Futures Trading Commission to Examine Oil Traders’ Intent

An investigation of oil trading by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission will likely target evidence that traders intended to manipulate markets rather than just schemed to make money, former officials of the agency said.

Bloomberg.com

The Coming Energy Wars

Oil prices could hit $200 a barrel in the next few months. How the spike changes everything. This spring, America hit a historic point. With average gas prices per gallon edging toward $4, America’s notoriously profligate ways started to change fast. Americans are driving less, using mass transit more, buying fewer gas guzzlers, indeed shopping […]

Australia: Peak oil protest in the city

PEAK-HOUR traffic was faced with the looming reality of “peak oil” this morning. About 15 concerned demonstrators marched at the intersection of King William St and North Tce between 8am and 9am to raise awareness that petrol will eventually run out. Organisers Beyond Oil SA called on the State Government to invest more in public […]

Community leaders told of need to plan for diminishing oil supplies, higher cost

Respected urban planner Tim Moerman says the debate over peak oil is done and now it’s time to confront the challenge it presents to the future. The theory that world oil production would one day reach a peak and start to diminish afterward has been around since M. King Hubbert first floated it in the […]

Qaeda claims failed attack on oil refinery in Yemen

DUBAI (Reuters) – An al Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility on Saturday for a mortar attack on a refinery in Yemen, which officials said did not cause any damage, according to an Internet statement. Three blasts were heard on Friday at the refinery in the southern port city of Aden, officials said. “Al Qaeda Organisation in […]

Crude Oil: On Direction and Equity Correlation

My eyes have been on crude, and I’m genuinely confounded on where it goes. I’ve been burned too many times trying to short crude lately, thinking for a while that this was a speculation driven ascent – but the last two EIA reports show support for this latest move. This is an example of price […]

UK oil profits are largely an illusion

In theory, it would be all too easy for the Chancellor to postpone the 2p increase in fuel duty. This year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies revealed, the Treasury will receive a windfall of about In his Budget in March, the Chancellor’s estimates for revenues from the North Sea were based on the consensus view […]

Russia to increase oil output after tax cuts – Putin

PARIS (Reuters) – Russia, the world’s second-largest oil exporter, will raise its oil output in the next few years as new tax cuts will allow oil firms to invest more in exploration and production, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said. Russia imposed heavy taxes on the oil industry, stashing away the proceeds in two oil wealth […]

Getting Oil From A Stone

Exxon Mobil’s CEO says his energy company’s “corporate social responsibility” is to produce more energy. While Congress wants to tax oil profits, he wants to spend them to find more oil. What a concept. While some companies like British Petroleum run endless ads touting their capitulation to the global warming religion by saying they are […]

Europe balks at $8 a gallon gas

London – Trucks blocking a main London highway, fishermen blockading French ports, Dutch drivers petitioning parliament, Spanish and Italian fishermen voting to strike

Norfolk Southern: In the era of record oil prices, the railroads are roaring

Readers of this space know that one of the preferred sectors is the railroad sector. The once near-rust-belt level sector has experienced a revival at the start of the globalization age, and compelling economic trends document the commerce-based underpinnings of this revival. Most transportation officials agree that the U.S. transportation infrastructure — highways, roads, bridges, […]

Weekend Energy Listening: The H2 Economy vs the Electron Economy

This week’s installment of the podcast is a conversation that I had with Ulf Bossel, organizer of the Lucerne Fuel Cell Forum, one of the biggest scientific fuel cell conferences going. This conference used to flip every year between a focus on low temperature PEM fuel cells and a focus on high temperature solid oxide […]

UK: Oil delivery strike could hit refinery

SOUTH Tyneside’s major oil refinery could be hit after delivery drivers voted to take strike action. Drivers contracted to oil firm Shell have voted by an overwhelming majority to take strike action in a dispute over pay. More than 500 drivers across Britain

Standoff grows over Russia-BP venture

MOSCOW: BP, the huge British oil company, rejected demands from a group of Russian billionaires to fire the head of their lucrative TNK-BP natural gas joint venture in Russia, it said Friday, deepening a confrontation between shareholders as Russia’s biggest state-controlled oil companies seek a stake in the venture. Tensions between Russian and foreign shareholders […]

Mounting Costs Slow the Push for Clean Coal

WASHINGTON But it has become clear in recent months that the nation

Iranian gas supplies to Turkey resume after pipeline blast

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran said on Saturday it has resumed supplying natural gas to Turkey five days after an explosion damaged a pipeline between the two countries, state media reported. “After Turkey announced it has finished repairing the pipeline, the export of 15 to 20 million cubic metres (525 to 700 cubic feet) of gas […]

For all the anger around the world, the era of cheap fuel has ended

Gordon Brown this week described the present economic crisis as the third great “oil shock” of recent decades. In fact, there are important differences between the present situation and the energy shocks of the 1970s. The cause of the high price of oil in that unhappy era was Middle Eastern producers cutting back supply for […]

The crude facts of oil

EVERY day, at a rate of 160,000 litres a second, crude oil gushes from the Good Earth. That’s 13 billion litres every 24 hours, worth about $US11.3 billion ($A11.8 billion) at today’s record prices. By any measure, the global oil economy is an eye-popping phenomenon. In a single day world oil revenue now matches the […]

Inflation and oil prices hot for the foreseeable future: Alan Greenspan

Oil prices and overall price inflation will remain elevated for the foreseeable future, former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan predicted Friday. “As far as I can tell it’s a long-term uptrend,” the former central banker told 1,900 people who attended a lunch-time speech in Montreal. Greenspan said oil prices are rising partly based on […]

Do We Need an Energy ”Manhattan Project”?

Can Big Government really solve the energy crisis? It would be nice to believe that. While America has a much-deserved reputation as the land of free-market-loving entrepreneurs, that doesn’t mean Uncle Sam can’t occasionally take the lead and achieve some pretty impressive results. Two that quickly come to mind are the Manhattan Project ($20 billion […]

Think gas prices are high? Try $11 in Turkey

PARIS – Americans are shell-shocked at $4-a-gallon gas. But consider France, where a gallon of petrol runs nearly $10. Or Turkey, where it’s more than $11. Drivers around the world are being pummeled by the effects of record gas prices. And now some are hitting back, staging strikes and protests from Europe to Indonesia to […]

Virgina Governor Allows ”Half-Pricing” on Gasoline Pumps

Look closely at the signs at the pump. You may be getting only a half-gallon of fuel. That’s because some older gas pumps across the country were built at a time when few people imagined $4-a-gallon gas. Those pumps can only post a price as high as $3.99. Today, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine issued an […]

Paul Van Eeden about monetary policy of the FED on CNBC

CNBC invited Paul Van Eeden to defend his argument that oil is trading above US$130 a barrel because of the Fed’s monetary policy. Van Eeden argues that in adjusted terms the price of oil has gone from $3 a barrel to $13. YouTube

Shocked! How the oil crisis has hit the world

British pensioners who cannot afford to heat their homes. European hauliers and fishermen whose livelihoods are under threat. Palestinians forced to fill up their cars with olive oil. Americans asked to go down to a four-day week. All around the world, in a multitude of ways, the soaring price of oil is hurting rich and […]

Oil price profiteering to be curbed at ICE Futures Europe and Nymex

Two of the world’s largest energy exchanges have forced traders to deposit significantly more money when investing to curb volatility in energy markets and drive out speculators. The exchanges and related clearing houses have found themselves at the centre of the growing storm over claims that speculators have been behind the recent rise in oil […]

Europe ponies up for fuel cell, hydrogen cars

Project with industry aims to bring them to market by 2020 BRUSSELS, Belgium – European governments agreed Friday to spend $731 million developing fuel cells and hydrogen technology for cars that could slash oil consumption and carbon dioxide emissions within decades. Car and energy companies such as Daimler AG and Royal Dutch Shell PLC are […]

Speculation — but Not Manipulation

Speculation. Manipulation. As politicians, business leaders, and ordinary consumers try to grasp the causes and effects of the historic surge in oil prices, attention turns to dark notions of exploitative financial maneuvering. Are savvy traders cashing in — or even cornering some portion of the market — and thereby contributing to the painful runup that’s […]

Diesel’s Unintended Spillover

Want to know why oil is hovering around $130 a barrel? A big but overlooked factor is the tight market for diesel fuel, now averaging $4.72 a gallon at pumps in the U.S. Diesel is in strong demand partly because China is using more to run factories and generate power. Most recently, the Sichuan earthquake […]

States grapple with fuel costs for school buses

RALEIGH, N.C. – The reality of rising fuel costs students in a Tennessee school district their bus ride to school this week on the last day of the year. That’s a minor inconvenience compared with what might happen this fall in Minnesota, where a district west of Minneapolis plans to eliminate classes every Monday to […]

As Oil Prices Soar, Restaurant Grease Thefts Rise

The bandit pulled his truck to the back of a Burger King in Northern California one afternoon last month armed with a hose and a tank. After rummaging around assorted restaurant rubbish, he dunked a tube into a smelly storage bin and, the police said, vacuumed out about 300 gallons of grease. The man was […]

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