World oil demand estimate raised
The International Energy Agency has revised upwards its estimate of world oil demand, quashing hopes of an imminent decline in oil prices.
staff reporter
Oil and Empire in the Middle East
Henry Kissinger’s famous declaration that, “Oil is too important to be left to the Arabs” best expresses the experience of the Middle East over the last century.
UK: BP abandons small firms to concentrate on bigger picture
BP has decided to pull out of supplying small British manufacturers with industrial gas as thousands of businesses are being hit with a near-doubling of energy bills.
US developers see hope in abandoned oil wells
Production from “enhanced oil recovery” peaked at about 750,000 barrels a day in the early 1990s, and has fallen back slightly, with gas “flooding” now viewed as more economical than thermal methods, while chemical treatments have proved to be too expensive.
Saudi Arabia bitter over global taste for sweet and not sour oil
SAUDI ARABIA’s oil minister said his country was ready to pump more oil but it could not find buyers as the Kingdom’s high-sulphur crude was being rejected by Western refineries.
High Oil Prices Jump-Starting Exploration Efforts
With short-term oil prices currently above $50 per barrel and the futures markets predicting long-term prices of around $34 on five-year contracts, signs of a rebound in exploration efforts are suddenly popping up everywhere.
Venezuelan Ambassador: Peak Oil is good for Venezuela
Venezuelan Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Alfredo Toro Hardy writes: Everything seems to indicate that Venezuela is at the end of the tunnel and about to enter into a new period of prosperity.
How to Bring Down Civilisation
Derrick Jensen thinks the collapse of civilisation, be it deliberate or through oil depletion or any other means, can only be a good thing for the planet.
IS THERE HOPE FOR HYDROGEN?
Book review of THE HYPE ABOUT HYDROGEN: Fact and Fiction in the Race To Save the Climate, by Joseph J. Romm. (Strong focus in the review on policy.)
Oil Wars: Transforming the American Military into a Global Oil-Protection Service
This, then, is the future of U.S. military involvement abroad. While anti-terrorism and traditional national security rhetoric will be employed to explain risky deployments abroad, a growing number of American soldiers and sailors will be committed to the protection of overseas oil fields, pipeline, refineries, and tanker routes.
Pouring oil on troubled economists
My sense of last weekend’s G7 meetings is that there is an atmosphere of suppressed panic about the oil price, and about the danger of a serious crisis.
Ireland: Wind energy farm plan bites the dust
Plans by a North Cork based company, D. P. Energy Ltd., to develop a wind energy farm on the picturesque mountainside have been given the thumbs down by An Bord Pleanála, and the communities who fought a vigorous campaign against the project now believe it has finally been consigned to the pages of history.
