Russian Crude Oil Output and Exports Rise in June as Prices Reach a Record

Russia, the world’s second-biggest energy supplier, raised average daily oil production to a record in June and increased crude exports by 6.2 percent, compared with the same month of 2005. Russia, the world’s biggest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia, increased production last month to 9.69 million barrels a day of oil and gas condensate, equal […]

US House Passes Ocean Drilling Bill

Last week the US House of Representatives passed H.R. 4761 greencarcongress

Interesting Economics

Previously on The Oil Drum, Stuart Staniford demonstrated how the system of interest on savings discourages long term thinking. But is this some intrinsic property of human nature? Or is it something we can change? The alternative economics community has been studying questions like this for a long time, and much research has gone into […]

Energy Prices, Inflation, and Personal Savings

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery. — Charles Dickens. As readers may have noticed, I’ve held the view that the post-peak era is likely to be more inflation-prone than the pre-peak era. The reason for this is the […]

Why We Must Flee the Planet: The Geometry of Earth is All Wrong

Stephen Hawking is best known for thinking about time, space, and those teratoid trash mashers known as black holes. But in a recent talk in Hong Kong, the famous physicist digressed from his usual subject matter to tell the audience that they’d better get off the island, and he didn’t mean Kowloon. Instead, the Cambridge […]

Chinese Oil Demand is Surging

A spate of stories in the last few weeks told the remarkable tale. China’s business newspaper The Standard notes Oil demand growth accelerates to 13.5%. Apparent oil demand leapt 13.5 percent last month from the year-ago level to 6.5 million barrels per day, according to calculations based on official data. That was the fastest rate […]

Indonesia LNG Export Shortfall Seen Deeper in 07

Reuters – IndonesiaIran Oil Gas Network

Methane Production Past Its Peak

Durango Herald Online – Gas production in La Plata County is falling for the first time since the beginning of the coalbed methane boom – a little-noticed fact that will carry long-term consequences for local residents and even the nation. The evidence – hidden in mountains of government data – is unmistakable: Since July 2003, […]

Mexico’s oil model is under pressure

TULA, Mexico That’s an ominous forecast for Mexico’s economy and for the United States, which relies on Mexico for 8 percent of its oil. Analysts such as Mr. Marcos say Mexico is not running out of oil. Instead, Pemex lacks enough money to explore for new fields to replace depleting old ones. Dallas Morning News

Our Slow-Motion Energy Crisis

O K, you’re concerned about skyrocketing energy prices and you favor all those things we all say we favor when the latest price spikes kick off another round of concern. You favor renewables such as wind and solar. You favor hybrid, hydrogen and electric cars, and more full-efficient gas vehicles. Heck, you even favor higher […]

U.S. needs substantial energy solutions

Back in the 1950s and 60s, a large clock in New York’s Times Square kept tabs on the potential nuclear confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. Named the Doomsday Clock, it attempted to focus the minute hand on the nearness of a nuclear holocaust as both of the world’s nuclear-armed superpowers stumbled […]

Cyclists pedal bravely in nation ruled by cars

Life without a motor vehicle is challenging, but some still try HAYWARD, CA He wants to get rid of his Ford Focus right now and not replace it. “I think there’s a good chance I will do it,” Murtaugh said, pondering if and when he might be ready. “I get more determined. A lot of […]

Northeast floods stir global warming debate

BOSTON (Reuters) – Images of swamped homes in the U.S. Northeast deepened suspicions over global warming, giving ammunition to scientists and others who say greenhouse gas-spewing cars and factories are fueling extreme weather. Meteorologists cautioned that no one should read too much into one storm. But the Atlantic Ocean is unusually warm for this time […]

Ford Abandons Pledge On Hybrid Production

Ford Motor Co. has dropped a pledge to build 250,000 gas-electric hybrid cars per year by the end of the decade, saying it will expand into other fuel-saving technologies. Environmentalists accused the automaker of backpedaling, but industry analysts said the move underscored the difficulty the industry is having in selling the technology to mainstream car […]

Kuwaiti experts predict steady rise in oil prices

Several economics experts yesterday said they expected oil prices to continue to rise through the second half of this year and to remain above the $50 mark per barrel due to increased worldwide demand for oil and due to the fact that not enough oil was on offer. Most of the experts interviewed blamed the […]

If only gay sex caused global warming

No one seems to care about the upcoming attack on the World Trade Center site. Why? Because it won’t involve villains with box cutters. Instead, it will involve melting ice sheets that swell the oceans and turn that particular block of lower Manhattan into an aquarium. The odds of this happening in the next few […]

Cautionary tales amid the latest coal revival

Two views about bituminous and anthracite energy sources explore the deep costs to humans and the environment. The United States may be, as energy lobbyists and Mountain State governors like to say, “the Saudi Arabia of coal.” But who wants to live in a desert? Jeff Goodell sketches the economic and social costs of coal […]

Soaring oil prices propel biofuels into global mainstream

Record high oil prices have propelled biofuels from niche player to the multi-billions dollar commodity mainstream, causing an explosion in new ventures and investor interest that has fired up global agricultural markets. From the sugar plantations of Brazil to the rapeseed fields of France, and the US corn belt to Malaysia’s palm forests, a search […]

Chavez urges Africa to unite against US

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on Africa on Saturday to forge closer ties with Latin America to combat what he called a threat of U.S. hegemony. Chavez, whose repeated criticism of America has raised hackles in Washington, called on an African Union summit to cooperate with Latin America in everything from oil production to university […]

The False Hope of Biofuels

Biofuels such as ethanol made from corn, sugar cane, switchgrass and other crops are being touted as a “green” solution for a large part of America’s transportation problem. Auto manufacturers, Midwest corn farmers and politicians are excited about ethanol. Initially, we, too, were excited about biofuels: no net carbon dioxide emissions, reduction of oil imports. […]

Canada: Oil pipelines could face capacity constraints by 2008

Canadian oil pipelines could face capacity constraints by 2008 because of a surge in heavy crude oil from the Alberta oilsands, the National Energy Board says. Growing demand for natural gas in North America is also expected to exceed domestic supplies and pose potential new challenges for gas pipelines, according to an annual survey released […]

Morales to meet Lula on natgas price

Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Saturday he planned to meet his Brazilian counterpart next week to discuss Bolivia’s drive to raise the price of the natural gas it sells Brazil. Bolivia told its two customers — Brazil and Argentina — early this year it wanted more money for the roughly 32 million cubic meters […]

Middle East Gas plays a vital role in European energy security

As Europe’s gas imports are expected to double in the next 20 years to 500 billion cubic metres a year construction of new pipelines will be essential to ensure access to new gas producing regions such as the Caspian Sea as well as the Middle East in the longer term.Europe’s consumption of liquefied natural gas […]

Russia to Expand Atomic Energy Home and Abroad

Russia is planning to expand the share of atomic energy in its total energy consumption from the current 16 percent to up to 24 percent in the coming decade, Minister for Energy and Industry Viktor Khristenko quoted by AP has revealed. “In the next 13 years within the overall growth of energy consumption in Russia […]

Petro-hysteria grips a superpower

High oil prices, political instability in oil-producing states, the rise of energy-hungry China, jihadist terrorism and the return of “resource nationalism” are factors constantly cited in Washington these days as evidence that national security is being undermined by unrestrained consumption of oil. Petroleum, once seen as the energy source that fueled the “American century”, has […]

Sparking revolution in European energy policy

ENERGY stands at the top of the policy agenda in Europe. The European Commission considers the liberalisation of electricity and gas markets to be a key part of what it calls the Lisbon agenda, its laudable if unlikely goal of making the European Union thebusinessonline

Accretion to gas reserves

The reported trebling of estimated gas reserves to 35.5 trillion cubic feet (tcf) in Reliance Industries financialexpress

Playing Oil Politics in the Caspian Sea

The Caspian Sea sits atop one of the world turkishweekly

The road to independence

As economics guru Alan Greenspan recently told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “Even before the devastating hurricanes of last summer, world oil markets had been subject to a degree of strain not experienced for a generation. Today … the buffer between supply and demand is much too small to absorb shutdowns of even a small […]

Oil drives up asphalt tab

Asphalt gathers at the bottom of the barrel at any oil refinery. It’s what’s left over after the gasoline, distillates and fine lubricants are taken away. It’s black and gooey and smelly and an increasingly costly ingredient when your tax dollars are put to work on highways. So with oil prices hovering around $70 a […]

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