Canada: Shell unveils $4B in tar sands plans
Shell Canada outlined $4 billion worth of expansions and de-bottlenecking at its Athabasca Oil Sands Project yesterday. The work will eventually bring the project to 500,000 barrels per day in production.
Fossil Fuels
China not giving up on Russian oil and gas
Russian leaders are acutely aware of the need to maintain a delicate balance between the looming giant that is China, and the pesky neighbor that is Japan.
China Urges Russia to Help Yukos to Resume Oil Shipments
Beijing is pushing the Russian government to intervene to get Russia’s top oil exporter to continue all its shipments to China. The Russian company Yukos says it will stop crude oil deliveries next week because it cannot afford the shipping costs.
Lloyd’s executive likens LNG attack to nuclear explosion
A terrorist attack on an LNG tanker “would have the force of a small nuclear explosion,” according to the chairman of Lloyd’s, a British insurer of natural gas port facilities like the ones being proposed in Fall River and Providence.
Oil Hits $47 as Supply Worries Linger
Oil prices hit a one month-high of $47 a barrel on Tuesday as China showed no let-up in its strong import growth and traders worried that U.S. petroleum inventories had drawn down heavily due to Hurricane Ivan.
Oil: It’s Supply And Demand, Stupid!
The dearth of oil and the corresponding need to ensure adequate supply amidst burgeoning demand is viewed as a matter of economic survival. Supply/demand dynamics therefore will fuel America’s hegemonistic impulse and heighten the very geopolitical uncertainties which have given rise to this alleged political risk premium in the oil markets.
Dire Prophecy: As Prices Soar, Doomsayers Provoke Debate on Oil’s Future
A retired Irish geologist is at the center of a small, but suddenly influential, band of contrarians known as the peak-oil movement, which believes that by as early as next year, humanity will have burned through half the oil it will ever get, and that the era of cheap oil is over.
China’s crude oil imports jump over 37%
Fuelling world prices, China’s crude oil imports jumped 37.4 per cent in August from the same month a year earlier to 9.33 million metric tons (70 million barrels), the government reports.
China to set up company to build oil reserve infrastructure
China plans to establish a company that will raise as much as 100 billion yuan (12 billion dollars) to build the country’s strategic oil reserve infrastructure, state media reported.
Blair’s missing the point on financing renewables: fossil volatility costs more
Renewable and low-carbon energy are not just the long-term solutions to climate change. They are indispensable today if we are to cushion the British economy against volatile oil and gas prices and the impending peak in world oil production – not least the dwindling reserves in the North Sea.
Demographic oil demand and peak oil
Since about 1999 per capita world average oil consumption is increasing. This recovery, after a long decline through about 1980-2000, has strong implications for potential oil demand, and potential annual growth of world oil demand as we enter the period immediately preceding ‘Peak Oil’.
Oil producers have wafer-thin safety margin: experts
Limited spare capacity means that the ability of oil producers to meet the sharpest rise in demand since the 1970s is likely to be severely tested, according to experts attending an OPEC-sponsored seminar in Vienna.
