Global Security Brief #1: Oil Price Surge Threatens Economic Stability and Natio

One of the central issues facing policy makers in Washington and around the globe in 2005 is the prospect of further instability in world oil markets. This new reality carries both economic and security risks. Another oil shock could tip the world economy into a premature recession, while the massive flow of oil revenues into […]

‘Bin Laden’ tape urges oil attack

An audio tape said to have been recorded by al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has called on his supporters to attack Gulf oil supplies. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4101021.stm

U.S. drilling takes off

Nationwide, higher prices have spurred so much drilling that companies can’t get rigs to handle it. “All the rigs are pretty much spoken for,” says Richard Mason, publisher of The Land Rig Newsletter,based in Lubbock, Texas.

USA Today

The End of Fossil Fuels: Part 2. Twilight or Dawn?

Part 2 will look toward a much more uncertain future beyond fossil fuels. With the judicious employment of the technologies we have learned – and with a bit of luck – we may be able to create a more harmonious balance with the rest of the biosphere, but only at substantially lower population levels and […]

EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2005 (Early Release)

The Annual Energy Outlook presents a midterm forecast and analysis of US energy supply, demand, and prices through 2025. The projections are based on results from the Energy Information Administration’s National Energy Modeling System. The AEO2005 Early Release includes the reference case and an alternative oil price case, the October oil futures case. The full publication, to be released in early 2005, will include complete documentation and additional cases examining energy markets.
EIA

OPEC Agrees to an Oil Supply Crackdown

Seven of the 11 cartel’s producers will reduce supply by around 5 percent each to make up the overall reduction. Iran, Venezuela and Indonesia will be exempt as they are pumping at or below official limits, while Iraq does not have a quota.

Top OPEC producer Saudi Arabia will shoulder half the total cut. The kingdom’s planned 500,000 barrels per day reduction would take its output to around 9 million bpd — still around 225,000 bpd above quota.

Reuters

Israel looking to import Russian Gas

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/513346.html “For the first time since Israel began powering its electricity plants with natural gas, the government is checking the feasibility of buying from Russia. The manager of the Infrastructures Ministry’s Gas Authority, Shuki Stern, presented figures to the treasury that even if British Gas, Tethys Sea and the Egyptians all supply gas to Israel, […]

EIA: $30/bbl Oil Here To Stay

Via AP, the EIA says $30/barrel oil is here to stay.

Bush Energy Nominee Inexperienced

President Bush’s nominee for U.S. Energy Secretary is a high-ranking Treasury Department official, Sam Bodman. Bodman, a chemical engineer by training, has “relatively little energy experience”. Outgoing Energy chief Spencer Abraham previously served as Senator from Michigan, and “also lacked energy experience before he became head of the Energy Department”.

Iraqi Troops Increased via Bait-and-Switch

NPR is reporting that there are several lawsuits against the “Stop Loss” policy of retaining “voluntary” soldiers against their will.

This NPR interview includes a segment where a soldier claims he signed up for a one-year tour of duty only to find himself indefinately in Iraq.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4206736

The disappearing dollar

Dec 2nd 2004
From The Economist print edition

How long can it remain the world’s most important reserve currency?

THE dollar has been the leading international currency for as long as most people can remember. But its dominant role can no longer be taken for granted. If America keeps on spending and borrowing at its present pace, the dollar will eventually lose its mighty status in international finance.

The Economist

Fuel/Electricity situation in Iraq

Dahr Jamail is an American who speaks Arabic and converted to Islam. As far as I know he’s the only Western reporter still at large in Iraq; he has to take tremendous security precautions, but I think his reports are one of the few ways of learning the real situation on the ground.

This report is interesting for us because he has a paragraph on the power and fuel situation in Baghdad, which might give us an indication how things could go after the Peak.

Fallujah as a ‘Model City’

The age of cheap oil is over, and price volatility is here to stay

Put away the stack-heeled shoes and the Slade records. Higher oil prices may have rekindled memories of glam rock and loon pants, but the west is not about to return to the days of sky-high inflation that marked the 1970s. That was the good news Nov. 30 from the west’s premier economic thinktank. From its […]

Statoil Says `Good Deal’ of Work Needed to Restart Oil Fields Shut by Leak

Statoil ASA, Norway’s largest oil company, said a “good deal” of work remains before 205,000 barrels of daily oil output can restart at two North Sea fields, which were idled four days ago because of a leak. “We can’t say when production will resume,” Kristofer Hetland, a spokesman at Stavanger, Norway-based Statoil, said in a […]

Nigeria Loses 70,000 Barrels of Crude Oil to Theft, Daily

SHELL Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) has disclosed that Nigeria loses up to 70,000 barrels of crude oil daily to crude oil theft, adding that the incidence impacts on the country’s reputation adversely.

Mr. Basil Omiyi, SPDC’s Managing Director made the disclosure while speaking with the Vanguard in Port Harcourt after the official hand-over of Marginal Fields to successful ‘Farmees’, noting that there was the need to stem the incidence of crude oil theft.

AllAfrica

US panel to back oil inventories rethink

A US government advisory panel is to recommend a revision to the minimum level of crude inventories required to ensure adequate supplies of crude oil to the nation’s refiners to produce gasoline, heating oil, diesel, jet fuel and other petroleum products.

The oil industry now uses a level of 270m barrels, a threshold that was breached in January for the first time since 1975. The standard was set by the National Petroleum Council, a federal advisory committee. The council will change the minimum operating oil inventory level to a range of 260m to 270m barrels, Reuters reported

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/93e02786-433d-11d9-bea1-00000e2511c8.html

Final call for Southeast Airlines due to fuel costs

NEW YORK (CNN) – Florida-based Southeast Airlines announced it has shut down due to the “uncontrollably high cost of fuel,” according to a statement posted on the company’s Web site. http://money.cnn.com/2004/12/01/news/midcaps/southeast/The low-cost carrier served seven destinations: Allentown-Bethlehem, Pa.; Newburgh, N.Y.; Columbus, Ohio; Gary, Ind.; and Ft. Lauderdale, St. Petersburg, and Orlando, Fla. Southeast Airlines, based […]

Oil price retreat temporary: analyst

Hydrogen is Doable

The Energy Challenge 2004 – Hydrogen
11.30.04 Murray Duffin, Retired

Energy Pulse

Saudis to Soothe Oil Fears with 37% Production Boost

The current oil price boom is “significantly” different from the politically driven price spikes of the 1970s, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said in London yesterday. In comments seen as calming fears over a repeat of an oil-recession, Ali al-Naimi unveiled plans to increase Saudi production capacity by as much as 37 per cent. He played […]

Yukos Exodus May Hit Output

Officials close to the company said the ongoing legal harassment, incessant searches and interrogations of company officials could end up disrupting operations.

Moscowtimes

Venezuelan president to talk arms, energy in Moscow: official

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is to discuss arms and energy during a two-day Russian visit due to begin Thursday, Itar-Tass news agency said, quoting foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko.
***
Post peak global trade: oil for armament?
Petroleumworld

Innovation seen crucial to future energy supply

Escalating world oil demand and declining production rates will push the world toward unconventional forms of energy, including synthetic hydrocarbons, said speakers at an annual oil and gas conference hosted by Deloitte & Touche LLP, the US arm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

“It’s already too late to modify the energy mix for 2020,” said Pierre-René Bauquis, a retired petroleum engineer and an associate professor at the Institut Français du Pétrole near Paris. “Not only are we going to face a world oil peak, we are going to face a world gas peak 20 years later.”

OGJ

G. Monbiot:

The adoption of biofuels would be a humanitarian and environmental disaster If human beings were without sin, we would still live in an imperfect world. Adam Smith’s notion that by pursuing his own interest, a man “frequently promotes that of … society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it”, and Karl Marx’s […]

Interviews about Peak Oil and Solutions

What do you think are the best ways for people in the US to turn the tide from rampant oil addiction/consumption to a more sustainable path? What are the major roadblocks, and what models exist out there that we can start imitating now?

HopeDance

China makes a grab for oil

Tension rises as China scours the globe for energy By Richard Spencer (Filed: 19/11/2004) China’s insatiable demand for energy is prompting fears of financial and diplomatic collisions around the globe as it seeks reliable supplies of oil from as far away as Brazil and Sudan. An intrusion into Japanese territorial waters by a Chinese nuclear […]

Oil prices rise on heating fears

Oil prices rose again on Wednesday after US government data showed heating stocks ahead of winter remained 16% down on 2003 levels.

BBC

MMS reports new incentives in Gulf of Mexico will spur oil and gas production

… royalty relief to tap into pockets of natural gas deep under shallow waters … older, easier-to-reach fields have passed their peak … Oil production in the Gulf will increase to a record 2 million barrels per day by 2006, compared to the current rate of 1.5 million barrels per day, and could reach 2.25 […]

Wholesale Prices Jump on Energy Costs

WASHINGTON (AP) – Propelled by sharply higher energy and food costs, wholesale prices soared by 1.7 percent in October, the largest increase since early 1990.

AP

Our Uncharted Energy Sea!

Matthew Simmons presentation:

Simmonsco

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