High oil prices reinforce world oil demand

Expressed in dollars of 2004, the second Oil
Shock of 1979-81, through pushing oil prices into the 60-90 US dollars/bbl
range

PetroleumWorld

Oil prices fall as Saudi minister calls for more OPEC output

RIYADH Oil prices fell on Monday after Ali Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, urged OPEC to raise its production ceiling by 1.5 million barrels a day when it meets on June 3.RIYADH Oil prices fell on Monday after Ali Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, urged OPEC to raise its production ceiling by 1.5 million barrels […]

Oil to spare, Saudi claims

Just a few days ago at a Paris oil summit, the Saudis claimed the country could pump nearly twice as much as it is now, if need be, for 50 years.

Houstan Chronical

Saboteurs blamed for oil fire

AN oil pipeline supplying one of Iraq’s southern exporting terminals was on fire today after a suspected sabotage attack, firemen said.

news.com.au

Experts rule out Opec role in oil price increase

Opec is not to blame for soaring oil prices which have hit 13-year highs as members pump up to maximum capacity, but the producers’ group must do more to calm a nervous market, Gulf analysts say. Unexpectedly strong economic growth in some industrialised nations as well as China and India, has driven demand for the crude to higher levels, pushing prices to around $40 a barrel in New York on Wednesday, the highest since 1990.

Fear of terrorist attacks on oil installations in the Middle East, especially in Saudi Arabia, prospects of shortages in petrol in the US and a drop in world inventories have all contributed to the rise.

“The situation is highly explosive worldwide now, because of lingering fear that oil installations could be targeted by fresh attacks, endangering production,” said Kamel Al Harami, a former Kuwaiti oil official.

“Normally, at this time of year, demand drops by at least two million barrels per day (bpd) for seasonal reasons, but the actual demand has in fact increased because of strong world economic growth,” Al Harami said.

Gunmen attacked a Saudi oil facility at the industrial port of Yanbu on the Red Sea on Saturday, killing five staff at European engineering group ABB and a member of the Saudi National Guard.

“It is clear that the market is reacting to a demand-driven problem. Opec is currently far exceeding production ceilings and most members are producing to almost maximum capacity,” Abdulwahab Abu-Dahesh, senior economist at Riyad Bank, said.

“The problem is not caused by Opec. They are producing 2.5 million bpd above their output quota of 23.5m bpd. The problem is that demand for oil spiked at a time when stocks were lower than average,” he said.

Saudi economist Bishr Bakheet, head of Bakheet Financial Advisers, believes that “real” oil prices are not high if inflation rates and the price index of other commodities were taken into account.

“Consumers’ cry about high prices appears to be totally political. Real oil prices are not high if factors of inflation and high increases of prices of internationally-traded commodities were considered,” Bakheet said.

http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Articles.asp?Article=80913&Sn=BUSI

Interagency Task Force Examines U.S. Natural Gas Supply

Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham announced the formation of a new interagency group that, in the interest of energy security and consumer affordability, will focus on identifying specific near- and long-term actions that could expand domestic natural gas supplies.

RigZone

Greenspan Remarks on Energy

“These elevated long-term prices, if sustained, could alter the magnitude of and manner in which the United States consumes energy. Until recently, long-term expectations of oil and gas prices appeared benign. When choosing capital projects, businesses could mostly look through short-run fluctuations in prices to moderate prices over the longer haul. The recent shift in expectations, however, has been substantial enough and persistent enough to influence business investment decisions, especially for facilities that require large quantities of natural gas. Although the effect of these developments on energy-related investments is significant, it doubtless will fall far short of the large changes in our capital stock that followed the 1970s surge in crude oil prices.”

FederalReserve.gov

Warm Climate’s Effects Striking in West

“It used to be a nice spruce forest,” said Kurt Allen, a Forest Service entomologist. “It’s gone now. You’re not going to get those conditions back for 200 or 300 years

Yahoo -AP

Keeping Hot Air Out Of Energy Reserves

Get this: The world’s No.2 energy producer relied on a lone former employee to audit its annual estimate of reserves — and he worked part-time.



Business Week Online

The Greatest Story Never Told?

This report, which was written for oil industry insiders and cost a whopping $32,000 per copy, predicted that global oil production will peak around the year 2000 and decline to 25% by 2025.

Daily Headlines

Is Saudi Arabia Still the King of the Oil?

Credible sources have suggested that Saudi Arabia can barely maintain its current output of around 8.5 million barrels a day, and that when it does increase output, it is only briefly and mainly by means of using its strategic reserve

Alternet

NYC Must Address the Need for Natural Gas

Dr. Matthew C. Cordaro, director of the Center for Management Analysis:
“Where there was once a glut of natural gas, the country now is moving to a point where it will require additional supplies to meet demand.”

Business Wire

Black gold is king

The industrialized world has a tremendous thirst for crude oil. Currently, demand is running at more than 80 million barrels per day…

Asia Times

Greenspan: High oil prices here to stay

Greenspan welcomed signs that a “major expansion” of U.S. natural gas import facilities was under way, but said: “The near term, however, is apt to continue to be challenging.”

CNN – Money

Statoil Extends Life of Lufeng Field Offshore China

New technology has made it profitable to extend production from Statoil’s Lufeng field in the South China Sea until 2008, rather than shutting it down this February as originally planned.

RigZone

Saudis to Build Two Refineries in U.S.

Al-Naimi said that Saudi Arabia is committed to alleviating the bottleneck in U.S. refinery capacity and has offered to help by building the two refineries.

Yahoo – Reuters

OPEC output

By John W. Schoen Senior Producer MSNBC Updated: 12:07 p.m. ET April 01, 2004With drivers fuming at pump prices, and politicians scrambling for solutions, OPEC is standing firm with its plan to further squeeze already-tight world oil supplies. It

Rising Prices Fuel Gas Clash

If OPEC members stick to their quotas, U.S. crude could spike to $40 a barrel “within a week or two,” said Carl Larry, an analyst at ABN Amro in New York. (CBS/AP) OPEC’s decision to cut production was expected on Thursday to raise oil prices and fuel the political battle over how to reduce the […]

Libya Confirms Oil Cargo to U.S.

President Bush dramatically eased the U.S. trade embargo on Libya on Friday to allow U.S. companies to resume most trade and buy Libyan oil as a reward to Tripoli for giving up weapons of mass destruction.

Yahoo – AP

World Bank: Changing the Energy Funding Status Quo

Should our taxpayer money that goes to fund these multilateral lending institutions be subsidizing coal and petroleum projects in Third World countries?

SolarAccess.com

Oil and gas lease sales total $3.3 million

The state [New Mexico] received more than $3.3 million from the sale of oil and gas leases in April. Lyons said oil and gas lease sales since January have brought in $10 million.

Eyewitness News – AP

Quarrels Between N5 Oil Exporter And Its Biggest Importer

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has tried again to threaten U.S. government to stop selling oil to the States, if the government doesn’t stop putting their oar in Venezuela’s affairs.

Neftegaz.ru

ASPO April Newsletter

includes info on Saudi Reserves, Shell, China Assessment plus the usual ASPO opinion

PDF from ASPO | forum discussion allready

Bouteflika sworn in for second term

“It is vital that our country disengage progressively from dependence on hydrocarbons and start to prepare the ‘after-oil’ economy in the context of accelerated globalization,” he said.

CNN

When the last oil well runs dry

Matthew Simmons:
I think basically that peaking of oil will never be accurately predicted until after the fact. But the event will occur, and my analysis is… that peaking is at hand, not years away.

BBC

Shell Lowers Oil Estimates As CFO Resigns

The chief financial officer of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Cos. stepped down Monday as the company further reduced its estimates of its proven oil and gas reserves.

Yahoo – AP

Rise in Crude Oil Prices Could Hurt Japan

Resource-poor Japan is heavily dependent on oil, which accounts for about 52 percent of its primary energy consumption. More than 80 percent of the country’s oil comes from the Middle East

Yahoo – AP

SEC to Allow Oil Firms to Use New Ways to Assess Reserves

Oil companies will be allowed to use other means of confirming
deepwater reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Roger Schwall, an
official at the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s corporate finance
division.

RigZone

The Case for a War Tax

one of the simplest and best things any Administration could do right now would be to add a buck per gallon to the federal gas tax, which is currently just 18.4

Shell scandal points to exaggerated estimates of oil reserves

Colin Campbell on Royal Dutch/Shell

international security expert Michael T. Klare, professor of peace and security at Hampshire College, Massachusetts: “We are entering an era of resource war.”

Daily Star

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