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High oil prices hit Chinese petrol stations
AFP, Brisbane Times
Fuel shortages were reported at petrol stations throughout China Sunday as the cost of oil on the domestic market lagged behind record global prices, prompting refiners to slow deliveries.
Petrol stations were temporarily closed or refusing to sell petrol and diesel in Shanghai, the southern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian and in the central and eastern regions of Zhejiang, Shandong and Henan, state media reports said.
“In recent days the demand and supply situation for oil products has been tight,” the People’s Daily website quoted a PetroChina official from Henan province as saying.
“The main reason is that international oil prices have reached record highs while domestic prices have not followed suit. This has seriously influenced the production activities of refiners.”
With government subsidies keeping fuel prices artificially low, petrol stations are either running out of supplies or are shutting operations hoping for a state-approved rise, he said.
(28 October 2007)
Oil price ‘grounds’ N Korea fleet
BBC
North Korea has been forced to ground a fleet of Soviet-era military planes because of the high oil price, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.
Fuel is being diverted for other training flights, Yonhap quoted a military source as saying.
The Antonov An-2 biplanes – of which North Korea’s air force is thought to have about 300 – are able to drop special forces behind enemy lines.
The planes, which can cruise below radar, carry some 12 soldiers.
North Korea’s impoverished economy has suffered from energy shortages for years, and rising oil prices have made the situation worse.
(28 October 2007)
Airlines struggle to keep pace with soaring fuel costs
Trebor Banstetter, Star-Telegram (North Texas)
For more than three years, the nation’s airlines have grappled with persistently high fuel costs. But they haven’t seen prices quite like this before.
Jet fuel prices reached $2.54 a gallon Friday, the highest on record and a 44 percent increase from the beginning of the year, according to Bloomberg News. The price spike was driven by the surge in the price of crude oil, which closed above $90 a barrel for the first time this week. Some analysts predict that prices could soon top $100 a barrel.
Executives and analysts say that the high prices could seriously threaten the airline industry’s fragile turnaround if they persist.
The airlines have greatly improved their fuel efficiency in recent years and have used fare increases and hedging contracts to blunt the impact. But the high costs are impossible to entirely mitigate for an industry that burned nearly 20 billion gallons of fuel last year.
(27 October 2007)
Related:
Rising cost of crude oil stirs concern at Northwest
U.S. Airlines Put Off Buying New Planes (NY Times)
Zimbabwe faces energy crisis
Godfrey Marawanyika, IOL
Harare – An escalating energy crisis has pulled the plug on hopes of reviving Zimbabwe’s economy as production grinds to a halt in a manufacturing sector already battling the impact of sky-high inflation.
Although central bank chief Gideon Gono said last week that shelves would soon be full again after a controversial pricing crackdown, analysts say the power deficit will accelerate the meltdown as inflation nears 8 000 percent.
“Because of electricity shortages we lose everything,” said John Robertson, an independent Harare-based economist.
“Production time is lost as well as export revenue. We are now importing almost everything.”
Manufacturers in Zimbabwe have long had to contend with a lack of foreign currency and a lack of spare parts, even before the government imposed a ceiling on the amounts that businesses and retailers could charge in June.
(28 October 2007)
More heat than light
Sarah Wilson, Guardian (Comment)
We cannot allow institutions like the World Bank to impose ill-conceived carbon-based energy reforms on developing nations.
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Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere. Less than half of the population has access to electricity. Many of those who do have electricity rely on makeshift connections that are both extremely dangerous and unreliable. Nicaraguan newspapers regularly report cases of people being badly burned by live power cables.
The World Bank identified a scheme to change all this. Privatisation of the state-run company was the answer, it said, promising greater access to electricity and lower bills. Christian Aid was sceptical. And when we evaluated (pdf) Nicaragua’s electricity privatisation programme seven years after the reform was rushed through, what we found appalled us.
Over the past year, Nicaraguans have endured an electricity crisis with people plunged into darkness for more than five hours a day during scheduled blackouts.
…As the debate rages over how we need to change to save the world from environmental catastrophe, the energy policies of the poorest developing countries have been largely ignored. In fact, it is in the least developed countries, which have the smallest carbon footprint, that some of the most appalling carbon-spewing projects are being initiated. Not by their governments themselves, but under policies which international organisations like the World Bank oblige them to adopt.
…Having created global warming with our own development, we are now allowing institutions like the World Bank to promote ill-conceived, carbon-based energy strategies in countries that cannot afford to make costly mistakes.
(28 October 2007)
Also posted at Common Dreams.
