The Peakist

Britain’s nuclear waste should be buried in deep underground caverns that could take many decades to build, according to the official body set up to advise the Government.

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Gazprom plans to continue its triumphant conquest of the world. The Russian gas monopoly particularly intends to enter the British energy market. Gazprom may not wait for the completion of the North European Gas Pipeline and start buying large oil and gas companies on the British Isles.

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As the price of oil hangs at record heights, unmoving, like a pall threatening to choke economies and festering the sore that is inflation (October delivery contracts on the NYMEX are over US$75 a barrel), the cattle-class as well as the impotent media transfixed by daily trivialities and titillations by and large continue to remain clueless as to why we are paying almost $1.80 a litre at the pump.

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Unlike the Antarctic continent spread around the south pole, the Arctic has no formal international treaty to regulate activities. And while howling winds, drifting icebergs and months of freezing darkness kept prospecters at bay, there was little activity to regulate. But as global warming thaws the ocean’s icy layer, oil giants, shipping companies and even the odd enterprising tourist operator are casting their eyes towards the high north.

Last August a Russian vessel, the Akademik Fyodorov, became the first to reach the north pole without an icebreaker - one of seven ships to make it to the top of the world last year. This summer, Russian icebreakers aim to go one better and take paying guests, for £17,000 each. If the ice continues to thin and shrink as expected, then within a few decades cruise liners, container ships and tankers could all head over the pole, shaving thousands of miles off their voyages across the globe.

The biggest boom could be oil and gas. The US Geological Survey surprised some experts when it declared that a quarter of the world’s undiscovered reserves lay under the Arctic Ocean. As the ice retreats, oil companies are scrambling to open a new frontier. (more…)

China’s growing appetite for energy has caused widespread concern around the world. The Middle Kingdom is blamed for the sharp increase in global oil prices in the past few years, and the United States grows uneasy about Beijing’s evolving cozy relations with major oil producers such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Venezuela—some of which are hostile toward Washington. Moreover, there is a growing call to contain China as an energy threat in a world of diminishing resources. Yet Beijing is resentful of such attitudes and has taken new measures to counter its critics. (more…)

Over the past two weeks, Saudi Arabian security authorities have conducted a series of raids across the country, including in the capital Riyadh and the cities of Mecca and Medina.

On March 29, a total of 40 suspected members of al-Qaeda were picked up in simultaneous arrests, almost half of these suspected of financially aiding terrorist attacks and propagating jihadist ideology materials online. (more…)

Further evidence that Saudi oil production is unable to meet increasing global demand emerged in a series of frank admissions by Saudi analysts in the Khaleej Times last week. A Saudi petroleum adviser with close ties to the government commented that if demand continues to increase at the current pace despite the Kingdom’s best efforts at increasing production “… you’ll have demand outstripping supply over the next five years by a wide margin.”

It’s a damning indightment of the head-in-the-sand approach of the US and the Chinese to the unfolding oil crisis, when it falls to Saudi analysts to warn the rest of the world the supply side crunch is already here and the only possible mitigation strategy is reduced consumption. (more…)

BEIJING: China’s crude oil imports rose 25.3% in the first quarter of the year as vehicle sales also soared, official statistics showed yesterday, putting further pressure on world oil prices.

Crude imports by the world’s second biggest oil consumer in the first three months of 2006 were 37.13 million tonnes, the General Administration of Customs said in a statement on its website. The figure for March was 12.73 million tonnes.

The 25.3% rise compared with January–March 2005 showed a renewed spike in oil demand from China after imports rose just 3.3% to 130 million tonnes last year.

China’s crude imports surged by 34.8% in 2004.

The country has over the past few years been seeking to rapidly expand its global sources of crude, looking to the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia and Russia, to fuel rapid economic development.

Rising Chinese demand has been one of the factors influencing world crude prices, which hovered just above US$69 a barrel – not far off the record high of US$70.85 in August last year. Source

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian state gas monopoly OAO Gazprom has expressed interest in participating in the development of the world’s largest offshore gas field in Iran.

Gazprom chairman Alexei Miller met Iranian Ambassador Gholamreza Ansari on Tuesday to discuss a possible role for the Russian gas behemoth in a planned pipeline linking Iran, Pakistan and India and in the South Pars field, the company said in a statement late Tuesday.

Iran sits on the world’s second largest proven gas reserves after Russia. 

South Pars, which is believed to be the world’s largest gas field, is shared by Iran and Qatar. 

It is estimated to hold 7 percent of the world’s total gas and 38 percent of Iran’s reserves.  Source

The Tehran Times reports on the visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Algeria in the first half of March 2006. While the media front-paged Russia’s readiness to write off Algerian debts in exchange for the purchase of arms, the main success of the visit was achieved in energy cooperation. (more…)

The UK will need more gas-fired power stations soon to avert widespread power shortages, a group of MPs has warned.

The Commons Environmental Audit Committee said the UK could not rely solely on plans for a new batch of nuclear power stations. The government’s energy review, due later this year, is expected to recommend more nuclear power.

But the committee said the UK faced a “generation gap” which nuclear power could not bridge.

The first nuclear power plants would not come online until 2017, and the proposed network would not be generating at full capacity until as late as 2030.

The committee’s report also warned of the dangers of terrorist attack on the UK’s nuclear power stations.
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Iran has prepared a high-level delegation to hold wide-ranging talks with the US, but the Bush administration is resisting the agenda suggested by Tehran despite pressure from European allies to engage the Islamic republic, Iranian politicians have told the Financial Times.

Iran’s willingness to engage the US on Iraq, regional security and the nuclear issue, is believed to have the approval of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It represents the most serious attempt by the Islamic republic to reach out to the US since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

“Pressure and threats do not resolve problems. Finding solutions requires political will and a readiness to engage in serious negotiations. Iran is ready. We hope the rest of the world will join us,” [Javad Zarif, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations] said.

Meanwhile, the US rhetoric is sounding tougher by the week. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state, yesterday accused Iran of being “expansionist”, “a central banker of terrorism” and directing attacks on US citizens.

Source

Javier Blas writes in the Financial Times  :

“High energy prices are “exacerbating” global economic imbalances, increasing the risks of a crisis, the International Monetary Fund will warn next week.

The IMF will say in its World Economic Outlook report that “global current account imbalances are likely to remain at elevated levels for longer than would otherwise have been the case, heightening the risk of sudden disorderly adjustment”. (…)

High oil prices are increasing the US trade deficit, the report says. In addition, the recycling of petrodollars is driving down interest rates providing an unsustainable boost to US private consumption.

Washington has blamed surpluses in Japan as well as in emerging Asian countries, particularly China, for its current account problems. But the IMF’s concentration on oil prices and global imbalances shows that the issue has grown in complexity over the past two years.”

This analysis from the IMF directly contradicts the idea that there is no unique relation between the dollar and oil. (more…)

Iran has a plan to destroy America, and it has nothing to do with the bomb.

Instead, the Islamic republic will use oil and euros to slay the Great Satan, breathless accounts on the Internet warn. The attack will proceed as follows: Iran will open an oil trading exchange that operates in euros rather than dollars — until now, the world’s sole currency for buying crude. Other countries, whose central banks were holding onto dollars largely to buy oil, will dump their dollars en masse.
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In a few column inches at the bottom of a business page in the Independent yesterday, Simon English reported the rather extraordinary news that OPEC has admitted it does not have the production capacity to control prices. (more…)