The Economy: How Bad Can It Get?

A full year into the miserable journey of the credit crisis, the economy and financial markets have come to a crossroads, beyond which lay several possible destinations, not all of them pleasant. So far, despite bank losses of some $400 billion, a crumbling housing market and oil prices at $130 a barrel, the economy has […]

Kenya biofuel project stirs controversy

TANA DELTA, Kenya (Reuters) – In a clearing on Kenya’s coastal grasslands, a group of nomadic herders shout down government officials who have flown in from Nairobi to explain the benefits of a proposed $350 million sugar project. “If the delta is planted with sugar, we will run out of grazing land for our cattle,” […]

Wetlands could unleash ”carbon bomb”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The world’s wetlands, threatened by development, dehydration and climate change, could release a planet-warming “carbon bomb” if they are destroyed, ecological scientists said on Sunday. Wetlands contain 771 billion tons of greenhouse gases, one-fifth of all the carbon on Earth and about the same amount of carbon as is now in the […]

Iran discovers [another] oil field: minister

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran has discovered an oil field with in-place reserves of 525 million barrels, Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari was quoted as saying on Sunday. The discovery was made near the southern port city of Assaluyeh, state broadcaster IRIB said, without giving further details. “A few other oil fields have also been discovered about […]

Ford to retool U.S. plants for European cars: report

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Car maker Ford Motor Co (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is drawing up plans to retool American plants to make small, fuel-efficient passenger cars that it mainly makes and sells in Europe, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. The paper said Ford has looked at bringing over European models, including […]

Oil hedges turn toxic for weak balance sheets

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Companies with weak balance sheets are discovering that hedges against oil price moves can be almost as punishing as this summer’s leap in crude costs. Physical oil trader SemGroup LP told its lenders this week it may file for bankruptcy after margin calls on hedges designed to protect its 500,000 barrels […]

Getting lease for oil drilling is just the start

HOUSTON (AP) The 68 million acres under lease to oil companies has potential reserves to nearly double U.S. oil production and increase natural gas output by 75 percent, the Democrats claim. So why the lack of activity, particularly when oil prices are at historic levels? Associated Press

Crude tipped to fall

CRUDE oil may fall this week as US supplies increase and slowing economic growth curbs fuel use in the world’s biggest energy-consuming country. Ten of 22 analysts surveyed said prices would fall until Friday. Seven said oil would rise and five forecast little change. Last week 63 per cent of those surveyed said futures would […]

Looking to Mid-Atlantic for oil

With energy costs continuing to climb, politicians in Washington are again casting their gaze to the waters of the Mid-Atlantic, and the oil and natural gas reserves that geologists believe lie beneath. New talk of offshore exploration has the region’s environmentalists on edge. “It’s definitely the wrong way to go,” said Brad Heavner, state director […]

We’re running low on oil

The world’s petroleum consumption and production are just about balanced now, at around 86.5 million barrels per day (mbpd). Unlike in 1973-1982, when artificial supply constraints boosted prices, now the taps are mostly all wide open; but production levels are stagnant, despite record prices. The graph lines of consumption and production have relentlessly converged since […]

Djibouti Facing Alarming Food Crisis

Djibouti ranks 148 on the United Nations Human Development Index. Nearly three quarters of the country’s population of 632,000 live in poverty and about 45 percent live in extreme poverty or on less than one dollar a day. The main source of income is from the port and from its use as an army base […]

Ecuador looks to Iran and China in new oil refinery

China and Iran are interested in investing in a six-billion-dollar oil refinery Ecuador is building with Venezuelan help on the Pacific coast, President Rafael Correa said Saturday. “That refinery is being built with (Venezuela’s state giant) PDVSA although Iran and China also are interested,” the Ecuadoran leader said in his weekly television address. The megaplant […]

Ryanair chief pessimistic about future of airports and airlines

Michael OCarRentals

Energy scenario bleak as India faces sharp decline in power generation

The lesser inflow of water into rivers and the declining levels in dams and reservoirs across the southern, western and north-eastern regions of the country have led to a sharp decline in power generation, particularly hydro-power. The gas-based stations have also been under-performing due to shortage of fuel, leading to outages, power cuts and blackouts […]

Diesel ‘Rationing’ in Hyderabad (India)

Diesel shortage continues to haunt the state capital, which is already reeling under acute power crisis. Serpentine queues outside petrol bunks were seen in various areas of the city. In fact, many bunk owners are resorting to rationing. “I went to a petrol bunk on Wednesday night in Trimulgherry and was flatly told by the […]

Less violence, more oil fuel Iraq’s rebound

Ali Bassem plans to start saving for a new car now that the extra money is rolling in. The Baghdad University architecture professor regards his 75 percent salary increase as a fitting reward for having stayed in Iraq while so many other people of means fled. The extra dinars in his paycheck, Bassem said, are […]

The curse of oil on African nations

IN THE coming decades Africa’s oilfields may begin to rival the strategic significance of the Middle East’s reserves. As discoveries elsewhere steadily diminish, the global balance of oil wealth shifts towards Africa with every passing year. Already, the US buys more oil from Angola and Nigeria than it does from Saudi Arabia. Angola, the newest […]

Lukoil buys stake in oil refinery in Italy for

Russian oil company Lukoil has bought nearly half of an oil refinery in Italy to provide a constant supply of oil products to the Balkan region, company head Vagit Alekperov said at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday. Lukoil bought a 49.9% stake in this oil refinery for 1.3 billion euro, […]

Congress Eyes 2009 Gas Tax Hike

Despite calls from the presidential campaign trail for a Memorial Day-to-Labor Day tax freeze, lawmakers quickly concluded

Purdue Panel Finds Misconduct by Fusion Scientist

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A Purdue University panel has found two instances of misconduct by a researcher who claims he produced nuclear fusion in tabletop experiments. Rusi Taleyarkhan made headlines in 2002 when he published a paper in the journal Science claiming that he had produced nuclear fusion by making tiny bubbles collapse in a liquid. […]

The coming black plague?

Oil fuels America’s agricultural might. Soon, experts fear, it could plunge the world into a food crisis. …The mechanized “Green Revolution” the family joined after World War II created an explosion in food productivity that allowed global populations to multiply. But it also forged a dependence on oil that could now lead to a food […]

The Oil Price How Long Can It Go on Rising?

…There is a hysteria about what the reserves are. But there is an even worse hysteria produced by a guy called Simmons. I have met him, he is a fun guy, but he is dangerous. You mean Matthew Simmons, the author of Twilight In the Desert: The Coming Saudi OH Shock and the world Economy? […]

California must wake up to looming fuel crisis

I lived in Berkeley for 16 years before getting around to stashing my 5 gallons of water and 20 cans of fruit cocktail. I’m as ready as can be for the big earthquake we’re all waiting for. But what I’m not prepared for – what virtually no Californian is prepared for – is the other […]

Civilians and oil firms flee Niger Delta as guerrilla attacks worsen

Assaults on foreign workers that threaten to shut down one of the world’s biggest suppliers reveal the struggle for power between the army and shady militia gangs Threatened with beheading and harried by pirates who robbed them, people fleeing the Niger Delta’s Bonny Island this weekend struggled to reach Port Harcourt, the regional capital, as […]

Melting Himalayan glaciers set alarm bells ringing

Melting of Himalayan glaciers fills seven of the mightiest rivers of Asia. Various studies suggest that the warming in the Himalayas has been greater than the global average due to which a number of ice packed glaciers are melting or getting displaced from their origin along with reports of glacier sliding due to which the […]

Channel 4 to be censured over controversial climate film

Channel 4 misrepresented some of the world’s leading climate scientists in a controversial documentary that claimed global warming was a conspiracy and a fraud, the UK’s media regulator will rule next week. In a long-awaited judgment following a 15-month inquiry, Ofcom is expected to censure the network over its treatment of some scientists in the […]

Coal carves a place in the future of global energy

The worldwide demand for oil has its own set of environmental consequences — drilling in pristine areas where it previously was uneconomical and continued emission of greenhouse gases. But environmentalists warn that renewed reliance on coal takes the threat to another level.“Growing coal use threatens nothing less than the end of civilization as we know […]

Thirst for oil turns sanctuary into battleground

At the start of this decade, more than two-thirds of Americans routinely told pollsters the environment should win priority over the economy. Now, even after Al Gore shared a Nobel Prize for his telling of “An Inconvenient Truth,” just half rank green over greenbacks. A Gallup Poll in May found that 57 percent of Americans […]

Even oilmen believe our planet is burning up

says Full Monty writer behind terrifying TV dramaAs a scriptwriter, I have met lots of powerful people, but my reaction is always the same. When I went to the Oscars, I sat next to a pleasant, elegant woman and chatted happily to her until somebody pointed out it was Claudia Schiffer. After that, I could […]

Funding for clean energy in China

The United Nations Environment Programme official predicted a strong and fast growth of clean energy investment in China, with fund flows favoring the wind and solar sectors. “China has a huge potential in market demand and in recourses, prerequisites of the rising inflow of international investment,” said Zhang Shigang, coordinator of UNEP China office at […]

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