News from September 2005

Oil: A Bird’s Eye View of Rita’s Fury

A helicopter ride reveals partly flooded refineries, smashed ships, and blocked waterways. The industry’s recovery will take a great deal of time Seeing is believing. The Coast Guard invited Platts on a reconnaissance helicopter this week to observe the damage from Hurricane Rita, which came onshore Sept. 24 as a Category 3 hurricane near the [...]

Natural Gas Prices Set Record, Pointing to Costly Winter

Natural gas prices set a new record today, presaging higher heating bills for a majority of Americans this winter as well as soaring costs for industrial manufacturers of such products as plastics and chemicals. Since the beginning of the summer, the price of natural gas has doubled. But unlike crude oil or gasoline, whose recent [...]

The Airline Crisis Is About to Get Much Worse

Top airline cuts flights over oil price Refinery outages caused by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina have made worse an already bad situation for U.S. airlines. In addition to record crude prices, the airlines are paying as much as a 60 percent premium for refined jet fuel. That has pushed the price they pay per barrel [...]

Attack on Iran would rocket oil prices to $400 dollars.

Tehran, Iran, Sep. 29 Abbasi described the West

Sustainability of Supply?

Speech by Shell’s CEO describes the challenges and remaining opportunities Shell sees for worldwide hydrocarbons (conventional and unconventional). I found two things interesting: 1) Despite an upbeat tone, title of speech contains the prominent question mark; 2) The admission (as with Chevron) that the era of cheap oil is over (buried in second-to-last paragraph).“We can [...]

Indonesian Students, Police Clash Over Gas

Indonesian Police Clash With About 100 Students Protesting Drastic Rise in Fuel Prices JAKARTA, Indonesia Sep 30, 2005 “Anarchy will only deter investment,” said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has made the unpopular decision to raise the price of gasoline, diesel fuel and kerosene sharply. The size of the increase was to be announced late [...]

The Oil Drum: A Conversation with Richard Heinberg

Stuart writes: I caught up with Richard Heinberg, author of The Party’s Over, and Powerdown at the recent Peak Oil and Community Solutions Conference. Here’s the (interesting and detailed) conversation. Much more after the jump to The Oil Drum.

Why isn’t energy conservation a higher priority?

MSNBC.com answers your questions on business, personal finance With gas prices back on the rise this week, Susan in Florida is wondering why the government hasn’t made energy conservation a higher priority. And a number of readers, like Mark in Wisconsin, have asked: why rebuild New Orleans when it’s so vulnerable to flooding? (We thought [...]

No easy fix for Rita-damaged oil works

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Getting off-shore oil and natural gas platforms back in service after two Gulf of Mexico hurricanes is proving difficult, according to a published report Friday. The Wall Street Journal reported that efforts to restart facilities a week after Hurricane Rita blew through the area are being hampered by a lack of [...]

Zim’s economic crisis drives it back into steam age

Zimbabwe announced it was moving back into the steam age on Wednesday by recommissioning 10 coal-fired locomotives to cope with the country’s economic crisis. Further indications of shortages came from hospitals, which are turning away patients because they do not have basic medicines and surgical equipment. In the courts, state witnesses said they were too [...]