Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Booming China, with its voracious appetite for oil and urgent need for oil security, is considering a China-Myanmar oil pipeline and one through Thailand. These are among 10 recent proposals on alternative strategies to secure China’s energy supplies.
For 15 years, retired geologist Colin Campbell has warned of the approaching end of the age of oil and the dire consequences for the world should that happen. Although experts hotly debate the issue, it has drawn little attention from the average consumer.
Andrew McKillop argues that up to a point, high oil prices can stimulate economies. However, ways must be found to rapidly decrease oil demand as leaving it to the market will necessarily lead to a new ‘Great Depression’.
I’m glad to see the surge of interest in the coming peak of world oil production, even though the prospect is grim. Once again, people are willing to think about non-renewable resources and the consequences of an economy based on them. ….Most of the new information stems from the work of two little-known scientists, both deceased: petroleum geologist M. King Hubbert and systems ecologist Howard Odum.
BHP Billiton will consider spinning off its oil and gas division if the market continues to undervalue the business, according to Chip Goodyear, chief executive of the Anglo-Australian group.
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.
OIL giant Royal Dutch/Shell has announced plans to invest £8 billion a year over the next two years to boost its reserves and production, as it tries to move on from the reserves scandal that rocked the company earlier this year
Almost anytime is a good time for Alan Greenspan and other presidents or directors of central banks in Europe and Japan to remind the faithful that “extreme oil prices” act as a kind of energy tax, and in official central banker mythology ‘can only reduce economic growth,’ and of course raise inflation.
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.
Analysts at Deutsche Bank believe that, after 2008, almost half the opportunities for oil companies will be in LNG, GTL and the Venezuelan and Canadian oil sands, with deep water projects making up another quarter of the expected openings. But oil companies diverge on the need to get into such projects.
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.
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.
