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Richard Heinberg: The dress rehearsal is over
As oil crosses $100 on its way south, not even a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico and a statement from OPEC that the cartel will cut production by over 500,000 barrels per day seems capable of halting the bloodletting. In response, the Financial Post features an article titled “Peak Oil peak,” quoting this writer out of context; compare this with my commentary, which was the source of the quote).
Wasn’t the price of oil supposed to rise endlessly? Wasn’t the world supposed to end by now? What happened? What does it all mean?
Patience, gentle reader. All will be explained.
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U.S. plans to expel Venezuelan envoy
“The plan is to kick him out,” said the U.S. official, who asked not to be identified.
Colombia will stick to Venezuela gas deal
Colombia will stand by its part of the deal to provide gas to Venezuela through a joint pipeline that was opened in January this year, senior energy official Armando Zamora said.
Saudi Aramco to Maintain Oil Supplies to Refiners in October
(Bloomberg) — Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest state oil company, will maintain crude supplies in October to customers in Asia and Europe at levels agreed under annual contracts, refinery officials said.
The Dhahran, Saudi Arabia-based producer will supply full volumes of crude oil to Asia and Europe next month, unchanged from September, said four refinery officials who had received notices from the company. They asked not to be identified because of confidentiality agreements.
ANALYSIS – Mixed Saudi signals confuse OPEC output cut deal
LONDON, Sept 12 (Reuters) – Mixed signals from Saudi Arabia have thrown into question whether the top oil exporter will throttle back output as agreed with other OPEC members this week.
BP Shuts Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline After Leak in Turkey
(Bloomberg) — BP Plc shut a pipeline carrying Azeri crude oil from Baku to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast near Ceyhan after a leak in the Turkish section required repairs.
Shell extends force majeure on Nigeria oil exports
LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Friday that it has extended the force majeure on Nigerian Bonny Light crude exports.
The force majeure has been extended because of security concerns in the oil-rich Niger Delta region in Nigeria and because the Anglo-Dutch oil major has found more leaks at a Bonny Light pipeline, a Shell spokesman said.
Medvedev assures European consumers Russia has enough gas
MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev dismissed speculation on Friday that his country would not have enough natural gas for European consumers and pledged to launch new fields if the market grows.
“It is amusing to hear statements that Russia will not have enough gas for supplies to Europe…This is not so,” Medvedev told a Valdai International Discussion Club meeting.
Medvedev also said that the country’s plans to develop energy cooperation with Asian states would not adversely affect energy supplies to Europe.
“We will do everything possible to solve a number of tasks on diversifying energy flows to Asia without detriment to Europe,” Medvedev said, adding that this concerned oil, gas and nuclear energy.
Mexico lawmakers see deal on oil law by October
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Senate-level talks in Mexico are dragging over a politically thorny plan to tweak oil laws, although ruling and opposition party lawmakers said on Thursday a deal could still be reached by October.
Leftists oppose conservative President Felipe Calderon’s idea of luring more private firms to the flagging state-run oil sector via incentive contracts, but with centrists broadly on board, a compromise is in sight, lawmakers at the talks said.
American exports fuels at record levels
While the White House and most conservative congressional leaders have been pushing for more offshore drilling to relieve record fuel prices at the pump, new government data shows there is no domestic oil shortage as U.S. oil companies are exporting American petroleum products at record levels.
The U.S. Energy Department reported exports of finished petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel, soared to 1.592 million barrels per day in May, up 31 percent from a year ago.
Electricity shortage may choke B.C.’s gas patch
An urgent electricity shortage is threatening to curtail the hottest economic growth sector in British Columbia — the natural gas exploration industry.
Documents on file with the B.C. Utilities Commission show that the town of Fort Nelson, in the heart of B.C.’s gas patch, is so squeezed for power that there is no room for economic growth — and some existing customers operate under the threat of blackouts.
The situation is raising concern among Canada’s leading gas exploration and development companies.
National Oil Cos Boast Value Proposition
International oil companies (IOCs) offer technological expertise, operational capacity and project management as core strengths in striking oil and gas deals.
But they are finding it increasingly difficult to provide a value proposition acceptable to the owners of natural resources and in terms of shareholder return. Despite record oil prices and rising levels of capital expenditure, the overall trends in oil and gas production from the major oil players are down.
IT underestimating coming power shortage
UK IT managers are being accused of ignorance over their power consumption figures, despite spiralling energy prices and the looming ‘energy crunch’, which could lead to power shortages in four years time.
Green Mortgages Offer New Growth
If you could save up to $200 a month in energy bills for 30 years, would you be willing to borrow an extra $5,000 for a home loan upfront? Probably yes.
That’s the power of energy-efficient mortgages, or “green” mortgages. Now, legislators, lenders, brokers and consumers are pushing for their wider use. Advocates say green mortgages can help solve several of the nation’s broader problems, including the energy crisis, the mortgage implosion and the slowing economy.
If longer commutes, heavier congestion, increased pollution and greater dependence on oil seem inevitable, there’s a good reason: These ills all stem from the misguided way our elected officials fund transportation in America. It’s time to establish a 21st-century transportation policy to pay for 21st-century priorities.
SOLAR POWER: Industry execs ponder major shifts in demand, production
NEW YORK — Executives of some of the world’s top photovoltaic manufacturers are preparing for a major shift in their industry.
While they may disagree on how quickly and widely changes will be felt, everyone is aware that shortages they have endured of their primary feedstock material, polysilicon, will soon be a thing of the past. And they worry that if they cannot get production and demand estimates right, they might inadvertently produce a glut of solar panels that could send prices for their products spiraling downward.
The weak U.S. housing market has taken its toll on an unlikely sector – the Canadian renewable power industry.
Boralex Power Income Fund said this week that it is temporarily closing a second power plant in Quebec because it can’t get enough wood residue to fuel its operations.
Huge increase in spending on water urged to avert global catastrophe
Countries across the world will have to dramatically increase investment in dams, pipes and other water infrastructure to avoid widespread flooding, drought and disease even before climate change accelerates these problems, experts have warned.
“Titanic Syndrome” warns of catastrophe
“The Titanic Syndrome,” the directing debut of French environmental program-maker-turned-eco-campaigner Nicolas Hulot, is a cinematic attempt to wake viewers up to the calamitous future we’re arguably heading for if we don’t change our ways.
The titular syndrome is simple: Our planet is the doomed oceanliner, and we — in the West, at least — are all busy leading our more-or-less luxurious lives as we sail toward cataclysm. It’s obviously not the first film in recent times to put forward the case for safeguarding Earth, but it promises to look at the issue from a bold perspective.
Out of Gas: Partisan sniping keeps Congress from getting anything done on energy
CONGRESS expended a lot of energy debating how to solve the energy crisis before running off for summer recess for five weeks. It ended up accomplishing nothing. Now Congress is back and seemingly ready for more of the same. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will present an energy bill next week that would expand offshore drilling. But Republicans rejected the legislation on the basis of the outlines Ms. Pelosi released Tuesday. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) will hold hearings today with an eye to bringing energy bills to a vote sometime next week. But don’t expect anything to happen.
Travel Industry Unites To Push Congress For Energy Policy
As the price of oil escalated to unprecedented levels earlier this year, the travel and tourism industry mobilized to urge Washington policymakers to enact an “emergency energy policy that will bring down fuel costs to economically sustainable levels and keep Americans productively traveling by air.” A broad-based coalition, called 100DollarOil.us, was formed this summer to urge policymakers to act now as it enlists industry support to lobby elected representatives.
Experts target shocking electricity bills
If the high price of gasoline isn’t enough to startle Americans, guess what’s happening to the cost of power?
And energy experts say a crisis isn’t coming; it’s already here.
Karen Hawkins is already getting ready for winter. And that means cutting, splitting and stacking wood.
She’d like to use her fuel assistance money to buy tree length wood. Hawkins says its the best deal around.
“By buying a whole truckload, having it delivered here, cutting it with my chain saw and splitting it with the wood splitter, I get probably almost twice as much wood as if I received cut and split,” says Hawkins.
But under the LIHEAP program, tree length wood isn’t allowed. A spokeperson for Maine State Housing says it use to be–but so many consumers complained about being “shorted” that they decided to prohibit it. Now, that decision is being reconsidered.
Pakistan: Deepening oil crisis
As the crippling energy crisis has eased to some extent after the authorities made payments to the IPPs (Independent Power Producers) enabling them to go for full capacity generation, there is now warning from the oil marketing companies (OMCs) that there would be no oil supply chain during the next few months unless the Government clears their huge dues amounting to Rs 80 billion.
Bolivia expels US ambassador Philip Goldberg
Bolivia has expelled the US ambassador, accusing him of fomenting the civil unrest that threatens not only the country’s first indigenous Indian president, Evo Morales, but the unity of the nation itself.
“Without fear of the empire, I declare Mr Goldberg, the US ambassador, ‘persona non grata,”‘ said Mr Morales, echoing the anti-US rhetoric of his friend and close ally, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
“He is conspiring against democracy and seeking the division of Bolivia.”
The announcement came after protests against Mr Morales escalated and turned violent. Earlier in the week opposition protesters burnt and pillaged government offices in city of Santa Cruz, which was followed by an attack on a gas pipeline that feeds the neighbouring giant of Brazil. Gas is the lifeblood of the Bolivian economy and the source of much of government revenue.
Venezuela to expel U.S. ambassador
(CNN) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Thursday he is recalling his own ambassador from Washington and expelling the U.S. ambassador from Venezuela.
“He has 72 hours, from this moment, the Yankee ambassador in Caracas, to leave Venezuela,” Chavez told a crowd of supporters.
The president said he was making the moves “in solidarity with Bolivia and the people of Bolivia.”
UK’s third-largest tour operator collapses
LONDON, England (AP) — Thousands of British travelers were stranded Friday when the country’s third-largest tour operator collapsed under pressure from high fuel prices and a sagging economy.
XL Leisure Group went into administration overnight, saying it had been unable to secure more funding.
Interior Secretary “outraged” by oil-sex scandal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Thursday said he was “outraged” by department workers who had sex, used drugs and took gifts from employees at regulated oil companies, while one senator called for a Bush administration official to resign over the scandal.
House to vote next week on offshore drilling
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The House of Representatives could vote next week on energy legislation that would open nearly all of the U.S. coastline to offshore drilling while repealing some tax breaks for oil companies, Democratic leaders said on Thursday.
Palin ‘governed from the center,’ went after big oil
Palin’s agenda has been dominated by an energy policy that, in part, bears more resemblance to the one put forward by Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and other Democrats than the one backed by McCain and the GOP.
Shell’s Ormen Lange Gas Output Won’t Peak Until 2010
(Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc said the peak in supplies from Norway’s second-biggest gas field will be a year later than planned, risking lower shipments to the U.K. at a time of record prices.
Slime for change: Can an algae-to-biodiesel facility help meet Maui’s needs?
The idea of replacing fossil fuel consumption with biofuels has been a much-ballyhooed topic of late, both globally and in Hawaii. Initial enthusiasm has since been tempered with realities of costs, including ongoing debates over converting food crops to fuel and converting farm lands and rainforests to agri-fuel plantations.
Throughout the discussions of plant-based biodiesel and ethanol, there has been a consistent optimism that the best biofuel choice—someday, when science and technology solve existing hurdles—could be miacroalgae. That’s right—pond scum, lurking like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, could be the answer to Peak Oil.
Filmmaker Lars Johansson talks to the Ecologist about the making of the film ‘Poison Fire’ and the curse of oil in the Niger Delta.
Consumers Likely To Lead a Cooldown
Deepwater-exploration companies — the oil producers that need to lease drilling rigs — aren’t deterred by today’s falling prices. They are locked into extremely expensive long-term contracts, and they can’t walk away from their huge investments in deepwater energy.
…Says Matt Simmons, who heads Simmons & Co. International, an energy-centric investment bank: “There is an extremely bullish, long-term case for the [deepwater] drillers. They are far more immune to short-term swings in oil prices, and their earnings power is just unbelievably vast.”
(Note: Retail sales came in even worse than expected.)
Climate change could devastate Philippines: NASA scientist
MANILA (AFP) – Climate change could have a devastating impact on the Philippines, leading to widespread destruction of the country’s flora and fauna and flooding the capital Manila, a NASA scientist warned here Friday.
The continued melting of Arctic ice caps, brought on by climate change, could cause sea levels to rise by seven metres (23 feet), said National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) physicist Josefino Comiso.
Regulators can’t quantify oil speculators
Agency calls for new rules to rein in traders without ties to oil, after critics blame swap dealers for record crude prices.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal regulators say they’re unable to quantify the number of speculators in oil markets.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission released a much-anticipated report Thursday that called for new rules that would curtail so-called swap dealers.
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The Energy Challenge – The Future Starts Now
Record oil prices have sent gasoline costs skyrocketing, and America’s rickety reliance on oil has claimed the electoral agenda and public attention. Yet, despite increased drilling, burgeoning demand continues to strain supply.
“Domestic gas production in the U.S. has not been proportionally increasing with the dramatic increase in drilling because much of what’s being found with drilling has very high production declines during the first year,” commented Vince Matthews, State Geologist of Colorado and one of many prominent speakers at the 4th annual Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO)-USA Peak Oil Conference in Sacramento, Sept. 21-23.
The Peak Oil Crisis: Saving the Chesapeake Bay
A couple of years back the Congress decided that a good way to deal with our dependency on foreign oil was to start using lots and lots of domestically produced ethanol in our cars.
The government, with some help from farm lobbyists, decreed that by 2022 we should burn 36 billion gallons of ethanol a year of which 15 billion gallons was to come from corn. Now this is all well and good, except that corn-based ethanol production will be about 9 billion gallons this year and will require a major increase in corn planting in order to reach 15 billion gallons a year and keep us eating at the same time.
Nigeria calls for way to track “blood oil”
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria’s president called Thursday for help finding a way to fingerprint crude oil stocks in order to combat the theft and lucrative overseas sale of unrefined petroleum, aiming at stopping the flow of “blood oil” from Africa’s biggest producers.
Opec plans closer links with Russia to control half of the world’s oil supplies
A top-level delegation from Opec will travel to Moscow next month to forge closer ties between the oil producers’ cartel and Russia.
Speaking at a meeting of Opec oil ministers in Vienna, Abdullah al-Badri, the group’s secretary-general, said that he and other officials would hold a joint workshop with the Russians on global oil supply, demand and market issues. Russia already attends Opec meetings as an observer and was represented this week by Igor Sechin, the Deputy Prime Minister, who said that the Moscow talks would focus on “global energy security” matters and ensuring stable prices.
“Opec is one of Russia’s key partners on the global oil market,” Mr Sechin said. “It is very important for us to create mechanisms of regular dialogue.” He said that Russia had already presented Opec with a draft memorandum of understanding including a variety of proposals.
The prospect of closer ties between Opec, whose 13 member states produce 40 per cent of the world’s oil, and Russia, the world’s second-biggest producer after Saudi Arabia, will alarm consumer countries. Together, Opec and Russia would produce about half of the world’s oil, giving them even greater control over prices if they chose to collaborate.
Investors urge SEC on reporting oil climate impact
LONDON (Reuters) – Major investors from the U.S., Canada and the UK are pressuring the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to require energy companies to assess the environmental impact of oil and natural gas reserves.
A group of 19 environmental, investor and non-profit groups want the regulators, under new proposals, to ask that oil and gas companies disclose reported reserves that have higher than average greenhouse gas emissions associated with their extraction, production and combustion.
… “We urge the SEC to pay more careful attention to the implications of climate change and carbon-related regulations … since the risks and challenges posed are likely to grow rapidly in the coming years, with significant consequences for the oil and gas industries,” the group said in an open letter.
“We are concerned that climate change, and policies adopted to combat greenhouse gas emissions, could render certain assets — particularly those with high carbon intensity — uneconomic.”
Bolivia protests deepen, tensions with U.S. rise
LA PAZ (Reuters) – Violent anti-government protests mounted in Bolivia on Thursday, creating havoc with its key natural gas industry and increasing tensions with the United States.
In the eastern city of Santa Cruz, a stronghold of groups opposed to President Evo Morales’ leftist reforms, protesters occupied government buildings for a third straight day. They included the state-run television network, the land reform office, and the tax agency.
OPEC Won’t Crack Under Pressure
LONDON – It will take several weeks before the number crunchers close to the ground determine just how effective OPEC’s plea to end excess production will be. But already it seems unlikely that Saudi Arabia, the oil-exporting cartel’s biggest producer, would choose to brazenly flout the guidelines and risk an open rift with the group.
Petrobras Oil Reserves Likely to Swell on Iara Field
(Bloomberg) — Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, said its Iara offshore field contains 3 billion to 4 billion barrels of oil, its second giant find in a year and enough to supply the country for five years.
The assessment released yesterday is the first estimate of recoverable oil from the discovery announced Aug. 11. Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based company is known, said in January its Jupiter field in the same region contained gas quantities similar to its Tupi area, the largest oil find in the Americas since 1976.
How Real Is OPEC’s Production Cut?
OPEC’s production-cut announcement in the wee hours of Sept. 10 took nearly all the weary reporters and analysts assembled in OPEC’s packed Vienna headquarters by surprise. Saudi Arabian officials, who usually call the shots at OPEC, were telling their contacts before the meeting that they were happy with the current state of the market and not terribly worried by the 30% fall in prices since mid-July. In fact, Ali Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s dapper oil minister, said more than once with satisfaction that the desert kingdom had worked very hard to bring prices back down to earth from near-$150-per-barrel levels.
So why a cut? The answer is that in the strange world of OPEC, where words have special meaning, this cut may not be a cut at all. For the sake of unity in the organization, the Saudis appear to have yielded to pressure from hard-liners such as Algeria, Iran, Libya, and Venezuela to put what at least seemed like a cut into OPEC’s post-meeting communiqué.
IEA asks India to do away with fuel subsidies
NEW DELHI: International Energy Agency on Thursdasy asked India to remove subsidies on fuel to moderate demand in the country that had contributed to high international oil prices.
IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka, on a visit to India, yesterday met Petroleum Minister Murli Deora to make a case for removing fuel subsidies and inviting New Delhi to become a member of association of oil consumers in US and Europe.
Two Britons Among Expat Oil Workers Kidnapped in Nigeria
(Bloomberg) — Two Britons were among five foreign oil workers abducted by unknown gunmen in Nigeria’s southern oil region earlier this week.
“There were two Britons seized on Tuesday and we’re in touch with the Nigerian authorities to press for their release,” James McLaughlin, a spokesman for the British High Commission in Nigeria, said by phone today from Abuja.
Niger Delta Militant Group Calls Ceasefire in Nigeria Oil Region
In Nigeria, the main militant group in the Niger Delta has called for a ceasefire. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) made the announcement Thursday in response to the creation of a government agency to develop the oil-rich region.
John Michael Greer: The retrofit economy
I’ve suggested several times in these essays that the broad shape of the most likely future facing industrial society, at the end of the age of cheap abundant energy, can be sorted out very roughly into three phases: the age of scarcity industrialism, the age of salvage societies, and – if we are lucky – the ecotechnic age, when new societies based on sustainable high technology will rise on the ruins of our own unsustainable time. For a variety of reasons, any typology of this sort is easy to misunderstand, and it seems worthwhile just now to clarify what I intend to say, and what I don’t, in proposing this model of the future.
The most important point that needs making, it seems to me, is that these three phases are to some extent ideal types, and the forms they take on the ground of actual history will be far more complex, messy, and idiosyncratic than the simple outline suggests. This isn’t simply a result of the fact that none of these phases have arrived yet. The same thing can be said, after all, of the use of economic phases to talk about history that’s already happened.
Nuclear is the real threat to the fuel-poor, not wind energy
Recent allegations that a dash for wind would cause a big increase in fuel poverty crumble when you do the numbers. Nuclear is the real worry.
Vietnam may cut coal exports to meet domestic demand
Vietnam may cut overall exports of the fuel by 89 percent by 2015 to satisfy rising domestic demand, the nation’s largest producer said.
Overseas shipments may plunge to three million tons from around 28 million tons this year, Do Dinh Nguyen, general manager of imports and exports at Vietnam National Coal & Mineral Industries Group, said at a conference in Guangzhou, China, Wednesday.
Saudi Arabia walked out on OPEC yesterday. It said it would not honor the cartel’s production cut. It was tired of rants from Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and the well-dressed oil minister from Iran.
As the world’s largest crude exporter, the kingdom in the desert took its ball and went home.
Australia: Truckers gear up for cost hikes, emission trading
THE announcement last week that Kenworth Trucks would be sacking more than 80 workers — reducing production from 23 trucks a day to just eight — was a blast on the air horn for the Australian road transport industry.
The slowing economy, record fuel prices and rising interest rates have made for a rocky road in 2008, but for road transport operators a handful of looming speed humps will test even the most experienced operators.
Expected energy shortages in Kyrgyzstan will affect school children
Last winter countries in Central Asia experienced severe energy shortages, the situation being most severe for Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. In temperatures down to 30 degrees below zero electricity disappeared for days and weeks, with grave consequences for households, hospitals and schools. Kyrgyzstan is now preparing for a new winter with energy shortage. Daily power cuts are now reality in the capital Bishkek, and “winter holiday” from 20th of December till February is already announced for all schools.
Albertans risk higher electricity bills if we fail to develop new transmission lines
CALGARY /CNW/ – Alberta’s Market Surveillance Administrator
(MSA), Martin Merritt, argued in a public address today that Albertans will
face higher electricity bills if the province does not find fair and timely
ways to develop new transmission infrastructure.
“I am concerned that electrical transmission projects in this province
may not be keeping up with our economic growth,” he told a downtown Calgary
Rotary Club. “We need more than the supply necessary to meet Alberta’s needs.
We need a system that allows electricity to flow freely around the province.
That requires adequate transmission capacity.”
An urban legend to comfort America: oil is oil, even if it is not oil
A common reply to warnings about peak oil is that we have vast reserves of oil. True, but misleading and of limited significance over short- and medium-term horizons.
When the world relied mostly on oil from the wonderful super-giant fields, the distinction between different types of oil was trivial except to those in the oil business. Sweet, sour, deep — these were technical terms. Now that these conventional sources are peaking, we must turn to unconventional sources. Calling unconventional sources ”oil” leads to serious confusion.
I never thought I would spend my honeymoon on other people’s couches in London, but that’s what happened after my husband and I got kicked out of our flat. In three months, our energy bills trebled and so did the prices at our local supermarket. Freelance clients weren’t paying, cash flow became non-existent, choices had to be made between eating and paying the rent. We chose eating. Our landlord asked us to leave. What I didn’t realise was that we would be entering an emerging group of full-time couch surfers; people who have found a more communal, environmentally friendly, even utopian, way of living.
Bolivia natural gas repairs could take 15 days
BRASILIA, Brazil: A top Bolivian official says it could take 15 days to repair a damaged natural gas pipeline and fully restore gas shipments to neighboring Brazil.
Finance Minister Luis Alberto Arce says military security for Bolivian natural gas operations is being doubled, after a blast by saboteurs forced a 10 percent cut in natural gas exports to Brazil.
Brazil gets half its natural gas from Bolivia, using it to power its energy grid and as fuel for cars and cooking. Brazil will use diesel fuel to counter the shortage.
Kyrgyzstan: Energy Crisis Challenges Bakiev’s Presidency
Deep dissatisfaction brews among the Kyrgyz population as power cuts have been introduced throughout the country. Although President Bakiev hastened to reassure that heat and electricity supply will not be interrupted this winter, local observers say there are few mechanisms to make it possible, which seriously challenges Bakiev’s leadership.
Drought and low reservoir levels left impoverished Kyrgyzstan without ability to produce energy from hydropower stations this year. In order to save water for winter the government had to introduce electricity cuts, which last up to eight hours in capital Bishkek.
As the lamps and refrigerators die out so do lifts and water pumps leaving many households without hot and cold running water. Thousands businesses suffer huge losses and have to close. Some entrepreneurs decided to leave for Kazakhstan and Russia to save their funds.
Iraq ditches plans for no-bid oil contracts
AN IRAQI plan to award six no-bid contracts to Western oil companies has been withdrawn, those involved in the negotiations say.
Iraq’s Oil Minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, told reporters at an OPEC summit meeting in Vienna on Tuesday that talks for one-year deals, which were announced in June and subsequently delayed, had dragged on for so long that the companies could not now fulfil the work within that time frame.
Underground coal mines to solve energy crisis
New underground coal mines could be created under plans to solve the energy crisis facing Scotland.
SNP ministers have been in talks with the Coal Authority to explore the possibility of a new generation of environmentally friendly, coal-burning power stations.
However, they came under fire for revealing that phasing out nuclear energy is their top priority, despite it offering a cheap and secure source of power with low carbon emissions.
UK: Energy cost ‘pushing 10% into debt’
Soaring energy bills will push one in 10 households into debt with their fuel supplier by the end of next year, it has been warned.
The National Housing Federation said hikes in the cost of gas and electricity would force many low-income families to have to choose between heating their homes or eating this winter.
Energy bill: Drowning in Washington
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — An energy summit is taking place Friday on Capitol Hill and all 100 senators – including the presidential candidates – are invited to attend. But with all the partisan sniping on The Hill, it’s hard to tell if a comprehensive energy bill will be signed into law anytime soon.
Arkansas: Mass transit makes pitch to the masses
The idea of increasing area bus service and exploring other mass transit options is meeting less skepticism than in the past, with nearly all central Arkansas mayors and county judges on the Metroplan Board of Directors encouraging exploration if not actual service.
Mass transit usually brings to mind visions of tracks and stations and people jostling each other on the morning commute, but nowhere in central Arkansas, including Little Rock, is the population density sufficient enough for even light rail service.
Stylish scooters sip gas, attract buyers
It’s probably not surprising that with high gas prices, Americans rediscovered mopeds and their close cousins, scooters.
The question: How long will this latest love affair last?
Districts eye four-day school week
Elementary district officials say they know that they will spend an additional $229,000 on electricity alone this year compared with last based on the same number of kilowatt hours used, Allsbrooks said. Gasoline prices for operating buses is another cause for concern.
We have learned to live with $100, and cheap oil is not in our interest
Might the present oil shock dissipate as it did in the 1970s and we head back to cheap oil again? The working assumption of most people is that it won’t and that the age of cheap oil will never return – not just in our lifetimes but never, ever. But the oil price has dipped below $100 a barrel and the fact that Opec plans production cuts does suggest that some producers at least feel that cheaper, if not cheap oil, is on the cards.
Oil goes on binge while we seek sober clarity
As oil prices crossed the threshold into triple-digit figures this year, peak oil was taking its place as more than just a theory that the world would run out of sufficient quantities of oil that was financially viable to extract. But it is more likely as an eventuality that would come to pass, probably within a decade.
An upward price trajectory for oil made it far easier to understand the link between prices and energy resource depletion, even though peak oil analysts cautioned that recession was bound to follow a price spike, thus reducing demand and lowering prices. This in turn would cause further price hikes, setting in motion a roller-coaster effect.
Invest wisely and thou shalt reap benefits of long-term resolve
Rule No. 3: There are no new eras — excesses are never permanent.
Ignore “new era thinking” and “permanent shortage” beliefs based on the assumption that this time it’s different. It never is, even under the guise of the “new economy,” “peak oil,” “finite supply of land” and “no more oceanfront property.” Housing bubbles come and go.
The Big Question: What’s happening to the price of oil, and how is it affecting the world?
Why are we asking this now?
Because the price has been bouncing around so much recently, although the general trend is firmly down. This week the value of oil dropped below the psychologically significant $100 per barrel mark for the first time since February, but it rebounded back up again yesterday following a surprise announcement from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) that its 13 member countries are to cut production by more than half a million barrels per day (bpd). Apparently they’re a little concerned about the rapid fall in price since its eye-watering peak of $147 in early July.
As with gold, what we are now witnessing in oil is merely a technical correction, and nothing more. Massive support lies at the $107 – $110 level in oil. But even if oil were to break that level, it would most likely hold the $90 to $95 level, and then resume its bull market.
In terms of fundamentals, all of my research indicates that the world has effectively reached “peak oil” — and that supplies are now in a virtually perpetual state of decline, save an occasional new oil find here or there.
Additionally, supply constraints and disruptions from terrorism and wars will unfortunately continue. Upward pressure on oil will also be created when the dollar resumes its bear market.
Bottom line: Once this technical correction in oil is over, I expect to see oil’s bull market resume, with oil reaching $200 per barrel early next year, if not sooner.
Coming to New Haven, CT Saturday, Sept. 27, 2008: “Oil, War and the Future of American Foreign Policy” – A Forum with Michael T. Klare
Michael Klare, one of the world’s most renowned experts on energy and security issues, unearths declassified documents and highlights forgotten passages in prominent presidential doctrines to show how concerns about oil have been at the core of American foreign policy for more than 60 years, rendering our contemporary energy and military policies virtually indistinguishable.
“Blood and Oil” calls for a radical re-thinking of U.S. energy policy, warning that unless we change direction, we stand to be drawn into one oil war after another as the global hunt for diminishing world petroleum supplies accelerates.
Cleared: Jury decides that threat of global warming justifies breaking the law
The threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage.
When the Rev. Richard Cizik talks, his message isn’t what one might expect from the most prominent public voice representing the national organization of America’s evangelical movement.
Religion and social issues aside, Cizik, 57, has become well-known the past few years for pushing a theme not usually associated with the evangelical movement: taking care of the Earth.
Transport – go green or go under
Are there any political leaders in the EU who say we must (urgently) move towards renewable-energy-transport and that road-building can no longer be our top transport priority? The issue is getting urgent and we must prepare for the risk of oil depletion and global warming, which could result in a six-metre rise in sea levels.
Even a small risk of oil running out should be enough to make us urgently review our transport sector. The economic arguments are powerful: There is big money to be made by “electrifying” Europe’s transport fleets and the car industry is indeed quietly moving towards the electric car. But the political will is missing.
NASA study illustrates how global peak oil could impact climate
The burning of fossil fuels — notably coal, oil and gas — has accounted for about 80 percent of the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide since the pre-industrial era. Now, NASA researchers have identified feasible emission scenarios that could keep carbon dioxide below levels that some scientists have called dangerous for climate.
When and how global oil production will peak has been debated, making it difficult to anticipate emissions from the burning of fuel and to precisely estimate its impact on climate. To better understand how emissions might change in the future, Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York considered a wide range of fossil fuel consumption scenarios. The research, published Aug. 5 in the American Geophysical Union’s Global Biogeochemical Cycles, shows that the rise in carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels can be kept below harmful levels as long as emissions from coal are phased out globally within the next few decades.
“This is the first paper in the scientific literature that explicitly melds the two vital issues of global peak oil production and human-induced climate change,” Kharecha said. “We’re illustrating the types of action needed to get to target carbon dioxide levels.”
The Peak Oil crowd is in a struggle with reality. The sandwich-board energy theorists who claim, “The end is near” for oil, are glumly looking at the crash in the price of crude. What was supposed to be heading for $200 now seems set to dip under the $100 mark. Over at Peak Oil: The End of the Oil Age, the Web site operator is absorbing the shock. “Oil prices have fallen and with it the mass interest in the Peak Oil phenomenon.”
It looks grim. “The hits on this Web site have fallen, my webstore DVD stocks have suddenly stopped shrinking rapidly and it is business as usual again.” But the writer adds: “Don’t be fooled by falling oil prices.”
At OPEC, cooling rivalries, extending a hand
VIENNA, Austria – The just ended OPEC meeting was about more than what a barrel of oil can fetch on the open market as the global economic picture grows dim.
OPEC heavyweight Saudi Arabia gave a nod, at least symbolically, to fellow member states that have grown increasingly uneasy about the rapid decline in crude prices. The Saudis attempted to placate rival Iran, and laid the groundwork for a potential new alliance with Russia, the world’s second largest oil producer.
But OPEC’s announcement that it would cut output by more than 500,000 barrels by sticking closer to quotas did little to change what most consumers care most about — the cost of filling up a car with gas or heating a home over the winter.
Bolivia tells U.S. ambassador to leave, protests mount
LA PAZ (Reuters) – Bolivia’s leftist president, Evo Morales, ordered the U.S. ambassador on Wednesday to leave the country, blaming him for intensified opposition protests that shut down a natural gas pipeline to Brazil.
Iraq ends talks with French oil company
BAGHDAD – France’s Total says the Iraqi Oil Ministry has discontinued negotiations to develop an oil field in southern Iraq.
Total and U.S.-based Chevron were jointly negotiating a technical support agreement for the development of West Qurna oil field near the southern city of Basra.
Kazakhtan to hike oil export duty by 85% in October
ASTANA (RIA Novosti) – Kazakhstan’s government announced on Thursday it will increase the customs duty on oil exports by 85% to $203.8 per metric ton on October 13.
…The government said the move would ensure stable supplies to Kazakh oil refineries and yield over $1 billion in revenue to the national budget.
Trade gap widens to 16-month high on oil; jobless claims dip
WASHINGTON (AP) — America’s trade deficit shot up in July to the highest level in 16 months as oil imports hit an all-time high, offsetting strong export growth, and the deficit with China climbed to the second highest level on record.
Norway’s energy industry to hike capital spending
Norway’s oil and gas industry will raise investments to $22.9 billion, or 132.8 billion kroner , in 2009 as companies increase exploration, the statistics office said.
Gazprom faces fine for restricting access to gas pipeline
Russian gas monopoly Gazprom will reportedly be fined for restricting access to its pipeline network for gas producer Transnafta, according to the Financial Times, which quoted the Russian Federal Anti-Monopoly Service.
France seeks European ‘shared vision’ for Arctic issues
ILULISSAT, Denmark (AFP) – France, which holds the European Union presidency, called Wednesday for a joint European approach to resolving the challenges in the Arctic, a region on the front lines of global warming.
“What we clearly need is a shared vision of the issues at stake, of the policies to face them in a region which is particularly sensitive to the impact of man’s influence on his environment,” Laurent Stefanini, French ambassador for the environment said.
Old forests help curb global warming too: study
PARIS (AFP) – Old-growth forests remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, helping to curb the greenhouse gases that drive global warming, according to a study to be published Thursday.
Many environmental policies are based on the assumption that only younger forests, mainly in the tropics, absorb significantly more CO2 than they release.
Head for the hills: U.S. economy collapsing under debt
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Or find a cave to hide in.
As the United States collapses under a mountain of debt worth trillions, another Wall Street investment bank struggles to stay afloat and global economies start to crumble — the Bay Street guru who warned oil would skyrocket to US$200 a barrel has suddenly changed his tune.
Jeff Rubin, CIBC World Markets chief economist, is no longer talking about $200 oil by 2010 and in his latest Canadian Portfolio Strategy Outlook Report scales back other predictions for crude. Instead of crude averaging $125 this year, followed by $150 next year, Rubin now says it will be at $115 this year and $130 next year.
To me that’s still overly optimistic. But peak oil advocates — who paint a Mad Max future where we kill our fellow man for a drop of precious black gold — would say I’m wrong.
The Green Rush: Full transcript of interview with Zac Goldsmith
I don’t know whether the issue of peak oil has been taken out of context or whether it’s been blown out of proportion, but the truth is every one of our economic models, every one of our projections, all our assumptions are based on the availability of affordable oil. And, if peak oil theory is correct, and there are lots of people in the oil industry who say that it is, then we ought to know that, and I’d like to see a process where there is an audit of world oil supplies so we can start factoring the reality into our projections. Because if peak oil is true, if it’s around the corner, or if we’ve already hit it, then the impact on our lives will be far greater in the short term than the consequences of climate change. It’s a massive, potentially a massive issue. It may be nothing, it may be massive, but we ought to know the truth.
Prince Charles calls for ‘wartime’ effort against deforestation
LONDON (AFP) – Britain’s Prince Charles called on the world Wednesday to act with a “sense of wartime urgency” to protect the rainforests, warning they were “umbilically connected” to the phenomenon of climate change.
The heir to the British throne told a black-tie dinner in London that rainforests “are the world’s lifebelt”, acting as the “world’s air conditioning system” and helping store the largest body of flowing water on the planet.
Most Europeans ‘very concerned’ by climate change: EU survey
BRUSSELS (AFP) – Most Europeans are very concerned about climate change, but a sizeable minority feel they don’t know enough to help counter it, a major EU opinion poll released Thursday suggested.
A majority of the 30,000-plus interviewed throughout the European Union and candidate countries thought that neither industry nor national governments nor the EU itself was doing enough to tackle the problem.
Record number of icebergs off Canadian coast
German photographer Rolf Hicker, who captured the image off the coast of Newfoundland in north east Canada, said: “I remember for years in Newfoundland where we hardly saw any icebergs.
“But in 2007, there was a record number of icebergs with four or five times more icebergs than they had ever seen in one season.
“For me this is a clear sign that something very bad is happening in the Arctic.”
A new webcam set up in Ilulissat will allow the world to watch as global warming eats away at Greenland’s ice cap.
(Look like the English link isn’t active yet, but you can see the Icecam here.)
Leadership for a Comprehensive Energy Roadmap: The First 100 Days – (Shirley Ann Jackson, President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
International energy markets, trading schemes, and re-alignment of nations are emerging because energy consumption is rising exponentially — driven by population growth, swiftly developing economies, improving global living standards, and the burgeoning use of ever more energy-dependent technologies. It is not difficult to cite jaw-dropping illustrations of growth in energy consumption: e.g., each year, for the past few years, China has added 60,000 to 90,000 megawatts of electrical generating capacity — roughly the equivalent of the throughput of the entire electrical grid of England.
Consumption of nearly every major energy source is up markedly. If current trends continue, humans will use more energy, over the next 50 years, than in all of previously recorded history. Fossil-based energy sources, including coal, will remain a dominant part of the primary energy mix. In fact, because of demand, the market clearing price of coal, heretofore always plentiful and reliable, has doubled over the last year. We may only speculate on the effect of this growth in demand on the state of our planet’s environmental health.
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Mexico to Raise Gasoline Price to Market Rate by 2010
(Bloomberg) — Mexico will increase the price of gasoline sold by state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos on a weekly basis until it reaches average international market rates in 2010, Finance Minister Agustin Carstens said.
Gasoline prices in Mexico will catch up with average market rates as the government gradually eliminates its subsidy, Carstens said in an interview on Televisa television today.
From Georgia to boardrooms, Russia is flexing its well-oiled muscles. The rest of the world is justifiably worried.
Why does the Bush administration persist on provoking Russia?
America has two core parties, which are the only players with a real chance of winning the election (due to mass-media coverage of debates, etc). Both John McCain and Barack Obama are members of the think-tank the Counsel on Foreign Relations (founded by David Rockefeller, and Dick Cheney used to be its director), which are composed of the most influential of policy makers, determined for Socialist-styled globalism (world government), and have been influencing presidential administrations for decades.
There are many people in America opposed to this system and what it stands for, yet they are marginalized and silenced, and the debate that remains between the two candidates will be meaningless as they both ultimately stand for the same things: conflict, increased immigration/amnesty and increased government spending on an already broke budget- this was the essence of the protests. Not to mention the lack of will to do anything about the crimes of this present administration.
Tech’s looming battle against rising energy costs
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the price of energy will continue to rise over the next 25 years, as global demand is poised to grow by 57 percent while the energy supply dwindles. As a result, businesses will find their profits reduced due to higher operating costs — unless they do something about that energy usage.
Metal thieves steal radio tower
WINDBER, Pa. — Police in Somerset County are trying to figure out how a radio tower went missing in Windber. Police say a group of people had a very thorough plan to get all 120 feet of steel and copper down from the old Windber radio tower.
Police believe the thieves threw cables over the guidelines of the tower and yanked it down with a truck. Police also found cut bolts and torch marks on nearby grass. Police say the tower had to be cut into small pieces in order to get it out of the wooded area, but they can’t figure out how they did it without anybody noticing.
…The thieves also got away with a 300-pound Penelec transformer full of copper.
The radio tower hasn’t been used for years, but the family who owns it was in talks with a company to use the tower to bring wireless Internet to Windber.
Armenia Shuts Down Nuclear Plant For Renovation
Armenia relies on the Soviet-built Metsamor plant, 30 kilometers (18 miles) west of the capital Yerevan, for 40 percent of its electricity needs. The European Union has pleaded with Armenia to close the ageing plant, which is in an area prone to earthquakes, and in 2004 offered to provide 100 million euros ($148 million) in compensatory aid.
But Armenian officials say their landlocked and resource-poor country cannot afford to do without the plant, which also provides electricity for export to neighboring Iran.
Mexico Investors Hurt as Calderon Fails to Loosen Grip on Oil
(Bloomberg) — Mexican President Felipe Calderon has taken his plans to loosen the government’s grip on Petroleos Mexicanos about as far as he can. It isn’t very far.
US Congress presses for energy votes by October
Acknowledging that they have less than 3 weeks before the next recess, congressional leaders on both sides of the Capitol said they will bring energy bills up for votes soon.
The atmosphere was stormier in the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) still seemed far apart on their ideas for a comprehensive bill, than in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) mentioned three bills he plans to bring to the floor next week and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called for extensions of renewable energy tax credits and for expansions of Outer Continental Shelf leasing.
New York: Treadwell calls for home heat rebate, tax credit, and full LIHEAP funding
“The federal government must step and increase home energy assistance now to help individuals and families who will be facing severe hardships this winter,” Treadwell said. “Government has a duty to respond to people’s needs in a time of crisis, and with rising fuel prices, we know that families need assistance this year to heat their homes.”
Drill, Baby, Drill–If It Makes Economic Sense, That Is
So far, the Congressional “debate” over offshore drilling has been a lot of political sloganeering, from Republican cries of “Drill, Baby, Drill,” to blanket condemnations by many Democrats of any drilling proposals.
Lost in the shuffle, though, is the bottom-line impact of more offshore drilling. As Common Tragedies pointed out a while back, the “dirty little secret” of offshore drilling is that it would probably mean economic benefits for all Americans, even if it wouldn’t solve all of America’s energy woes. So the question becomes, how valuable are pristine beaches when oil and gasoline are much more expensive than a year ago? In other words, what are the real costs and benefits of opening up America’s coast to more oil exploration?
Lyrics: Country Star Aaron Tippin New Single ‘Drill Here, Drill Now’
Country Star Aaron Tippin debuted his new single called ‘Drill Here, Drill Now’ on the Sean Hannity show today. Inspired by the American Solutin’s movement, Aaron Tippin song ‘Drill Here, Drill Now’ is based off of the petition drive to get congress to approve of drilling for oil in America.
With over 1.5 million signatures on the ‘Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less’ petition, American’s are making quite the effort to get more oil to American people. Aaron Tippin explains the reason he made the single was because he, like all Americans, are tired of paying $4 a gallon for gas at gas stations. Tippin feels this is the correct action for Americans to solve the oil/energy crisis in America.
Hirono calls for energy crisis solutions
HONOLULU (AP) _ Hawaii Congresswoman Mazie Hirono has joined small business owners looking for science-based solutions to the energy crisis.
The businesses are petitioning Congress to enact solutions to reduce the country’s dependence on oil, solve the climate crisis, create jobs and leave the environment clean.
IEA cuts oil demand growth forecasts
LONDON – World oil demand will grow by less than expected this year and next due to high prices and weaker economic conditions, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday.
In its September Oil Market Report, the agency lowered its 2008 world oil demand growth forecast by 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 690,000 bpd and also trimmed its forecast for 2009 global demand growth by 40,000 bpd to 890,000 bpd.
‘High prices are having an impact on demand,’ said David Fyfe of the IEA. ‘The OECD (countries) are feeling the impact.’
The IEA, adviser to 27 industrialised nations on energy policy, noted anecdotal evidence of a more permanent downward trend in demand in the United States, the world’s biggest energy consumer.
These included a marked shift to more efficient vehicles, changing mobility and driving habits, signs that suburban living was gradually losing its appeal, the agency said.
OPEC agrees to surprise output cut, oil price rises
VIENNA, Austria – OPEC oil ministers agreed Wednesday to trim overall output by more than 500,000 barrels a day in a compromise meant to avoid new turmoil in crude markets while seeking to bolster falling prices.
The news sent oil prices rising. Light, sweet crude for October delivery rose 97 cents to $104.23 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The OPEC announcement reflected the organization’s efforts to cover all bases in an oil market that saw prices spike to a record high just short of $150 a barrel in July, only to shed nearly 30 percent off those peaks in subsequent months.
Anxiety about staying warm this winter spreads
HARRISBURG, Pa. – Homeowners already pinched by high food and gas prices have grown increasingly anxious about staying warm this winter.
At state assistance offices and at community organizations, phones are ringing off the hook as people seek help with what are expected to be punishing heating bills. Legislators and governors from Alaska to Maine are watching the gap between surging need in their states, and assistance that may or may not be coming from Washington.
To win the presidential race, it takes energy
Record-high prices for gasoline, heating and electricity and growing concern about global warming have pushed energy issues to the forefront of the 2008 presidential campaign.
Not since the gas lines of the 1970s has energy loomed so large as it does in the race between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, says Kenneth Medlock, an energy expert at Rice University. And it’s an issue that is unlikely to fade between now and November.
Separatists in Russia see hope in South Ossetia and Abkhazia
MOSCOW: Tatarstan is a long way from South Ossetia. Where South Ossetia is a poor border region of Georgia battered by war, Tatarstan is an economic powerhouse in the heart of Russia, boasting both oil reserves and the political stability that is catnip to investors.
But the two places have one thing in common: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, both have given rise to separatist movements. And when President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia formally recognized the breakaway areas of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent nations two weeks ago, activists in Kazan, the Tatar capital, took notice.
Russia: Chubais Predicts Energy Crisis in 2010
Anatoly Chubais, former head of RAO UES of Russia, is predicting an energy crisis in Russia at the beginning of 2010 if the rate of gas production in the country stagnates. He talked about this at the unveiling of his book Economic Notes, co-authored with Egor Gaidar.
There have been two cold winters in Russia out of the last seven, Chubais notes, and another one can be expected in 2010. Fuel oil reserves will be insufficient by that time, which could lead to a shortage of 7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. Electricity and heat can be generated, Chubais reasons, but technical limitations, such as the capacity of electricity generating stations and transportation complexities for fuel oil, hinder it.
Chubais suggests that the energy crisis of 2010 may be “substantial” and require evacuations from a number of cities.
Kyrgyzstan: Current energy crisis caused by oversized electricity export, Premier said
“The current energy crisis is caused by oversized energy export,” the Prime Minister Igor Chudinov said at the meeting with the Ak Jol People’s Party fraction in the Parliament today.
“It has started in 2004 when we drained 2bln cubic meters of water to provide electricity supply to Russia,” Chudinov said.
Saudi Oil Policy Unchanged By OPEC Decision, Official Says
Bloomberg) — Saudi Arabia is not planning to reduce its oil production even as OPEC urged members to lower output and return to their official targets, a Saudi oil official said today.
There is no change in its oil policy and Saudi Arabia will supply whatever customers demand, an oil official of the country said today.
OPEC-Russia link will not affect consumers – Badri
VIENNA (Reuters) – Closer energy dialogue between OPEC and Russia should not affect energy consuming nations, OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri told reporters on Wednesday.
Russia regularly attends OPEC meetings as an observer and was represented at Wednesday’s meeting by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who said he wanted to broaden cooperation with the producer group.
Indonesia to increase oil production next year
JAKARTA, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) — The Indonesian government and House of Representatives have agreed to raise the country’s oil production level to around 960,000 barrels per day, according to local media on Wednesday.
“The projected production level would be met by applying an exploration and refinery method that were more effective,” the national Antara news agency quoted Indonesian lawmaker Harry AzharAziz as saying.
“The method is meant to minimize the declining rate,” he added.
How to profit from falling oil prices
There frequently wasn’t much to any of these stories, but unfortunately journalists can’t just write “oil went up today for no particular reason”, so they always find some reason for prices moving to stick in their market reports.
Yet in the last few months, we’ve seen some really quite worrying developments, both in geopolitics and in the weather.
Our farm harvest is highly energy dependent. Food in the U.S. travels an average 1,500 miles to end up on your dinner plate. Nitrogen fertilizers are made from natural gas, insecticides are oil-based, tractors run on diesel, and plastic packaging comes from oil. Add in refrigeration and it may take as much as 1,000 calories of oil-energy to produce a calorie of food today, according to some estimates. In 1944, it took just one calorie of oil-fuel to make 2,300 calories of food (horses were still used on many farm fields back then, and they provided fertilizer, too).
So why not go back to horses? Because today’s farmer riding a combine can do in hours what it would take days to do with a horse. Before the mechanical revolution in farming, about one-third of the U.S. population worked on farms, and it wasn’t because they liked the fresh air. It was the only way to get things done and get enough food to feed everybody. If the energy crisis worsens — and I think it will — we’ll face some hard choices.
Ex-Treasury chiefs see economy, energy as top issues
Two former U.S. Treasury secretaries agree that the next president will face extraordinarily complex issues, chief among them the struggling economy and America’s ongoing energy crisis.
Long Beach aims to boost output from Wilmington oil field
SACRAMENTO — Long Beach isn’t waiting for Congress and the presidential candidates to do something about reducing America’s dependence on imported foreign oil.
On the last day of the regular 2008 legislative session, Mayor Bob Foster got a bill passed by the Legislature to allow the state and the city to negotiate a contract with Occidental Petroleum Corp. to revive part of the 76-year-old Wilmington oil field — once thought to be nearly tapped out.
6.1 magnitude quake hits southern Iran
TEHRAN — A 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck southern Iran on Wednesday near Bandar Abbas, site of a major Iranian oil refinery, the U.S. Geological Service said.
Norwegian gas pipe likely shut all winter -Statoil
LONDON (Reuters) – The leaking gas pipeline between Norway’s Kvitebjoern platform and a processor at Kollsnes is not now expected to be repaired before next spring although quicker repair options are being looked at, an executive from field operator StatoilHydro said on Wednesday.
The company discovered a leak on the gas pipeline and closed it in August. It has been looking for ways to get it fixed and back into service for winter since then. But those efforts have not so far allowed Statoil to bring forward the repair work.
Pakistan – Power tariff hike to shoot cost of production: FPCCI Chief
LAHORE (APP)- Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), Wednesday said that hike in power tariff would cause increase in cost of production that would eventually lead to cut in export orders and badly hamper industrial production in the country.
Four-day school week an option
For school districts looking to save fuel costs, the four-day school week has become an option. As far back as 2003, more than 108 districts across the country held classes only four days a week, according to the National School Boards Association.
These districts are mostly in rural areas, but are spread throughout the country, including Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
The concept dates back to at least the 1970s, when fuel prices spiked during that decade’s energy crisis.
Production photos of Chevy Volt show big changes from concept car
The production version of the Chevrolet Volt electric car is a small four-door sedan that bears no resemblance to the low, sleek, two-door sports coupe that Chevy exhibited on the 2007 auto-show circuit to drum up interest in the vehicle and boost General Motors’ image as leaning green.
Official GM photos of the car were posted accidentally by Wieck Media, a clearinghouse for automakers’ pictures, for just 12 minutes Monday. But that was long enough for them to be downloaded and published by thecarconnection.com and other online sites. The pictures were quickly “put back in the vault” as soon as GM noticed, according to Chevy spokesman Terry Rhadigan.
The cluttered Advanced Vehicle Research Center garage, tucked in an office park, can accommodate two Toyota Priuses. Lately, the bay stays full. Demand keeps the cars rolling in for a makeover some say will become standard as the car industry weans itself off gasoline. In less than four hours, the mechanics at the garage can outfit a Prius with a second battery pack. It emerges as a hybrid that can plug into a wall outlet to recharge like a cell phone.
The result: A car that breaks a once-unimaginable fuel efficiency barrier and delivers 100 miles per gallon. The spare battery costs less than 75 cents to charge and gives the plug-in Prius about a 35-mile range solely on electric power, making gasoline optional on short commutes. Retrofitting Priuses has become a full-time occupation for the Advanced Vehicle Research Center.
State grants $4 million for ethanol plant
MADISON – Abengoa Bioenergy’s $275 million ethanol plant is under way, with a little help from the state of Illinois in the form of a $4 million grant.
Britain pledges aid for Bangladesh at London conference
LONDON (AFP) – Britain pledged 75 million pounds Wednesday to help Bangladesh fight the effects of climate change, as the impoverished flood and cyclone ravaged Asian nation highlighted the need for billions of dollars.
Joining forces at a conference in London, Bangladesh and Britain called on nations to thrash out a new global warming agreement in Copenhagen next year to achieve a comprehensive deal to prevent rapid climate change.
Survey: Public transit pressures could hurt riders
Cash-strapped public transit systems are cutting services and raising fares even as more Americans ditch their gas-guzzling cars for trains and buses, a survey of transit agencies out Tuesday finds.
People took 2.8 billion rides on public transit from April through June, up 5.2% over that period last year, reports the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), which represents transit agencies.
The increase marks the highest ridership for that period in half a century, says William Millar, APTA president. “We’re seeing record ridership, but it is a double-edged sword,” he says. “We’re going to see more (fare) increases and more service cuts at a time when the nation is trying to encourage people to use public transit.”
Of the 115 agencies that responded, 61% are considering fare hikes to make up for budget shortfalls, while 35% say they may cut services.
Only about one-third of costs are covered by fares, APTA says, so transit agencies rely in part on public funding. Funds tied to the health of the economy, such as sales taxes, have been drying up, Millar says. Gasoline prices also are hurting providers.
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Saudis imply OPEC will hold production steady
VIENNA, Austria – OPEC powerhouse Saudi Arabia suggested on Tuesday that a meeting of oil ministers of the 13-nation organization will decide to keep crude production steady, despite their concerns over rapidly falling prices.
With the Saudis accounting for about a third of the output of the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries, their views often are adopted by ministerial meetings deciding on whether to boost, keep steady, or cut oil production. Therefore, the comments by Oil Minister Ali Naimi suggested that the ministers would opt for the status quo.
OPEC to cut real output by 500,000 bpd
VIENNA (AFP) – OPEC will agree to cut its real output by up to 500,000 barrels per day at its meeting on Tuesday while leaving its official production policy unchanged, energy consultancy PFC Energy said, citing unnamed sources.
“PFC Energy has learned that OPEC has in principle agreed to trim production from current levels above official output targets,” said the respected Washington-based group.
“PFC Energy understands that a cut in actual production could be in the order of 500 (thousand barrels per day), but that the communique text will likely focus on the need to abide by agreed-upon production targets rather than on numerical targets for cuts,” it added.
Could 100-dollar oil become a new OPEC price floor?
VIENNA (AFP) – With the oil market falling rapidly, questions have been raised at a gathering of OPEC producers in Vienna this week about whether 100-dollar oil should be a minimum price to defend, analysts say.
Russia minister may intervene in BP deal
IRKUTSK, Russia (Reuters) – Russia’s Natural Resources Ministry will intervene if BP’s venture TNK-BP fails to close a deal to sell control of the Siberian Kovykta gas field to Russia’s Gazprom by the year’s end, the minister said.
Norway oil fund exits Rio Tinto on ethical grounds
OSLO (Reuters) – Norway on Tuesday excluded iron ore miner Rio Tinto from its $375 billion sovereign wealth fund due to environmental concerns over its activities in Indonesia, as part of its drive for ethical investment.
Underlying my expectation of long term rising oil prices is the ever-dangerous idea that, “This time it’s different.” The difference, of course, is Peak Oil. Peak oil is different partly because it has never happened before despite having been predicted frequently and because we don’t have “peaks” in other commodities. There is no “Peak Wheat” or “Peak Copper”. So the idea of Peak Oil is hard for many commodity experts to accept.
The Business of Water: Shrinking Water Supplies and Growing Energy Demands—an Emerging Strategic Headache
The links between energy and water have significant strategic implications for many businesses and will affect companies outside the energy and utility sectors. The future development of these interrelationships begs the question: Do businesses fully recognize the wider strategic risks posed by water scarcity, the impact of climate change and the implications for energy production and availability? In most cases, the answer is no.
iPhone Hits the Road with Avego’s Shared Transport Application: Avego combines GPS and Mobile Technology to Unlock Millions of Wasted Seats
ebuting at DEMOfall, Mapflow Ltd. today announced Avego, a new technology designed to reduce wasted seat capacity in cars and dramatically expand commuting options. Avego [pronounced a-vay'-go] pairs passengers and drivers through an easy-to-use system using iPhones and other mobile devices.
A cross between carpooling, public transport and eBay, Avego matches a driver’s wasted seat capacity-those seats which are unoccupied-to passengers, reducing commute costs for all participants. Avego automatically apportions the cost of the commute, providing a key financial incentive to commuters frustrated by high gasoline prices.
Register now at St. Lawrence College: Food Sustainability
This new 13 week course examines the causes and consequences of mounting global food shortfalls and price hikes: peak oil, ethanol, peak water, peak soil, meat eating, export-bans, speculation, climate change, etc. We will calculate the costs of our own eating habits with special guest grocers and farmers and explore the history of famines around the world.
Town launches its own currency to encourage residents to shop locally
A historic county town was today launching its own currency in a bid to encourage residents to shop locally.
More than 70 local traders in Lewes, East Sussex, have agreed to accept the Lewes Pound as a complementary currency to pound sterling.
Google sees energy solution in the math
SAN FRANCISCO–Google CEO Eric Schmidt outlined an energy plan Monday to reduce America’s dependence on oil and create green jobs.
…”It’s just a math problem,” Schmidt said to a crowd of executives here at the Fairmont Hotel.
He said that, if by 2030, the U.S. were to adopt renewable energy sources for 100 percent of its power generation, replacing energy production from coal-fired plants, and replace at least half of its cars with plug-in hybrids, then it could cut carbon emissions by half. (And potentially avert a global warming crisis.)
No easy feat. But if the plan is adopted, Schmidt calculated that the U.S. would save 97 percent of $2.17 trillion in energy spending over the next 22 years. So expenditures would only be $600 billion; or assuming an 8 percent discount rate (factoring interest rates), the government could save even more in that time.
The Flying Dutchman solves global warming
If mimicking a massive volcanic eruption by spraying sulfur dioxide into the air or flying thousands of mirrors into space to shade Earth to halt climate change doesn’t cut it for you, how about this? A fleet of 1,500 automated ships, dubbed “albedo yachts,” spewing saltwater into the sky to make denser clouds that reflect more sunlight—and cool the world.
Research Links Allergies to Climate Change
Dr. Clifford Bassett, of Allergy and Asthma Care of New York, says ragweed allergies affect more and more people; he says that over the past three years, he has seen about 50 percent more new allergy patients.
“We’re really looking at an epidemic of new patients, children and adults alike, with allergies, as well as asthma coming in for the very first time,” Bassett told ABC News.
Some scientists believe they can explain why allergy season is the worst yet: climate change.
Hot air at UN to curb global warming a success
UNITED NATIONS – Hot air at the United Nations has been so successful that more is on the way.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon raised the temperature in offices at U.N. headquarters by 5 degrees during August and announced he would be wearing lighter suits.
Many male staff members doffed their jackets and ties while women chose sleeveless attire as thermostats went up from 72 to 77 degrees in offices and 72 to 75 degrees in conference rooms.
‘Emissions-free’ coal plant pilot fires up in Germany
BERLIN (AFP) – One of Europe’s biggest power companies inaugurates on Tuesday a pilot project using a technology that it is presenting as a huge potential breakthrough in the fight against climate change.
But green campaigners have denounced the project as a cosmetic operation that does not really address the problem of global warming.
Climate inaction ‘costing lives’
Failure to take urgent action to curb climate change is effectively violating the human rights of people in the poorest nations, an aid charity warns.
A report by Oxfam International says emissions, primarily from developed countries, are exacerbating flooding, droughts and extreme weather events.
As a result, harvests are failing and people are losing their homes and access to water, the authors observe.
They say human rights need to be at the heart of global climate policies.
New York Times Columnist Calls for a Green Revolution: Read an Excerpt From Thomas Friedman’s Latest Book, ‘Hot, Flat and Crowded’
In a follow-up to “The World Is Flat,” his book about globalization, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman brings a new perspective to climate change and the energy crisis.
In “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” Friedman argues that the new presidential administration must take strong and decisive steps to create a green revolution in order to save the planet, “reknit America at home [and] reconnect America abroad.”
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Thaw of polar regions may need new U.N. laws
OSLO (Reuters) – A new set of United Nations laws may be needed to regulate new Arctic industries such as shipping and oil exploration as climate change melts the ice around the North Pole, legal experts said on Sunday.
They said existing laws governing everything from fish stocks to bio-prospecting by pharmaceutical companies were inadequate for the polar regions, especially the Arctic, where the area of summer sea ice is now close to a 2007 record low.
“Many experts believe this new rush to the polar regions is not manageable within existing international law,” said A.H. Zakri, Director of the U.N. University’s Yokohama-based Institute of Advanced Studies.
Oil has been one of the most discussed subjects in recent years. Of the many concerns we have about the energy sector, the labor shortage worries me most.
According to industry reports, the average age of workers at major oil companies is between 48 and 50 years.
As retirement looms in the next five to seven years, the potential loss of industry expertise may threaten the sustainability of this sector as a whole.
Now that international crude oil prices have retreated to around $106 (about Rs4,706) a barrel from a high of $147, the question everybody is asking is how much further can they ease. If we assume we’re going to have a global recession similar to the one we had after the bursting of the technology bubble, then it’s worth our while checking what happened to oil prices at that time.
Azerbaijan at crosswinds of a new cold war
The crisis in Georgia is, however, a powerful wake-up call to Baku concerning “roads not taken”. On the one hand, Baku is interested in cultivating closer military ties with the West, in light of the Azeri parliament’s recent ratification of an action plan for greater military cooperation with the US. A top US State Department official has recently called for a strategic, trilateral cooperation between US, Azerbaijan and Turkey. And yet, on the other hand, this is precisely the kind of initiative that Baku would be wise to stay away from, unless it is prepared to embrace serious backlashes from its powerful neighbors, Iran and Russia.
Mideast spot cargo market may stay discounted
SINGAPORE: Spot Middle East crude oil cargoes may continue to be mired in discounts next week in Asia, even though several producers have slashed their monthly official selling prices.
While these term price cuts, particularly on lighter sour grades with a high yield of money-losing “clean” products such as gasoline and distillates, have lent support, soft demand and a lingering risk aversion continue to weigh on sentiment.
No place like suburban home: Many happy outside cities, despite cost of commute
Hallahan’s roughly 15-mile commute takes at least 25 minutes and, with a few errands thrown in, costs $200 a month. He said that’s up from about $150 a year ago, when gas was cheaper. But instead of bailing on suburban life, the family has absorbed the increases by cutting back on discretionary spending, Hallahan said.
“I don’t think 50 bucks a month is enough to make you live somewhere else,” Hallahan said.
Hallahan is typical of most Capital Region suburban dwellers who, several months into America’s modern day energy crisis, do not have buyer’s remorse, residents, planners and home association leaders say.
Congress must act: Ensure electricity remains affordable
For most Iowans, the summer of 2008 has been one for the record books as the price of gasoline has blasted a hole through family finances. While gasoline may grab the headlines, it is essential that U.S. policymakers address another equally urgent energy concern: ensuring affordable electricity at a time when the cost of power and demand for it are rising and when climate-change goals loom.
Welsh methane discovery may ease UK energy crisis
Test drilling in Wales has revealed huge quantities of high-quality methane gas, which could be piped out and used to help Britain’s growing energy crisis.
India: Tired of persistent power-cuts, residents dash letter to CM
That the suburbs are facing a bad time when it comes power management is nothing new. However, in a bid to make their power problems heard by the government, a local consumer body has adopted a unique method. The body has sent a missive to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra requesting him to ensure that the government offices keep their ACs switched off in this dark hour and set an example.
Off-shore liquefied natural gas terminals get poor marks from ocean advocacy group
TRENTON — An ocean advocacy group released a report Wednesday that lambasts liquified natural gas and three different proposals to build liquefied natural gas terminals off New Jersey’s shore.
The report, which characterizes liquified natural gas, or LNG, as expensive, dirty and a threat to the nation’s energy independence, is meant to jumpstart Clean Ocean Action’s effort this fall to lobby state lawmakers and Gov. Jon S. Corzine to stop the LNG terminal projects off the coast of Monmouth and Ocean counties from moving forward. Corzine’s final Energy Master Plan is expected this fall, and the group’s leaders said they’re working to ensure LNG doesn’t make it into the report.
Russia aims to corner energy market: U.S. official
ROME (Reuters) – Russia aims to extend its control over energy deliveries to the West and it is important that European countries push forward on efforts to diversify routes for oil and gas supplies, a senior U.S. official said on Monday.
As Vice President Dick Cheney visited Italy to seek support for Georgia after its brief war with Russia, the official, said: “The fact is Russia has worked hard to try to corner the market, so to speak, and is working to foreclose options to transit for those energy products across Russia.
“They want everything to come out through Russia and a lot of us think it’s more important that there be diverse means of gaining access to those resources,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“No one country ought to be able to totally dominate those deliveries.”
OPEC ministers gather, set for no change
VIENNA (Reuters) – OPEC ministers on Monday gathered in Vienna ahead of a meeting to review output policy, but were widely expected to leave formal targets unchanged, especially as a powerful hurricane could lift oil prices.
Iran leads calls for OPEC oil cut
VIENNA (AFP) – Iran led calls on Monday for OPEC to cut output ahead of a meeting of the oil producer group, with analysts expecting the cartel to begin scaling back production to help support prices.
Oil prices have plummeted from their highs of 147 dollars a barrel in July to about 107 dollars, with the OPEC meeting on Tuesday seen as a test of what price level the cartel wants to defend and its power to influence the market.
OPEC to Pump at Near Record as Prices Stunt Growth
(Bloomberg) — OPEC, the supplier of 40 percent of the world’s oil, will probably keep producing at a near record pace as $107-a-barrel crude squeezes the global economy.
Iran sees possible oil over-supply in 2009: report
TEHRAN (Reuters) – Continued OPEC production at current levels would lead to over-supply of its crude in the first half of 2009, causing prices to drop, Iran’s OPEC governor was quoted as saying on Sunday.
Mohammad Ali Khatibi, speaking two days before OPEC ministers meet in Vienna, also told the official IRNA news agency that oil prices could not fall below $80 per barrel as this was the production cost cited for some new fields.
How the West is losing the energy cold war
Russia’s victory in Georgia is having far-reaching effects as its neighbours rethink the wisdom of selling gas and oil to Europe.
China marches past USA to stake a claim to Iraq’s oil
While China opposed the Iraq war and stood back from post-war rebuilding, Beijing has quietly outflanked its global rivals to grab a large slice of Iraq’s oil industry. The pioneers of its overseas quest for fuel are already exploring vast tracts in the Kurdish north of the war-torn nation.
With an extensive foothold in the only part of the country where new oil wells have been built since 2003, Chinese firms are already believed to have more personnel than their American rivals.
UK: Warning over growing fuel poverty
Almost a quarter of the population will be in fuel poverty by next year and those on low incomes will be especially badly hit, new figures have shown.
A report published by the National Housing Federation shows that by the end of 2009 5.7 million UK households will be spending at least 10% of their annual income on energy bills – an increase of 100% since 2005.
South Africa cannot pin its hope on a miracle to rescue it from the coming global oil crisis, and needs to take urgent and radical steps to avoid an “unprecedented” meltdown in the country’s economy and transport network.
All the signals point to a rapid and irreversible decline in world oil production within the next five to 10 years – and unless South Africa acts fast and intelligently, the country could be forced into taking draconian measures like petrol and diesel rationing, slashing speed limits on the highways or reserving fuel for essential services such as the police, army, ambulance services and farmers.
Gas crisis threatens to derail Bangladesh economic growth
CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh (AFP) – An acute gas supply crunch caused by lack of hydrocarbon exploration is threatening to derail Bangladesh’s record industrial expansion, officials say.
The South Asian nation’s economy has been growing by more than six percent annually over the last four years — its strongest pace since independence in 1971 — thanks to unprecedented double-digit manufacturing growth.
But industrialists say trouble looms as a severe gas crisis has left scores of big factories without power and halted some of the impoverished country’s most ambitious industrial projects.
Kazakhstan lays out oil tax plans
A new oil tax proposed by the Kazakh government will apply to about 60% of the country’s crude output next year, Economy Minister Bakhyt Sultanov said today.
Sultanov was presenting a reform package designed to shift the tax burden onto the oil, mining and metals sectors – mostly through a new mineral extraction tax – to foster the development of other industries.
Operator says Dubai oil rig remains shuttered
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The operator of the oil rig involved in last week’s deadly helicopter accident off the Dubai coast said production remained halted on the platform Sunday.
The rig serves the Rashid oil field, one of four offshore deposits controlled by the government-run Dubai Petroleum. Work in that field was suspended after a Bell 212 helicopter carrying contractors crashed into the platform and sparked a fire on the main deck Wednesday evening.
Campaigners today warn that an international conference on biochar, which will be held in Newcastle, UK from 8 to 10 September, will be misleading governments and the public with claims that biochar – a by-product of second generation agrofuel production – can curb climate change and improve soil fertility.
Jason and the secret climate change war
A shadowy scientific elite codenamed Jason warned the US about global warming 30 years ago but was sidelined for political convenience.
Gulf oil production poised to increase by 10 million barrels a day
Dubai: A massive $300 billion investment in boosting oil production is underway which could see the Arabian Gulf deliver a staggering 10 million barrels of crude a day in added capacity by 2015 more than half from Saudi Arabia alone according to project research firm Proleads.
“Recent analysis of total global oil production and development projects indicate that world crude production capacity from all sources has the potential to rise from 87 million barrels per day to as much as 108 million by 2015,” said Emil Rademeyer, director of Proleads.
“Our analysis shows that if all current projects across the region meet their projected targets in barrels of oil a day, it would mean that by 2015 the hydrocarbon rich countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) will be supplying more than half that future added oil capacity,” said Emil Rademeyer, director of Proleads.
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Drill now, pay later: The drive to tap oil reserves in Alaska and offshore overlooks our long-term need for petroleum
Upon recent discoveries of oil in the kingdom, King Abdullah ordered that those new finds be left untapped to preserve the nation’s oil wealth for future generations. “When there were new finds, I told them, ‘No, leave it in the ground, with grace from God, our children need it,’” the king said.
Behind the king’s statement lies a plain truth: The Saudis prefer to sit on their oil, while we are rushing to deplete ours. The Saudi reserve-to-production ratio – an indicator of how long proven reserves would last at current production rates – is 70 years; Iran’s is 82; the United Arab Emirates’ is 90; and Venezuela’s is 91. Iraq and Kuwait are at more than 100. How long does the U.S. have left? Eleven years.
There are at least two invisible things that tend to be ferociously difficult to understand. One is relations among humans and the other is energy. Especially when the former want more of the latter. And for some reason, understandable perhaps but also unfortunate, we are mostly loathe to try to comprehend where our energy comes from. Thus there is a kind of ‘energy secret’: we cannot see energy and we don’t seem to be very good at understanding it, even though without it there is no life here or anywhere else in the universe.
Iran wants OPEC output cut to target quotas
TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran said on Sunday that OPEC members should cut output to the agreed target quotas in the face of falling oil prices, two days before the cartel meets in Vienna, state-run IRNA news agency reported.
“The market does not need more oil and there is no need for excess production given the fall of oil prices,” Iran’s envoy to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Mohammad Ali Khatibi told IRNA.
“Members should return to the agreed quota and respect it. If a member does not want to go back to the OPEC quota they should have a reason,” he added.
OPEC struggles with falling oil prices
LONDON – The question facing the OPEC oil producer group which meets this week is when, not if, to cut its oil production target as crude prices slide in the face of weakening economic growth, analysts say.
Gulf Arab States to Urge OPEC Not to Cut Oil Output
(Bloomberg) — OPEC’s Gulf-Arab members, which pump half of the group’s oil, are likely to urge their colleagues to leave output unchanged when they meet this week as prices above $100 a barrel squeeze the global economy.
Saudi crude price hikes may offer Opec production hints
The latest term crude prices suggest Aramco may be starting to price in a period of lower output, even if Opec next week doesn’t formally sign off on a production cut.
Mexico: Running Out of Oil and Options
As equities commence the dramatic autumn slump I’ve been anticipating in recent weeks, it is uninspiring to witness the standard of political debate in the US Presidential election. It seems that neither candidate is aware of, or at least willing to articulate, the tectonic shifts taking place in global financial power which threaten to severely limit the room for maneuver of the incoming administration. Roosevelt said America should talk quietly to the world but carry a big stick; now a big begging bowl is more appropriate. We hear references to Iran and Russia as geopolitical challenges, but nobody is talking yet about a bigger threat right on America’s doorstep: the potential implosion of the Mexican state.
Putin predicts West won’t cool ties with Russia
MOSCOW: Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin predicts there won’t be any cooling of ties with the West because the West needs Russian oil, gas and minerals.
Don’t Believe Industry Scam on Drilling Arctic Refuge
Unfortunately, patently false claims by the oil and gas industry continue to find traction in news stories across the nation. One of the biggest myths that industry would like the media and the public to believe is that drilling the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will require only 2,000 acres.
Bush likely to scrap nuclear deal with Russia
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is likely to scrap a civilian nuclear pact with Russia soon as punishment for its war against Georgia last month, a U.S. official said on Thursday.
Greenpeace proposes giant North Sea windfarm grid
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – North Sea nations could link their offshore windfarms via a giant electricity grid on the sea bed and bring huge benefits for Europe, according to a Greenpeace report gaining interest from the European Commission.
The environment group said on Wednesday the grid would build on existing infrastructure to link tens of thousands of turbines located offshore, helping to smooth out power fluctuations caused by turbulent weather around the stormy North Sea.
Demand for solar panels exceeds supply
The sun may set early on anyone trying to take advantage of expiring solar-energy tax credits this year.
Many solar manufacturers and installers say they can’t take on more jobs for 2008 because they’re either out of panels or out of time.
Chrysler showing off plug-in hybrids to dealers
NEW YORK – Chrysler LLC has been demonstrating plug-in hybrid prototypes to some dealers that are further developed than those previously shown by the automaker, the company’s president said.
In comments Tuesday at the Motor Press Guild in Los Angeles, Chrysler Vice Chairman and President Jim Press said the vehicles are being developed by Chrysler’s Envi unit, which the automaker created last year to create electric vehicles and other advanced propulsion technologies.
Biofuels War: The New Scramble for Africa by Western Big Money Profiteers
Biofuels war has broken out in Africa. Newspaper headlines have not proclaimed it but the gist of it is already out. Big money profiteers from Europe and United States are rushing to Africa in a new scramble for the continent, transforming large swathes of arable land into massive biofuels plantations.
Local but poor populations in many parts of Africa are increasingly being driven deeper into economic obscurity yet 60% of them still depend on agriculture for survival. Another 60% of that eke out a living by subsistence farming and animal husbandry.
Eat less meat to fight climate change: UN expert
LONDON (AFP) – People should cut their consumption of meat to help combat climate change, a top United Nations expert told a British Sunday newspaper.
Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told The Observer that people should start by having one meat-free day per week then cut back further.
Is our taste for Sunday roast killing the planet?
Your Sunday roast stands accused. According to the United Nation’s chief climate expert, Rajendra Pachauri, that tasty piece of top rump resting on your dining table is the source of many of the world’s environmental woes, in particular those involved in the dangerous warming of the planet’s climate.
Our appetite for animal flesh is boosting fertiliser production, pollution and emission of greenhouse gases to dangerous levels, Pachauri has told The Observer. Give up meat – at least for one day a week – and we can help to save the Earth, he added.
Demand seen thin in first U.S. greenhouse auction
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. Northeast power companies likely will not race to buy permits to emit the main greenhouse gas in the country’s first carbon auction later this month because the region’s emissions of the gas have slipped over the last few years, experts said.
Research suggests refinery emissions higher than estimates
EDMONTON – A recently published report suggests that Canadian refineries are underestimating emissions of greenhouse gases and cancer-causing chemicals.
The study, which used a new method to track so-called “fugitive emissions” from pieces of equipment at an unidentified Alberta refinery, finds such releases of gases such as benzene are up to 18 times higher than previously thought.
EPA tightens lawn mower, motor boat emission rules
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Exhaust-spewing lawn mowers and speed boats will get a green make-over under tough new rules from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designed to reduce smog and save millions of gallons of gasoline.
Gas-powered engines in lawn and garden equipment will be required to cut smog-forming emissions by 35 percent, while engines in personal watercraft will have to cut smog-forming emissions by 70 percent and reduce carbon monoxide emissions by 20 percent.
Speculators and water an uneasy mix
CANBERRA (Reuters) – On the cracked grey clay of an ancient lake bed on the edge of Australia’s outback, Guy Kingwill is at the frontier of a global rush to commercialize water.
Despite a long-running drought, Kingwill, who runs the vast Tandou farm, 142km southeast of the mining town of Broken Hill, has just sold his property’s critical water on a national market rather than pump it into irrigated cereal crops.
“The return on the water is higher,” Kingwill told Reuters. “Where we are it’s broadacre cropping. But the market now is driving significantly more per megaliter from horticulture than you can get a profit margin out of wheat and barley,” he says.
Across the world, speculators are increasingly looking to water as a new profit engine as supplies dwindle, caught between booming populations demanding more access and climate warming threatening its very availability.
The Montreal Protocol rescued the ozone layer, but also prevented drastic regional climate changes.
Global warming greatest in past decade
Researchers confirm that surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere were warmer over the last 10 years than any time during the last 1300 years, and, if the climate scientists include the somewhat controversial data derived from tree-ring records, the warming is anomalous for at least 1700 years.
“Some have argued that tree-ring data is unacceptable for this type of study,” says Michael Mann, associate professor of meteorology and geosciences and director of Penn State’s Earth System Science Center. “Now we can eliminate tree rings and still have enough data from other so-called ‘proxies’ to derive a long-term Northern Hemisphere temperature record.”
Hurricane Ike, a dangerous Category 3 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale and projected to grow again into a potentially devastating Category 4, appeared increasingly likely to hit Cuba and then target the oil fields of the Gulf.
While long-range storm tracks are subject to huge errors, Ike could potentially follow Hurricane Gustav, plowing through an area that produces a quarter of domestic U.S. oil, and slam ashore near New Orleans, which was swamped and traumatized by Hurricane Katrina three year ago.
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More Business news U.S. Gulf energy output slow to return after Gustav
“The slow going recovery rate in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico may be reflecting operators’ caution in bringing back their personnel or otherwise putting their rigs back into operation as they are still determining whether Hurricane Ike is going to hit the Gulf,” said Gene McGillian, an analyst at Tradition Energy, Stamford, Connecticut.
Naomi Klein: Obama got Gustav wrong
In the combination of New Orleans and hurricanes, we have the most powerful argument possible for the necessity of “change”. It’s all there: gaping inequality, deep racism, crumbling public infrastructure, global warming, rampant corruption, the Blackwater-isation of the public sector. And none of it is in the past tense. In New Orleans whole neighbourhoods have gone to seed, Charity hospital remains shuttered, public housing has been deliberately destroyed – and the levee system is still far from repaired.
Gustav should have been political rat poison for the Republicans, no matter how well it was managed. Yet, as Peter Baker noted in the New York Times, “rather than run away from the hurricane and its political risks, Mr McCain ran toward it”. If this strategy worked, it was at least partly because Barack Obama has been running away from New Orleans for his entire campaign.
Libya says oil market is oversupplied
TRIPOLI (AFP) – The oil market is starting to suffer from oversupply, the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) chairman said on Friday, days before a key OPEC meeting on crude output levels.
“The market is well served and has even started to suffer from oversupply,” said Shukri Ghanem, who also acts as the country’s oil minister, adding that the Organisation of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC) aimed to balance supply and demand.
“Prices have lowered and the supply is exceeding demand. The role of OPEC is to maintain the balance,” he told AFP ahead of a meeting of the oil cartel in Vienna on Tuesday.
Is oil going back under $100 a barrel? Not if Opec can help it
Is it over? Was that the oil shock? Can we relax, sit back and expect our energy bills and prices at the pumps to tumble? It is true that the price of oil is down. In early July, the price peaked at $147 a barrel. Yesterday it hit $106. A fall of almost 30% in two months suggests the old rule that “nothing cures high prices like high prices” may finally be working in the oil market.
Russian units raid Georgian airfields for use in Israeli strike against Iran – report
The raids were disclosed by UPI chief editor Arnaud de Borchgrave, who is also on the Washington Times staff, and picked up by the Iranian Fars news agency. The Russian raids of two Georgian airfields, which Tbilisi had allowed Israel to use for a potential strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, followed the Georgian offensive against South Ossetia on Aug. 7.
Under the secret agreement with Georgia, the airfields had been earmarked for use by Israeli fighter-bombers taking off to strike Iran in return for training and arms supplies.
Drilling For Clean Energy (Jim Marshall and Roscoe Bartlett)
The controversial bans on drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have preserved precious oil and natural gas reserves owned by the public. Thank environmentalists for this unintended gift.
But for these bans, we would have wasted the reserves without a strategic plan.
With todays oil situation and predictions of a peak just around the corner, is peak oil the next Y2K? Jamais Cascio reminds us in Peak Oil and the Curse of Cassandra of the lessons learned from Y2K; Disasters were avoided by listening to warnings and acting upon them.
Western nations — the U.S., in particular — are now experiencing the bow wave of a profound change in the current and future availability of oil. According to recently published data, oil output from all major Western oil companies is on an ominous decline trend. Exxon Mobil, for example, announced that its average oil output has fallen by 614,000 barrels per day in 2008.
It never hurts to be prepared for Armageddon
Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front, by Sharon Astyk (New Society Publishers; $18.95) is subtitled One Woman’s Solutions to Finding Abundance for Your Family While Coming to Terms With Peak Oil, Climate Change and Hard Times. A few suggestions from Appendix One: – Urine is mostly sterile, and safe to add to plants. A person’s yearly output can fertilize more than one quarter acre. Dilute the urine in a 10 to one ratio and use it on your garden. – Summer is a good time to toilet train children. Let them run around naked outside, where accidents won’t be a worry. You’ll do less laundry in the winter if you get this done now.
Pyrenees glaciers will melt by 2050: Spanish study
MADRID (AFP) – Climate change will melt the 21 remaining glaciers in the Pyrenees mountains before 2050, a group of Spanish researchers said Friday.
“The steady increase in temperature — a total of 0.9 degrees Celsius from 1890 to today — indicates that the Pyrenees glaciers will disappear before 2050, experts say,” said a statement published on the SINC website, an official science news site.
Oil’s climb forced companies to become leaner
NEW YORK – Conventional wisdom had long held that some industries would collapse if oil topped $100 a barrel. As oil neared $150, sending costs higher for everything from jet fuel to plastic jars, the question was how many companies would succumb.
The surprising answer: Not many. Some have even thrived.
Companies have culled unprofitable products, cut production costs and passed along price increases. Airlines have laid off thousands of employees, dropped routes, sold planes and raised fares 20 percent in the last year — the fastest rate of increase in 15 years. Consumer product makers have shrunk everything from tubs of Smart Balance Buttery Spread to jugs of laundry detergent. Retailers from The Yankee Candle Co. Inc. to Target Corp. have passed on higher prices to consumers.
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OPEC likely to trim oil supply as economy slows
LONDON/DUBAI (Reuters) – Slower demand, an economic downturn and cheaper oil could convince OPEC it needs to trim supply unofficially, but the producer group is expected to leave public output targets unchanged when it meets next week.
Iran says $100 oil “appropriate”
TEHRAN — Iran’s OPEC governor said an oil price of $100 (U.S.) per barrel was “appropriate” in current conditions, the Oil Ministry’s news agency Shana reported on Friday.
The oil minister of the world’s fourth-largest crude producer had said earlier in the week that $100 a barrel was the lowest appropriate price. Crude has tumbled from a record $147 in July and was trading on Friday at below $107.
OPEC Is Unlikely to Cut Production, Goldman’s O’Neill Says
(Bloomberg) — OPEC is unlikely to cut supply at next week’s meeting in Vienna because of the hurricane season, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Economist Jim O’Neill said.
Oil operations resume, storms on the horizon
HOUSTON – Even as thousands of workers returned to their posts in the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Gustav’s mild blow, other storms traveling across the Atlantic Ocean served as a reminder that the heart of hurricane season is here.
Chevron says Pascagoula refinery ramping up
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Chevron Corp said Friday its 330,000 barrel-per-day oil refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, was ramping up to normal rates after Hurricane Gustav.
“The refinery began returning to planned production rates on Thursday, Sept. 4, when the U.S. Coast Guard reopened the ship channel leading to the refinery,” Chevron said in a press release.
Rising oil price could lead to China industrial restructuring
CHANGCHUN (Xinhua) — Concerns of a surging oil price could mean the industrial restructuring and upgrading of China’s industries, according to a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) official here on Friday.
“The commodity price hike has severely impacted the Chinese economy, but it also happens at a good time as China is facing industry restructuring challenges,” Li Yuefen, the UNCTAD Debt and Development Finance Branch head, said.
EU moves to loosen Russia’s ‘energy stranglehold’
EU, European Union, Gazprom. Energy Security, Oil, Gas European Commission officials are currently carrying out a feasibility study to examine the creation of gas stockpiles to prevent Russia using the threat of switching the lights out or turning off heating supplies to pressure the EU.
“There will be legislation along the lines of the Strategic Oil Stocks Directive in October or November,” said an official.
BP’s Russian defeat a market victory
In the middle of 17th century Paris, Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac (that’s the real one, not the 19th century stage character), wrote a fantasy about a voyage to the moon. He described several contrivances to get there, in addition to his own. One, which reportedly delivered the biblical prophet Elijah, involved a large magnetic ball and an iron chariot. To propel the latter into the sky, and thence to the orbit of the moon, the prophet tossed the ball into the air so that the magnetic force would draw the chariot after it. He was obliged to keep catching and tossing to sustain the upward momentum. When it was within gravitational range of the moon, the magnetic ball was tossed downward, and then upward again, to break the speed of the chariot’s fall.
Russia isn’t the moon. But BP has been trying a variant of the magnetic-ball-and-chariot to hang onto the 23% of its global oil reserves located there, 25% of its current oil production, and a comparable amount of its market capitalization. Rarely has so much value in global energy resource depended on such a theory of motion. Robert Dudley, chief executive of TNK-BP – the 50/50 joint venture BP has operated for five years with Fridman, Len Blavatnik and Victor Vekselberg – has also been using several quaint contrivances to defy the laws of gravity.
Palin’s pipeline exists — but only on paper
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A long-delayed natural gas pipeline championed by Gov. Sarah Palin that would carry supplies from Alaska to Canada and then to the lower 48 states exists in concept only and is years away from fruition.
US energy policy ‘beholden’ to oil multinationals
The most full-throated speech of the Democrat convention on energy came right before Clinton appeared on stage, when Schweitzer fired up the delegates by ripping into “petro-dictators” and multinational oil companies that he says US energy policy is beholden to.
No Hope for a Sensible Energy Policy
I have bad news for all those who think that the retirement of George W. Bush will somehow initiate a golden–or green–age in America. It won’t. Just take a close look at the promises being made by the two men who have now been formally nominated as their parties’ standard bearers in the fight to control the White House.
Crude Future: Economics dictates that we’ll never run out of oil
Are we running out of oil? The question seems silly. “Yes” is the obvious answer.
Or is it?
That there is less oil in the ground today than there was yesterday is true. That there was less oil in the ground yesterday than there was in 1870 is also true. But “running out of oil” is not as much a question of physics as it is one of economics. And economics assures us that we will never run out of oil.
Norway surveys Troll field for carbon storage
OSLO (Reuters) – Norway has begun seismic surveys at its biggest North Sea oil and gas field, Troll, to determine whether carbon dioxide emissions could be stored there, energy officials said on Friday.
Troll is touted as one of three possible North Sea locations for storing carbon produced by gas-fired power plants in the coastal cities of Mongstad and Kaarstoe in a bid to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming.
Feds warn climate change could harm giant sequoias
VISALIA, Calif. – Federal researchers are warning that warming temperatures could soon cause California’s giant sequoia trees to die off more quickly unless forest managers plan with an eye toward climate change and the impact of a longer, harsher wildfire season.
Experts offer scaled-back sea level rise forecast
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Worldwide sea levels may rise by about 2.6 to 6.6 feet by 2100 thanks to global warming, but dire predictions of larger increases seem unrealistic, U.S. scientists said on Thursday.
They examined scenarios for loss of ice from Greenland, Antarctica and the world’s smaller glaciers and ice caps into the world’s oceans, as well as ocean expansion simply due to rising water temperatures.
Their calculations yielded estimates for global sea level increases by the end of the century that are lower than many existing projections, but alarming nonetheless.
Asian soot, smog may boost global warming in US
WASHINGTON – Smog, soot and other particles like the kind often seen hanging over Beijing add to global warming and may raise summer temperatures in the American heartland by three degrees in about 50 years, says a new federal science report released Thursday.
These overlooked, shorter-term pollutants — mostly from burning wood and kerosene and from driving trucks and cars — cause more localized warming than once thought, the authors of the report say. They contend there should be a greater effort to attack this type of pollution for faster results.
Want better mileage? It’s going to cost you
Mileage-minded Americans will have plenty of small cars from which to choose the next few years, but they’ll have “sticker shock” prices.
Automakers are raising prices to regain profits lost when sales of lucrative trucks and SUVs collapsed this year. They’ll camouflage some of the boosts with fancy, high-margin features such as navigation and leather seats. The idea: lure well-heeled, move-down buyers who want better mileage but won’t give up features.
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Discounting Costco to Wal-Mart Signals Rebound on Record Sales
The last time gasoline as a component of personal spending was as high was in September 1982, during an energy crisis triggered by the revolution in Iran, OPEC’s second-largest producer.
“Consumers are stressed,” said McGranahan. “Discretionary spending is down and they’re being crowded out with food and energy prices.”
Energy crisis puts pressure on Norway
We find ourselvs in an exposed situation, since we are neighbours with Russia, not a member of the EU and in alliance with the US. We will become even more in the spotlight, and must be prepared for the global conflict situaton which could arise, says Leiv Lunde, another co-author of the book to NRK.
I am getting increasingly frustrated by how little attention Americans are paying to this major crisis brewing in their backyard. So, I think maybe the mainstream news should start treating Cantarell the same way they do a hurricane. Maybe that would generate some attention!
After all, Cantarell’s decline has already cost us — 1.2 million barrels per day — the same amount we lost from Gustav.
Cantarell Is Not Mexico’s Only Oil Production Problem
There are problems in two other large oil fields, the Chicontepec Basin and Ku-MaloobZaap. These two fields make up 72% of Mexico’s non-Cantarell proven reserves. The fields differ significantly from Cantarell in terms of geology, potential productivity, distance from distribution systems, and technical requirements.
Today, cash-strapped Canadians take another Category Five fleecing as pump prices in the GTA fall by only 3.8 cents a litre to $1.259 for regular self-serve, when some analysts predicted a 7.9 cents-a-litre break, after gasoline futures fell yesterday with falling crude prices that wiped a whopping 450 points from Bay Street’s energy-sensitive TSX.
Argentina Natural Gas Crisis Crosses Over To Neighboring Chile
Chilean electric generators are not the only ones being hurt by the natural gas shortage in Argentina. The Argentine pipeline companies are also affected as the scarcity of natural gas has increased the near-term credit concerns of its two gas transportation companies: Transportadora de Gas del Norte S.A. (TGN) and Transportadora de Gas del Sur SA. (TGS).
Nigeria: Fuel scarcity in Port Harcourt as tanker drivers embark on strike
Port Harcourt, Rivers State and its environs since Monday, September 1, had been experiencing fuel scarcity following strike embarked upon by tanker drivers.
A source close to the refinery disclosed to Business Day in Port Harcourt that the tanker drivers embarked on strike in protest of the persistent power outage in the refinery.
India: Residents block roads in protest against rostering
LUCKNOW: Angered with repeated power outages in their locality, residents of Telibagh blocked the Lucknow-Rae Bareli highway near the Sanjay Gandhi Post-graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS), throwing traffic out of gear on Tuesday afternoon. It was not until the police intervened that the blockade was removed.
China May Raise Retail Power Prices, Official Says
(Bloomberg) — China may raise retail electricity prices by 4.5 percent, the second increase this year, to help narrow losses at power producers and ease a nationwide shortage.
Despite Iraq’s Oil Oases, Its Citizens Still Live in Darkness
While I can understand Americans’ fears about fuel prices and availability, I have a harder time understanding why Iraqis — with their oases of crude oil reserves and untapped oilfields in the south and the north — have had to put up with high oil prices and severe shortages of gasoline, diesel and cooking gas.
After hearing Barack Obama’s speech from Denver on Thursday night, energy expert
Joe Shuster responds, “ If Obama thinks he will end US dependence on foreign oil in ten years, he better include nuclear in his energy plan, specifically fast neutron reactors.”
Oil prices drop as US opens reserve taps
LONDON (AFP) – Oil prices fell on Wednesday as the US government decided to release crude stocks from its strategic reserve after Hurricane Gustav halted energy production in the Gulf of Mexico.
“The release of the oil will prevent any shortage and that will, of course, help calm the market,” said Victor Shum, an analyst with energy consultancy Purvin and Gertz.
… The United States announced late on Tuesday that it was releasing 250,000 barrels of oil from its strategic reserve to help cover lost production.
There was no oil production on Tuesday in the Gulf of Mexico region, where a quarter of US oil is normally produced, the US Department of the Interior said. Ninety-five percent of natural gas production was also offline.
Peak oil, tech boom share some parallels
So if investing is about acting on the best information you can get your hands on, where should you turn for oil intelligence? You might start by ignoring the investment banks.
Oil companies and OPEC seem to be a little more conservative and forthcoming, but then again they sure love $125 oil, so they’re not likely to come perfectly clean.
Tanker counters? See above.
How about your dog-eared economics textbook though? The one that says commodity prices inevitably move in cycles? Simply put, peak oil or not, the faster prices rise, the harder they’ll fall.
I was getting tired of repeating that crude oil should have never been at US$147 per barrel, and now that the mass-euphoria was gone (or was it mass-hysteria?) it wouldn’t be long before oil would fall through support at US$110, and after that US$100 would follow and not long thereafter we would see oil priced back in double digits – just like I have been saying for months now.
I do realise that for the most part of the past few months I, and my colleagues here at FNArena, have been a lone voice amidst a tsunami of reports about the new era for oil -essentially US$100-plus forever- intertwined with peak oil theories and other upbeat claims and predictions, none of which will stand the test of reality.
When inflation isn’t really inflation
Take oil. Let’s say that, whatever the cause – peak oil, speculators or dysfunctional governments – the price of crude oil doubles in a short period of time. In this case, consumers must necessarily spend more at the pump and the energy component of the CPI rises. They must necessarily, however, spend less on other things and the “other things” component of the CPI falls. Category changes aside, these consumers spend the same amount of money.
The “average” cost of living doesn’t change. Prices simply do the job they are supposed to do – alerting consumers to shortages and advising conservation.
Four Ways to Fight the “Oil-Flation Epidemic”
Want to know what the price of a barrel of oil will be in eight years?
Exactly $119.50 a barrel.
Exxon raises 2008 Sakhalin oil output forecast
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said oil output at its Russian Sakhalin-1 project, shrinking after reaching a peak level, will decline less than expected this year and will continue falling in 2009.
Exxon raised its Sakhalin-1 output forecast to 9.2 million tonnes in 2008 (184,251 barrels per day) from the previously planned 7.9-8.2 million tonnes, a press officer from Exxon’s Moscow office said on Wednesday.
The new forecast represents a 17.9 percent decline from the peak production of 11.2 million tonnes reached in 2007.
China’s Manufacturing Economy in Recession?
On other boards I am reading, many are anticipating a huge jump in oil and gas prices next week. I do not know if that will happen, but I will offer the opinion that if it does not happen, or if it happens and prices quickly reverse lower, they will keep going a lot lower than most energy bulls think.
Short to intermediate term, it is highly likely that the slowing global economy will have far more effect on energy prices than peak oil.
Conflicting Oil Price Drivers Confuse
Weakening economic indicators across Europe and North America might seem to have a dampening effect on demand for oil. But really, common sense refutes any such logic.
Because the economy is contracting, does that mean people will travel less? Or is it more likely that people will find themselves having to travel further to find scarcer jobs, and have to live in cheaper neighbourhoods far from their traditional centers of employment?
I think the second statement is closer to reality. And the chart above that predicts the continuing increase globally in fuel consumption tends to bear out this prophecy.
Megaprojects Predict Decline of Oil Production
I think megaprojects analysis gives us the best insight on near-future oil supply levels. Some other observers prefer to to predict future supplies using the formulas of Dr. M. King Hubbert, which are based on original oil in place and decline rates. But Hubbert’s math was done before the current technologies for enhanced oil recovery were available. These new techniques and technologies change the timing of oil extraction over the life of a field resulting in more oil being produced more rapidly than could be done when Hubbert was writing. That puts Hubbert’s mathematical model into question, I believe, as a near term predictor of peak oil.
KNPC says fire at Kuwait’s largest oil refinery under control
KUWAIT CITY (Xinhua)– A fire which broke out early Wednesday morning at Kuwait’s largest oil refinery, Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) said.
According to Kuwait news agency (KUNA) reported, citing the head of KNPC’s Public Relations Mohammad Al Ajmi, that the fire occurred during maintenance duty at one of the pipelines in Ahmadirefinery.
Venezuela, South Africa sign oil deal
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — South Africa and Venezuela sealed a major oil deal Tuesday during a visit by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, who touted it as an example of southern nations cooperating in a new strategic alliance.
South Africa – Venezuela oil deals in pipeline
As part of the agreement South Africa’s PetroSA would also gain access to Venezuela’s oil reserves.
“PetroSA should immediately go to Venezuela to start working with us to exploit our oil reserves,” he said.
Climate change target may lead to ‘dangerously misguided’ policies
In a paper published in a special geo-engineering edition of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, which is published online today, Prof Kevin Anderson and Dr Alice Bows say that by focusing on long-term emission targets, such as 50% by 2050, climate policy has essentially ignored the crucial importance of current emission trends and their impact on cumulative emissions.
They say that as a consequence, although countries should aim to reduce global emissions in line with a 2ºC target, adaptation policy must focus on climate change impacts associated with 4ºC or more.
UN climate panel re-elects Rajendra Pachauri as chairman
GENEVA (AFP) – The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said Tuesday it has re-elected chairman Rajendra Pachauri for a second term.
Pachauri has been head of the organisation since 2002 and oversaw its seminal assessment report in 2007 which gave graphic forecasts of the risks posed by global warming.
Massive Canada Arctic ice shelf breaks away
OTTAWA (Reuters) – A huge 19 square mile (55 square km) ice shelf in Canada’s northern Arctic broke away last month and the remaining shelves have shrunk at a “massive and disturbing” rate, the latest sign of accelerating climate change in the remote region, scientists said on Tuesday.
They said the Markham Ice Shelf, one of just five remaining ice shelves in the Canadian Arctic, split away from Ellesmere Island in early August. They also said two large chunks totaling 47 square miles had broken off the nearby Serson Ice Shelf, reducing it in size by 60 percent.
“The changes … were massive and disturbing,” said Warwick Vincent, director of the Centre for Northern Studies at Laval University in Quebec.
…
Mueller said the total amount of ice lost from the shelves along Ellesmere Island this summer totaled 83 square miles — more than three times the area of Manhattan island.
The figure is more than 10 times the amount of ice shelf cover that scientists estimated on July 30 would vanish from around the island this summer.
Mexico to spend $25 bln on fuel subsidies in ’08
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s government will spend about $25 billion (260 billion pesos) this year on gasoline subsidies to blunt the effect of inflation on consumers, President Felipe Calderon said on Monday.
The figure was higher than the $19 billion (200 billion pesos) that the government previously said it would spend on fuel subsidies, which have gotten more expensive this year on higher oil prices.
The subsidy means Mexicans are paying about $1 less for a gallon of gasoline than U.S. motorists, and has helped moderate inflation that is running at its highest pace in more than three years.
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ASPO Newsletter – September 2008 (PDF)
1077. Spain reacts to Peak Oil
1078. 33rd International Geological Conference
1079. A Fall in Oil Price
1080. A Sense of Direction
1081. The Golden Zone
1082. The Good News
1083. ASPO-USA Conference
1084. Russia Re-evaluated
1085. Estimating Discovery and Reserve Growth
Mexico oil port reopens after rough weather
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The Mexican port of Cayo Arcas on the Gulf of Mexico coast, one of the country’s three main oil exporting ports, reopened on Monday after being closed the previous day due to rough weather.
All other Mexican ports including Dos Bocas and Coatzacoalcos, the other two key crude ports in the Mexican Gulf, where Hurricane Gustav blew strong winds and rain into Louisiana, were also open, the communications and transport ministry said on its website
Gustav Reminds U.S. of Oil Vulnerabilities
Hurricane Gustav’s rampage through the Gulf of Mexico was a stark reminder that U.S. oil supplies are vulnerable to major storms, analysts said.
A Growing Global Power Crisis Looks to be Greater Economic and Political Danger Than Oil
How many stories have you seen about high oil and gasoline prices? Now how many have you seen about global electricity shortages?
Lost in all the attention oil is receiving, reports from around the world indicate that 100 or more countries may be suffering, many acutely, from shortages of electricity. Given who is in trouble, both the economic and the political danger of this growing global power crisis are starting to look greater than oil’s.
India: Penalty fails to curb power overdrawal
New Delhi – Amid a surge in short-term power costs triggered by acute shortages, State Electricity Boards (SEBs) are increasingly opting to overdraw from the grid and shell out the Rs 10 per unit maximum penalty, instead of sourcing power from more expensive liquid fuel stations.
Tanzania: Cooking gas shortage hits Dar
Dar es salaam residents are experiencing acute shortage of liquified petroleum gas (LPG) used as fuel for domestic cooking, heating, catering and other purposes. A survey by ‘Daily News’ reveals that the city had been facing the shortage for more than a week, where sales personnel at various retail outlets blame the port for the scarcity.
14.5 million people need food assistance in Horn of Africa
Nairobi, Kenya – Poor rains in much of the Horn of Africa in the normally wet March-to-May period compounded by high food and fuel prices, mean that 14.5 million people in five countries need food assistance, the World Food Programme (WFP), has warned.
As many people watch their crops and livestock die, the situation is made worse by conflict, animal disease, inflation and poverty.
Brazil: Deforestation rises sharply as farmers push into Amazon
Concerns over the destruction of the Brazilian rainforest resurfaced at the weekend after it emerged that deforestation jumped by 64% over the last 12 months, according to official government data.
Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research this week said that around 3,145 square miles – an area half the size of Wales – were razed between August 2007 and August 2008.
With commodity prices hitting recent highs and loggers and soy farmers pushing ever further into the Amazon jungle, satellite images captured by a real-time monitoring system, known in Brazil as Deter, showed that deforestation was once again on the rise after three years on the wane.
“Monowai Energy” is the newly established joint company of Russia and New Zealand, which is aimed at adapting renewable energy sources (wind, sun and water) to humanity’s needs.
Company’s founders believe that renewable energy can stop global warming and energy crisis. Experts of “Monowai Energy” estimate economic potential of wind power engineering in Russia to be about 260 billion kWh per year, which is 30% of energy, produced by all existing Russian power stations.
Louisiana Refiners to Take Days to Resume Full Supply
(Bloomberg) — Louisiana refineries that shut down before Hurricane Gustav may take up to 10 days to resume operations because of a lack of power, stunting fuel production at a time when regional gasoline inventories are at a 10-month low.
Marathon Oil Corp., Valero Energy Corp. and other refiners that shut plants as Gustav swept through the Gulf of Mexico won’t know the extent of any damage until today at best. Exxon Mobil Corp. shut its Baton Rouge plant, the second-largest U.S. refinery, after winds snapped power lines.
Gulf Oil Industry Seems Unscathed
Natural gas prices fell nearly 6 percent, to $7.48 per million British thermal units. AAA reported that the average national price for unleaded gasoline of $3.69 held steady on Monday despite the storm threat, holiday weekend driving and the giant evacuation in the Gulf Coast.
“It’s very striking to see that the market made up its mind about the extent of damage before anyone else,” said Daniel Yergin, an energy historian and chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm. Despite the outbreak of hostilities in Georgia and an active hurricane season, he added, “the focus is on the weak economy, weak demand and the impact of the stronger dollar.”
Saudi Arabia seen upping heavy crude, cutting light grades
SAUDI ARABIA. Lifters of Saudi crude expect the world’s top oil exporter to raise prices of its heavy crude on the back of strong fuel oil prices, and to trim the price of its lighter grades as Asian refiners cut runs.
But lifters polled agreed on the direction, not the size of the moves. Refiners said this was a tough month to predict, as product prices have started diverging with the fuel oil crack rising strongly while the gas oil crack has plunged.
Saudi Aramco cuts LPG prices for September as crude oil falls
SINGAPORE (Bloomberg) — Saudi Aramco, the largest supplier of liquefied petroleum gas to Asia, cut prices of cargoes loading in September from August after global crude oil benchmarks fell.
Sri Lanka: Gas prices to decline in November
Gas prices are expected to be slashed in the world market in both August and September and this relief will be provided to consumers in November when the gas price formula is formulated, Trade, Marketing Development, Co-operatives and Consumer Affairs Minister Bandula Gunawardhana said.
Iraqi cabinet approves $3 bln oil deal with China
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s cabinet has approved a $3 billion oil service contract with China, the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Tuesday, in a move that could signal the shape of anticipated future oil deals.
Clare Short: A foreign policy that makes little sense at all
The conflict between Russia and Georgia may seem far from Birmingham’s concerns., but as the price of petrol and gas is straining most people’s budgets, we should stop and think of what it means to pick a fight with Russia.
Technological Fundamentalism In Media And Culture
While media watchdogs and bloggers probe contemporary news media for signs of bias — from every angle, on virtually every issue — perhaps the most important of journalists’ biases is ignored: their routine acceptance of society’s technological fundamentalism. This devotion to the industrial world’s core delusion shows up not just in stories about science and technology but in the assumptions about science and technology that underlie virtually all reporting in the corporate commercial news media in the United States.
Hurricanes, floods show risks of climate change: UN
OSLO (Reuters) – Atlantic hurricanes and floods in India are reminders of the risks of ever more extreme weather linked to a changing climate, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said on Monday.
Achim Steiner said that more damaging weather extremes were in line with forecasts by the U.N. Climate Panel. He urged governments to stick to a timetable meant to end in December 2009 with a new U.N. pact to fight global warming.
“These natural disasters do reflect a pattern of change that is in line with projections” by experts on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), he told Reuters in a telephone interview from Geneva.
On first scan, little oil damage seen from Gustav
HOUSTON (Reuters) – Several major U.S. refiners said early checks on Monday showed their facilities were unharmed by Hurricane Gustav, but at least two others were said to be considering dipping into the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep operations going after the storm shut down key waterways.
Gustav weakened to Category 2 before roaring ashore near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, on Monday, potentially sparing the kind of damage that the region’s platforms, rigs and refineries suffered at the hands of more powerful Katrina three years ago.
Offshore operators said remote sensors indicated that major platforms remained where they were moored before the storm, although Shell, the region’s largest producer, said it may take three to five days to restore production.
Oil falls as global demand concerns resurface
Oil prices tumbled nearly $7 on Tuesday from last week’s close ahead of the U.S. Labor Day weekend as investors shifted their focus to slowing global demand after fears subsided about Hurricane Gustav’s impact on Gulf Coast oil rigs and refineries.
Iran wants excess supply on OPEC agenda
TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran on Tuesday called for the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries to discuss quota-busting by some members at its meeting in Vienna on September 9.
“The oil supply should be proportionate to demand, and control of excess supply is an issue which should be addressed at the upcoming OPEC meeting,” Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari told the official IRNA news agency.
Shell says some progress fixing Nigeria oil pipeline
LONDON (Reuters) – Repairs to a damaged oil pipeline in Nigeria have made some progress but production is still lower than normal, Royal Dutch Shell said on Tuesday.
Shell’s Nembe Creek trunkline, located at Kula in Rivers State in the Niger Delta, was sabotaged in late July.
Russian Oil Output Fell in August, Continuing Decline
(Bloomberg) — Russia’s oil production declined in August as companies struggled with costs and maturing fields, bringing the world’s second-largest crude exporter closer to its first annual drop in output since 1998.
…“We probably won’t get more oil produced this year than last year,” Artyom Konchin, an oil and gas analyst at UniCredit SpA, said by phone in Moscow. “By the end of the year, however, we should see a gain in the daily output rate because of new projects.”
Putin reminds EU of Russia’s Pacific oil pipeline
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Russia’s first oil pipeline to Asia must be completed without delay, underlining Russia’s energy clout just hours before European Union leaders meet to discuss Georgia.
Gas prices fuel interest in alternatives
This could be a critical moment, not only to observe whether the trend toward shorter and fewer car trips continues, but also to watch whether Americans demand better transit options from their government and whether investors continue to show interest in alternative fuels.
Oil drop to help U.S. transport only in short-term
CHICAGO (Reuters) – A recent dip in oil prices should boost U.S. transport companies’ earnings for the current quarter, but oil is still too pricey to offer the sector any long-term relief from the many economic headaches it faces.
Transport firms will get a short-term lift as the fuel surcharges they implemented to cope with higher oil prices finally begin to bite, while at the same time actual fuel prices fall.
But a wobbly U.S. economy and the pounding U.S. consumers have taken from tighter credit and rising inflation mean transport companies — trucking companies above all — are likely to see little more than a short-term earnings bounce.
Bartiromo Talks with Sarah Palin
Some people might say: “Look, even though opening up ANWR has been a symbolic issue for Republicans, the oil there may only have a marginal effect on reducing overseas dependence. Why is ANWR so important and how do we know that there’s actually enough oil there to really make a difference?
Because just that swath of land in that refuge alone is estimated to hold about 11 billion barrels of oil and 9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. And those are just the areas that have been explored. That’s about a year and a half worth of U.S. oil consumption and many months of natural gas. It’s about a trillion dollars worth of energy. And that’s—again—just that sliver of ANWR. So when we hear, “Well, maybe there isn’t enough,” or “Well, it’s too late to drill now anyway, we should have done this five, 10 years ago,” hey, I can’t argue that. I say yeah, we should have done that years ago. But better to start that drilling today than wait and continue relying on foreign sources of energy. We are a nation at war and in many [ways] the reasons for war are fights over energy sources, which is nonsensical when you consider that domestically we have the supplies ready to go.
Alternative energy source found in Southwest Utah
A company is claiming it has found the nation’s biggest geo-thermal find in 25 years in southwest Utah.
This weekend they’re already finishing up a power plant to provide electricity for Mickey Mouse’s home town.
“We call them ‘heat farms’ because we’re just extracting heat out of the earth,” says Michael Hayter of Raser Technologies.
Glaciers need closer watch in poor countries: UNEP
GENEVA (Reuters) – Scientists are not paying enough attention to glacial melting in the Andes, the Himalayas and peaks in other developing countries, a United Nations-backed report found on Monday.
Experts from the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) said while there has been excellent monitoring of glacial trends in Europe and North America, ice fields in Central Asia and the tropics have been largely overlooked.
Adaptation: The Ultimate Challenge
Mankind has met adaptation challenges before. What makes climate change different?
Adapting to climate change is not something new; we have been doing it as society for thousands of years. People and species have always adapted to changing climates. What is different is the speed and the scale of the changes we are facing.
In the last 300 or 400 years, we have built our society and economies on an assumed stable environment. If you look at houses built near a river, you see that they are all built in what people considered to be a fairly safe place, a few meters above the water, the highest tide, etc. But that is now changing, and so the baseline for our society changes.
Climate ‘hockey stick’ is revived
A new study by climate scientists behind the controversial 1998 “hockey stick” graph suggests their earlier analysis was broadly correct.
Michael Mann’s team analysed data for the last 2,000 years, and concluded that Northern Hemisphere temperatures now are “anomalously warm”.
Different analytical methods give the same result, they report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
