Peak Oil Review — Aug 11th, 2008

1. Production and Prices

2. The BTC pipeline

3. Oil and the US elections

4. Briefs

Quote of the Week

1. Production and Prices

Forces coalesced this week to bring about another $10 a barrel drop in oil prices. General concern about the prospects for the US and other OECD economies topped the list, but a strengthening dollar resulting in a flight from commodities helped. The markets simply ignored factors such a storm in the gulf, closure of a major pipeline in Turkey, an unexpected drop in US gasoline stocks, more trouble in Nigeria, and new sanctions in the Iranian nuclear dispute that would normally send prices higher. Oil closed the week at $115 a barrel. […]

2. The BTC pipeline

Pipelines, even buried ones, are easy to sabotage as anyone who has followed the situations in Nigeria and Iraq knows. For many months now Kurdish separatists have threatened harm to the 1100 mile Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline that can transport as much as 1 million barrels/day from the Caspian Sea to tankers in the Mediterranean. Last week a fire began in Eastern Turkey closing the BTC pipeline which at the time was pumping about 800,000 b/d. […]

International Business Times