News from October 2008

Crisis dents Brazil’s dreams of oil bonanza

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Plummeting crude prices and the evaporation of global credit seem certain to delay development of huge oil reserves off Brazil’s coast, which the government had hoped would solve many of the country’s ills. Just two months ago, with the price of oil at around $120 a barrel, Brazil was brimming [...]

Booming Persian Gulf gets market reality check

Abdullah Hajeri led a march on the Emir The region

Petrobras, Cuba to Explore for Oil Close to Florida

(Bloomberg) — Brazil’s Petroleo Brasileiro SA and Cuba’s state-run petroleum company have signed an agreement to explore for oil off the communist island’s coastline about 100 miles from Key West, Florida. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed the agreement with his Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro, at a ceremony today in Havana. Petrobras, as [...]

Peak Oil: Are Oil Prices Destined to Rise Again?

Crude oil futures continued down on Friday, spooked by the dim outlook for the U.S. economy. That Falling oil prices are only going to accelerate that trend, analysts warn, at a time when OPEC is accelerating output cuts and production declines at oil fields around the world is apparently increasing. Big oil as a whole [...]

Edwin Black: The Plan

FP: So is The Plan is about energy independence? Black: Not at all. I FP: What could cause such an interruption? Black: Although many fear a protracted interruption could arise from a hurricane, such as Katrina or Ike, that can be fixed. True, it will cause discomfort for several weeks in certain parts of the [...]

T. Boone Pickens liquidates energy equity hedge fund

Hedge fund operator and oil prognosticator T. Boone Pickens liquidated one of his hedge funds last month as the stock markets plunged. The Dallas billionaire converted his energy equity fund to cash and offered investors the opportunity to withdraw their money early. The fund started with $2 billion and could be down to around $400 [...]

New Anxiety Grips Russia

MOSCOW This week

Promises, Promises: Chasing an elusive pledge

WASHINGTON Is it possible, or even desirable? Many energy experts say it’s not. People disagree on what energy independence means

For lack of a better word, wow.

Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) — Global crude-oil output is falling faster than expected, leaving producers struggling to meet demand without extra investment, the Financial Times said, citing a draft of an International Energy Agency report. Annual production is set to drop by 9.1 percent in the absence of additional investment, according to the draft of the [...]

Iran feels economic pain as oil prices fall

TEHRAN, Iran The reason: As oil prices plunge because of the global slowdown, Iran is caught in a classic crunch. Ahmadinejad’s government failed to save enough of the billions in oil windfall it earned during the good years to now cushion the bad. The same crunch afflicts Venezuela and to a lesser extent, Russia, as [...]