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Amnesty – Nigerian army kills unarmed civilians while ‘protecting’ oil majors
The Vanguard (Nigeria)
NIGERIAN security forces often gun down unarmed civilians while protecting foreign oil majors in the Niger Delta, rights group Amnesty International said in a just released report, calling on US and British firms to investigate two recent violent incidents. …
“Ten years after … new evidence shows that the people of Nigeria’s oil producing Niger Delta continue to face death and devastation at the hands of the security forces,” Kolawole Olaniyan, director of Amnesty International’s Africa programme, said in a statement.
On February 4, soldiers shot one protester dead and injured 30 more when villagers from the Ugborodo community invaded Chevron’s Escravos oil terminal, the report alleges. Two weeks later, on February 19, at least 17 people were killed when soldiers from the same Joint Task Force — which has been deployed to protect the oil industry — raided Odioma, burning much of the town to the ground in a fruitless search for an armed vigilante group, the report says. …
(3 November 2005)
See also Amnesty’s text.
Energy giants facing huge fines over prices
Richard Orange, TheBusiness.com
EUROPE’S consumers pay too much for energy because leading French and German gas and electricity giants are blocking competition, according to the first results of a European Commission inquiry.
The commission’s preliminary findings, to be published on Wednesday, found “serious problems in energy markets”. Its report raises the prospect that companies such as Eon, RWE and Electricité de France (EdF) could face combined fines of more than c10bn ($11.7bn, £6.7bn). They could also be forced to split their businesses and sell assets.
According to documents obtained by The Business, the commission’s report will warn that it is considering serious action against Europe’s energy companies and governments for “restrictive practices and abuse of dominant market positions”. …
(13 November 2005)
IEA: “Demand Destruction” Overstated; China Demand Leaps
Adam Smallman, Dow Jones Newswires via Schlumberger
LONDON – The International Energy Agency Thursday poured cold water on talk of a slump in world oil demand, with new data pointing toward a resurgence in Chinese consumption and likely upward revisions to U.S. consumption data.
“There is little evidence that provides a conclusive or country-wide answer” to talk of “demand destruction,” the agency said in its widely-watched Oil Market Report. “The potential for future revisions” remains, it added. “Demand could be understated” and could increase the need for crude supplies from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in the northern hemisphere’s winter.
Despite this, the energy watchdog for the industrialized world tweaked its global oil demand growth forecast for this year negligibly lower, by 1.2 million barrels a day, to 83.3 million b/d. The biggest revision came in its expected growth in fourth-quarter demand. It sliced 400,000 b/d from growth in the peak-demand winter period. …
(10 November 2005)
Senate bill would let U.S. ban petroleum exports
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Energy Secretary would gain authority to temporarily ban exports of American-produced gasoline, heating oil and other refined petroleum products during a supply emergency, under legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate.
Under the bill, introduced on Thursday by Democrat Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, oil product exports from a specific region of the country could by banned if Energy Secretary Sam Bodman determined supplies in that area have fallen or will fall below expected demand.
(11 November 2005)
Experts: unfair to blame China on oil price
Xinhua (China)
Experts attending the China-Montreux Energy Roundtable 2005 said in Beijing on Sunday that there are a dozen of factors contributing to the current surging oil price and it is unfair to blame China solely.
Professor Subroto, Chairman of the Foundation of Indonesian Institute for Energy Economics, said that different from the oil crisis occurred in last century that were caused by disruption of supply, the current soaring oil price are caused by demand increase with increasing economic activity worldwide.
Moreover, the small excess capacity of major oil producers and political factors are also important factors contributing to the current soaring oil price, he said.
However, Subroto believed that the oil price will somewhat fall with more investment in the industry and more supply. But it could be definitely say that the era of 25 US dollars per barrel will not come back, he said.
(14 November 2005)
Russia reinforces its global energy empire
Zaman Daily (“First Turkish Paper on the Internet”)
The rising price of energy increases the strategic value of energy sources and confers an advantageous position to countries which possess large energy potentials. The foremost among them is the oil and natural gas-rich Russia. Many countries for this reason seek to establish strategic economic relations with Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who strives to change the Russian economy from being a “closed economy” dependent on energy revenues into a diversified economy, has taken the marketing of his country’s energy into his own hand. The takeover of the 73 percent of the shares of Russia’s richest man, Roman Abramovich’s Sibneft, by the state energy giant, Gasprom, in return for $ 13 billion following the Yukos incident made the Russian energy sector more nationalized. However, Kremlin spends strenuous efforts to market these resources abroad.
(13 November 2005)
High oil prices don’t hurt everyone – ask Kuwait
Christopher Walker. Independent
US bankers call Kuwait a plutocracy, but its welfare system shames Sweden’s
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“The price of petrol,” my Kuwaiti friend tut-tutted. For many years it had been 5p a litre, but in the past year it had stormed up to 9p. As we were overtaken simultaneously by sports cars on both sides, it was hard to feel sympathy. All around us were the consequences of cheap petrol – a car-dominated city that puts Los Angeles to shame. We queued for an hour to park at a luxury goods shopping-centre, before joining others in parking in the middle of a traffic island.
The Gulf today has to be seen to be believed. The string of mini-Manhattans that stretches from Kuwait City to Dubai is a testament to the extraordinary oil boom that is going on today.
The oil price is one of the most straightforward mechanisms in the global economy for transferring wealth from one region to another – from the Western economies to the Gulf States.
(13 November 2005)
Lebanon – Protesters denounce fuel price increase
Morshed al-Ali, Daily Star (Lebanon)
BEKAA: Hizbullah MP Ismail Sukkarieh said Sunday he backed the residents of the Bekaa in their calls for a decrease in the price of fuel, following furious demonstrations over the weekend. He added the people “have a democratic right to hold demonstrations,” and the government should meet their demands, since they cannot bear the high prices of fuel.
Dozens of Bekaa residents took to the streets on Friday and Saturday protesting against the increase of the price of diesel. Demonstrations spread to several towns in Baalbek and Zahle, where tires were set ablaze and roads were blocked. Protesters denounced the Cabinet’s economic strategy and the increase in price of diesel during the winter season. Some called for the resignation of Premier Fouad Siniora.
Demonstrations also had a political aspect, especially with the withdrawal of Hizbullah and Amal ministers from the Cabinet session on Thursday. Lebanese Army units and Civil Defense personnel were forced to intervene to reopen the roads and ease traffic. …
(14 November 2005)
How to beat the big energy chill
Brad Stone, Newsweek
This winter’s soaring heating bills will be a painful reminder that we’re living in an age of expensive energy. But there’s an upside: the business case for renewable sources of energy is warming up quickly.
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…When all is said and done, 2005 may be remembered as the year America caught a serious case of energy agita. In the past year, oil has blown by $50 a barrel and peaked briefly at $70 altitudes, sending prices at the gas pump temporarily into the psychologically jarring territory north of $3 a gallon. At the same time, confronted with hurricanes, vanishing Arctic ice and other bizarre weather phenomena, many global-warming skeptics finally acknowledged that the greenhouse gases produced by burning fossil fuels are altering the Earth’s climate. Add to that the fierce ongoing debate about “peak oil” and the declining viability of the Earth’s oil supply, the plunge in sales of gas-guzzling SUVs and, finally, the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which ravaged the Gulf Coast energy infrastructure and closed a third of the country’s oil and gas production.
All this has produced an interesting side effect: the alternative-energy industry has taken off.
…But as demand continues to expand, we’ll likely need new sources of both alternative and fossil fuels, plus a healthy dose of what Chevron CEO Dave O’Reilly calls the “cheapest source of additional energy supply”—conservation. A flood of energy-efficient products are hitting the market, including LED lighting, smart appliances and today’s most fashionable purchase, hybrid cars. San Francisco’s Center for Resource Solutions, which gives the “green E” certification to products manufactured with electricity derived from renewable energy sources, says it is swamped by companies that want to market themselves as ecofriendly. The center’s staff of five workers now gets 20 to 40 requests for certification a week from companies such as Frito-Lay, FedEx, Kinko’s, Staples and Starbucks, up from about five a week last year.
It seems cool to be green, and it’s no wonder. As gas and heating-oil prices inevitably rise this winter and more families get hit in the wallet, alternative energy represents at least the promise of relief down the road. Solar, wind, biofuels and hydrogen may not help bank accounts next month, but people backing the technology have a longer-term, and much bigger, payoff in mind.
(21 November 2005 issue)
Long article.
