[princegio]

Paolo Scaroni is the new CEO for ENI recently becomed the biggest Italian Company. Since yesterday Scaroni was the CEO of ENEL, the national electricity company. Scaroni in ENEL made quite well. He planned to make ENEL completely independent from Oil within 2012 increasing coal, gas and renewables.

Let's see if he will be able to make also ENI independent!

[Barbara]

Explosions in a refinery in Italy link
Erg refinery in Priolo, Sicily, is in flames. Three explosions one after another in three different places. The first one happened in the pipeline (they're guessing "how can a pipeline explode" LOL).
Anyway, the explosions happened 6 hours ago and MSM are still on "breaking news" telling nothing more than few infos.
Something smells bad. It can be a terror attack. I bet we will never know.

[Golgo13]

The only way I can think of a pipeline exploding naturally would be a lightning strike or oil moving through the pipe building up a static charge, but they know about that and are supposed to have protections to defeat it.

[mekrob]

I'm, yeah, most likely terrorism. But I thought Italy pulled out of Iraq?

[Barbara]

Last week the leftist (well, sort of ) party won the election.
Three days ago there was an attack killing three italian soldiers in Iraq.
Today the refinery explosions.

I'm asking myself if we will *ever* go away from Iraq...

[Bleep]

Refineries do explode from accidents. I don't speak Italian but I can use news searchs and translation sites.

link

machine translation to English:

FIRE IN REFINERY IN THE SIRACUSANO, HURT 6 FIREMEN
SIRACUSA - Two outbreaks, then the rogo(?), with flames high tens of meters and a black and dense smoke that has thrown in the panic the citizens of Priolo and Melilli, common piu'(?) the near ones the Petrochemical one, where e' developed a fire of immense proportions. According to the Department of the civil Protection, however, not there would be risks for the persons and from one first analysis the cloud would not turn out toxic.

The focolaio(?) e' ignited in the line (pipeline?) of the crude one of the refinery of the Erg, in two distant points one cinquantina of meters one from the other; one tubatura, wide half meter, situated in the sottopasso street of the former state road them 114, to little hundreds of meters from the working systems. Close not there are rooms. However it still must establish what has primed the spark that has provoked the rogo, fed from the crude oil.

At the moment of the explosion not there were working in zone, but at least six hurt between the National Fire Departments are available, taken part in order to tame the fire. The firemen have been hit from the shock wave caused from the outbreak of one lead, where they were trying to extinguish flames. Hurt also an attache' to the emergency of the Erg, that he has brought back some ustioni and e' in classified prognosis in the Cannizzaro hospital of Catania. Its conditions would not be serious.

[Bleep]

Oil rises $US1/b after Italian refinery fire (link)
Posted at 6:14am on 2 May 2006

Oil rose $US1 on Monday after a refinery fire in Italy added to fears Iran's pursuit of its nuclear programme and violence in Nigeria will lead to a global fuel shortage.

[misterno]

There already was a US Air Force base at Vicenza with F-15s, I believe. This now puts our navy that much closer to the Bosporus Straits and Russia/Iran.

What is the whole thing got to do with Bhosporus Straits??

[jedinvest]

Yeah yeah, we know.... that fierce USA military that cannot defeat a nation of rug dealers in six years, allows a different nation of rug dealers to increase their economy by an order of magnitude by condoning or otherwise allowing the trade in Opium, most of which ends up in its own country, cannot defend the southern border of its own country, and still has a 6 billion dollar base north of Chicago to defend the nation against its fierce neighbor, Canada....

You're too funny Pup. This is the vast U.S. welfare state. It is probably due to be eviscerated soon (for lack of U.S. tax payer funds) and then sold to the highest bidders (or what's left of the capitalists, maybe to do China's bidding to acquire resources from destitute countries at the right price). Funny how we went to war when we could of just paid for that Iraqi Oil.

[bodigami]

(...)

These US military bases are nothing more than an economic mammary gland and gesture of friendliness to these little countries. I sort of wish Italy would do us a favor and put one of their army bases somewhere in Kansas and inject some life into the economy a bit.

Italy a little country?

such arrogance (actually about the whole "big and little countries")

[Sixstrings]

Fiat's New Prospects Dazzle Italy

TURIN, Italy -- Almost overnight, Fiat Group has transformed itself from a bit player into a global titan in the auto industry, effectively taking over Chrysler and possibly a big chunk of General Motors. And nobody is more surprised than the Italians.

"If you had asked me four years ago whether I could imagine that Fiat would be able to restore itself and become a hunter, instead of the hunted, I would have said you were crazy," said Sergio Chiamparino, the mayor of Turin, the northern Italian city that Fiat has called home for more than a century. "Practically speaking, it was a badly run company."

In 2005, Fiat was struggling to overcome chronic losses and recover from the death of its legendary chairman, Gianni Agnelli, who had ruled for decades with a feudal lord's touch. The company's future was so dim that it couldn't give itself away. General Motors, afraid it might get stuck with an Italian basket case, paid Fiat $2 billion to abandon a partnership.

Today, the tables have turned. Under a chief executive with no prior experience in the car business, Fiat has stabilized its finances and is pursuing an ambition that most Italians would have laughed at only a few months ago: to become the third-largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world, behind only Toyota and Volkswagen and ahead of a fading GM.

Without spending a dime of its own money, Fiat has cut a deal to take over management of Chrysler, the bankrupt U.S. automaker. It is expected to acquire a 20 percent equity stake that could lead to majority ownership in a few years.

Fiat is also negotiating with ailing General Motors to absorb GM's European and Latin American operations. If successful, Fiat will oversee a new company with the capacity to build almost 6 million cars a year -- triple what Fiat produced last year.

That prospect has led to a surge in national pride in Italy, where many people remain awestruck that the White House has pinned its hopes on little Fiat to save Chrysler. Italians are also dazzled by the idea that Turin, a city with a population of 1 million and the Alps as a backdrop, could reverse Italy's steady economic decline and host a global industrial power.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... =rss_print

I actually have a soft spot for Italy, so if we had to pay someone to take our auto industry from us, may as well be the Italians.

[Quinny]

No doubt the deal is being done with fiat money!

[Plantagenet]

Obama comes from Illinois and backed Gov. Blago, Obama's appointed tax cheats and other ethically challenged people to his cabinet, and these fine, honest folks running our government have now cut a deal to give Chrysler to Fiat for free, stiffed the American bondholders and retirement funds who held GM paper, and they are throwing in 8 billion dollars of taxpayer money and a big hunk of GM as well?

Isn't this what governor Blago would call a "no-bid contract'?

It sure sounds like we need a special prosecutor investigating this stinky sweetheart deal......

[Sixstrings]

Well, I'll say it again, at least it's not the CHINESE. If we're gonna have a yard sale, let's at least spread the goodies around.

This is good news for Italy. It's a gorgeous country, so much cultural heritage there worth preserving. They need more heavy industry though, so no wonder the Italians are giddy over this deal.

[Niagara]

And just what does FIAT stand for?
Fix It Again Toni!

Minyanville on Fiat/Chrysler merger

How about the Pontiac?

Poor Old Newfie Thinks It's A Cadillac

(A Canadian joke)

[Tyler_JC]

What's the difference between a Fiat and a Jehovah's Witness?
You can close the door on a Jehovah's Witness.

How do you make a Fiat go faster?
Tell the tow truck driver to speed up.

And my personal favorite...

What do you call a Fiat on a hilltop?
A miracle.

If Fiat is to become a global automotive giant, they have to convince consumers that they can build serious cars.

[Upstream Lady]

This is just the start. It will not be long before TATA and other emerging "third world" manufacturers completely dominant the car market. And, they don't care about fuel economy, efficiency or any conservation issues.

Selling cars at $2,000 to the masses is their aim. Every consumer in the third world would love to buy a car. Think what that will do to the oil depletion rate.

[dunewalker]

This is just the start. It will not be long before TATA and other emerging "third world" manufacturers completely dominant the car market. And, they don't care about fuel economy, efficiency or any conservation issues.

Not like American automobile manufacturers have, for sure I'd bet the tata gets around 4 times as good of fuel mileage as the ford fleet average. How else does one measure "efficiency"? How can a $2,000 car be less efficient at carrying one person than a $30,000 car, if it gets better gas mileage doing it?

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/12/19 ... on-displa/

[Upstream Lady]

[

This is just the start. It will not be long before TATA and other emerging "third world" manufacturers completely dominant the car market. And, they don't care about fuel economy, efficiency or any conservation issues.

Not like American automobile manufacturers have, for sure I'd bet the tata gets around 4 times as good of fuel mileage as the ford fleet average. How else does one measure "efficiency"? How can a $2,000 car be less efficient at carrying one person than a $30,000 car, if it gets better gas mileage doing it?

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/12/19 ... on-displa/

Take a look at what European and Japanese car manufacturers are doing. The average American car is a gas guzzling dinosaur which is why Chrysler and GM are up the creek. The new TATA et al could have a much more efficient engine but they will not put it in the vehicle because it ups the cost. It is the hugh number of the vehicles that will be sold that makes the big difference.