Oil – Jan 30

Click on the headline (link) for the full text.

HSBC: Oil majors at risk from ‘unburnable’ reserves
Will Nichols, Business Green
Oil and gas majors, including, BP, Shell, and Statoil, could face a loss in market value of up to 60 per cent should the international community stick to its agreed emission reduction targets, analysts at HSBC have warned.

A new report from the banking giant finds that 17 per cent of Norwegian company Statoil’s reserves would become "unburnable" in a world where oil and gas use falls as countries seek to keep carbon concentrations in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million (ppm), the level the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates is necessary to deliver a 50 per cent chance of limiting long-term temperature rises to 2°C.

Governments around the world have repeatedly committed themselves to ensuring average temperatures do not rise above 2°C, the level at which scientists warns atmospheric feedback loops could trigger "dangerous" climate change…
(29 January 2013)

When will we stop wasting fossil fuels by burning them?
Paul Brown, The Climate News Network via The Guardian
The penny had to drop eventually – fossil fuels like coal might be more valuable if they were used to make medicines, chemicals and fertilisers rather than wasted by being burned.

While we know that fossil fuels are used to make all sorts of everyday objects such as plastics, carbon fibre, soap, aspirins, solvents and dyes, it has never occurred to most of us how we will make these things when the coal, gas and oil run out.

To help concentrate minds on the potential waste of resources, the World Futures Council based in Munich, has attempted for the first time to put an economic price on burning fossil fuels rather than saving them for more "useful" applications…
(28 January 2013)
Link to report – The Monetary Cost of the Non-Use of Renewable Energies

Algeria terrorist attack puts BP’s Libya drilling on hold
Robert Mendick, The Daily Telegraph
Plans for BP to begin drilling for oil and gas in Libya are in serious doubt in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on its gas production plant in neighbouring Algeria.

The company is to launch a review into drilling in the country amid serious concerns over security in the region.

BP signed a $900m (£569m) exploration and production agreement with Libya’s National Oil Corporation in 2007 but suspended the contract in February 2011 because of the civil war that eventually led to the overthrow of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi…
(26 January 2013)

Image credit: Oil well pump jacks – Richard Masoner/flickr