ODAC Newsletter – Apr 2

World energy producers and consumers pledged greater cooperation and called for transparent markets here on Wednesday to tackle oil price volatility seen as damaging to economic recovery.

“With regard to energy market volatility, energy markets should be as transparent as possible,” said a joint declaration issued by the International Energy Forum at the end of a two-day meeting in the beach resort of Cancun…

The head of the International Energy Agency, the developed world’s energy watchdog, has called for China to join the agency and warned that the institution risked losing relevance as energy demand shifted eastward away from its current members…

Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al- Naimi said he “hopes” prices remain in the $70-a-barrel to $80-a-barrel range, signaling the world’s largest producer may be willing to boost output if crude accelerates further.

The country could boost production by as much as 4.5 million barrels a day and is “waiting” for demand to rise after increasing capacity to 12.5 million barrels, Al-Naimi told reporters yesterday in Cancun, Mexico. Prices in the $70-to $80- range are “as close to perfect as possible,” he said, adding today that he “hopes” prices remain in that range…

The U.S. Department of Energy admits that “a chance exists that we may experience a decline” of world liquid fuels production between 2011 and 2015 “if the investment is not there”, according to an exclusive interview with Glen Sweetnam, main official expert on oil market in the Obama administration.

This warning on oil output issued by Obama’s energy administration comes at a time when world demand for oil is on the rise again, and investments in many drilling projects have been frozen in the aftermath of the tumbling of crude prices and of the financial crisis…

President Barack Obama proposed drilling for oil and natural gas off the U.S. East Coast while scrapping development in Bristol Bay, Alaska, part an effort he said will boost energy independence and protect the environment.

The president would permit exploration in the Atlantic Ocean from south of Delaware and, if a congressional moratorium is lifted, in the Gulf of Mexico 125 miles (201 kilometers) off the west coast of Florida. Obama said the plan is part of the transition to a new-energy economy…

Crude oil surged to a 17-month high and gasoline rose on signs that global economic growth is accelerating, bolstering optimism that fuel consumption will increase this year.

Oil advanced above $84 after reports showed U.S., Chinese and European manufacturing expanded, while pessimism decreased among Japan’s largest industrial companies. Government data tomorrow may show that U.S. employers added about 180,000 jobs in March, a Bloomberg News survey showed…

BP has scored a twin success in its battle to block a shareholder resolution that raised doubts about its proposed investment in Canada’s oil sands, with a group of local authority investors and a leading advisory service recommending a vote against the move…

Hopes that the Falkland Islands would emerge as a significant oil producer were dealt a significant blow yesterday when it emerged that the first well to be drilled in the region for more than 12 years had yielded only small traces of oil and gas.

The announcement from Desire Petroleum sent its shares plunging 48 per cent to 50½p, wiping about £160 million off the company’s market value to £163 million…

The elected leaders of six coastal Texas counties are forming a public corporation to seek as much as $10 billion for a 100-mile (160-kilometer) network of levees, seawalls and football-field-sized floodgates that can protect the region from hurricane storm surges.

The Ike Dike is named for the 2008 hurricane that swamped Galveston Bay with more than 20 feet of water and came within 50 miles of drowning the nation’s largest concentration of refineries and petrochemical plants and the second-biggest U.S. port. The proposed system would help protect the coastline from Houston to the Louisiana border against storms such as Ike, which caused about $30 billion in water and wind damage…

Iraq’s current “highly ambitious plans” to expand oil production are unlikely to be fully realized given political, security, operational and infrastructure challenges, according to a new report, Fields of Dreams: The Great Iraqi Oil Rush — Its Potential, Challenges, and Limits by IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates (IHS CERA).

Iraq currently plans to expand production to as much as 12 million barrels per day (bpd) in the next six to seven years. Achieving levels around half that in the next decade would be more likely and would still constitute “a significant expansion,” the report emphasizes. IHS CERA’s current outlook for Iraq is 4.3 mbd in 2015 and 6.5 mbd in 2020 — still big growth numbers…

A commission tasked with weeding Ba’athist elements from public life in Iraq is today poised to make a surprise intervention into attempts to form a government, by claiming that some candidates in the recent election, won by Iyad Allawi, should not have been allowed to stand.

The accountability and justice commission claims to have identified several candidates from Allawi’s winning list who it had earlier tried to bar…

Britain will this week rule out stockpiling national reserves of gas, despite concerns about the country’s lack of storage and over-reliance on foreign imports, according to industry sources.

It is understood that the Government has decided against keeping national stocks of gas, which is the practice in some European countries such as Holland. The decision will be contained in a paper examining Britain’s security of gas supply…

GAZPROM, Russia’s state-owned gas giant, is preparing an audacious bid to become one of the biggest fuel suppliers in Britain.

The company is expected to lodge an offer this week for a network of 800 petrol stations and the Lindsey oil refinery at Killingholme, Lincolnshire. The assets have been put up for sale by Total, the French oil group. It has hired JP Morgan, the investment bank, to sell its UK business, which employs 5,000 people. The business is expected to fetch more than £1 billion…

The prospect of thousands of new “green” jobs in the UK as part of a drive for a low carbon economy came a step closer with two big investments in the environmental sector…

TESCO will start selling solar panels this week, leading a stampede of retailers aiming to cash in on a controversial new subsidy scheme.

The rush has been triggered by the launch of the government’s new feed-in tariff (Fit) programme. Taking effect on Thursday, this pays homeowners and small firms for generating electricity from photovoltaic solar panels and wind turbines, either for their own use or to be sold back to the grid…

SOME of Britain’s richest landowners are set to earn millions by building wind farms to exploit the lucrative system of subsidies for generating renewable energy.

Among the biggest potential beneficiaries is the Duke of Roxburghe, whose planned 48-turbine scheme on his Scottish estate would generate an estimated £30m a year, shared with developers. About £17m of this would come from subsidies from consumers…

THE renewable-fuel standard released in February by America’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) paints an ambitious picture of biofuels’ future. It wants the amount of the stuff used as transport fuel to climb from 13 billion gallons (49 billion litres) in 2010 to 36 billion gallons in 2022, requiring by far the largest part of that increase to come from various advanced biofuels, rather than ethanol made from corn (maize). But although the future looks exciting, the present is rather grim. The EPA has been forced to slash its 2010 mandate for the most widely touted of the non-corn biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, from 100m gallons to just 6.5m, less than a thousandth of the 11 billion gallons produced from corn in 2009…

Businesses are confused about and unprepared for the implementation of the Government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), the energy efficiency scheme which starts tomorrow.

Nearly half of companies surveyed by the power supplier Npower said official advice about the new legislation had been “inadequate”. About 49 per cent said they did not understand how to buy the necessary carbon allowances and 44 per cent said they do not know how to forecast their carbon emissions, according to a report published this morning…

BRITAIN faces the worst energy crisis in Europe, according to the boss of one of the biggest power companies.

“The country has to build two large plants or more every single year,” said Volker Beckers in his first interview since becoming chief executive of RWE Npower two months ago…

Millions of vulnerable people remain in fuel poverty despite a multi-billion spending scheme to help elderly people heat their homes, MPs have warned.

Ministers promised to end fuel poverty among deprived households by 2010 in England and to wipe out the problem completely by 2016…

Objectors claimed the Government’s policy over the expansion of London’s Heathrow Airport was “in tatters” today after a High Court judge ruled that plans for a third runway must be reconsidered.

A coalition of local councils, green groups and residents argued that the expansion decision was at odds with the UK’s overall climate change targets…

Fresh sanctions against Iran moved closer yesterday, when China agreed to begin drafting a UN resolution imposing measures aimed at persuading Tehran to curb its nuclear programme.

Last night, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said the five permanent security council members plus Germany “continues to be unified” in talks on sanctions. “There will be a great deal of further consultation not only among the [six], but other members of the security council and other [UN] member nations during the next weeks,” she said…

The yield on 10-year Treasuries – the benchmark price of global capital – surged 30 basis points in just two days last week to over 3.9pc, the highest level since the Lehman crisis. Alan Greenspan, ex-head of the US Federal Reserve, said the abrupt move may be “the canary in the coal mine”, a warning to Washington that it can no longer borrow with impunity. He said there is a “huge overhang of federal debt, which we have never seen before”.

David Rosenberg at Gluskin Sheff said Treasury yields have ratcheted up 90 basis points since December in a “destabilising fashion”, for the wrong reasons. Growth has not been strong enough to revive fears of inflation. Commodity prices peaked in January and US home sales have fallen for the last three months, pointing to a double-dip in the housing market…

The UK economy emerged from recession in the fourth quarter of last year at a faster pace than previously estimated, official figures have shown.

Data from the Office for National Statistics said the economy grew 0.4% between October and December in 2009…