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Firms Crimping Oil Supplies
AP via Myway
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) – You’d think it was Texas. Dusty roads course the scrubland toward oil tanks and warehouses. Beefy men talk oil over burritos at lunch. Like grazing herds, oil wells dip nonstop amid the tumbleweed – or even into the asphalt of a parking lot.
That’s why the rumor sounded so wrong here in California’s lower San Joaquin Valley, where petroleum has gushed up more riches than the whole gold rush. Why would Shell Oil Co. simply close its Bakersfield refinery? Why scrap a profit maker?
The rumor seemed to make no sense. Yet it was true.
The company says it could make more money on other projects. It denies it intended to squeeze the market, as its critics would claim, to drive up gasoline profits at its other refineries in the region.
Whatever the truth in Bakersfield, an Associated Press analysis suggests that big oil companies have been crimping supplies in subtler ways across the country for years. And tighter supplies tend to drive up prices.
(25 Nov 2006)
Also at Common Dreams.
UPDATE: Reader Don Mason writes:
My office is in Bakersfield, and I’m viewing the old Shell refinery outside my office window as I type this e-mail.
I just wanted to make a clarification from the article. There are no old “dusty roads” in the area surrounding the refinery.
Years ago, the refinery sat surrounded by vacant land. Today, it’s surrounded by suburban development. My office is about two miles from the refining facility, and over the years, there were many days when hydrogen sulfide emissions from the refinery greatly exceeded the EPA standards. Bad enough at times to make me ill.
As expected, Shell stonewalled any real solution. The people living near the refinery were overjoyed by the news that the refinery would be shut down.
The journalist that wrote the article obviously never interviewed any of the citizens that actually live near the refinery, nor did they research the long history of air pollution violations by the Shell refinery. Good riddance I say!
The History of Oil Propaganda
Plenty Magazine, YouTube
Plenty magazine TV produced this hilarious, right on the money, phoney PSA, about oil companies conservation propaganda through the ages, a laugh riot… and terrifying scary.
(Nov 2006)
The oil companies are still at it.
See
Teachers Association Reject 50,000 Free Copies of An Inconvenient Truth
and Would the World’s Largest Science Teacher’s Organization Ignore Climate Change Education?.
-BA
No public disclosure of Kuwait oil reserves-minister
Summer Said, Reuters
CAIRO – OPEC-producer Kuwait will not make a public announcement about the size of its oil reserves but will provide data to the Gulf Arab state’s parliament, the energy minister said on Thursday.
Industry newsletter Petroleum Intelligence Weekly (PIW) said in January it had seen internal Kuwaiti records showing reserves were about 48 billion barrels — half the officially stated 99 billion, or some 10 percent of global oil reserves.
“We will not announce it (the reserves) publicly because we are not obliged to,” Sheikh Ali al-Jarrah al-Sabah said.
(30 Nov 2006)
Contributor David Bell writes:
This is not unexpected but it is interesting given the latest G20 meeting where members pushed for greater transparency in relation to energy markets including reserves. Saudi Arabia is a G20 member as is Russia.
Iraq’s oil industry in grip of despair
Peg Mackey, Reuters
LONDON, – The present state of Iraq’s collapsing oil sector, its economic lifeline, is bleak ad its future looks far worse, despairing officials say.
Another damaging oil attack this week, the prospect of British troops handing over the oil city of Basra and virtual civil war have all but crushed hope for Iraqi officials battling to keep exports flowing to world markets.
“One thing is sure. The worst is yet to come,” an Iraqi oil industry source said by telephone from Baghdad.
(29 Nov 2006)
Alberta must invest in oil sands area: board
DAVID EBNER, Globe and Mail
Alberta’s energy regulator has warned the provincial government it has a “short window of opportunity” to invest in roads and other infrastructure in the Fort McMurray region to keep up with unprecedented oil sands development.
The regulator’s advice to the government is part of a growing political and social awareness in Alberta that oil sands development is spiralling out of control and a far stricter plan is required.
…The recommendations were made after the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which includes Fort McMurray, questioned the pace of oil sands growth at hearings to discuss the Suncor expansion. The region said uncontrolled development was hurting the people, the air, the roads, the schools and the health care system.
(18 Nov 2006)
