Yukos faces huge tax bill

A judge has dismissed an attempt by Russian oil giant Yukos to gain bankruptcy protection in the US.
Yukos filed for Chapter 11 protection in Houston in an unsuccessful attempt to halt the auction of its Yugansk division by the Russian authorities.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former Yukos chief, is in prison in Russia, charged with fraud and tax evasion.

But Texas Judge Letitia Clark said Yukos did not have enough of a US presence to establish US jurisdiction.

“The vast majority of the business and financial activities of Yukos continue to occur in Russia,” she said in her ruling.

“Such activities require the continued participation of the Russian government.”

There was no immediate response to the ruling from Yukos

BBC News

Oil holds strong above $51 a barrel

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Oil held strong above $51 a barrel on Friday as OPEC appeared increasingly at ease with higher prices, although the United States, the world’s biggest consumer, expressed dismay at rising costs.

The Bush administration has repeatedly ruled out using its nearly 700-million-barrel strategic oil reserve to influence markets, saying it is only in case of severe supply disruptions.

Reuters

BP’s Browne Says Governments Must Help Achieve Energy Security

Governments of consuming countries, not just international oil companies, have a role to play in achieving energy security, BP PLC (BP) Chief Executive John Browne said Wednesday. Browne told an audience at the Institute for International Economics that since so many producing countries are in transition, successfully completing that transition is vital to realizing the […]

Honey, I shrunk the dollar

…global markets are realizing that we have two major vulnerabilities that this administration doesn’t want to address: We are importing too much oil, so the dollar’s strength is being sapped as oil prices continue to rise, and we are importing too much capital, because we are saving too little and spending too much, as both a society and a government.

“When people ask what we are doing about these twin vulnerabilities, they have a hard time coming up with an answer,” noted Robert Hormats, the vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International. “There is no energy policy and no real effort to reduce our voracious demand of foreign capital. The U.S. pulled in 80 percent of total world savings last year largely to finance our consumption.” That’s a big reason why some “43 percent of all U.S. Treasury bills, notes and bonds are now held by foreigners,” Hormats said.

eTaiwan News

Canadian Government Wins Kudos for New ‘Climate Change’ Budget

The Canadian government is winning praise for new federal budget commitments to energy-efficient building and renewable energy projects. Legislators hope the financial investment will help lower domestic greenhouse gas emissions, enabling Canada to meet its Kyoto Treaty requirements. “There has been a lot of talk up until now about meeting our Kyoto obligations but this […]

US deficits risk crash: Treasury

PETER Costello’s closest adviser fears the US is heading for a devastating financial crash that could ravage Australia’s economic growth. Fears that the world economy is in grave danger are growing in the major financial capitals. The International Monetary Fund, which is responsible for stability of the world economy, also warned yesterday of a sudden […]

Oil Firms Insist They Are Winning Reserves Battle

Major oil firms insist they are more than replacing energy reserves they extract with new resources even though U.S. regulatory accounting indicates they are failing to do so. In the last three weeks, BP, Exxon Mobil and Total have all said they more than replaced the volume of hydrocarbons they drew out of the ground […]

Solar Tower of Power Finds Home

Planners pick a site for one of the most ambitious alternative energy projects on the planet. The Solar Tower — a giant thermal chimney twice the height of the world’s tallest building — will rise on an Australian sheep farm. By Stephen Leahy.

British Gas seeks customer growth

British Gas-owner Centrica has said it will focus this year on winning back customers it lost in 2004.
British Gas – which also provides electricity – revealed in December that it had lost about one million users over the year after it put up prices.

Centrica said it had no plans to raise household bills further, but added that wholesale costs remained volatile.

The comments came as the company reported a 16% rise in operating profits to £1.2bn ($2.3bn).

Fed warns of yet more rate rises

US interest rates look set to keep rising after the Federal Reserve said the current 2.5% level may be too low to keep inflation in check.
The comments came in Wednesday’s release of the minutes from the last Fed rates meeting on 1 and 2 February.

Although at that meeting the Fed voted to raise rates by 0.25% to 2.5%, it said they may have to continue to rise, at least over the medium term.

Ukraine determined to contribute to Iran`s oil, gas projects

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said on Thursday Kiev is determined to contribute to Iran`s energy, oil and gas projects. He made the remarks in a meeting with Iran`s Foreign Ministry envoy on the Caspian Sea Mehdi Safari. IRNA

Indonesian 2005 Coal Exports May Rise 14%, Overtaking Australia

Indonesia may surpass Australia as the biggest thermal coal exporter this year with a 14 percent gain on demand from buyers in India and southern China, industry and company officials said. The southeast Asian country’s thermal coal exports may rise by as much as 16 million metric tons, Philip Gasteen, marketing and logistics senior vice […]

Statoil to drill first exploration wells in 2006 – Brazil

Norway’s state oil company Statoil expects to drill its first exploration wells in Brazil in 2006 as it continues to invest to make the country an important part of its international portfolio, the company’s country manager Jorge Camargo told BNamericas. “Statoil hopes to turn Brazil into one of its core regions because it has the […]

Three trade accords signed with Iran

Officials of Pakistan and Iran signed here on Wednesday three agreements and a memorandum of understanding to promote trade and commerce , in the presence of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Iranian First Vice-president Dr Reza Aref. The signing ceremony was held at the Republic Building of the Saadabad Palace upon the conclusion of extensive […]

Australia, US told to act now on climate

In a speech tonight, the man who discovered the cause of the ozone hole will warn that Australia and the US need to act quickly to cut global warming pollution. Nobel prizewinner F. Sherwood Rowland said he was worried about the planet’s fate, and countries such as Australia and the United States – which have […]

Now Hydropower May Contribute To Greenhouse Gases

A New Scientist article (subscription required) says that hydroelectric power may contribute to greenhouse gases. Hydroelectric dams produce significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, and in some cases produce more of these greenhouse gases than power plants running on fossil fuels. Carbon emissions vary from dam to dam, says Philip Fearnside from Brazil’s National […]

Personal debt on highest level ever

The average Briton owed £4,000 in unsecured debt at the end of 2004, 10% more than in 2003, a report suggests. Market analyst Datamonitor said the 2004 figure is 45% higher than at the start of 2000. In 2004, the average adult owed £1,302 on credit cards, £1,892 on unsecured personal loans and £812 on […]

Mexico could become net oil importer in 10 years: Pemex chief

Mexico, which currently exports some 1.9-mil b/d of crude oil, could become a net importer within 10 years unless some way is found of stemming a looming financial crisis at Pemex, the state company’s director-general, Luis Ramirez Corzo, said Monday. Ramirez was speaking at the official opening by President Vicente Fox of Exitep 2005, the […]

Michael Duffy interviews Kenneth Deffeyes and Peter Odell

The situation in North America is tight now on the supply of natural gas, and the NAFTA agreement requires us to honour our historic patterns. So Canada is obligated to export gas to the United States. The United States, oddly, is compelled to export gas to Mexico, even though Mexico is a very oil-rich country; they’ve not much focused on natural gas. And in the case of North America, we can’t bring on imports by refrigerated tankers as fast as we would like, so we’re facing a squeeze already in North America. Now, worldwide, I agree, the gas situation is more optimistic, and…I’m not sure it’s quite as optimistic as Peter is saying, but it’s more optimistic, and one of the interesting things is that gas fields in western Siberia are almost as large a fraction of the world’s gas as the Middle East is of the world’s oil. So it’s a tremendous resource and Europe is benefiting from the fact that the Russians are exporting natural gas to supply a lot of Europe.

EnergyBulletin

PO session in Boston

Representative Ellen Story of Amherst is hosting an informational session on Peak Oil and its consequences in Conference Room A-1, at the State House in Boston, on Tuesday, February 28, 10:30am to noon. The purpose of the session is to inform Massachusetts’ legislators, staff, and the public about the implications of the imminent decline in global petroleum production. The session is titled “Cheap Oil; Gone Forever”

EnergyBulletin

Crude Oil Jumps to 4-Month High; Cold Snap Drains Fuel Supplies

Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil rose to a four-month high, approaching $52 a barrel in New York, as a Siberian cold front gripped Western Europe and forecasts called for freezing temperatures in the Northeastern U.S.

Oil looms large on Bush-Putin summit agenda

Although Russia is a comparatively minor feeder of the US’ giant hunger for petroleum, concern over Russia’s oil industry is one of the main items on the agenda for this week’s summit between presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush. Turmoil over the breakup of Russia’s largest oil company Yukos has raised worries that the […]

Energy sector seeks reserves revamp

One of the biggest problems with the system, crafted by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1978, may be that it is grossly underestimating reserves, indicated the report, funded by several major oil and gas exploration companies. The SEC’s system “is out of synch with the way markets operate today,” said David Hobbs, a director […]

End Of Suburbia Makes It Onto Canadian TV

The End Of Suburbia documentary film makes it onto Canada’s Vision TV.

VisonTV.ca

NNPC, DPR And Shell Reserves

Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCO) a Production Sharing Contractor (PSC) and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) almost at the same time announced that development costs for the Bonga Deep oil field has risen by 30 percent to $3.5 billion. The field is estimated to hold 1.0 billion barrel of oil and was initially planned to cost $2.7 billion. It was to come on stream in the last quarter of 2003 but is now expected to start production mid 2005 – almost two years behind schedule with a massive cost overrun of almost $1.0 billion.

AllAfrica.com

The Dragon Chases Oil

Since 1980, China’s economy has grown faster for longer than any country in history, doubling every six to seven years. In the 1980s and ’90s, that exponential growth went largely unnoticed because it applied to a tiny economic base. But as that base expanded, each doubling added ever-increasing amounts of capacity and strength.

By 2000, China needed only one more doubling to burst upon the global economic stage as a leading actor. Recognizing that dynamic, the world’s manufacturing firms quickly moved into China to take advantage of its rapidly growing domestic market and its vast quantities of low-paid, highly educated and well-disciplined labor force.

In 2004, the curtain went up on China’s performance. And what a performance it was.

AlterNet.org

Boiling Frogs

The Boiling Frog Syndrome goes something like this: “If you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, he will jump out. But if you place a frog into a pot of cold water and and turn the heat on low, it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the […]

Study Blames 20,000 Deaths A Year On Diesel Exhaust

Diesel pollution is blamed for contributing to asthma, respiratory diseases and heart attacks. The study estimates the risk of health complications from diesel exhaust for people living in cities is three times higher than the risk for those in rural areas.

Local 6

Oil Steadies, OPEC Tries to Reassure

“Oil has surged into a new paradigm above $50 (for NYMEX crude) where it spent much of last October. Given the newfound interest within the managed fund community, we look for a $50-$55 range now,” wrote brokerage Refco in a report.

”Hindenburg Hatchback”

Ok, so now you’ve got your hydrogen. It took some doing, and more than a little oil, but you filled the hydrogen tank in your car with the gas that made Lakehurst famous. Now the energy in that hydrogen has to be converted yet again, this time into electricity to spin the motors that drive […]

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