Oil surges to new record above $102 as dollar weakens

NEW YORK – Crude prices rebounded Thursday, shooting up more than $2 a barrel to another new record as a falling dollar and the prospect of lower interest rates attracted fresh money to the oil market. Retail gas prices, meanwhile, rose closer to records above $3 a gallon. A pair of dismal economic reports Thursday […]

High gold prices and inflation prompt Thais to sell heirlooms

BANGKOK: The sluggish Thai economy and record gold prices have prompted many elderly Thais to cash in family heirlooms as they struggle to make ends meet. “This is family jewelry,” said Pannee Sae Kaow, a 78-year-old Thai-Chinese woman standing outside a gold shop in Chinatown in Bangkok and clutching a tarnished gold necklace given to […]

Analysis: Cuban oil production down

Oil production in Cuba has fallen steadily over the last half decade from a production high of nearly 65,000 barrels per day in 2003, according to energy experts on the subject. Over the past five years, production in Cuba has dropped to about 51,300 bpd, said Jorge Pinon, a researcher at the Institute for Cuban […]

Public transport to go electric in gas-rich Qatar

The gas-rich Gulf state of Qatar on Thursday launched a public transport project that will use electric buses and taxis in a bid to cut air pollution. The battery-powered vehicles are being built by a China-based developer for Mowasalat, Qatar’s public transport operator, and will enter service soon, the organisation’s business development manager Ahmad al-Ansari […]

Campaign 2008: The Things They Won’t Discuss

While Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination debate and compete over whose healthcare reform plan is best, and over whether or not it’s okay to talk with “America’s enemies,” and while Democrats and Republicans lob attacks over whose foreign policy is more muscular, there is a lengthening list of global catastrophes all of which are […]

UK: Major fire at large gas terminal

LONDON (Reuters) – Firefighters said on Thursday they were tackling a major fire at the Bacton gas terminal, but that the blaze appeared to be confined to the terminal itself. “We have a very large scale incident ongoing at the moment at the Bacton Gas Shell UK Ltd site … on the Norfolk coast,” a […]

New Research Suggests Biofuel Blending is Often Inaccurate

While sampling blended biodiesel fuels purchased from small-scale retailers, researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that many of the blends do not contain the advertised amount of biofuel. Marine chemist Chris Reddy and colleagues sampled pure biodiesel and blends from more than a dozen distributors across the United States. When testing fuels listed […]

Putin mocks US-backed gas pipeline project

MOSCOW (Thomson Financial) – President Vladimir Putin today mocked a US-backed plan to build a gas pipeline to Europe that would bypass Russia as he concluded a deal with Hungary on a rival project. ‘There’s always an alternative but it’s worse than cooperation with Russia. You can build two pipelines, you can build three. The […]

Stagflation not a problem – Bernanke

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says the 1970s conundrum is far off, but rising inflation makes economic stimulus difficult. WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Thursday that the nation is “not anywhere near” the dangerous stagflation situation that prevailed in the 1970s. With the economy slowing and inflation rising, fears have […]

Australia Researchers: Car Travel Must Be Cut by 80% to Meet GHG Targets

Car travel must be cut by at least 80%, road construction halted and public transport boosted if Australia is to have any hope of meeting carbon emission targets to avoid dangerous climate change, according to two professors at Monash University. In a paper (“Mitigating greenhouse: Limited time, limited options”) to be published in the journal […]

Solvent solution could delay ‘peak lithium’

The world’s reserves of lithium are rapidly dwindling. This scarcity, combined with rising demand for the batteries – which also power hybrid electric vehicles – has created the prospect of a ‘peak lithium’ crisis occurring in parallel with peak oil. The main challenge in recycling lithium is separating it from the other substances in the […]

Cameroon: Government Reduces Fuel Prices

After a meeting between Government officials and some leaders of transporters syndicates in Yaounde, the government of Cameroon, Wednesday, February 27, reduced the prices of petroleum products.The population say they will continue the strike because the amount reduced is very insignificant and all their problems have not been addressed.The strike led to the absence of […]

Cameroonians Go to the Streets

Cameroonians went to the streets in almost all the ten provinces. They were agitating for several reasons, namely, increase in the price of fuel and other commodities, amendment of the 1996 constitution, human right abuse and many others. It was a pent-up anger that Cameroonians had nursed for a long while now. In almost all […]

South Africa: Highest Ever Petrol Hike Looms

Motorists are warned to brace themselves for another petrol hike next week, the highest increase South Africans have ever experienced. It is expected that petrol will increase by 45 to 60 cents a litre and this will bring the price of unleaded petrol to about R8 a litre.Economist Chris Hart told BuaNews on Wednesday that […]

Climate change: Polar bears versus people

Not so long ago, climate change was regarded as an issue more likely to affect polar bears than people. Back then, campaigning on global warming was the territory of environmental groups like Greenpeace and their supporters. Other charities worried more about poverty, developing-country debt and unfair trade policies. But now, as this Reuters feature points […]

Russian giant looms over Europe

…Rarely can the fortunes of one company and an entire state have been so intertwined as with Gazprom and Russia. At a local level Gazprom pours millions of euro into facilities, infrastructure and the salaries of people like Alexander, who’s braving sub-zero temperatures in places like Yugorsk. At a global level, thanks to high oil […]

PDVSA fights ExxonMobil in High Court

Venezuelan state-run giant PDVSA has asked the High Court in London to to lift an injunction granted to US supermajor ExxonMobil freezing assets worth about $12 billion, pending arbitration over the nationalisation of the Cerro Negro heavy oil project. The move came as more than 50 prominent Britons – including MP Diane Abbot, veteran political […]

DOE Not Backing Down On Strategic Reserve Fill

The Bush administration yesterday defended its policy to withdraw oil from a tight market to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve while at the same time asking other countries to boost oil production. Katharine Fredriksen, principal deputy assistant secretary in the Energy Department’s Office of Policy and International Affairs, said taking less than one-tenth of 1 […]

With Bolivian gas supplies uncertain, Argentina looking for energy

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina: Argentine officials, already facing an energy crisis, are scrambling to find new sources of natural gas and other energy following Bolivia’s warning that it may not be able to provide all the supplies it had promised. “If we don’t have Bolivian gas, we’ll have to look for alternatives,” Cabinet chief Alberto Fernandez […]

South Korea to Increase Imports of Saudi Crude

…South Korea’s top refiner has decided to crank up its imports of Saudi crude by 50 percent starting in April. SK Energy plans to import a total of 135,000 barrels per day, or 49.27 million barrels per year, from state-run Saudi Aramco, up 47,000 barrels per day from the current 88,000. SK Energy has had […]

Olduvai Revisited: 2008 and Net Energy

The analysis presented here suggests that it is within the capacity of human endeavor to build new energy gathering infrastructure to substitute for the decline in conventional fossil fuels. By combining energy efficiency measures with the simultaneous expansion of solar, wind and nuclear energy Mankind may secure a civilised existence for the XXI century. A […]

Canada: Emerson hints oil would be back on table if U.S. reopens NAFTA

OTTAWA – Trade Minister David Emerson suggested the United States has a sweet deal over access to Canada’s oil under the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying the two Democratic presidential candidates calling for renegotiations may not know just how good the U.S. has it under the deal. Emerson said Wednesday that reopening the three-country […]

The World’s Growing Food-Price Crisis

Add another item to the list of threats to world peace: Food. Soaring prices of staples …The problem is exacerbated by the fact that millions more people who were previously earning enough to feed their families can now no longer afford the food in their local stores, and are now swelling the ranks of those […]

Things aren’t as bad in the Gulf as claimed

Overzealousness recently backfired on the peak oil crowd after Platts investigated the actual data behind their claims that the first generation of deepwater Gulf of Mexico fields has failed to fulfill expectations. Challenged on that assertion to provide backup data, peak oil guru Matt Simmons was unable to comply. Since Platts has no axe to […]

The ethanol bust

The ethanol boom is running out of gas as corn prices spike. NEW YORK (Fortune) — Cargill announces it’s scrapping plans for a $200 million ethanol plant near Topeka, Kan. A judge approves the bankruptcy sale of an unfinished ethanol plant in Canton, Ill.. And that was just Tuesday. Indeed, plans for as many as […]

Indonesia blackouts may be sign of dark years ahead

JAKARTA, Feb 28 (Reuters) – Sudden blackouts on two key Indonesian islands last week may be just the start of a spiralling two-year power crisis that could stymie economic growth, curtail resource exports and trigger social unrest. Outages on the main commercial islands of Java and Bali, the country’s worst since a day-long blackout brought […]

Oil could reach $300, says expert

Oil prices could top $300 per barrel within the next five years, according to one industry expert. Matthew Simmons, chairman and founder of specialised energy investment banking firm, Simmons & Company International, said the current highs of $100 per barrel are “cheap”. “I think the supply is showing some very troubling signs that we might […]

Israel renews talks with Gazprom

National Infrastructures Minister Ben-Eliezer sees gas supply from Gazprom as strategically important. Sources inform ”Globes” that senior officials at the Ministry of National Infrastructures, including director general Hezi Kugler, left for Russia this week, apparently in order to meet representatives of Russian energy giant Gazprom. It is believed the aim of the meeting is to […]

U.S. Remains Cool to Warming Pact

Read quickly, the latest White House statement on climate change may have sounded like news – good news. On Monday, Daniel Price, the Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economic Affairs, told reporters in Paris that the U.S. would be willing to accept mandatory international limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Coming from an Administration that […]

UAE rejects advice to de-peg from dollar

DUBAI – The United Arab Emirates will not de-peg its currency from the flagging US dollar, the central bank governor was quoted as saying in remarks published on Thursday. His comments came after former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan advised oil-rich Gulf Arab states whose currencies are pegged to the dollar to float their […]

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