Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Russia’s top general threatened Wednesday to attack “terrorist bases” anywhere in the world, as security services put a $10 million bounty on two Chechen rebels they blame for last week’s school siege.
Since oil production peaked in the United States in 1970, a growing number of geologists, economists and industry analysts have been pondering the question of just how long worldwide supplies will keep up with growing demand. And some are predicting that global production may peak as soon as next year.
Canada’s deputy minister for natural resources claims his country can boost output of oil from tar sands fivefold to 5 million barrels a day, without specifying a timeframe.
A Nobel Prize-winning chemist says the impending world energy shortage requires several miracles of science that nanotechnology can help to deliver.
Energy giant Exxon Mobil Corporation said while energy companies continued to work on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, there were some big challenges in bringing clean energy products onto the market.
Saudi Arabia and China have reportedly agreed to hold regular political consultations.
A bevy of scholars and policy analysts have seized this important moment of high prices and oil-related war to write about petroleum. Three new titles focus on the evocative political implications of our national chemical dependence.
Oil prices eased yesterday as top world exporter Saudi Arabia slashed prices for its crude sales to the United States and Europe, however their excess production is heavier grade oil and not to refiners’ liking.
Annell Bay, Royal Dutch-Shell’s exploration director for the Americas, won’t speculate about the issue of global oil peak, but expresses his desire to see ‘anywhere currently off-limits’ opened up for exploration.
Even though oil prices have risen 30 percent in the last year, the United States’ gusto for gasoline has not been shaken.
The world’s oil giants may shy away from open book-keeping, but when national governments take the lead they have little choice but to fall into line.
Western oil companies are running out of likely places to look, and significant finds are growing rarer. With the most accessible areas either already picked clean or kept off limits for political reasons, exploration teams are having to push into harsher, more remote and less promising territory, where the costs and risks are high.
