Can Supplemental Hydrogen Reduce Emissions Save Fuel and OIL (Water4Gas)

Barcode Can Supplemental Hydrogen Reduce Emissions Save fuel and OIL

2009-09-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

A barcode (also bar code) is an optical machine-readable representation of data. Originally, bar codes represented data in the widths (lines) and the spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1D (1 dimensional) barcodes or symbologies. They also come in patterns of squares, dots, hexagons and other geometric patterns within images termed 2D (2 dimensional) matrix codes or symbologies. Although 2D systems use symbols other than bars, they are generally referred to as barcodes as well.

The first use of barcodes was to label railroad cars, but they were not commercially successful until they were used to automate supermarket checkout systems, a task in which they have become almost universal. Their use has spread to many other roles as well, tasks that are generically referred to as Auto ID Data Capture (AIDC). Other systems are attempting to make inroads in the AIDC market, but the simplicity, universality and low cost of barcodes has limited the role of these other systems. It costs about US$0.005 to implement a barcode compared to passive RFID which still costs about US$0.07 to US$0.30 per tag.

Barcodes can be read by optical scanners called barcode readers, or scanned from an image by special software. In Japan most mobile phones have built-in scanning software for 2D codes, and similar software is becoming available on smartphone platforms.

H. G. Wells

2009-09-20T16:49:00.000-07:00

Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946),was an English author, best known for his work in the science fiction genre. Wells and Jules Verne are each often referred to as "The Father of Science Fiction".

Wells was an outspoken socialist and a pacifist, and his later works became increasingly political and didactic. His middle period novels (1900-1920) were more realistic; they covered lower middle class life (The History of Mr Polly) and the 'New Woman' and the Suffragettes (Ann Veronica). He was a prolific writer in many genres, including contemporary novels, history, and social commentary.

H. G. Wells
Wells pictured sometime prior to 1916
Born	Herbert George Wells 21 September 1866 Bromley, Kent, England(1866-09-21)
Died	13 August 1946 (aged 79) London, England
Occupation	Novelist, Teacher, Historian, Journalist
Nationality	British
Genres	Science fiction
Notable work(s)	The Time Machine, The First Men in the Moon, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Shape of Things to Come

Michael Jackson

2009-08-29T05:22:00.001-07:00

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009), known as the "King of Pop", was an American musician and one of the most commercially successful entertainers of all time. His unique contributions to music and dance, along with a highly publicized personal life, made him a prominent figure in popular culture for four decades.

He started a solo career in 1971, having made his debut in 1964 as a member of The Jackson 5. His 1982 album Thriller remains the best-selling album of all time, with four others — Off the WallBad (1987), Dangerous (1991), and HIStory (1995) — among the best selling. He popularized several intricate dance moves, such as the robot and the moonwalk. He is widely credited with having transformed the music video from a promotional tool into an art form, with videos for his songs "Billie Jean", "Beat It" and "Thriller" making him the first African Americancrossover following on MTV, and has influenced scores of music artists. (1979), artist to amass a strong

Twice inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, his other achievements feature multiple Guinness World Records — including the "Most Successful Entertainer of All Time" — 13 Grammy Awards, 17 number one singles (including the four as a member of the Jackson 5), and estimated sales between 350 million and 750 million records worldwide.^[2] He was also a notable philanthropist and humanitarian who donated and raised million of dollars through support of 39 charities and his own Heal the World Foundation.

Jackson's personal life generated controversy for years. His changing appearance was noticed from the late 1970s and early 1980s, with changes to the shape of his nose and to the color of his skin drawing media publicity. He was accused in 1993 of child sexual abuse, although no charges were brought. He married twice, first in 1994 and again in 1996, and brought up three children, one born to a surrogate mother. In 2005, he was tried and acquitted of child molestation allegations. While preparing for the This Is It concert tour in 2009, Jackson died at the age of 50 in Los Angeles, California, after suffering from cardiac arrest. His memorial service was broadcasted live around the world.

Number of active oil rigs rises by 23

2009-06-19T20:21:00.000-07:00

© 2009 The Associated Press June 19, 2009, 1:50PM

HOUSTON — The number of rigs actively exploring for oil and natural gas in the United States rose by 23 this week to 899, only the second time this year the weekly count has increased.

Of the rigs running nationwide, 692 were exploring for natural gas and 196 for oil, Houston-based Baker Hughes Inc. reported Friday. Eleven were listed as miscellaneous.

The only other time this year the count increased was the first week of April. A year ago, the rig count stood at 1,906. The U.S. count is down 56 percent since the end of August as weak energy demand has hampered oilfield activity.

Oil prices peaked at almost $150 a barrel in July before plunging. Benchmark crude for July delivery dropped $1.09 to $70.28 a barrel in trading Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Of the major oil- and gas-producing states, Texas added 10 rigs, Louisiana gained four, Colorado and California each gained three, and New Mexico and Oklahoma each added one. Alaska, Arkansas, North Dakota and Wyoming were unchanged.

Baker Hughes has tracked rig counts since 1944. The tally peaked at 4,530 in 1981, during the height of the oil boom. The industry posted several record lows in 1999, bottoming out at 488.

Oil rises to $72 as investors eye inflation

2009-06-19T20:17:00.001-07:00

Crude oil rose for a third day as violence escalated in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest producer, and on speculation that fuel consumption will climb as the global recession eases.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, said it blew up an Agip pipeline that delivers oil to the Brass export terminal. They attacked a Royal Dutch Shell Plc pipeline two days ago, cutting oil production that supplies the Forcados oil terminal. European Union leaders said the region is on course for a “sustainable” economic recovery.

“The market is up because of the combination of Nigerian violence and the return of economic optimism,” said Tom Bentz, a senior energy analyst at BNP Paribas Commodity Futures Inc. in New York. “The market failed to break down this week, which signals that the bullish momentum is about to return.

” Crude oil for July delivery rose 32 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $71.69 a barrel at 10:24 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices have climbed 61 percent this year and reached a seven-month high of $73.23 on June 11. Futures are 0.5 percent lower this week. The Agip link was attacked at about 3 a.m. local time today by “heavily armed” fighters, Jomo Gbomo, a spokesman for MEND, said in an e-mailed statement today. Agip is a unit of Rome- based Eni SpA. A government offensive against armed groups since May has resulted in intense fighting in the oil-producing Niger Delta region. Militant attacks have cut Nigeria’s oil exports by more than 20 percent since 2006.

Disappointing Results

“After closing above $70 a barrel for eight days, the market is getting primed for a charge through the recent highs,” said Gene McGillian, an analyst and broker at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut.

“The Nigerian offensive doesn’t appear to have produced the results the government wanted. We will be missing a lot of sweet crude as a result.” Nigeria produces low-sulfur, or sweet, oil, prized by U.S. refiners because of the proportion of high-value gasoline it yields. The African country was the fifth-biggest source of U.S. crude imports last year, according to the Energy Department. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the re- election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was valid and warned of a crackdown on Iran’s “political elites” if protests continue. The nation is the second-biggest oil producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

“Missing flows from Nigeria are starting to add,” said Olivier Jakob, managing director of Petromatrix GmbH in Zug, Switzerland. “We will need to keep an Iranian risk premium for the weekend and to it we will add a Nigerian risk premium.” The EU is showing signs of a “sustainable economic recovery” from the worst slump since World War II, leaders of the 27-nation bloc said in a draft statement at a summit today in Brussels. The group’s members are responsible for 18 percent of global oil consumption, according to BP Plc, which publishes its BP Annual Statistical Review of World Energy each June.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s general economic index climbed to minus 2.2 from minus 22.6 in May, the bank said Thursday. The Conference Board’s index of U.S. leading economic indicators rose more than forecast in May for the second straight month, while the Labor Department said the number of people collecting unemployment insurance plunged by 148,000 in the week to June 6, the most since November 2001. Underscoring investor expectations of a revival in economic growth, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index gained 0.6 percent to 923.99. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4 percent to 8,587.04. Brent crude for August settlement rose 24 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $71.30 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange.
www.bloomberg.com

Oil rises to $72 as investors eye inflation

2009-06-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

Oil prices rose to $72 a barrel on Friday amid concerns that massive U.S. fiscal spending will spark inflation down the road, making oil and other commodities attractive investment alternatives.

Benchmark crude for July delivery rose 77 cents to $72.14 a barrel by mid-afternoon in Europe in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Thursday, it rose 34 cents to settle at $71.37.

After hitting an eight-month high of $73.23 on June 11, oil has lingered above $70 a barrel this week on investor optimism that the global economy is stabilizing from a severe slowdown.

Traders are also buying crude and other commodities as protection against possible inflation and a weaker dollar.

On Friday, the euro rose to $1.3932 from $1.3903 late Thursday in New York, while the British pound also gained, trading at $1.6463 from $1.6350 in the previous session.

"As an inflation hedge, oil is very popular right now," said Christoffer Moltke-Leth, head of sales trading for Saxo Capital Markets in Singapore. "The theme of the market is the inflation scare, and it's getting more pronounced. Crude is seen as a safe bet in this environment."

So far, inflation rates have remained low, with some countries slipping into disinflation amid deep recessions. But analysts worry that government stimulus spending, especially in the U.S., and rising commodity prices could push prices higher by the end of the year.

Robert Prior-Wandesforde, senior Asia economist for HSBC in Singapore, said in a report that he expects the inflation rate in Asia excluding Japan and China to bottom at 3 percent in September and then rise to 5 percent by year-end and 6.5 percent by mid-2010.

"A strong rise in both food and energy price inflation will push the headline rate higher," he said. "It is by no means clear that markets or policy makers are prepared for this kind of rapid reversal in inflation."

Analysts also highlighted potential risk factors in Iran and Nigeria.

"The Iranian version of the Florida vote-recount is starting to be a bit too long for comfort," said Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix in Switzerland. "The continuation of the protests in Teheran are a mounting embarrassment for the governing powers and increases the chance either a violent repression or the creation of a diversion by opening another front."

In Nigeria, Africa's largest crude producer, the main militant group said it blew up a major pipeline run by Italian oil company Agip, although there was no immediate confirmation from the subsidiary of Italian energy giant Eni SpA.

Violence has been escalating in the oil-rich southern region as the military intensifies operations to flush out rebels battling for a larger share of the Nigeria's oil revenues.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline for July delivery was up 0.43 cent to $2.0338 a gallon and heating oil rose 1.9 cents to $1.8560. Natural gas for July delivery gained 6.1 cents to $4.154 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent prices rose 72 cents to $71.78 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Associated Press writer Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.

Gazprom and Dow Chemical Expand Emissions Alliance

2009-06-19T20:12:00.000-07:00

By ANDREW E. KRAMER

Published: June 18, 2009

MOSCOW — Gazprom, the energy company, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Dow Chemical Company to expand trading in carbon dioxide emission credits intended to slow climate change, a business that is a growing sideline for the Russian company.

Best known for its sales of natural gas and crude oil, which produce heat-trapping carbon dioxide, Gazprom is an emerging player in the market for credits that companies can buy or trade to comply with national or international rules on greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the memorandum, Gazprom and Dow agreed to look at opportunities where Dow technologies could be used to reduce carbon emissions, thus generating the emission credits. The companies agreed to look at opportunities worldwide.

Dow could then use some of the credits to offset its own industrial activities while Gazprom’s trading arm in Britain could market any excess.

Gazprom’s customers in Europe — in particular utilities that burn gas to generate electricity — often need to offset their emissions under a European Union pollution trading scheme or the broader Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

Through its marketing and trading subsidiary in London, Gazprom in 2007 began offering utilities a bundled product of fuel along with credits needed to burn it. Gazprom buys the credits on the market or through investments in alternative energy projects elsewhere in the world.

However, the true promise for this business is in carbon credits that come, like the gas, from Russia. Companies in Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe are among the world’s big producers of greenhouse gases. But they stand to benefit under the climate treaty by selling their rights to release carbon dioxide into the air, if they invest in greater efficiencies.

The statement said the companies would also explore projects in the small carbon market in the United States.

As a country, Russia possesses the credits in abundance under the Kyoto Protocol, which set a baseline in 1990 for emissions, before a sharp contraction in the Russian economy greatly reduced carbon emissions. Russia can transfer those benefits to its companies to sell.

In 2004, when Russia ratified the protocol, officials estimated Russian companies could earn $6 billion to $9 billion selling credits created from investments in emissions-reducing technologies.

Sensex volatile; capital goods, IT stocks gain,

2009-06-19T20:08:00.000-07:00

MUMBAI: Indian markets continued to remain choppy Friday as traders lacked confidence after sudden outflows from the FIIs for the past few sessions. Capital goods and IT stocks were in demand while oil&gas space capped gains.

At 2:30 pm, Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex was at 14240.56, down 24.97 points or 0.18 per cent. The index touched an intra-day low of 14179.77 and high of 14483.70.

National Stock Exchange’s Nifty was at 4229.30, down 22.10 points or 0.52 per cent. The broader index hit a low of 4206.70 and high of 4311.25.
BSE Midcap Index was down 0.21 per cent and BSE Smallcap Index slipped 0.62 per cent.

Amongst the sectoral indices, BSE Capital goods Index was up 1.55 per cent, BSE IT Index moved up 1.46 per cent and BSE Healthcare Index gained 0.95 per cent. BSE Oil&gas Index slipped 1.81 per cent

Biggest Sensgex gainers were Tata Steel (3.42%), Tata Motors (3.33%), Larsen & Toubro (2.66%), Infosys Technologies (2.01%) and Grasim Industries (1.73%).

Losers comprised NTPC (-4.12%), Hindalco Industries (-3.2%), ONGC (-3.1%), ACC (-2.95%) and Mahindra & Mahindra (-2.35%).

Market breadth on BSE showed 1618 declines as against 946 advances.

Europe was in the green led by gains in banks and commodities. FTSE 100 was up 1.04 per cent, CAC 40 gained 0.54 per cent and DAX was down 0.12 per cent.

Energy prices tumble, gasoline leads the way

2009-06-19T20:05:00.000-07:00

6/19/2009, 1:18 a.m. EDT

CHRIS KAHN

The Associated Press

(AP) — NEW YORK - Gasoline markets exhibited the first signs that an extended rally in pump prices is nearing an end after 52 straight days on the rise.

Gasoline futures started falling midweek after a government report showed a huge surplus. Already, wholesale gasoline prices in key markets like the Gulf Coast and Chicago had begun to fade. Should prices continue to fall on the New York Mercantile Exchange, cheaper gas may be on the way for motorists.

"Supply won't be an issue," said Andrew Lebow, senior vice president and broker at MF Global. "That's why gasoline futures are dropping. It's down so sharply that it's really going to be hard for crude or any of the energy commodities to show gains today."

Gasoline for July delivery fell Friday by 10.5 cents, more than 5 percent, to settle at $1.9244 a gallon. The plunge in gas futures dragged down other energy commodities as well.

Benchmark crude for July delivery dropped $1.82 to settle at $69.55 a barrel in light trading as the contract was set to close Monday. The August contract fell $1.89 to settle at $70.02 a barrel.

While overall demand for energy remains weak, money has poured into oil markets recently as the dollar fell against the euro. Investors for months have used crude as a hedge against inflation, betting that oil prices will likely increase as the economy improves and global supplies start to shrink.

Crude prices have doubled their value in three months, hitting a high for the year of $73.23 a barrel last week.

Meanwhile, retail gas prices added a half cent overnight to a new national average of $2.69 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. A gallon of gas is 35.6 cents more expensive than a month ago, but at this time last year a gallon cost more than $4.

Pump prices could remain near the current level through the Fourth of July weekend.

"Gas prices should back off a bit after that," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. "However, you still have a wild card with oil. If crude keeps driving higher, then gas will too."

Elsewhere, geopolitical events are also beginning to at least get some attention in oil markets for the first time in months.

In Nigeria, Africa's largest crude producer, a militant group said it blew up a major pipeline run by Italian oil company Agip. Violence has been escalating in the oil-rich southern region as the military intensifies operations to flush out rebels battling for a larger share of the Nigeria's oil revenues.

In Iran, protesters loyal to presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi have been staging massive street rallies to protest what they believe to be a rigged election.

Last year, the escalating tension in Iran could have sent a jolt through energy markets. This year, however, there's so much extra oil production capacity around the world that experts say a drop in Iranian or Nigerian exports won't lead to any price spikes.

In other Nymex trading, heating oil dropped 5.03 cents to settle at $1.7867 a gallon, and natural gas for July delivery lost 6.1 cents to settle at $4.032 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent prices lost $1.87 to settle at $69.19 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

___

Associated Press writers Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary and Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.

http://www.oilnews.com/

FTSE up 0.7 pct, led by oils, banks, housebuilders

2009-06-19T20:04:00.000-07:00

* FTSE gains 0.7 percent as risk appetite returns

* Index futures, options, stock options expire on Friday

* Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey sees continued stability

By Harpreet Bhal

LONDON, June 19 (Reuters) - Britain's top share index gained 0.7 percent early on Friday as upbeat news from housebuilder Taylor Wimpey lifted sentiment about the health of the economy, while rising oil prices pushed energy majors higher.

By 0809 GMT the FTSE 100 was up 29.22 points at 4,310.08 after narrowly crossing into positive territory at Thursday's close.

High volatility was expected on the index ahead of the expiry of index futures, index options and stock options on Friday, known as "triple witching".

"We've got triple witching coming up across several markets across the globe, and that's certainly holding markets in check for the time being ... We're lacking a great deal of direction in anticipation of the triple witching event," said Keith Bowman, analyst at Hargreaves Landsdown.

Energy stocks gained ground as oil prices stayed above $71 a barrel. BP added 0.5 percent, while BG Group gained 1.8 percent. Royal Dutch Shell, however, fell 0.2 percent.

Miners recovered after recent falls, with Lonmin, BHP Billiton, Anglo American, Kazakhmys and Rio Tinto up between 0.2 and 4.3 percent.

Xstrata, buoyed on Thursday by a pair of broker upgrades, gained 3 percent after the Financial Times quoted an unnamed banker as saying that commodity trader Glencore, which owns over a third of the miner, was in talks with bankers about a flotation.

Banks were the best performing blue chips, with Barclays, Standard Chartered, Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland , and HSBC gaining between 0.5 and 2.4 percent.

HSBC was supported by UBS, which added the stock to its Europe "Key Call list" in a strategy review.

Life insurances saw good support as well, helped by a bullish Deutsche Bank note on the sector, with the broker raising target prices across the board.

Aviva was the top FTSE 100 riser, up 5.1 percent, while Standard Life, Prudential, and Friends Provident added from 2.2 to 2.6 percent.

RECOVERY SIGNS

In a sign that the UK housing market could be slowly recovering, British housebuilder Taylor Wimpey said it had seen stability in the past six weeks, and it might increase the number of new sites during the second half.

Investor sentiment on Wall Street on Thursday was lifted by positive data that showed the number of people staying on jobless benefits fell for the first time since January, while manufacturing in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region contracted much less than expected in June.

Drugmakers were on the up, buoyed by strength in AstraZeneca , which rose 1.1 percent as UBS added the stock to its "First XI" list citing drug pipeline opportunities.

Peer Shire edged up 0.4 percent, while GlaxoSmithKline gained 0.1 percent.

Defensive issues saw their recent attractiveness fade as risk appetite returned, with tobaccos, food & drug retailers, telecoms, and household goods all featuring among the biggest sector fallers.

Among the worst off, Smith & Nephew shed 1.3 percent, BT Group lost 1.1 percent, Unilever and Imperial Tobacco both fell 0.6 percent. (Editing by Will Waterman)

Hundreds walk out in support of sacked oil refinery workers

2009-06-19T20:02:00.000-07:00

Power station staff in sympathy action after Total tells nearly 650 construction workers at Lindsey to reapply for jobs

Matthew Taylor and Martin Wainwright
guardian.co.uk, Friday 19 June 2009 15.54 BST
Article history

Protesters outside the Lindsey oil refinery. Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe/PA

Hundreds of workers across England and Wales walked out today in support of nearly 650 construction contractors sacked from the Lindsey oil refinery.

The French oil giant Total confirmed it had written to 647 workers on a £200m project at the site, near Immingham, Lincolnshire, saying they had been sacked and had until Monday to reapply for their jobs.

Union leaders condemned the move – which was initially thought to affect as many as 900 staff – and warned the dispute was spreading as workers took sympathy action at up to 17 other power stations as well as construction sites across the UK.

Total said striking Total workers were taking part in an "unofficial, illegal walk-out" and urged workers to reapply for their jobs.

The GMB union general secretary, Paul Kenny, said: "Total has for a full week refused to meet with the unions to resolve this matter through [the industrial conciliation service] Acas. It seems pretty obvious that victimisation is taking place. Laying off the workforce will not solve the problem, it will escalate it."

Activists from Lindsey travelled to sites across the UK today to urge other workers to join the dispute.

Martin Wainwright talks to workers sacked from the Lindsey oil refinery Link to this audio

"The Scottish lads have gone to Scotland and the Liverpool lads have gone to Liverpool," said Tony Walters, a 63-year-old plater from Lindsey who was one of about 200 workers who had been picketing outside the Eggborough power station in Yorkshire since this morning. "There are people gone everywhere … to picket and ask people to come out."

Activists were also circulating text messages urging other workers to join the dispute. "Cometh the hour, cometh the man," read one sent to hundreds of workers. "If you are supporting our brothers across the country thank you. If you're not yet out just remember next time it could be you. We must fight this NOW."

Shop stewards said workers at Fiddlers Ferry in Cheshire, Ratcliffe and Staythorpe in Nottinghamshire, Didcot in Oxfordshire, Aberthaw and South Hook in South Wales, the BP refinery near Hull, and Drax, Ferrybridge and Eggborough in Yorkshire had come out in support of the action.

"We've come to get the support of the lads on Eggborough," said Lionel Cheadle, a mechanical fitter for 37 years who was given a redundancy warning at Lindsey last week. "The management have gone back on all the agreements we made when there was the row about the foreign workers in January. They gave us a guarantee that there'd be no redundancies while there were still Italians and Portuguese workers on the site. But now we've 51 of us going and the Italians and Portuguese are still there."

The sackings at Lindsey were announced last night as unofficial strike action over 51 job losses on a project to build a hydro desulphurisation plant was about to enter its eighth consecutive day.

The same workers were at the centre of a wave of wildcat action which swept the country in February over the issue of migrant workers taking jobs on UK construction projects in the energy sector.

The two sides had been involved in talks at a local level throughout the day although attempts by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service to kick-start official negotiations appeared to have failed.

Outside the Lindsey site families turned up to support the strikers who have lost a week's earnings, in some cases over £500. Christine Moylett, whose 47-year-old husband Kevin is a plater on the £200m desulphurisation plant project, said: "It makes me feel close to tears, not just wondering where the money's going to come from, but thinking how little they seem to value the training of men like Kevin. He's been in the trade since he was 16, and they taught him really well, as an apprentice and at night school."

Union activists welcomed the talks but warned that unless the company backed down the strikes would spread.

Kenny Ward, a shop steward at Lindsey who helped to lead the February protests, said: "We've been trying long and hard for eight days to get Total and the employers to come to the negotiating table … We've always been up for negotiation and that doesn't stop now."

But he said feelings among his colleagues were running high: "For me and for 900 people here the gloves are off. I've never walked away from a fight in my life. Total have to realise what they've unleashed."

Facts and figures don't support the end of oil -- yet

2009-06-19T20:00:00.000-07:00

Vancouver Sun Published: Friday, June 19, 2009

World oil reserves fell last year for the first time in a decade, according to the latest statistical review from BP, an oil company that has changed the meaning of its moniker from British Petroleum to Beyond Petroleum.

Does it herald the coming of the global apocalypse that peak oil catastrophists have prayed for? Will it bring about the end of globalization, as former CIBC economist Jeff Rubin predicts in his book, Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller?

Maybe. But oil markets are not static like theories are. Supply and demand fluctuate in defiance of our attempts to determine their direction.

Rubin seemed clairvoyant when his January 2008 forecast of $150-US-a-barrel oil nearly came to pass. It reached $147 in June last year before it crashed below $40 a few months later. He didn't warn us about the drop. Prognosticating is a tough business.

The BP review pointed out that global oil consumption slipped in 2008 by 0.6 per cent to 84.4 million barrels a day, the first decline since 1993 and the largest since 1982. But the drop in demand was largely confined to the mature economies of the OECD. In non-OECD countries, consumption was up -- by 8.1 per cent in Venezuela, 5.3 per cent in Brazil, 4.8 per cent in India and 3.3 per cent in China. In fact, China accounted for three-quarters of global growth in energy consumption.

Oil production rose by 0.4 per cent last year, led by increases by OPEC producers, and that trend continued last month as oil prices recovered to the $70 range. OPEC expects consumption to decline by 1.9 per cent this year, or 1.6 million barrels a day to 83.8 million barrels a day, while the International Energy Agency has raised its global demand forecast by 120,000 barrels day to 83.3 million barrels a day.

These numbers suggest that oil prices are being driven by the usual economic factors, rather than alarm over a depleting resource. Indeed, the BP report published last week stated clearly that the challenges the world faces in growing supplies to meet future demand are human, not geological.

The lack of investment by non-OPEC countries has deprived the world of two million barrels a day, the IEA said, adding that an additional 4.2 million barrels a day are in abeyance because of a drop in capital expenditures. OPEC has warned that, without more investment, prices are heading back towards $150 a barrel.

Rubin believes oil will top $200 in the coming recovery and, as it becomes increasingly expensive over time, wreak havoc on the global economy, bringing an end to international trade, tourism, out-sourcing and our consumption-oriented lifestyle.

There will be no more cheap goods from China, lamb from New Zealand, or strawberries from California in February because transportation will be too costly. Manufacturing will be repatriated, steel mills restarted and suburbs will be ploughed under and revert to farmland as commuters flee to the inner cities and onto public transit. Rubin promises a more livable world than the one we'll leave behind.

Oil prices linger above $71 in Asian trade

2009-06-19T19:56:00.000-07:00

Agence France-Presse
First Posted 11:36:00 06/19/2009

Filed Under: Oil & Gas - Upstream activities, Energy & Resources, Energy, Economy and Business and Finance

SINGAPORE--Oil prices lingered above $71 a barrel in Asian trade Friday spurred by hopes that the worst is over for the ailing global economy, analysts said.

New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in July, gained nine cents to $71.46 a barrel.

Brent North Sea crude for August delivery advanced 15 cents to $71.21 dollars.

"I think the general mood is that we're past the worst of the downturn," said Mark Pervan, a senior commodities analyst with ANZ Bank in Melbourne.

"It continues to be a pre-emptive market in a sense that they are pricing on positive news."

Positive US data and stronger energy demand energized the market, analysts said.

The US Department of Energy reported a sharper-than-expected fall in crude inventories last week.

On Thursday, a US business research firm said the index of leading economic indicators, a measure of conditions in the coming months, increased 1.2 percent in May from the previous month, beating market expectations.

The index had been on a downward trend since hitting a peak in July 2007, the Conference Board said.

Developments in the recession-hit US economy are closely monitored because it is the biggest in the world and is a major buyer of the world's exports.

Pervan said crude prices were also closely pegged to the value of the US dollar, which has been under pressure.

"I think there's still a high correlation with the dollar ... instead of on market fundamentals like supply and demand," he said.

A weaker US currency makes dollar-priced crude cheaper for buyers holding stronger currencies. That tends to stimulate demand and push the market higher.

After plunging from record highs above $147 last July on supply concerns, oil prices touched multi-year lows of around $32 in December as the economic slowdown crushed demand for energy but they have slowly clawed back since.

Europe Mulls Huge Solar Project

2009-06-17T17:50:00.000-07:00

A German-led consortium may spend $555 billion to build a huge solar farm in North Africa and ship the electricity back to Europe

An ambitious German-led project to supply Europe with solar energy from the deserts of North Africa will start with a meeting on July 13, an executive from the German insurance giant Munich Re told the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Tuesday. The project involves a consortium of about 20 firms—including Siemens (SI), Deutsche Bank (DB), and energy companies like RWE—and will cost €400 billion ($555.3 billion), according to Munich Re board member Torsten Jeworrek.

Jeworrek said the initiative aimed to "present concrete plans in two to three years' time," and start the flow of energy to Europe within a decade. Munich Re will lead the project, and the meeting in July will formally establish the group.

The consortium plans to fund a project called Desertec, which envisions relatively low-tech solar thermal power—using mirrors in the desert to heat up water, which drives turbines in a local power plant—rather than an array of high-tech photovoltaic cells.

Jeworrek declined to list all 20 members of the new funding group, but said the German Economy Ministry and the Club of Rome, a non-governmental organization based in Zürich, were also involved.

From the Maghreb to Europe

The Desertec plan requires a new grid of high-voltage transmission lines from the Maghreb desert to Europe. No new technology needs to be developed, according to Hans Müller-Steinhagen, who works at the German Aerospace Center and has researched the feasibility of Desertec for Germany's Environment Ministry. The idea has existed for years, but the high cost of building the infrastructure has kept investors away.

Müller-Steinhagen told Spiegel Online last year that similar power plants have operated in the American west for years, and work on independent plants has started in Spain, Algeria, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. But the projects have languished, in part because of the price of oil. "After the solar thermal power plants were built in California and Nevada," Müller-Steinhagen said, "people lost interest in solar thermal power because fossil fuels became unbeatably cheap."

Jeworrek said the new initiative, which promises to be the largest green-energy project in the world, could provide around 15 percent of Europe's energy needs. But German firms can't do it alone—Desertec would require cooperation among a number of different governments and firms. One important prerequisite, Jeworrek suggested, was political stability. "We're very optimistic about Italy and Spain," he said.

Desertec was developed by a network of scientists and politicians called the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC). Last year French President Nicolas Sarkozy indicated interest in the idea—and in working with Mediterranean nations in general—but Jeworrek reserved judgment on French participation. "The French are still relying heavily on nuclear energy," he told the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Tuesday.

msm—with wire reports

Provided by Spiegel Online—Read the latest from Europe's largest newsmagazine

Oil and gas companies, unions team to promote industry

2009-06-17T17:48:00.000-07:00

By KRISTEN HAYS HOUSTON CHRONICLE

The oil and gas industry’s trade group has teamed up with 15 labor unions to lobby Washington for job creation through increased access to U.S. oil and gas reserves and discourage tax increases that could chill growth in activity.

“Today is the first time the oil and natural gas industry and labor unions have agreed to work together to promote job growth and advance the economic future of America,” Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said today.

He said increased oil and gas exploration could add 160,000 jobs and $1.7 trillion in government revenues from royalties and leases through 2030.

The cooperation between industry management and labor stems from the creation of an eight-member committee, with four members from each side. Mark Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department, said the committee will work to “remind the Congress” that oil and natural gas “should remain part of the U.S. energy portfolio.”

Other unions involved include the International Union of Operating Engineers; the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America; the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Companies that joined the signing of the agreement include Devon Energy, Marathon Oil and Exxon Mobil.

Larry Nichols, chairman and CEO of Devon and current chairman of API, said today that the oil and gas industry employs about 2 million people directly and another 4 million suppliers, contractors and others indirectly.

“This committee will be at the forefront to pursue a legislative and regulatory agenda that retains and promotes creation of jobs,” Nichols said.

kristen.hays@chron.com

Gas prices up, crude rises on inventory report

2009-06-17T17:47:00.000-07:00

Knoxville area gasoline prices pushed closer to the $2.50 mark on Wednesday while gas prices nationally rose for the 50th straight day.

Meanwhile, the price of crude climbed above $70 a barrel after a key government report said that U.S. inventories fell for the third straight week.

The average price for a gallon of regular unleaded in metropolitan Knoxville rose almost a penny overnight to $2.472, according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report. That’s the lowest price among Tennessee’s major metro areas and the onmly one under $2.50.

However, prices at the pump are up sharply this year, rising more than $1.01, or 69 percent, since Jan. 1.

Today’s average prices in other Tennessee cities are:

-- Chattanooga, $2.501, up 1.2 cents

-- Clarksville, $2.524, up 2.7 cents

-- Johnson City-Kingsport-Bristol, $2.543, unchanged

-- Memphis, $2.546, up nearly a penny

-- Nashville, $2.525, up a penny

The national average increased a hal-penny overnight to $2.679, the auto club reported.

Benchmark crude for July delivery added 56 cents to settle at $71.03 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Most of the trading already has switched to the August contract, which added 54 cents to settle at $71.70 a barrel.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration report said crude inventories fell 3.9 million barrels last week, or 1.1 percent, to 357.7 million barrels.

Despite the drop, U.S. inventories are still bloated with the most oil than they’ve held in nearly 16 years.

The report also said that gasoline reserves grew 3.4 million barrels, or 1.7 percent, to 205 million barrels.

Demand for gasoline was up 1.1 percent from last year, averaging nearly 9.3 million barrels a day over the four weeks ended June 12, the report said.

Analysts had expected a 1.7 million-barrel drop in crude oil reserves, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

A reading above or below estimates can influence market trading.

Oil prices this week have come off eight-month highs near $73 a barrel amid some signs that the U.S. economy, while past the worst of a severe recession, is still weak.

They were helped Wednesday by a weakening dollar. Because crude is priced in U.S. currency, oil tends to rise when the dollar falls.

Meanwhile, U.S. retail gas prices climbed for the 50th straight day Wednesday, the longest streak in records dating to 1996.

Pump prices added a half cent overnight to a new national average of $2.679 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline for July delivery tumbled 4.5 cents to $2.0261 a gallon and heating oil added 1.4 cents to $1.839. Natural gas for July delivery gained 9.5 cents to $4.224 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent prices fell 41 cents to $69.83 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Clean energy a 'dirty business' in Mexico

2009-06-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

LA VENTA, MEXICO: The windmills stand in rows like an army of Goliaths, steel towers taller than the Statue of Liberty and topped with blades as long as a jetliner's wing.

The blades whoosh through the humid air, carving energy from a wind that rushes across Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec on its journey from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. Nearly every day, another tower rises out of the countryside.

The isthmus -- Mexico's narrowest point -- is becoming the Saudi Arabia of alternative energy as U.S. and European companies, emboldened by new technology and high oil prices, rush to stake their claims in one of the world's windiest places. The Mexican government wants the isthmus to produce 2,500 megawatts within three years, a goal that will require thousands of windmills and would catapult Mexico into the top 12 producers of wind energy.

"This is one of the finest wind areas in the world, and they are being very ambitious about developing it," said Martin Pasqualetti, an expert on renewable energy at Arizona State University who has studied the region. "They're trying to do in five years what California took 35 years to do."

But the energy gold rush has also brought discord, as building crews slice through irrigation canals, divide pastures and cover crops with dust. Some farmers complain they were tricked into renting their land for as little as $46 an acre annually.

Opponents of Mexican President Felipe Calderon fear the generators are the first step toward privatizing Mexico's energy sector. And some residents are angry that the electricity being generated is not going to homes here in Oaxaca, one of the poorest states in Mexico, but to power Walmart stores, Cemex cement plants and a few other industrial customers in Mexico.

"It has divided neighbors against each other," said Alejo Giron, a communal farmer in La Venta. "If this place has so much possibility, where are the benefits for us?"

The Isthmus of Tehuantepec, 130 miles wide and about 330 miles southeast of Mexico City, lies at the bottom of a funnel formed by two mountain ranges. Wind from the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico whistles through this pass on its way to the Pacific Ocean.

is excellent, according to the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The wind near La Venta averages more than 19 mph, the laboratory found. During the winter, gusts are so strong they can flip tractor-trailer trucks.

The Mexican government began mapping the wind for possible wind farms in the 1990s. The projects have gone into high gear since the inauguration of Calderon, a former energy minister who has warned that Mexico is running out of oil and needs to modernize fast. He pushed through legal changes last year allowing more private investment in the state-controlled energy sector.

High oil prices, meanwhile, have made wind energy look like an increasingly good investment.

Windmill technology, too, has improved. Lighter materials mean blades can be longer. Generators have gotten more powerful. A single turbine, such as the 2.5-megawatt Liberty, built by Carpinteria, Calif.-based Clipper Windpower, can power 625 to 700 average U.S. homes. Clipper is installing 27 of them in the isthmus.

Calderon has pledged to have the region producing at least 2,500 megawatts by the time his term ends in 2012. That's enough for as many as 700,000 average U.S. homes.

"With nothing but wind power, without burning a drop of petroleum, we are generating electricity so people can live better, so companies can produce more and generate more jobs, and so that people here can benefit through rent or association with these projects," Calderon said during a recent visit to the isthmus.

Isthmus towns buzz with boomtown excitement. Engineers from Spain, Germany, France and the United States fill the restaurants at lunchtime. The hotels in the town of Juchitan are packed. The one-horse town of La Ventosa -- "the windy place," in Spanish -- is the site of a government center charged with developing new generations of wind turbines. All day long, a seemingly endless procession of cement trucks winds through the fields toward the growing forests of steel.

Underpaid?

One day in 2006, a truck with a loudspeaker showed up in the town of Santa Maria Xadani.

"It went around saying there was going to be a program to help farmers, and that we should show up the next night for a meeting," said farmer Abel Sanchez.

At the meeting, representatives from Spanish firm Endesa handed out soft drinks and explained that they wanted to rent land for their wind generators, Sanchez said.

In exchange, property owners would have to get permission from the energy company before selling their land or striking deals for development.

One good cow can produce $90 of milk a month, so most farmers were unimpressed, Sanchez said. But the company representatives made it sound like a government program, he said, and there seemed to be little to lose. Many small landowners signed up even though they couldn't read.

Meanwhile, construction began on other wind parks. Many landowners were shocked at the disruption. To support the huge generators, crews built gravel roads 50 feet across, hammered in pylons and poured 1,200 tons of concrete for each tower. Pads of gravel 100 feet long and 50 feet wide were dumped onto sorghum fields and grazing land to support the cranes.

Farmer Salvador Ordaz now has two roads cutting through his 16 acres of pasture and says part of the land is unusable because of dust and blocked irrigation lines. He has had to cut his herd to 10 cows from 30. "When you think of windmills, you just think of this one tower," Ordaz said. "But it affects a lot more land than that."

Some companies are paying 50 cents to $1 per square yard annually for damages and have promised to remove much of the gravel once construction is complete. But Sanchez and about 180 other farmers in the towns of Xadani, Union Hildago and Juchitan decided they wanted none of it. They sued Endesa and two other Spanish companies, Preneal and Union Fenosa, saying the companies had misled poorly educated landowners and tricked them into signing lopsided deals.

Endesa and Union Fenosa did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Preneal declined to comment.

Pasqualetti said the payments are a fraction of the $3,000 to $5,000 that energy companies pay annually to farmers in Iowa. "The evidence would indicate (Mexican landowners) are not getting what they should be getting," he said.

In October, Preneal relented and canceled its contracts with the dissenting landowners. Endesa and Union Fenosa did the same in March.

"It's clean energy but dirty business," said Claudia Vera, a lawyer at the Tepeyac Human Rights Center who helped the landowners with their case.

Opposition has spread to other towns, sometimes opening up old racial and political feuds.

In San Mateo del Mar, populated by Huave Indians, residents voted to keep out the energy companies, re-igniting territorial disputes with neighboring villages dominated by Zapotec Indians, said local activist Roselia Gutierrez.

In La Venta, proponents and opponents have broken along political party lines, with Institutional Revolutionary Party members supporting the contracts and the more liberal Democratic Revolutionary Party opposing them. On the national level, the Democratic Revolutionary Party has accused Calderon of using the wind farms as a test case for privatizing Mexico's oil and electricity sector.

Demonstrations in La Venta have halted construction six times at the Eurus wind farm, owned by Acciona Energy. Graffiti in the town blasts company officials and members of the local ejido, or farm cooperative. "Get out, Wilson!" says one. "La Venta belongs to the ejido members!" says another.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tehuantepec printed fliers depicting the Spanish companies as invading Spanish galleons. "No to the robbery of our territory! No to the wind power projects!" they say. Hundreds of protesters demonstrated when Calderon came to inaugurate a project in January.

The companies say they've treated landowners fairly, even raising payments as construction nears on new projects.

Acciona, which is installing 167 wind turbines at the Eurus wind farm near La Venta, is paying members of the local farm cooperative about $186 annually per acre for wind use, plus about 80 cents per square yard of "affected land," said cooperative member Jose Cruz Velazquez.

Union Fenosa has promised to share 1% of the profit from its wind park in Juchitan, split between all of the landowners, with an additional 0.3% going to landowners with towers on their property, a contract shows.

"The truth is, if the people felt that what we're paying wasn't fair, we wouldn't be here," said Eurus project manager Ignacio Querol.

Benefits

Many residents say they've benefited.

Aquileo Jimenez, 51, has rights to 10 acres of the farm cooperative's land in La Venta. He used his first payment from Acciona to buy an old bus and now has a contract to shuttle workers to the construction sites.

Cruz Velazquez, 45, used his payment to open an auto-parts store. He's doing a brisk business selling brake pads and tires to the dump trucks streaming into the Eurus construction site. Across the road, 76-year-old Matias Lopez Ramos directs truck traffic for $26 a day -- good money in Oaxaca.

"It's done good things for us," Cruz Velazquez said. "Even people who were in the United States are coming back here to work because of it."

Others wonder how long the good times will last. Once construction is finished, Acciona has promised to remove the gravel pads and reduce the access roads from 50 feet wide to 20. The land-damage fees it pays will shrink dramatically then.

"People are not thinking about the long term," Giron said. "Those generators will be making millions of dollars for the company, and they will be limiting what you can do with your land for 30, 40 years. Soon, whatever they're paying won't seem like very much money anymore." (c) Copyright 2009 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

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Turkey stages Cyprus drills amid oil dispute

2009-06-17T17:42:00.000-07:00

ABOARD THE TCG GEMLIK, -- Turkish and Turkish Cypriot warships staged search and rescue drills off the island of Cyprus on Wednesday amid tensions over a disputed search for oil and gas.

The frigate Gemlik and other vessels took part in the maneuvers off the northern town of Famagusta, which included extinguishing fire on a ship, rescuing illegal migrants from a sinking rubber boat and rescuing the crew of a sea plane in distress.

Turkish Cypriot military officials denied the maneuvers were a show of force, but it comes amid a rekindled dispute with Greek Cypriots over who is entitled to the island's potential offshore oil and gas wealth.

Cyprus was divided in 1974 when Turkey invaded in response to a coup by supporters of union with Greece. The island has an internationally recognized Greek Cypriot south and a breakaway Turkish Cypriot north where Turkey maintains 35,000 troops.

Turkey does not recognize European Union-member Cyprus as a sovereign country and strongly objects to a Greek Cypriot search for mineral deposits inside the island's exclusive economic zone. That area covers 51,000 square kilometers (17,000 sq. miles) of seabed off the island's southern coast.

Turkey has warned Cyprus against pursuing "adventurist policies" and says Turkish Cypriots should also have a say in how the island's oil-and-gas rights are used.

Cyprus government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou said Tuesday the search for fossil fuels inside the island's zone remains its sovereign right and it's protesting the military drills at the U.N. and EU.

But Stefanou said both communities could share in the possible bounty if ongoing reunification talks prove successful.

Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat restarted stalled peace talks last September, but have yet to reach a breakthrough in the slow-moving process.

"This is an additional motivating factor ... to continue negotiations so that we can reach a just, viable and functional settlement, to reunify our homeland," Stefanou said.

The involvement of a U.S. energy firm Noble Energy, which is set to launch seismic work inside Cyprus' zone later this year, could further complicate matters for Turkey, a U.S. ally.

Cyprus has licensed Noble to search for fossil fuels near two significant gas discoveries in its Israeli offshore blocks.

U.S. authorities are siding with the Cypriot government, saying "the involvement of U.S. firms in such investment is a business decision, not a political one."

Cyprus has also signed agreements with Lebanon and Egypt to mark out undersea borders to facilitate future oil and gas exploration, prompting Turkey to urge those two countries to scrap the deals.

Turkey's stakes in the dispute are higher as Cyprus has threatened to further impede Turkey's EU accession negotiations because Turkish warships had interfered with an offshore fossil fuel survey last year.

Turkey's EU membership bid is already hobbled with eight of 35 negotiation chapters frozen over its refusal to open its air and sea ports to Cyprus.

"Turkey's policy of solving the problem through use of force has not brought any good to its advantage in the international arena," said Prof. Yuksel Inan at International Relations Department of Bilkent University based in Ankara. "Instead, Turkey should seriously think about taking the issue to the Security Council as a temporary member now."

Oil falls to around $70 on mixed US economic signs

2009-06-17T05:25:00.000-07:00

By PABLO GORONDI

Associated Press Writer

Oil prices fell to around $70 a barrel Wednesday as investors weighed mixed signals from the U.S. economy amid sliding equity markets.

Benchmark crude for July delivery fell 39 cents to $70.08 a barrel by midday in Europe in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Tuesday, it fell 15 cents to settle at $70.47.

Oil prices this week have come off eight-month highs near $73 a barrel amid some signs that the U.S. economy, while past the worst of a severe recession, is still weak. The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that industrial production fell a larger-than-expected 1.1 percent in May.

After a rally of almost 40 percent since March 9, the Dow Jones industrial average has fallen 3.3 percent over the first two days of the week.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said home construction jumped in May by the largest amount in three months after hitting a record low in April.

"There have been some mixed signs," said Toby Hassall, an analyst with investment firm Commodity Warrants Australia in Sydney. "The last few days we've seen a turn toward negative sentiment. Oil looks set for a correction."

The market is awaiting the Wednesday release of the Energy Department's weekly report on petroleum inventory data.

It is expected to show a 1.7 million-barrel drop in crude oil reserves for the week ended June 12, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

Platts also expects gasoline stockpiles to fall by 650,000 barrels, distillate stocks to rise by 950,000 barrels and refinery capacity to rise 0.25 percentage point to 86.15 percent.

A reading above or below estimates can influence market trading.

Crude traders have also been watching the dollar. A weakening dollar helped fuel a doubling of the oil price since March as investors often look to commodities such as crude as a hedge against inflation.

The euro gained to $1.3866 on Wednesday from $1.3813 on Tuesday.

"Oil will likely drift below $70 and maybe to $65." Hassall said. "It's been a very strong rally, driven by sentiment rather than data, which makes it look vulnerable to a correction."

In other Nymex trading, gasoline for July delivery fell 3.69 cents to $2.0342 a gallon and heating oil dropped 0.75 cent to $1.8175. Natural gas for July delivery fell 0.9 cent to $4.12 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent prices fell 22 cents to $70.02 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Associated Press writer Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.

Oil price breaches $ 71 per barrel

2009-06-17T05:24:00.000-07:00

LONDON: New York oil prices breached 71 dollars on Wednesday, ahead of the latest update on US energy stockpiles, as traders monitored politicaltensions in major crude producer Iran.
New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in July, gained 74 cents to 71.21 dollars a barrel.

Brent North Sea crude for August delivery advanced 70 cents to 70.94 dollars.

Jason Feer, Asia-Pacific general manager of energy market analysts Argus Media, said political problems in Iran were helping push prices higher.

"It's one of those things where when there's a possibility of a major producer in the Gulf having a problem, there will be a knee jerk reaction in the market," Feer said.

Iran's opposition movement called for a new public rally in Tehran on Wednesday as pressure was building on the regime over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's fiercely-contested re-election.

The Islamic republic is the second biggest crude oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), after Saudi Arabia.

Later on Wednesday, the US government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) will publish data on American energy stockpiles for the week ending June 12.

"Today's EIA stats could show surprising draws (falls) in crude inventories," said ODL Securities analyst Marius Paun.

The US dollar meanwhile remained under pressure after major emerging economies cast doubt on the greenback's long-term future as the world's main reserve currency, dealers said.

A weaker US currency makes dollar-priced crude cheaper for buyers holding stronger currencies. That tends to stimulate demand and push the market higher.

Political unrest puts heat on oil

2009-06-17T05:23:00.000-07:00

Singapore - Oil breached $71 in Asian trade on Wednesday as political unrest in key crude producers Iran and Nigeria compounded the impact of a weaker US dollar, analysts said.

New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in July, gained 70 cents to $71.17 a barrel in afternoon trade.

Brent North Sea crude for August delivery advanced 67 cents to $70.91.

Jason Feer, Asia-Pacific general manager of energy market analysts Argus Media, said political problems in major oil producer Iran were helping push prices higher.

"It's one of those things where when there's a possibility of a major producer in the Gulf having a problem, there will be a knee jerk reaction in the market," Feer said.

Iran's election watchdog said Tuesday it was ready for a recount in the disputed presidential vote as the nation braced for further protests after at least seven people were killed in street battles, according to state media.
The Islamic republic is the second biggest crude oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), after Saudi Arabia.

The market was also kept jittery by heightened tensions in Nigeria after militants claimed attacks against facilities run by US oil giant Chevron, other analysts said.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has threatened to extend its operations beyond Delta State to others in the oil-rich but volatile southern region.

The US dollar meanwhile remained under pressure in Asian trade Wednesday after major emerging economies cast doubt on the greenback's long-term future as the world's main reserve currency, dealers said.

A weaker US currency makes dollar-priced crude cheaper for buyers holding stronger currencies. That tends to stimulate demand and push the market higher. - AFP

Oil breaches 71 dollars in Asian trade

2009-06-17T05:17:00.002-07:00

SINGAPORE: Oil breached 71 dollars in Asian trade on Wednesday as political unrest in key crude producers Iran and Nigeria compounded the impactof a weaker US dollar, analysts said.
New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in July, gained 70 cents to 71.17 dollars a barrel in afternoon trade.

Brent North Sea crude for August delivery advanced 67 cents to 70.91 dollars.

Jason Feer, Asia-Pacific general manager of energy market analysts Argus Media, said political problems in major oil producer Iran were helping push prices higher.

"It's one of those things where when there's a possibility of a major producer in the Gulf having a problem, there will be a knee jerk reaction in the market," Feer said.

Iran's election watchdog said Tuesday it was ready for a recount in the disputed presidential vote as the nation braced for further protests after at least seven people were killed in street battles, according to state media.

The Islamic republic is the second biggest crude oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), after Saudi Arabia.

The market was also kept jittery by heightened tensions in Nigeria after militants claimed attacks against facilities run by US oil giant Chevron, other analysts said.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has threatened to extend its operations beyond Delta State to others in the oil-rich but volatile southern region.

The US dollar meanwhile remained under pressure in Asian trade Wednesday after major emerging economies cast doubt on the greenback's long-term future as the world's main reserve currency, dealers said.

A weaker US currency makes dollar-priced crude cheaper for buyers holding stronger currencies. That tends to stimulate demand and push the market higher.

Russian Paradox Forum

2009-06-17T05:17:00.001-07:00

By ARIEL COHEN

Published: June 16, 2009

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA — Cold and rainy days at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum earlier this month followed each other like waves on the Baltic Sea. The economic forecasts pushed by Russian leaders, foreign dignitaries and gurus were just as bleak.

Russians believe this is a “W”-shaped recession, and, as President Dmitry Medvedev said, “It is too early to uncork the Champagne.” Yet the forum also highlighted a deepening rift between the approaches and the rhetoric of the Russian leadership.

Medvedev and the economic reformers would like to end the 16-year-long negotiations on Russia’s accession to W.T.O. before year’s end and revive Russia’s bid to join the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the club of rich and democratic market economies. Russia today doesn’t seem to qualify.

In the meantime, the “siloviki” (leaders of the military and security services) and state oil honchos, led by Deputy Premier Igor Sechin, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s enforcer in the oil and gas sector, would rather focus on a statist, anti-American, oil nationalist agenda.

It’s an agenda their counterparts from Iran and Venezuela would cheer — dumping the dollar in energy transactions; inventing a new, state-based system to regulate the oil sector worldwide (gas is state-owned in Russia) and launching a new Russian oil brand.

Both the “Medvedevites” and the siloviki at the forum repeatedly called for supranational money, such as the I.M.F. drawing rights, which would replace the dollar as a reserve currency. Russia also proposed, as a temporary measure, to launch a regional currency based on the ruble, despite the small size of the economy such regional money would serve. During the forum, Parliamentary Speaker Boris Gryzlov, a Putin loyalist, proposed that Russia launch a palladium-based coin to compete with gold.

It also appears that Russia wants to have its cake and eat it too, as it is eyeing membership in two key international organizations. At the St. Petersburg forum, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk negotiated speeding up Russia’s W.T.O. accession with First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, a Sechin nemesis; Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, another target of Sechin and the siloviki, and Economic Minister Elvira Nabiullina.

Russian global businessmen, such as steel magnate Alexei Mordashov, the owner of Severstal, who invested billions in the United States, expressed enthusiastic support for bringing the W.T.O. talks to a successful finale, since Russian investors overseas and Westerners in Russia would be better protected.

The Russian government also wants the U.S. to finally lift the obsolete Jackson-Vanick Amendment, which was passed to allow free emigration from the Soviet Union, and now precludes Russia from receiving PNTR (Permanent Normal Trade Relations ). For now, U.S. presidents waive the Jackson-Vanick year by year.

Furthermore, Medvedev and Kudrin would like to see Russia join the O.E.C.D. Herein lies the rub: Russia today doesn’t fit the organization’s criteria for property rights, transparency and the rule of law.

Corrupt Russian judges regularly take property away from foreigners, such as Norway’s Telenor. Russian law enforcers seized shares of value investors, such as Hermitage Capital, and then banished its owner, William Browder, from Russia. Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his partners and staff are facing a second round of trials for made-up crimes.

The St. Petersburg Forum also demonstrated how easily President Medvedev can be upstaged by Putin and Sechin. Putin did not deign to show up at all. Instead, he went to Pikalyovo, a shabby corporate town all but shut down by the crisis. There, on national TV, he tore into the one-time Kremlin favorite and formerly the richest man in Russia, Oleg Deripaska.

Not only did he blast Deripaska and other “city fathers” in Pikalyovo for incompetence and greed, he threatened to nationalize their cement and aluminum plants, echoing a bill pending in the Duma to seize properties affected by the recession.

By voicing an unmistakable threat that the Kremlin may resort to nationalization, Putin directly clashed with Medvedev, who called at the forum “not to forget the freedoms which took centuries to achieve.” The Russian president also said that large state-owned enterprises are a temporary anti-crisis tool, and eventually need to be privatized — something that Sechin and Putin publicly oppose.

When President Obama meets Putin and Medvedev in July, he needs to keep in mind that Russia is once again in a bind. It can go forward, to liberalization and membership in W.T.O. and O.E.C.D., or it can solidify the anti-American petro-state model.

What Russia can’t do is sit on both chairs — it cannot be a corrupt petro-state and at the same time join O.E.C.D. and attract high-tech investment. Obama can do his Russian hosts a favor: He can clearly formulate what the incentives and the disincentives are in each case, and stick to his game plan.

Ariel Cohen is senior research fellow at the Davis Institute for International Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

Oil hovers above $70 on mixed US economic signs

2009-06-17T05:15:00.000-07:00

SINGAPORE - Oil prices hovered above $70 a barrel Wednesday in Asia as investors weighed mixed signals from the U.S. economy amid tumbling equity markets.

Benchmark crude for July delivery rose 10 cents to $70.57 a barrel by midday Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Tuesday, it fell 15 cents to settle at $70.47.

Oil prices this week have come off eight-month highs near $73 a barrel amid some signs that the U.S. economy , while past the worst of a severe recession , is still weak. The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that industrial production fell a larger-than-expected 1.1 percent in May.

After a rally of almost 40 percent since March 9, the Dow Jones industrial average has fallen 3.3 percent over the first two days of the week.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said home construction jumped in May by the largest amount in three months after hitting a record low in April.

The euro gained to $1.3867 on Wednesday from $1.3813 on Tuesday.

"Oil will likely drift below $70 and maybe to $65." Hassall said. "It's been a very strong rally, driven by sentiment rather than data, which makes it look vulnerable to a correction."

In other Nymex trading, gasoline for July delivery fell 2.21 cents to $2.05 a gallon and heating oil was steady at $1.83. Natural gas for July delivery slid 2.8 cents to $4.10 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent prices rose 7 cents to $70.31 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Clean-energy windmills a 'dirty business' for farmers in Mexico

2009-06-17T05:14:00.000-07:00

By Chris Hawley, USA TODAY

The windmills stand in rows like an army of Goliaths, steel towers taller than the Statue of Liberty and topped with blades as long as a jetliner's wing. The blades whoosh through the humid air, carving energy from a wind that rushes across Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec on its journey from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. Nearly every day, another tower rises out of the countryside.

The isthmus — Mexico's narrowest point — is becoming the Saudi Arabia of alternative energy as U.S. and European companies, emboldened by new technology and high oil prices, rush to stake their claims in one of the world's windiest places. The Mexican government wants the isthmus to produce 2,500 megawatts within three years, a goal that will require thousands of windmills and would catapult Mexico into the top 12 producers of wind energy.

Opponents of Mexican President Felipe Calderón fear the generators are the first step toward privatizing Mexico's energy sector. And some residents are angry that the electricity being generated is not going to homes here in Oaxaca, one of the poorest states in Mexico, but to power Walmart stores, Cemex cement plants and a few other industrial customers in Mexico.

"It has divided neighbors against each other," said Alejo Giron, a communal farmer in La Venta. "If this place has so much possibility, where are the benefits for us?"

In the energy business, an average annual wind of 14.9 mph is good, and 16.3 mph is excellent, according to the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The wind near La Venta averages more than 19 mph, the laboratory found. During the winter, gusts are so strong they can flip tractor-trailer trucks.

The Mexican government began mapping the wind for possible wind farms in the 1990s. The projects have gone into high gear since the inauguration of Calderón, a former energy minister who has warned that Mexico is running out of oil and needs to modernize fast. He pushed through legal changes last year allowing more private investment in the state-controlled energy sector.

High oil prices, meanwhile, have made wind energy look like an increasingly good investment.

Calderón has pledged to have the region producing at least 2,500 megawatts by the time his term ends in 2012. That's enough for as many as 700,000 average U.S. homes.

Isthmus towns buzz with boomtown excitement. Engineers from Spain, Germany, France and the United States fill the restaurants at lunchtime. The hotels in the town of Juchitán are packed. The one-horse town of La Ventosa — "the windy place," in Spanish — is the site of a government center charged with developing new generations of wind turbines. All day long, a seemingly endless procession of cement trucks winds through the fields toward the growing forests of steel.

Underpaid?

One day in 2006, a truck with a loudspeaker showed up in the town of Santa María Xadani.

"It went around saying there was going to be a program to help farmers, and that we should show up the next night for a meeting," said farmer Abel Sánchez.

At the meeting, representatives from Spanish firm Endesa handed out soft drinks and explained that they wanted to rent land for their wind generators, Sánchez said.

It was a complicated deal. The company would pay 1.4% of the profit, plus $300 a year for each tower, with the money divided among the hundreds of landowners, a contract obtained by The Arizona Republic shows. Each landowner would get an additional $4.60 an acre annually, and the company would pay $182 per acre of land damaged during construction. There was a signing bonus of $37.

In exchange, property owners would have to get permission from the energy company before selling their land or striking deals for development.

One good cow can produce $90 of milk a month, so most farmers were unimpressed, Sánchez said. But the company representatives made it sound like a government program, he said, and there seemed to be little to lose. Many small landowners signed up even though they couldn't read.

Some companies are paying 50 cents to $1 per square yard annually for damages and have promised to remove much of the gravel once construction is complete. But Sánchez and about 180 other farmers in the towns of Xadani, Union Hildago and Juchitán decided they wanted none of it. They sued Endesa and two other Spanish companies, Preneal and Union Fenosa, saying the companies had misled poorly educated landowners and tricked them into signing lopsided deals.

Endesa and Union Fenosa did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Preneal declined to comment.

In October, Preneal relented and canceled its contracts with the dissenting landowners. Endesa and Union Fenosa did the same in March.

"It's clean energy but dirty business," said Claudia Vera, a lawyer at the Tepeyac Human Rights Center who helped the landowners with their case.

Opposition has spread to other towns, sometimes opening up old racial and political feuds.

In San Mateo del Mar, populated by Huavé Indians, residents voted to keep out the energy companies, re-igniting territorial disputes with neighboring villages dominated by Zapotec Indians, said local activist Roselia Gutiérrez.

In La Venta, proponents and opponents have broken along political party lines, with Institutional Revolutionary Party members supporting the contracts and the more liberal Democratic Revolutionary Party opposing them. On the national level, the Democratic Revolutionary Party has accused Calderón of using the wind farms as a test case for privatizing Mexico's oil and electricity sector.

Demonstrations in La Venta have halted construction six times at the Eurus wind farm, owned by Acciona Energy. Graffiti in the town blasts company officials and members of the local ejido, or farm cooperative. "Get out, Wilson!" says one. "La Venta belongs to the ejido members!" says another.

The companies say they've treated landowners fairly, even raising payments as construction nears on new projects.

Union Fenosa has promised to share 1% of the profit from its wind park in Juchitán, split between all of the landowners, with an additional 0.3% going to landowners with towers on their property, a contract shows.

"The truth is, if the people felt that what we're paying wasn't fair, we wouldn't be here," said Eurus project manager Ignacio Querol.

Benefits

Many residents say they've benefited.

Aquileo Jiménez, 51, has rights to 10 acres of the farm cooperative's land in La Venta. He used his first payment from Acciona to buy an old bus and now has a contract to shuttle workers to the construction sites.

Cruz Velázquez, 45, used his payment to open an auto-parts store. He's doing a brisk business selling brake pads and tires to the dump trucks streaming into the Eurus construction site. Across the road, 76-year-old Matias López Ramos directs truck traffic for $26 a day — good money in Oaxaca.

"It's done good things for us," Cruz Velázquez said. "Even people who were in the United States are coming back here to work because of it."

Retail gas rises for 49th straight day

2009-06-17T05:11:00.000-07:00

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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Map, News) - Retail gas prices rose for the 49th straight day Tuesday even though crude fell yet again.

The national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline gained a half cent overnight to $2.674, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and the Oil Price Information Service, surpassing a stretch in early 2007 when prices moved up 48 straight days.

In late April, when this streak began, a gallon of gas cost only $2.05.

Even during strong gasoline rallies in 2007 and 2008, prices tended to back off after gains of 20 to 40 cents per gallon, said Fred Rozell, OPIS' retail director.

"This is unprecedented," he said.

High unemployment and economic anxiety have led to some belt tightening, but with gasoline prices lower than they were three years ago, Rozell does not believe there has been a tangible economic effect this summer.

"I think people have it fresh in their mind that they were paying $4.15 last year," he said.

Benchmark crude for July delivery declined for the third straight day, falling 15 cents to settle at $70.47 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Unlike the previous two days of trading, the dollar fell Tuesday against most major currencies. The falling dollar has been one reason that money from Wall Street has flooded into energy markets in recent months.

Analysts have been saying for more than a month that crude prices are much too high. Even though it was the third straight day of declines, oil has now closed above $70 for a full week, the first time that has happened since October.

But there are signs that gasoline may be nearing a high.

Last year on this day, wholesale prices for gasoline peaked and began to fall, which was much later than the norm. Wholesale prices in at least one key market have dipped, and retail prices may follow.

Prices on the Nymex may be heavily influenced Wednesday when the government releases the latest data on the amount of gasoline and crude in storage.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline for July delivery rose 1.7 cents to settle at $2.0711 a gallon and heating oil fell less than a penny to settle at $1.8250. Natural gas for July delivery fell 7 cents to settle at $4.312 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent crude prices closed flat at $70.24 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

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Associated Press Writers Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary, and Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.

Exxon Ordered to Pay Interest on Alaska Spill Award

2009-06-17T05:08:00.000-07:00

Exxon Mobil was ordered Monday to pay about $500 million in interest on punitive damages for the Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, nearly doubling the payout to Alaska Natives, fishermen, business owners and others harmed by the 1989 disaster.

The ruling was issued by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

In June 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court set punitive damages at $507.5 million. But two months later, the high court declined to decide whether Exxon Mobil [XOM 71.63 --- UNCH (0)] must pay interest on the punitive damages awarded in America's worst oil spill and instead sent it back to the appeals court.

Monday's decision would double the average payout of about $15,000 for the nearly 33,000 claimants.

"We're just happy that we've cleared another hurdle, and hopefully we can get the case tied up as soon as possible," Stanford University law professor Jeffrey Fisher, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Associated Press on Monday. "What we want more than anything now is just to bring this case to a close."

Worker unrest looms over Chavéz's seizure of oil firms

2009-06-17T05:06:00.000-07:00

The Venezuelan government's seizure of 70 oil service companies last month has set the stage for a clash between President Hugo Chávez and unions and local government.

BY TYLER BRIDGES

McClatchy News Service

CIUDAD OJEDA, Venezuela -- Despite the recent sharp rise in oil prices, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez last month seized 70 oil service companies in western Venezuela, putting 10,000 out of work, turning unions against him and forcing production cuts at important oilfields.

Protesting workers have blocked oil company offices, stopped vehicular traffic at one oil port and marched through the streets shouting angry denunciations of the government.

More tension awaits.

Chávez has stopped short of nationalizing big U.S.-based multinationals such as Halliburton or Schlumberger. Nor have the owners of the 70 Venezuelan firms -- in addition to four foreign-owned firms -- protested publicly, fearing that doing so might jeopardize settlement negotiations with the government.

Analysts said Chávez seized the private companies, which provide support services such as cleaning and transport across giant Lake Maracaibo, where the oil is located, to save money for PDVSA, the state oil company. It owes $5 billion to its creditors. There's a political narrative to the action as well, however.

The companies the government seized are concentrated in Zulia state, which consistently has opposed Chávez during his 10 years in power. Now the stage is being set for a confrontation between Chávez and the local power structure, including unions, management and local government, with PDVSA's oil production activities caught in the middle. Oil production, which has fallen 25 percent during Chávez's time in office, could slide still further and weaken the national economy.

Political unrest could be around the corner. The state oil company has promised to hire 8,000 of the workers laid off from the private companies. But PDVSA is moving slowly, apparently in part because, according to workers, it's conducting background checks to ensure that they don't have a demonstrated record of opposing Chávez.

The governor, Pablo Pérez, charged that Chávez's expropriations have led to a ''job massacre.'' Pérez is under pressure from Chávez, with government prosecutors investigating corruption charges against him that he called groundless. It has been only two months since Manuel Rosales, Zulia's most prominent politician and Pérez's predecessor, fled into exile to avoid similar charges.

Meanwhile, Chávez supporters are accusing Diario La Verdad, the Zulia newspaper that doesn't follow the government's line, of engaging in ``media terrorism.''

However, it's the prospect of losing their jobs that worries tens of thousands of workers in the oil-dependent towns along the eastern shore of Lake Maracaibo.

''It could blow up in a month, a month and a half,'' said German Cortez, who heads a union. ``If people are hungry, they'll hit the streets.''

Chávez promised a better day when he came to Ciudad Ojeda on May 8 to celebrate the expropriation.

''To God what is God's, and to Caesar what is Caesar's,'' a Bible-quoting Chávez told supporters. ``Today we also say: to the people what is the people's.''

He cast his decision to seize the companies as the next step for Venezuela under his ''21st century socialism.'' But it has turned out to be a rerun of 20th century socialism, with the same inefficiencies that eventually weakened the Soviet empire during the Cold War.

During Chávez's decade as president, PDVSA's work force has ballooned, with the company now performing such non-oil related activities as providing subsidized food to the poor.

Standard & Poor's Rating Services announced Friday that it lowered its credit rating on PDVSA in part because of uncertainty over whether the company will pay its creditors.

The expropriation was consistent with Chávez's philosophy to seize important sectors of the economy to try to direct more of the country's wealth to the poor, said José Luis Acosta, a Zulia state lawmaker for Chávez's political party.

''The private companies didn't have the interests of the state at heart,'' Acosta said. ``They exploited the workers and used the income to finance the activities of the opposition.''

Not many analysts share that view.

''PDVSA has cash problems, and Chávez thinks the state can do the work better than the private sector,'' said Roger Tissot, an energy consultant who closely follows Venezuela for Brazil Energia Latin America. ``I think that's a mistake. The quality of service is going to decline, and production is going to suffer.''

Oil falls to around $70 on mixed US economic signs

2009-06-17T05:04:00.000-07:00