Industry

What kind of jobs?

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Jobs, yes, but what kind? While Obama proposes to build highways (with some runways and railbeds thrown in), and the national GOP continues to say “no,” what are local politicians doing? Some crucial economic steps could be taken only by the feds, but is there anything to be accomplished meanwhile on the state or county levels?

Deep in Ecuador’s rainforest, a plan to forego an oil bonanza

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Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth and is home to remote Indian tribes. It also sits atop a billion barrels of oil. Now, Ecuador and the United Nations are forging an ambitious plan to walk away from drilling in the park in exchange for payments from the international community.

Global oil supplies as reported by EIA’s International Petroleum Monthly for September 2010

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My post is mainly an update to OPEC’s Spare Crude Oil Capacity – Will it Disappear by the End of 2011?, based on data which the EIA reported in the past few days. I will also briefly present updates to recent developments in OECD and Non OECD oil supplies/consumption.

ODAC Newsletter – Sep 10

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Wednesday saw the release of BP’s Deepwater Horizon Accident Investigation report – the company’s version of the events that led to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. BP admits responsibility for some of the list of technical and human failures which it says led to the disaster, but also heaps blame on both the rig owners Transocean and contractors Halliburton…

Trend break in oil supply

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The enthusiastic professionals in Paris report that: “Global oil supply fell 250 kb/d to 86.8 mb/d in August, as non-OPEC output dipped to 52.4 mb/d on seasonal maintenance in Canada, the UK and Russia.” As often, the agencies don’t completely agree on what’s going on, with OPEC now seeing July as only a partial restoration of production cuts in June, but the IEA still seeing it as taking production to a higher level. But both concur that August is now below the level of February.

Lines of defence (I): The thin brown line

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There’s a palpable sense of expectation as we cruise down the canal. Two dozen people and barely a word passes between us. It’s not the roar of the triple outboard engines, nor the forced camaraderie of strangers thrust together, with only their environmentalisms in common. Rather, it’s the sense that we’re travelling towards something—not a place, but a phenomenon, an event—whose name we know but whose face we have not yet seen.