Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Yemen ‘faces crisis as oil ends’
Martin Plaut, BBC
Yemen is facing an economic and political crisis as the country’s oil resources near exhaustion, a report by a London-based think-tank says.
The Royal Institute for International Affairs warns that instability there could expand a zone of lawlessness from northern Kenya to Saudi Arabia.
It describes Yemen’s democracy as “fragile” and points to armed conflicts with Islamists and tribal insurgents.
One diplomat says that the country’s prospects get worse every month.
The World Bank predicts that Yemen’s oil and gas revenues will plummet over the next two years and fall to zero by 2017 as supplies run out.
(20 November 2008)
From the Kremlin to Caracas, how oil collapse changes everything
Luke Harding, Ian Black and Rory Carroll, The Guardian
As the price of a barrel falls to below $50 for the first time in years – to a third of its value just a few months ago – petrol will be cheaper but the shockwaves mean crisis for oil-producing nations and further instability for a battered global economy
Russia
Russia is lurching towards a major economic crisis, experts predicted yesterday, following news that the price of oil had slumped to under $50 (£33.72) a barrel. The collapse was likely to have catastrophic consequences including a possible devaluation of the rouble and a severe drop in living standards next year, they said…
Iran
Iran is the second largest Opec oil producer and already feeling the pain of declining prices more than any other in the Middle East. Its “rainy day” oil stabilisation fund, used to release profits when revenues decline, is reportedly badly depleted as a result of mismanagement by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government. The precise figure is a state secret, but a member of parliament revealed recently it was $7bn – just enough to cover one year of imported petrol…
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading oil producer and exporter, is expected to cut back on current spending and also adjust ambitious long-term development plans in the light of the slump in prices.
But cautious fiscal policies will place the kingdom in a relatively strong position, with the current budget based on a price of around $45-50 a barrel. Expansion next year will require around $55-62…
Venezuela
Hugo Chávez has reduced Venezuela’s support for foreign allies and is poised to make deeper cuts at home and abroad as plunging oil revenues hit his socialist revolution. The government has warned of austerity measures after years of high spending on social programmes, nationalisations, arms and diplomacy. South America’s energy giant relies on oil for half its exports and 95% of government revenue, leaving the president’s ambitions vulnerable to a crunch…
(21 November 2008)
How Dubai’s fantasy skyline tumbled to earth
Steve Rose, Guardian
… It has finally happened: the Dubai bubble has burst. Architecture-spotters like myself have looked on in amazement, or rather incredulity, at the way the tiny emirate has continued to unveil ever grander construction projects – taller skyscrapers, huger hotels, vaster artificial islands – in apparent defiance of the global credit crunch.
Now, that crunch has hit home. This week’s Architect’s Journal reports that “architects and developers in Dubai are freezing recruitment and making redundancies as the emirate’s real-estate market begins to crumble.” Large developers in Dubai are laying off staff, including Emaar the company behind the Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest structure, the magazine reports. Other headline-grabbing projects like the Palm Deira, the next artificial island planned off the coast, are on hold indefinitely…
Not that anyone in Dubai will officially admit any of the above. The general climate is one of denial, say insiders. “Nobody wants to lose face, and everybody’s trying to put a gloss on bad news. No one’s come out and cancelled anything, but a lot of things are ‘on hold’ indefinitely.”
Dubai’s “build it and they will come” philosophy has worked spectacularly so far.
… So now, it’s more a case of “don’t build it, because nobody can afford to come.” The general destruction of wealth in the rest of the world will not help Dubai’s tourist industry either.
…. We cannot simply write off Dubai though. It’s already too well established for that and it’s still in a very strong position to emerge as a dominant global financial centre, having taken less of a battering than, say, London or New York in the past year.
(21 November 2008)
