Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
It may have come as a surprise to many (particularly market analysts) that the price of oil didn’t just magically stop at US$40 a barrel. As we push beyond the $50 per barrel barrier the G-7 finance leaders seem to have given up demanding the impossible – that OPEC deliver oil at $30 a barrel or less.
The world’s oil refiners are unimpressed by Saudi Arabia’s boost to production capacity that would only swell supplies of sour, high-sulfur crude while they hanker for sweet oil.
OPEC producers insist there is no shortage of oil despite record prices and although plenty of heavy crude is available, refineries are thirsty for light sweet crude which is in shorter supply, analysts say.
David Goodstein, the Caltech professor of physics and applied physics, who remembered all too well the upheaval caused by short-term oil crises in 1973 and 1979, immediately began to wonder how an ill-prepared world would cope with an irreversible fuel shortage in the near future. The self-evident answer: Not very well.
Adaptation of a talk by Caltech vice provost and professor of physics and applied physics David Goodstein, author of Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil (W. W. Norton) // Sidebars on global warming and on Goodstein are included.
TEN years ago China was a net oil exporter. Today it is the world’s third largest oil importer, behind the USA and Japan, and the second largest oil consumer. Ten years ago China produced around 250,000 cars per year. Last year the country churned out more than three million. Committed factory expansions and developments will take capacity to five million cars next year.
Crude oil futures hit $US50 in electronic after-hours trade in New York, setting a new record as supply worries intensified.
The Peak Oil message board asks questions of Dr. Ali Samsam Bakhtiari, one of the few experts from an OPEC country to speak out on Peak Oil. Dr. Bakkhtiari is Senior Expert attached to the Director’s office in the Corporate Planning Directorate of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).
India’s crude oil imports jumped by 23.3 % in July this year on increased demand for oil products, a senior Petroleum Ministry official said.
Terrorists and insurgents are stepping up attacks on oil and gas operations overseas in an effort to disrupt jittery energy markets, destabilize governments and scare off foreign workers, analysts said.
Nigerian rebels fighting for sovereignty of the oil-producing Niger delta told oil companies in the world’s seventh largest exporter to shut production before they begin an “all-out war” on Oct. 1.
Crude oil futures on New York’s NYMEX have jumped 36 cents in electronic trading to the psychological $50 a barrel level, the highest in the 21 years oil futures have traded on the exchange, as Nigerian rebels decided an “all-out” war against the government starting October 1.
