Gas flow to Britain slows despite high prices

Britain’s imports of liquefied natural gas have slowed almost to a standstill this year, adding to the pressure on domestic prices, which have already risen by at least 15%. The sharp fall in LNG imports is an embarrassment for the government after heavy spending on the infrastructure needed to boost shipments to compensate for dwindling […]

Forties – Grangemouth: the failure of a complex tightly coupled system

The sequence of events that led to the Forties Pipeline closure on 27 April 2008 began in 2005 when BP, currently the UK’s largest company, sold Innovene, their Grangemouth refinery subsidiary to Ineos. Ineos is privately owned petrochemicals company that has grown from nothing since its formation in 1998, fueled by debt reported to be […]

Oil aplenty, but investment needed

THE world is paying dearly for two lost decades in the oil industry – from the mid-1980s until the mid-2000s – when prices hovering around $US20 a barrel discouraged investment. There is a thick soup of factors contributing to the dizzying rise in oil prices – among them the fall in the US dollar, surging […]

Michael T. Klare: The U.S. and China are over a barrel

In the costly competition for oil, cooperation is the wisest course. Among the many reasons given for the recent surge in gas prices is China’s soaring demand for petroleum. Because the Chinese are running around the world buying up every available barrel of oil, the argument goes, we Americans have to pay that much more […]

Exxon shuts nearly all Nigerian oil output

LONDON (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil has shut nearly all its Nigerian oil production, totalling around 770,000 barrels per day (bpd), due to a workers’ strike, a senior oil official and industry sources said on Monday. The outage, which represents nearly 40 percent of total Nigerian output, comes after a series of attacks this month by […]

Gas Goes Global

As suddenly as they had ebbed, natural gas prices have begun to flow. Spot prices for natural gas are much higher than their 2007 average, and climbing…. The globalization of the world He lists a number of key reasons. For one,

Oil majors fail to replace reserves

EVENT: Crude oil hit a record $119.90 (U.S.) dollars per barrel, as Saudi Arabia warned of ANALYSIS: Reduced oil stocks provide a smaller buffer against short-term supply shocks, increasing price volatility. Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Naimi yesterday said that lack of spare oil production capacity globally threatened energy security and ever-higher prices. International oil […]

Loss of fuel economy from ethanol-blended gasoline hits motorists in the wallet

Charles Kigar doesn If it

Here’s a bad idea: Gas from trees

Already, Weyerhaeuser and Chevron have joined forces to develop “treecell technology” to manufacture cellulosic ethanol. As you read this, ethanol factories are popping up across the United States like gaping mouths hungry for a constant supply of forest. And, conveniently, just when industry develops the technology to exploit even the smallest tree for profit, the […]

Merkel Urges Germans To Buy Greener Cars

Germans should buy more fuel-efficient cars, Chancellor Angela Merkel said, even though her government is fighting European Union efforts to force down carbon dioxide emissions. Merkel, who regularly defends Germany’s powerful luxury car industry against European Commission plans to clamp down on CO2 emissions, said more efficient cars could provide an answer for two problems: […]

The need to rethink energy security

Energy demand in Asia and the Pacific is projected to grow on average by 2.75% a year between now and 2030, with the region accounting for half of global demand by 2030. Much of that – more than 80% – will still be for fossil fuels such as oil and coal, making the region not […]

Government outlines measures to aid energy conservation in Jamaica

Prime Minister Bruce Golding has outlined several measures aimed at reducing the country’s high energy bill. In his maiden budget speech as prime minister last week Tuesday, Golding stressed that the cost of energy was the most immediate challenge facing the economy. “It affects virtually everything – the cost of production, transportation, the cost of […]

Japan’s March Russian fuel oil imports almost double

Japan’s imports of Russian fuel oil nearly doubled in March versus the previous month as some refiners turn to cheaper alternative feedstocks due to record-high oil prices, official data showed on Monday. The world’s third-largest oil consumer imported a total 275,803 tonnes of the distillate-rich Russian fuel oil (M100), up 135,803 tonnes from February’s imports, […]

RI to miss oil production target this year as subsidy threat looms

Already under threat of a fiscal calamity amid soaring oil prices and unrealistic government fuel subsidy spending, Indonesia is expected to miss this year’s oil production target of 977,000 barrels per day (bpd), the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry said. The ministry announced in a media statement over the weekend the country would only produce […]

Oil alternatives remain elusive: Could we not just try to use less?

Then there are the peak oil analysts, who believe the world’s oil resources aren’t capable of sustaining further production growth, and I think they have a valid case. One would think skyrocketing prices would temper oil demand but rapid industrial growth, combined with vastly improved personal buying power throughout the Indo-Asian region, has kept oil […]

Russian oil competes despite flat output-investor

Russian oil output may stay flat but offers a competitive return as global oil companies face the rising cost of developing tougher, less accessible fields, an owner of Russia’s No. 3 oil company said on Friday. “It’s true production reached its peak. It’s true we might not see the same rate of growth,” said Viktor […]

Mexico’s Oil Dilemma

For decades, Mexico has been the world’s leading producer of oil from shallow waters, thanks to its Cantarell field in the Gulf of Mexico. Cantarell is the world’s second-largest “super-giant” field. Since it was discovered in the mid 1970s, after a local fisherman complained to authorities about oil slicks ruining his nets, Cantarell has provided […]

Lula to rich nations: ‘Stop your hypocrisy,’ buy Brazil biofuel

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva blasted wealthy nations for their punitive agricultural tariffs and urged them Sunday to “stop your hypocrisy” and start buying Brazilian biofuel. “We have said that if we want to achieve success in the Doha Round (of World Trade Organization negotiations), then rich countries must lower their agricultural tariffs […]

Khelil Says OPEC Won’t Boost Output Amid Record Oil

(Bloomberg) — OPEC won’t consider increasing crude output before September, even amid investor concern that record oil prices may cause a global economic recession, according to the group’s president, Chakib Khelil. “OPEC will not increase crude oil output,” Khelil, who is also the oil minister of Algeria, said in an interview today in Algiers. “Supply […]

Recession Diet Just One Way to Tighten Belt

Stung by rising gasoline and food prices, Americans are finding creative ways to cut costs on routine items like groceries and clothing, forcing retailers, restaurants and manufacturers to decode the tastes of a suddenly thrifty public. Spending data and interviews around the country show that middle- and working-class consumers are starting to switch from name […]

Washington’s Future, a History

We picked some of the best brains in town to write an account of the next 17 years THINK BACK TO JANUARY 1991: The Web, e-mail, cellphones — all virtually unknown. The three networks still mattered. The Soviet Union still existed. Downtown Bethesda was barely worthy of the name. There was no Dulles Town Center, […]

North Sea oil pipeline closure sparks fuel panic

GRANGEMOUTH, Scotland (AFP) – Britain on Sunday shut down a North Sea pipeline which supplies 40 percent of its oil and gas, sparking panic-buying of petrol after a strike at a major refinery. The start of a two-day walkout by around 1,200 workers at the Grangemouth refinery, west of Edinburgh, in Scotland, forced the neighbouring […]

Oil May Hit $200 as Refiners Buy Costlier Crude, Verleger Says

(Bloomberg) — Crude oil may rise to $200 a barrel by the end of the year as refiners increase purchases of low- sulfur oil to make diesel fuel, economist Philip Verleger said. Ultra-low-sulfur diesel powers most U.S. trucks and diesel- burning cars. To make the fuel, refiners are buying more-costly low-sulfur oils such as the […]

Oil strikes new record near $120 on supply fears

PERTH (Reuters) – Oil struck a record high at $119.93 a barrel on Monday, extending the previous session’s rally, as a strike closed a major British oil pipeline and as fresh violence in Nigeria reignited supply fears. Simmering geopolitical tensions between the United States and Iran also helped boost oil prices. U.S. light crude for […]

Eat locally, survive globally

National food policy should give priority to local agriculture over globalized agribusiness Our mothers always told us to eat our greens. Today, the injunction should be to eat green. Eating is many things Industrial agriculture, the current structure of the North American food system, is based on low prices to farmers, high usage of chemicals […]

California’s Fuel-Efficiency Battle and Peak Oil

California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his staff should be commended for their effort to increase automobile mpg standards in their great state. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 doesn’t require new vehicles to meet 35 mpg standards until 2020, which is laughable considering at least 3 big oil CEOs have said publicly that […]

Flashback: The Games Oil Prices Play

…On Nov. 1 last year, a group called Securing America’s Future Energy ran a game-playing exercise with nine mucky-mucks like former Treasury Secretary Robert E.Rubin, prize-winning author and consultant Daniel Yergin, former deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage and Gen. (Ret.) John P. Abizaid. The goal: to dramatize the risks of a price shock […]

Bicycle-Sharing Program to Be First of Kind in U.S.

WASHINGTON The district has teamed up with an advertiser, Clear Channel Outdoor, to put the bikes on the streets.

Transit Strike Strands Riders Across Toronto Without Notice

OTTAWA The transit union had promised to give 48 hours

Thousands protest Mexico energy reform plan

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Thousands of people, some dressed in oil worker jumpsuits, protested a Mexican energy reform proposal on Sunday that leftists say is a veiled attempt to privatize the cherished state industry. Decrying government plans to allow more private investment in state-run oil monopoly Pemex, protesters carried signs saying “This is a holdup” […]

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