Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Indonesia’s pressures mount
Gabriel Andris Thoumi, Jakarta Post
Here are some important global oil facts: U.S. uses 25 percent of the world’s daily oil production of 80 million barrels of oil. World oil supplies are at their historic peak of maximum production due to depletion setting in. The planet is operating at anywhere from 95 percent to 99 percent capacity production. Since 1965 world trend is oil extraction rates are declining. Over the next ten years China’s and India’s 2.3 billion humans will rapidly expand oil demand.
Indonesian oil facts are equally worrisome:
Indonesia’s state run oil and gas company PT Pertamina decreased its fuel reserves to 21 days. Indonesia’s 2005 government fuel subsidy may be Rp 150 trillion which is 450 percent over forecast. The 2005 government fuel subsidy may be 275 percent greater than its education budget. Indonesia may have to decrease its 2005 fuel subsidies by Sept. 30. …
Since Indonesia’s government has to import oil to cover increased national demand and it is having limited success with a voluntary national fuel conservation plan, it has now delayed cash transfers to the state run oil and gas company PT Pertamina to force energy conservation. For example, on July 2, PT Pertamina reduced daily fuel supplies to West Java Province and Jakarta by 5 percent. Before this, each region received about 16,500 kiloliters fuel per day. Now roaming fuel shortages are common, particularly on the weekends.
At current prices, economists estimate Indonesia’s 2005 fuel subsidy bill be between Rp 138 trillion and Rp 150 trillion based on $60-$80 per barrel oil. About 25 percent-30 percent of Indonesia’s national budget is expected to be used for the 2005 oil subsidy. …
Was titled “Market-risk hedging can reduce oil subsidy”.
( 15 August 2005)
Author seems very keen on hedging, but he also states depletion as fact, and provides some momentous numbers for the worlds fourth most populous country.-LJ
Renewable energy is the key, says Kalam
President calls for bio-fuel and solar energy enterprises, aims for energy-independence by 2030
Deccan Herald (India)
President A P J Abdul Kalam on Sunday said India’s premier oil company, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, should diversify and enter the renewable energy business of bio-fuel and solar energy.
Envisioning the company as a global energy giant, he said: “I would recommend ONGC take the lead and enable the establishment of model bio-diesel plants with Jatropha [the oil-producing Jatropha curcas plant] coming from different parts of the country. ONGC can also undertake research in collaboration with Indian Institute of Petroleum and the automobile industry for progressive increase in use of bio-fuel.”
Dr Kalam said the ultimate aim should be to find engines which can run on bio-fuel alone.
“This will allow for work to be taken up with a target of at least 30 million tonnes of bio-fuel within the next decade. The second area ONGC can enter in a big way is harnessing solar energy,” he said, speaking at ONGC’s golden jubilee function here. …
(15 August 2005)
President Kalam seeks ‘Energy Independence’
NDTV (India)
President APJ Abdul Kalam’s Independence Day eve speech combined the vision of a statesman with that of a scientist. The defining theme of his speech was self-sufficiency in the energy sector.
He called for a new nuclear energy policy, which will enable India to achieve total “Energy Independence” within the next 25 years.
Dr Kalam was well-prepared with a set of graphics, facts and figures, to drive home his argument that India needs to use more solar, hydro and nuclear energy, as oil imports were not only very expensive but a depleting source.
“Fossil fuel imports need to be minimized and secure access to be ensured. Maximum hydro and nuclear power potential should be tapped,” said the President.
“However there would be a requirement for a ten-fold increase in nuclear power generation even to attain a reasonable degree of energy self-sufficiency for our country. Therefore it is essential to pursue the development of nuclear power using thorium, reserves which are higher in the country,” he added.
(14 August 2005)
Non-critical coverage of Kalam’s energy plan, as one might expect of an article that chracterizes a politician as combining “the vision of a statesman with that of a scientist.” We should expect more of journalists than that they be mere stenographers to power. -BA
Editorial: Time to conserve energy
Taipei Times (Taiwan)
Recently many motorists have complained about the higher pump prices as it cost them more when they filled up their tanks. Government officials, on the other hand, are scratching their heads and wondering when will crude oil prices stop climbing, as they have driven up general prices and placed greater pressure on the government to attain its 4-percent economic growth target this year.
Worries are growing because we have seen record high oil prices every other day for the past week, with the price rising above US$67 a barrel in New York on Friday due to a spate of refinery problems in the US. Foreign oil analysts said oil could reach US$75 a barrel in the next 12 months. But what scared us more was a report published in late March by Goldman Sachs that a “super spike” in oil prices might occur, and that oil could eventually reach as high as US$105 a barrel. …
There is no single explanation for why oil is so expensive, and the government is evaluating the impact of higher oil costs on economic growth and domestic consumer prices. But besides making evaluations, what strategy has the government adopted? …
Taiwan may find it hard to play a hand in such geopolitical struggles over energy sources, but what it needs to do is to search for renewable sources of power on the grounds of national and energy security concern. The question is: Has it done enough for itself? Has the government decided on what kind of industry is necessary for the sustained development of our economy? And what energy resources would better serve these industries? Also, have our motorists responded by driving smaller cars instead of big SUVs?
In other words, what the nation needs is a serious, rather than a ceremonial, attempt at energy conservation. There’s not much Taiwan can do about rising oil prices, but these responses should certainly act to temper the long-term impact on the economy, and they must begin now.
(15 August, 2005)
Chavez to Give Latin Countries Priority in Developing Heavy Oil
Peter Wilson, Bloomberg
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he will give priority in developing the country’s heavy oil reserves in the Orinoco belt to companies in Latin America and the Caribbean and not the U.S.
Chavez, who offered blocks last week to Uruguay’s state oil company and Rio de Janeiro-based Petroleo Brasileiro SA, has said the Orinoco Faja or oil belt may hold as much as 300 billion barrels of oil.
“The oil from the Faja won’t be for Mr. Danger,” Chavez said during a three-and-a-half hour televised address to a youth conference in Caracas, in a reference to U.S. President George W. Bush. “In the first place oil will be for the Venezuelan people, and then the people of Latin America and the Caribbean.”
Venezuela, the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter, is readying plans to offer as many as 27 blocks in the Orinoco belt to oil companies. U.S. companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips, are the main shareholders in three of the four joint ventures now operating in the area.
The four ventures, which produce more than 500,000 barrels a day of synthetic crude, take heavy oil from the Faja and pump it to the Caribbean where it is processed into lighter crude for export. …
(14 August 2005)
China Rationing Gasoline And Diesel Fuel
Andrea R. Mihailescu, UPI
China’s most prosperous city of Guangzhou has begun rationing gasoline and diesel to cope with a fuel shortage. Guangzhou experienced a monthly shortfall of approximately 12,200 barrels per day of oil products, Xie Zhaowei, secretary of Guangzhou’s Petroleum Industry Association, said.
China National Petroleum officials said soaring oil prices and a refinery-imposed supply crunch led to a shortage in the consumer market. China’s growing energy consumption is also a factor.
“Asia’s largest oil refiner Sinopec relies on imports for much of its crude for refining, so the surging crude prices on the world market have greatly hurt the oil giant’s refining business, when the central government still controls the price of domestic refined oil to stabilize the market,” a CNPC official was quoted by the China Daily. …
By the end of 2005, China plans to implement a fuel tax policy, which could prompt vehicle owners to reduce fuel consumption or buy more energy-efficient cars.
(9 August, 2005)
Gasoline stations jammed as fuel crisis deepens
Dennis Ng, The Standard (China)
An increasingly acute fuel shortage in southern China is reaching crisis proportions, with long lines of trucks and cars at filling stations throughout Shenzhen and other areas.
Recent news reports in Guangdong said many filling stations in the fast- growing province have run low on fuel because of Typhoon Haitang, which hit Taiwan in the middle of last month and kept many oil tankers out of harbor. …
As an example of the problems truckers face, a major transport union said Thursday that rising prices may force hundreds of self-employed container truck drivers and dozens of transport firms to impose a fuel surcharge to transport goods from Guangdong factories to Hong Kong container terminals. …
[Lok Ma Chau China-Hong Kong Freight Association chairman Stanley Chiang] said the association has considered requesting a meeting with senior government officials in Hong Kong for a possible reduction in the diesel tax to make the Hong Kong logistics sector competitive in the Pearl River region. …
(12 August 2005)
China: Where has all the oil gone? IEA wonders
Hugh Dent, AFP via Petroleum World
The Chinese economy continues to grow strongly, but how strongly, and it has a huge appetite for oil, but how much is it consuming?
The answers, as the International Energy Agency has highlighted in the last 12 months, are having and will continue to have a big impact on the structure of energy markets in Asia and on world demand for oil.
And the agency, in its monthly report on Thursday, laid out some of the mysteries, uncertainties and distorting factors clouding the view of the forces at work, ranging from price subsidies to signs of shortages, in the Chinese industrial machine.
The picture that emerges from careful reading of the IEA reports over many months is of a country that is heavily subsidising huge growth in demand for oil to feed the insatiable Chinese economy — and this has led the IEA to some surprising figures in the August report. …
(12 August 2005)
