Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Given the current supply climate, even a small nation can become important in helping provide new reserves of crude. Some of the world’s biggest oil companies have set their sights on Mauritania.
We live in a time in which several “storms” are colliding: resource depletion, continued population growth, declining per-capita food production, global climate change and other signs of environmental degradation, unsustainable levels of US debt and a potential dollar collapse and international political instability. Powerdown, the path of cooperation, conserving and sharing, seems the most sane response.
Asian stocks dropped on concern record oil prices will slow global economic growth and corporate profits. Exporters such as Toyota Motor Corp. and airlines including Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. led declines.
The continuing surge in oil prices is proving Opec’s limited influence on the market despite the organisation committing to increasing its production ceiling, analysts said.
Industry will lose between $3 billion and $4 billion as soaring oil prices increase pressure.
Well, no. Oil’s startling price surge this year has actually driven many traders to the sidelines as wild intra-day swings magnified by powerful speculative funds confound traditional trading strategies, market sources say.
George W. Bush, oilman that he is, has done everything in his power to help the energy industry. He’s trashed environmental regulations, given cushy tax breaks to oil companies, and gotten his Saudi pals to promise lower oil prices by the election. So why are oil prices higher than ever? None other than the Wall Street Journal is suggesting that “peak oil” may be upon us.
Natural gas is a more difficult subject to address than petroleum, because the data is much less complete and reliable, and because the USA situation appears much more precarious than the world situation.
Newsweek Middle East regional editor Christopher Dickey and Forbes.Com editor Paul Maidment respond to queries from Forbes readers about the future of energy.
The price of crude nearly doubled this year, but for Indonesians that meant nothing. A fuel subsidy scheme means the Government, not consumers, picks up the bill for the increased cost of petrol, diesel and kerosene used everywhere for cooking.
With oil near $50 a barrel, the Bush administration is set to allow oil refineries to borrow from the government’s emergency petroleum stockpile to make up for supplies disrupted by Hurricane Ivan, a congressional source briefed on the pending decision told Reuters last week.
With oil prices hitting new highs, proponents of so-called “peak oil” argue that the world may be approaching the point where production can’t keep up with demand. And innovations, like 3D, are at the center of a debate over whether technology can help replace the world’s known oil supplies before they are depleted.
