Oil

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN of the New Zealand parlaiment: I have to confess that, for once, the member has floored me; I do not understand what is meant by the term “peak oil”.

Nadine didn’t flinch when she acknowledged the inevitability of an oil shortage, which was remarkable because it would probably result in the end of civilization as we know it.

The world is now losing more than a million barrels of oil a day to depletion – twice the rate of two years ago – according to a new analysis published this month in Petroleum Review.

Estimating how much oil a company owns thousands of feet underground is, at best, a slippery business.

Oil prices fell nearly a dollar to end just above $45 on Tuesday, in a third day of losses as a more optimistic Iraq export picture helped unwind some of the supply worries.

Global stock markets may have something far more ominous to worry about than the recent spike in oil prices, with one economist seeing a ‘Black Monday’ scenario in the making.

s the neo-conservative dream of a “liberated” Iraq came true in April 2003, who would have predicted that 16 months later oil would become the ultimate time bomb for the Bush administration?

Oil is no longer a free good made available to the aging consumer heartlands, but a vital and hard-to-substitute commodity that is entirely nonrenewable at human timescales, and whose ultimate peak of production is looming ever closer.

As oil prices rose, Russian President Vladimir Putin told President Bush on Monday that Russian oil companies are increasing oil production and exports and will continue to do so, the White House said.