Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute have come up with a proposal to save American capitalism from the end of the age of oil.
The experts are calling for energy reforms. Why aren’t the politicians?
Winning the Oil Endgame offers a strategy for ending US oil dependence, and is applicable worldwide. There are many analyses of the oil problem; This synthesis is the first roadmap of the oil solution — one led by business for profit.
THE spike in oil prices in recent months is stoking heated arguments between market players, who blame each other for the lack of production capacity that has been exposed by strong global demand.
