S. decision last month to block TransCanada Corp.'s proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf Coast of the United States,” Reuters notes.

The Wall Street Journal reports that lawmakers want the Obama administration to ramp up pressure on China over its limits on export of rare-earth materials.

The Houston Chronicle looks at the legal thrust-and-parry occurring as the late-February trial over 2010’s BP oil spill looms.

The Associated Press reports that Pennsylvania is on the cusp of imposing fees on natural-gas drilling, which is booming in the Keystone State.