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a community peak oil portal
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| Champions of Thunder Horse have little to cheer |
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 When BP produced the first oil from Thunder Horse, its flagship project in the Gulf of Mexico, the company threw a barbecue.
The Thunder Horse platform was supposed to begin producing in January 2005, but was delayed three years by a string of engineering problems. However, in spite of the thrill of having achieved first oil on June 14, the mood at last week's celebration was sombre.
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| vox_mundi writes: by: Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil. That's cynical and simplistic, they said. It's about terror and al-Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire and ashes. And now the bottom line turns out to be ... the bottom line. It is about oil.
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| As Gas Prices Soar, Elderly Face Cuts in Aid |
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 SOUTH HAVEN, Mich. — Early last month, Jeanne Fair, 62, got her first hot meals delivered to her home in this lake town in the sparsely populated southwestern part of the state. Then after two deliveries the meals stopped because gas prices had made the delivery too expensive.
“They called and said I was outside of the delivery area,” said Mrs. Fair, who is homebound and has not been able to use her left arm since a stroke in 1997.
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| U.S. investor: Oil reserve decline is major reason behind oil price hike |
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| U.S. investor Jim Rogers has said that the decline in known oil reserves across the world is the main reason behind the skyrocketing oil prices that have already topped 145 U.S. dollars a barrel.
While admitting that factors driving up oil prices are various, Rogers insisted that short of oil supply was the fundamental factor pushing oil prices up all the way.
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| Pemex seeks site for new refinery to cut gasoline imports |
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| Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-owned Mexican oil company, may begin construction of a $7-billion refinery by the end of 2010 to reduce imports of gasoline and diesel fuel.
A study has been commissioned to determine the site of the new plant, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
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| World must brace for oil beyond $150 |
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| LONDON (Reuters) - Oil's meteoric rise since the start of the year to nearly $150 has distressed consumers and policy makers the world over, but the stark reality is prices are likely to rise higher still.
For two decades, prices were relatively stable, but then they rose seven-fold from a trough below $20 in 2001. Since breaching the $100 mark on the first trading day of this year they have risen around 45 percent.
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| Iraqi Oil Minister Talks About ''Oil Police'', Oil Law, Oilfields |
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 "We are trying to produce about 3 million barrels of oil daily by next year," says the minister in conversation with Die Welt. In some Western media there has already been talk about 4 million barrels (159 litres each) of daily production. "That is exaggerated, we can't manage that," replies Shahristani clearly and distinctly. Currently, there are only two regions in which there is production: Basra in the south and Kirkuk in the north. Together about 2.5 million barrels a day would be pumped, 2 million of them exported.
"This is the largest production quantity since the overthrow of the previous regime." Everything is then supposed to get better in 2013. The minister expects a production of 4.5 million barrels - with the help of international companies, which for the first time in 40 years are to produce in the country again.
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| U.S. Freeze on Solar Energy Projects Lifted |
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 Just as things were really heating up in the solar energy sector, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) pulled the plug on new solar power plants. Last week the New York Times reported that “the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.” Headlines like world’s largest solar array in California or world’s largest solar power plant in the Mojave desert promised to be few and far between as the BLM decided to take its time to assess the more than 130 proposals filed by solar companies in the past three years. Just days later, after an uproar of voiced concern, the moratorium was reversed. Not fast enough to avoid drops in stocks, but quick enough to avoid fatally derailing the renewable energy sector off the tracks.
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| European utilities building up uranium inventories |
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| In its newly released annual report, the ESA notes that over the year, 21,932 tonnes of natural uranium (tU) delivered to the EU was well above the 19,774 tU loaded into reactors, meaning that inventories are being rebuilt. ESA says that the rebuilding of inventory is in response to security of supply concerns and rising prices, and is being done almost entirely under long-term contracts at an average price of €41/kgU ($21.60/lb U3O8) in 2007. Supplying 25% of the EU's uranium, Russia total overtook Canada to become the largest supplier to the region, although the ESA notes that some of the Russian supply of fabricated fuel may have come from Kazakhstan or elsewhere. Canada's share was 18%; Niger's, 17%; and Australia's, 15%.
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| Australia: No credit as oceans turn sour |
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 A recent report from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre claimed that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is at its highest level in 650,000 years, and possibly 23 million years, and half has been dissolved in the oceans, making them more acidic.
Australia has a direct stake in the ocean acidification problem: it will affect every part of our marine environment. And our offshore estate has just become a lot bigger. Three months ago the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, while not accepting all bids, recognised Australia's claim to the continental shelf where it extends beyond our exclusive 200 nautical mile economic zone. This is a vast oceanic area: 2.5 million square kilometres, or 10 times the size of New Zealand and 20 times the size of Britain.
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| DEALING WITH DISASTER / 'Climate refugees' on the increase |
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| The number of migrants is rising so quickly that it might destabilize the world.
The IOM's general meeting in November defined "climate refugees" in a broader sense to include people who have resettled within a country. The organization called for building a new international framework designed to support climate refugees separately from refugees who have been forced to leave their homes or countries because of war or to escape political persecution.
Massive funds are needed to save human lives and restore infrastructure.
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| Big Oil's 'secret' out of Iraq's closet |
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| It is not about the "war on terror". It is not about weapons of mass destruction. It is not about "freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people", or to the "Afghan people". It is not about "Islamofascism". It is not about a Pentagon-coined "arc of instability" from the Middle East to Central Asia. New evidence shows once again both George W Bush administration wars - in Afghanistan and Iraq - above all are about oil and gas.
Those were the days - up to a few days ago, actually - when the fateful words "war" and "oil" would never have been aligned in the same sentence anywhere in US corporate media; the days when former defense secretary and Pentagon supremo Donald
Rumsfeld insisted Iraq had "literally nothing to do with oil".
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| UN's climate change guru sees record oil price as a positive |
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MADRID (AFP) — The UN's top climate change official said Thursday that record oil prices, which have surged to 146 dollars a barrel, were positive for the environment.
"I think they are a net positive. First of all you see that through decreasing demand in Europe and North America where people are becoming much more conscious of petrol prices," Yvo de Boer told AFP.
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| The year everything changed |
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 [Sydney - ]The stormclouds are gathering. Our market has plunged below 5000 for the first time in two years, oil prices are soaring, America is in (unofficial) recession and the Reserve Bank is clearly worried about the home front.
After years of partying, many believe it's time for the inevitable hangover when gloom and doom replace the exuberant optimism that just a few months ago seemed as though it would never end.
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The fundamental lessons for a country suddenly facing an energy crisis and an uncertain economy ought to be clear enough. Drive slower -- when you have to drive at all, that is. Seek alternative forms of transportation. Turn off the lights you don't need, and don't be wasteful.
Oh, and by all means, don't go lunging for the panic button.
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