Bread and Oil: Rising Food Prices and the Middle East

The use of food crops for biofuels is one of the key factors driving a dramatic increase in the global price of cereals. As Stuart Staniford demonstrated here in the past few weeks, this trend is set to intensify. This article will look at the potential implications of rising wheat prices for countries in the […]

Ukraine’s Naftogaz Ukrainy says Gazprom has cut shipments by 35%

KIEV (Thomson Financial) – NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy said OAO Gazprom has cut natural gas supplies to Ukraine by 35 pct, 10 percentage points more than the supply cut announced this morning, Interfax reported. ‘According to the latest statistics from Ukrtransgaz, supplies have been cut by 35 pct, or by 46 million cubic meters per day,’ […]

Oil jumps to a record above $103 as dollar drops

NEW YORK Oil’s most recent run has been driven by the dollar’s slump against other world currencies. Crude oil futures offer a hedge against a falling dollar, and oil futures, which are bought and sold in dollars, are more attractive to foreign investors when the dollar is falling. Oil isn’t the only commodity rising on […]

Saudi says arrests Qaeda suspects planning attacks

RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia said on Monday it had arrested 28 people suspected of seeking to regroup al Qaeda’s wing in the oil-exporting kingdom to carry out a “terror campaign”. The official Saudi Press Agency said those detained were part of a total of 56 suspects arrested in a drive to round up Qaeda […]

Heinberg – Beyond hope and doom: Time for a peak oil pep talk

Awareness of Peak Oil, Climate Change, impending global economic implosion, topsoil depletion, biodiversity collapse, and the thousand other dire threats crashing down upon us at the dawn of the new millennium constitutes an enormous psychological burden, one so onerous that most people (and institutions) respond with a battery of psychological defenses-mostly versions of denial and […]

Caring for each other

Experts say the world may soon reach peak oil, meaning there won’t be any more “easy, light, sweet oil” left to extract, and from then on, until fossil fuels run out completely, it will become increasingly expensive to produce oil. During this time we will rely on Middle East supplies. Natural gas is also stressed, […]

StatoilHydro Sleipner T Output to Resume in 24 Hours

(Bloomberg) — StatoilHydro ASA, Norway’s largest oil and natural-gas company, will start production at platform T at the Sleipner gas and condensate field in the North Sea within the next 24 hours. The resumption of output at platform A will “take longer,” spokesman Gisle Johanson said today by telephone, without elaborating. The two platforms have […]

Russia Cuts Gas Exports to Ukraine as Debt Talks Fail

OAO Gazprom cut natural-gas shipments to Ukraine after failing to resolve a debt dispute, rekindling concern about Russia’s reliability as an energy supplier. Gazprom, Russia’s state-run natural-gas export monopoly, reduced deliveries to Ukraine by 25 percent at 10 a.m., spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov told reporters today in Moscow. Gazprom will supply European consumers in full, he […]

Philippines: Agriculture gears up for massive biofuels production

At least 70 million liters of additive from coconut for diesel fuel will be needed to comply with the Biofuels Act, which requires a 1-percent biofuel blend for diesel and goes into operation in 2009. The 70-million-liter estimate, taken from studies conducted by the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA), is based on the country’s transport-industry consumption […]

Rising wheat prices have far-reaching significance

Food prices reflect more than just increased demand. Rising prices for other commodities can have a compounding effect on food. Higher energy prices, for example, add to production and shipping costs. That, in turn, can have grave implications for world health. For example, the U.N. found that the cost of food imported by the world’s […]

The man who turns wheat into gold

Surging demand from China, a craze for biofuels and difficult weather conditions have made agricultural commodities one of the hottest investments of the past year. Everything from wheat to soyabeans is at or near record highs with gains of up to 100%, but the question is, can the boom last?One man who ought to know […]

Agriculture’s new ‘golden age’

Peter Brabeck, CEO of Nestle SA, the world’s largest food company, foresees a struggle between the food and biofuel industries over arable land as fresh water supplies diminish. “We will not find sufficient water to produce all the crops,” Brabeck said while reporting his firm’s financial results last week. “There will be a fierce fight […]

Greek power utility says strike disrupts production

ATHENS, March 3 (Reuters) – A strike at Greece’s electricity utility Public Power Corp (PPC), has disrupted energy production throughout the country and may lead to partial power cuts, the company said on Monday. PPC’s main workers union GENOP-DEH has announced a series of rolling strikes to protest planned government pension reforms that would see […]

Kadhafi: Ministries abolished, oil revenues to be distributed directly

Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi has ordered the abolishment of most of the government ministries and handing over their powers to the people. “For years, Libyans have been unhappy with the workings of their country’s ministries which have been transformed into a labyrinthine bureaucracy in which corruption and maladministration reign,” Kadhafi told Libya’s parliament late on […]

Krone Is World Beater With Norway Oil, Rates, Surplus

Foreign-exchange traders searching for refuge from mounting losses in the credit market are heading to Norway. The krone is luring speculators attracted to the highest interest rates in five years and a trade surplus that is bigger than any of the 30 most-developed economies thanks to oil prices that now exceed $100 a barrel. Since […]

EU energy commissioner: oil could reach 200 dollars a barrel

Oil prices could reach 200 dollars a barrel, the European Union’s energy commissioner said in an interview published Monday in Spain, two days ahead of an OPEC meeting to decide daily output levels. “When I arrived at the European Commission in 2004, a barrel of oil cost 52 dollars. It has doubled in three years. […]

Congestion charge has increased life expectancy of Londoners

The Central London Congestion Charging Scheme (CCS) has led to a modest increase in the life expectancy of Londoners, according to a joint study by King’s College, London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, which is published in Occupation and Environmental Medicine journal. The CCS was introduced in Central London in February […]

The real lessons of Cuba and peak oil

Cuba’s often discussed by the most common type of environmentalist, the lefty middle-class pseudohippy, including in a documentary, How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. For a discussion of it, see this youtube vid. It presents a picture of how “Cuba lost half their oil overnight”, and of a friendly socialist government helping the people to get […]

Chavez Orders Tanks to Colombia Border, Raises Risks

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s orders to close his Bogota embassy and send tanks to the border raise tensions beyond his previous rhetoric and to the point where miscalculation could trigger a military clash. Chavez, who ordered 10 armored battalions to the border yesterday, said Colombia’s air strike March 1 on a rebel camp in Ecuadorean […]

Better to sell your dollars and buy oil

The US currency is hitting its lowest compared to major world currencies and it is at its lowest ever against the Euro. The value of the dollar is declining while the price of crude oil is rising daily. Crude oil is now priced at $102 per barrel. The message is crystal clear to those who […]

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s new president

MOSCOW (Reuters Sun Mar 2, 2008) – Russia’s next president Dmitry Medvedev pledged to uphold Vladimir Putin’s policies on Monday after winning an election critics said was stage-managed to let the outgoing Kremlin leader keep his grip on power. But it is still not clear which of the two would really be in charge of […]

Russian Feb oil exports slump, output stagnates

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian February oil exports slumped to the lowest level since 2004 as record-high crude export duties forced oil firms to re-route volumes to domestic refineries, while output stagnated for a second month in a row. Energy Ministry data showed on Monday that February oil production was 9.79 million barrels per day, almost […]

Opec to resist the West on oil production

Saudi Arabia and other Opec members are expected this week to rebuff calls from Western consumer nations for an increase in oil production to help to avert the threat of a worldwide recession. With global crude prices trading close to record highs of $103 per barrel on Friday, oil ministers of the 13 Opec member […]

Water to be the next commoditised resource

…As the world’s population soars, economic growth and the resulting demand for energy have led to a growing consensus that the days of unfettered and unregulated extraction and usage rights will come to an end. Neil Eckert, chief executive of Climate Exchange, the carbon trading system, believes a cap-and-trade system like the one Europe has […]

Shell likely to miss Canada tar sands

Hopes that Royal Dutch Shell would be allowed to include oil reserves from a huge project in Canada in time for a major strategy announcement later this month have been dashed. This will disappoint the City and raise concern about the Anglo-Dutch giant’s ability to grow profits from its multibillion-pound expansion into unconventional sources of […]

From bankruptcy to big bucks

Two three-letter words sum up Russia Oil was just $11 a barrel in 1998, half the level of the year before, but the price rebounded sharply to $35 just as Mr Putin came to power in 2000. Foreign currency reserves tripled and Russia

Oil giant Saudi to become solar power centre – oil minister

PARIS (Thomson Financial) – Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, plans to become an expert in another, cleaner, field of energy by investing in solar power, the country’s oil minister said in an interview released today. “For a country like Saudi Arabia … one of the most important sources of energy to look at […]

OPEC rethinking production cut plans

NEW YORK: With high oil prices weighing on a struggling U.S. economy, the OPEC oil cartel is reconsidering plans to cut production this week, which could push prices above their current record levels. Instead, OPEC is likely to keep its output unchanged when its members meet Wednesday. When the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries gathered […]

Gas is key to future growth of oil groups

The world The shift is forcing large oil companies to adapt their approach to the business that has generated the bulk of their profits for more than a century. As state-owned oil groups have taken control of more than 80 per cent of the world

Oilfield faces delay

RIYADH: Production at Saudi Arabia’s 500,000 bpd Khursaniyah oilfield may be delayed beyond the first half of this year. “The oilfield may start pumping limited quantities in May but it will not be able to meet the announced production capacity … since the gas plant has not been completed yet,” an industry source said. “The […]

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