Soy displaces cattle as main farm activity in Argentina

Soy beans has become the main commodity of Argentina’s rich farmland displacing other traditional industries such as cattle breeding and dairy farming, according to studies and statistics from the country’s main breeders organization the Rural Society. This cultivation season Argentina planted 16.9 million hectares with soy, 650.000 more than the previous year, making the oil […]

NZ: Food and fuel take toll on pocket

Poor Christmas sales rounded off a weak second half of 2007 for retailers as their customers faced higher interest bills and higher prices for necessities such as fuel and food. Among the big three types of retail outlet, supermarket sales were flat, car yards took a 2.4 per cent drop in sales and only filling […]

Indian motorists face dearer fuel

India has raised the prices of petrol and diesel for the first time in 20 months to help petrol dealers with sky-high oil prices. The cost of petrol will increase by 2 rupees ($0.05), or 4.6% per litre, and diesel will rise by 1 rupee or 3.3%.India spends billions of dollars subsidising fuel and the […]

Petrol Price Shakeup Panics Turkmen Drivers

Sharp increase in petrol prices accompanied by a rationed allowance alarms drivers used to paying a pittance for fuel. Drivers in Turkmenistan are concerned about a radical shakeup of petrol prices, in a country where car fuel has cost next to nothing until now.On February 9, ministers approved a twin-track reform, ending the old system […]

Iran Opens First Oil Products, Petrochemicals Bourse

TEHRAN (AFP)–Iran, OPEC’s number two crude oil producer, Sunday inaugurated its first exchange for oil products and petrochemicals, in a bid to become a major player in the global downstream industry. Iran hopes that its oil goods exchange can lead the way for a domestic downstream industry to match its upstream crude oil production, the […]

Fire shuts down Tesoro refinery production

All fuel production at the Tesoro Hawaii refinery in Campbell Industrial Park was halted late Saturday night after a fire broke out in a processing unit, a company spokesman said. It was not immediately known how long the plant would be idled or what effect, if any, the shutdown would have on the fuel supply, […]

Japan Faces Indonesian Gas Cuts

In 2006, Japan purchased 62.2 million tons of LNG from abroad, up 7.2 percent, or 4.2 million tons, from 2005, to supply 96.4 percent of its LNG needs. Indonesia was the largest supplier to Japan in 2006, exporting 13.99 million tons, followed by Australia, Malaysia, Qatar, Brunei and the United Arab Emirates, which shipped 12.16 […]

Coal: The hottest global commodity

Every once in a while, a fact or an anecdote or a statistic hits you right between the eyes. Sometimes a megatrend is simply too big to see all at once; it’s so all-encompassing that your brain can’t quite take it in. But then suddenly, when the right puzzle piece falls into place, reality blows […]

As Mexico’s oil reserves drop, Calderon thinks the unthinkable

The political showdown over the future of Pemex, the Mexican government’s crucial oil monopoly, appears to loom at last. At stake, people on both sides of the clash say, is the viability of Mexico’s petroleum industry, which ranks as the third-largest source of imported U.S. oil and supplies nearly 40 percent of the Mexican government’s […]

Petrobras courting Mexico’s Pemex in US oil fields

Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras is trying to interest its Mexican counterpart Pemex in joining one of its offshore exploration projects in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, a Petrobras executive said on Thursday. State-controlled Pemex is banned by law from forming joint ventures in oil exploration and production within Mexico, but it is allowed to […]

Central Asia

After a freezing winter marked by severe energy shortages, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan fear spring could bring food shortages as well. The governments of Central Asia While the local populations were struggling to absorb this hammer blow, the two states faced a new shock when their neighbours sharply raised the price of natural gas. (See Uzbek […]

CERA: Action needed to avoid oil crisis, Hess chief says

HOUSTON, Feb. 15 — Oil companies, oil-producing countries, and consumers need to act now to avoid the oil crisis that is coming within the next 10 years, said John B. Hess, chairman and chief executive of Hess Corp. “It is not only a matter of demand. It is not only a matter of supply “Given […]

Global warming could invite sharks to Antarctica: biologists

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AFP) – Global warming could bring ferocious sharks to Antarctic waters, threatening a unique marine life shielded from predators by frigid conditions for millions of years, biologists warn. Biologists gathered here for the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science warned that the return of predators to Antarctica could […]

Soaring propane bills spur furor

January heating bills that topped $500 for some Payson homeowners have spurred a political furor, with homeowner protests and a flashpoint debate in the mayor’s race. The big January propane bills issued by SemStream reflect both a global energy shortage and the fine print in the Arizona Corporation Commission’s approval of the company’s purchase of […]

China: rich `culprits’ on climate change

UNITED NATIONS – Negotiations on a new treaty to fight global warming will fail if rich nations are not treated as “culprits” and developing countries as “victims,” China’s top climate envoy said. The whole world must take action to confront climate change, but developed countries have a “historical responsibility” to do much more because their […]

Energy independence in US: don

WASHINGTON (RTRS): US President George W. Bush shocked world energy producers in 2006 when he pledged to slash America As oil prices rose ever higher, Bush sought to distance himself from the industry, insisting that oil companies did not need tax breaks from Uncle Sam with crude oil prices soaring. But he has been unable […]

Venezuela requests help from U.S. senator

Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.S. has asked Sen. Richard Lugar to press Exxon Mobil Corp. to drop legal measures that have frozen $12 billion in assets worldwide. “Through tactics that can only be compared with the very discredited strategy of pre-emptive war, Exxon Mobil has clearly violated the terms of the arbitration process,” Bernardo Alvarez, […]

China’s not alone in failing Darfur

It has been a troubling year for China’s policymakers as they face the diplomatic fall-out from the country’s fast-expanding interests in Africa. Chinese oil workers have been taken hostage in Ethiopia and Nigeria, and opposition groups are now targeting Chinese firms in Sudan. Steven Spielberg’s broadside against China’s Sudan policy was just the latest reaction […]

Wheat prices rise, shattering records as fear of shortage looms

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Spring wheat prices have been on the rise all winter — smashing previous records. At the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, trading rose to $19.80 a bushel yesterday — nearly triple the record from 1996. Trading closed at $19.35 a bushel. Grain experts say the wild increases are due to a fear that grain […]

Chavez Says Venezuela Can Sell Oil Anywhere, Not Just to U.S.

(Bloomberg) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has threatened to cut off oil sales to the U.S., said reports that making such a decision would hurt his country’s economy are false, and that Venezuelan oil can be sold anywhere. Chavez denounced an editorial published this week in the Washington Post, which said the president’s government […]

Agency urges US to use pricing to fight energy woes

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The International Energy Agency on Friday called on the United States to do more to curb energy use and fight global warming, saying pricing was the best way to curb demand. The world’s biggest economy and energy consumer has made progress toward a more sustainable energy system but is lagging behind other […]

It’s time for oil price controls

History repeats again! Oil companies have released staggering earnings. When crude oil costs rise, it drags fertilizer, feed costs, food, and meat prices with it. Plastics, homes, cars, and heating prices rise. Amidst all this, oil companies prosper suspiciously. How is it that the cost of a raw material (crude oil) rises, people use less […]

Although pinched by costs, fans flock to Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH – George and Jeanne Kamansky, of Amherst, Mass., didn’t buy a chrome-plated Dale Earnhardt Jr. dog bowl just to leave little Timber behind in a kennel when they go off to the races a half-dozen times a year. They can compensate for a $3 gallon of gas “The price of gas won’t keep […]

Phil Flynn: The Steroid Problem

…I mean look at what this market has done over the last month and a half. After soaring to over $100 a barrel, this market broke to near 85, then after a little recovery slammed back down to 86 in a wave of economic pessimism. Then low and behold in just a few short trading […]

Australia: Meet the man to fix petrol price problems

AUSTRALIA’S first Petrol Commissioner was appointed yesterday to force oil companies into reining in their controversial pricing behaviour. Patrick Walker, Western Australia’s Commissioner for Consumer Protection for the past decade, will become a full-time Australian Consumer and Competition Commissioner, focusing solely on petrol. Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs Chris Bowen told The Sun-Herald […]

Cereal Stockpiles Continue to Fall

Cereal stockpiles are expected to hit their lowest level in over two decades, contributing to keeping their prices high, a U.N. food agency said. The low stocks combined with continuously strong demand — also driven by the growing biofuels industry — to keep prices elevated, the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a report on […]

Russia’s Rosneft sees oil output up 50 pct by 2020

Russian state oil champion Rosneft will increase output by a half by 2020 due to new assets and fields, its head said on Friday as the firm aims to become the world’s top listed oil producer. Russian news agencies quoted Sergei Bogdanchikov as saying Rosneft will produce 130 million tonnes of crude (2.6 million barrels […]

Time is up for coal: environmental analyst

The United States should leave its estimated 200 years’ supply of coal in the ground and invest in wind farms and solar technology for its power-generating needs, a leading environmental analyst said on Thursday. Wall Street, politicians and public opinion have all turned so dramatically against coal in the last year over climate concerns that […]

AEP CEO sees crisis without more coal plants

The United States faces an electricity crisis if it eschews coal-fired power plants on its way to a low-carbon economy, said the chief executive of American Electric Power, one of the nation’s biggest utilities. Michael Morris of AEP said that he fears the United States will rely on natural gas plants too heavily if it […]

Vietnam to slash coal exports by a third in 2008

Vietnam, a key coal supplier to Japan and China, will slash coal exports this year by more than 32 percent to about 22 million tonnes to save more for new power plants at home, a government official said on Friday. Vietnam’s plan to cut exports comes at a time of tight coal supplies in most […]

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