Rosneft sees oil output rising 11% in 2008

MOSCOW, Dec 28 (Reuters) – Russia’s state-controlled oil champion Rosneft will raise oil output by 11 percent in 2008 maintaining impressive growth in West Siberia and launching a new major field in East Siberia, it said on Friday. Rosneft, which this year acquired most of the assets of bankrupt firm YUKOS, said its production will […]

Europe urged to raise nuclear capacity

Europe needs to increase its nuclear power capacity substantially to relieve its overdependence on gas, the chief executive of Edison has warned. Umberto Quadrino, head of Italy’s second-largest utility, said there was serious trouble looming in European power supply. “If you look at the supply of gas to Europe over the next 15 years, we […]

South Korea’s Current Account Surplus Narrows on Oil

South Korea’s current account surplus narrowed in November as high oil prices pushed up the import bill and threatened to slow growth.High oil prices “are definitely threatening to become a drag on South Korea’s economy,” Finance Minister Kwon Okyu said this month. Rising fuel costs could also complicate monetary policy by fanning inflation already at […]

Iraq threatens to stop oil exports to S-Korea over direct dealings with Kurds

Iraq’s oil ministry has threatened to stop all crude exports to South Korea if that nation proceeds with a deal it signed with the semiautonomous Kurdistan regional government. In early November, a consortium led by the state-run Korea National Oil Corp., or KNOC, secured exploration rights from the Kurdish regional government for an oil field […]

Natural Catastrophe Events 2007; Less Extreme, Greater in Number

The global insurance industry had to cope with far higher natural catastrophe losses in 2007 than in 2006, with its unusually low loss figures, according to the preliminary annual assessment by Munich Re, a global reinsurance firm. Despite the general absence of extreme events in 2007, overall economic losses reached US$75 billion by the end […]

Biofuels hopes hit by high feedstock values and cheap US/Brazil imports

Arable farmers looking to the biofuels industry to bolster wheat and rapeseed prices could be in for a disappointment. While European biofuel plants cannot operate at current high feedstock values, the market in Europe is being undercut by shiploads of cheap biodiesel and bioethanol from the US and Brazil. The Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation comes […]

Japan prices jump on energy costs, industrial production down

Rising energy costs triggered the biggest jump in Japanese consumer prices in almost a decade while industrial production slumped, the government said Friday, clouding the outlook for the world’s No. 2 economy. The nation’s jobless rate unexpectedly fell to 3.8 percent in November, but overall the mixed data cements expectations that the Bank of Japan […]

Remember This: 350 Parts Per Million

This month may have been the most important yet in the two-decade history of the fight against global warming. Al Gore got his Nobel in Stockholm; international negotiators made real progress on a treaty in Bali; and in Washington, Congress actually worked up the nerve to raise gas mileage standards for cars. But what may […]

More energy please, but keep it clean

As the 21st century moves toward the tail end of its first decade, the quest for energy has firmly cemented itself among the most urgent challenges facing the world. Rich countries are trying to work out how to meet growing demand while producing less carbon dioxide, which many fear is contributing to a dangerous warming […]

The Post-Bush Regime: A Prognosis

…I suggest that we can see the focus of the next US administration by paying attention to Al Gore. He In order to clear the way for the new show, it seems pretty clear that the new administration will begin with some easy political wins, by rapidly cleaning up some of the obvious messes left […]

Oil Service Business Booming in Russia

In the booming Russian oilfield services market, the line between east and west is blurring. High oil prices and European demand for natural gas have transformed Russia’s once-sleepy oilfield services sector into a $13 billion business that could become the world’s second-largest market by 2011. Two spheres compete for that business, which includes finding and […]

Commodities

Do you want the good news or the bad news? Actually, in the oil market at least, it hardly matters these days – the two are interchangeable. This year’s biggest one -day jump in the Nymex spot oil price, of 5.5 per cent, was on December 12. The reason? The announcement of co-ordinated central bank […]

$30 billion – Price in ‘07 for natural disasters

Munich Re says losses to insurers from natural disasters nearly doubled in 2007 and warns of weather-related disasters from climate change. BERLIN (AP) — Losses to insurers from natural disasters nearly doubled this year to just below $30 billion globally after an unusually quiet 2006, a leading reinsurer said Thursday. Munich Re warned that climate […]

BP to review plans for Alaska after big tax increase

LONDON: BP said Thursday that it would review its 2008 business plans for Alaska after the state increased taxes for producers by $1.5 billion. Governor Sarah Palin last week signed a bill to raise a state tax on oil companies’ profits, the second increase in two years. The bill, approved by local legislators last month, […]

Gazprom Takes On Exxon

LONDON – If the foreign operators of Russia’s Sakhalin-1 natural gas field weren “We have received an extremely negative experience of foreign participation in exploration projects in Russia’s East,” he told a news conference. Exxon Mobil operates the vast natural gas field along with the Russian state-controlled oil company Rosneft, India’s Oil and Natural Gas […]

Let Them Eat Cake

A famine is raging through southern Africa–a famine that Doctors Without Borders has called among the worst in Africa in the past decade. The international relief organization CARE reports that the famine “is largely the result of one of the worst droughts in a decade” and that “severe hunger–even starvation–threatens millions, particularly among the most […]

Of GCC state oil companies and geopolitics

GEOPOLITICS has shaped the creation, operations and worldview of Middle East owned oil companies ever since the earliest regional oil strikes in Dammam, Persia …Qatar is a classic case study of a Gulf emirate where international relations, military alliances and energy policies are inextricably intertwined. Qatar

Reality is So Difficult

…It takes some 40,000 lbs. of minerals/per person in the United States to maintain our standard of living each year, according to the Mineral Information Institute. This would include everything from stone, sand & gravel, zinc, natural gas, etc., etc. The long and short of it is that it’s simply unsustainable. These are finite resources. […]

Deep-sea species’ loss could lead to oceans’ collapse

The loss of deep-sea species poses a severe threat to the future of the oceans, suggests a new report publishing early online on December 27th and in the January 8th issue of Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press. In a global-scale study, the researchers found some of the first evidence that the health of […]

Papua New Guinea’s Rainforests to Be Cleared for Oil Palm Agrofuels

The oil palm biofuel industry — the scourge of Asia and the world’s rainforests — is continuing to expand into Papua New Guinea (PNG). Malaysian company Vitroplant has been granted necessary permits by the PNG government to begin clearing 70% of the rainforests on biodiversity rich Woodlark Island, some 60,000 hectares, in order to establish […]

BP chief economist expects oil companies’ profits to decline in 2008 on costs

FRANKFURT (Thomson Financial) – BP’s chief economist Christof Ruehl said he expects oil companies’ profits to decline next year from this year as costs balloon, according to Financial Times Deutschland. Some 90 pct of crude oil and gas resources are currently in the hands of state-owned companies such as Saudi Aramco, it said. ‘When oil […]

Plans for at least 8 clean coal plants hit snags

Clean coal-fired power plants have been touted as a remedy for an environmentally challenged age, offering the promise of turning cheap but dirty coal into a pollution-free energy source. Don’t turn off those wind turbines yet. At least eight clean coal plants, more than a third of those on the drawing board, have been canceled, […]

Bahrain edgy after clashes

BEIRUT — An uneasy calm returned to the oil-rich Persian Gulf island nation of Bahrain on Wednesday after a week of clashes between Shiite Muslim opposition groups and forces of the Sunni-dominated government. The street fighting, sparked by the death of an activist, was some of the worst since a 1990s Shiite uprising and led […]

Food, Forests and Fuel

…A casino economy has allowed corporations and their owners to multiply their wealth without limit, and without any relationship to the real world. Yet this hungry money then seeks to own the real resources of people Biofuels, fuels from biomass, continue to be the most important energy source for the poor in the world. The […]

Nippon Oil sells emergency oil reserves option to NZ

TOKYO, Dec 27 (Reuters) – Japan’s top oil refiner Nippon Oil Corp has become the first Japanese company to sign a contract with New Zealand, which would give the country the option to purchase petroleum in the event of an emergency, the company said on Thursday. New Zealand said last week it had secured additional […]

Oil gains on Bhutto attack, inventory drop

Crude nears $97 a barrel after former Pakistan prime minister is assassinated and crude supplies fall again in the U.S. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Oil prices rose Thursday after the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and a larger-than-expected decline in U.S. crude inventories. U.S. crude for February delivery rose 93 cents to […]

In Russian energy plan, coal is a question mark

…So even if Gazprom embarked on a major investment program instead of investing in newspapers, ski resorts and other unrelated expensive energy projects, there would still be a time lag before the natural gas reaches the transmission pipelines. That may explain why, in his quest for more energy resources, Putin is now seriously considering raising […]

Oil watchdog reworks reserves forecasts

The industrialised countries The new focus on security of supply comes after the agency earlier this year warned the world was at risk of an energy

The Peak Oil Crisis: Storm of the Century

A Commentary on what is about to befall us is becoming scarier with each passing day. Learned professors are writing in the New York Times that our financial system is in danger of coming unglued. The general thesis is that America

Indonesia – Alternative energy: Now or never!

In his speech during the Society of Petroleum Engineers Asia Pacific Oil & Gas Conference and Exhibition in October, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono put the emphasis on the government’s policy of developing renewable energy to replace oil and gas. The President even implicitly told hundreds of participants at the conference, mostly representing oil and gas […]

« Previous Page — Next Page »

LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Is It Time To Abandon the Idea of Phasing Out Oil and Gas?
• More than 20% of global refining capacity at risk of closure
• Charles Hugh Smith Blog: Fire, Then Ice Our Deflationary Future
• Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser says energy transition strategy ‘visibly failing’
• 100 million-degree ‘artificial sun’ sets new records in hunt for energy’s ‘Holy Grail’

• China’s peak oil demand bombshell eviscerates Danielle Smith’s energy strategy
• US seeks to buy up to 3 million bbls of oil for Strategic Petroleum Reserve
• Desertification: the world is losing healthy land at an astonishing rate
• US oil production will keep booming in 2024, setting up a possible showdown with Saudi Arabia
• Saudi Arabia piles pressure on UAE to shift COP28 focus away from oil and gas
• US Warship, Commercial Ships Under Attack In Red Sea