The Peakist

This is the second of a series of papers by the Energy Watch Group which are addressed to investigate future energy supply and demand patterns. The Energy Watch Group consists of independent scientists and experts who investigate sustainable concepts for global energy supply. The group has been initiated by the German member of parliament Hans-Josef Fell.

Executive Summary

When discussing the future availability of fossil energy resources, the conventional wisdom has it that globally there is an abundance of coal which allows for an increasing coal consumption far into the future. This is either regarded as being a good thing enabling the eventual substitution of declining crude oil and natural gas supplies. Or it is seen as a horror scenario leading to catastrophic consequences for the world�s climate. But the discussion rarely focuses on the premise: how much coal is there really? (more…)

China is moving rapidly on the front of bioenergy, with important targets for green energy included in the People’s Republic’s new Five-Year-Plan. The Chinese government also sees investments in the sector as a way to boost the rural economy and to ease the growing social inequalities between wealthy urbanites and poor farmers . Small farmers are already beginning to reap some of the benefits of China’s transition to biofuels. Thanks to a path-breaking effort to develop fuels and energy from woody and oil bearing crops, the country has announced it will now plant biomass and biofuel forests on a very large scale to fuel its future. By 2010, China plans to develop an area the size of England, or 13 million hectares, with Jatropha curcas trees from which both liquid and solid biofuels can be extracted as a source of clean energy, according to the State Forestry Administration (SFA). (more…)

Paul McLeary asks, ‘Are China and the United States heading for a showdown over Africa?’

In a trip that went almost totally unnoticed in the United States, Chinese President Hu Jintao took an eight-country jaunt across the African continent in early February, signing trade and investment agreements at every stop along the way, while forgiving debts and offering interest-free loans worth hundreds of millions more.Within a week’s time, President Bush announced that a new combatant command for Africa, AFRICOM, would begin operations in September 2008. (more…)

To prevent massive pollution and slow its growing contribution to global warming, China will need to make advanced coal technology work on an unprecedented scale.
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Russia attacks the West’s Achilles’ heel
By W Joseph Stroupe

Russia has found the Achilles’ heel of the US colossus.

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Russia tips the balance
By W Joseph Stroupe

Russia has set the agenda for the global transition to an entirely new model of international energy security designed to address intensifying concerns, especially those of the rising East.

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Chinese and Russian firms are planning to spend $10bn (£5.4bn) on building power plants in north east China, Beijing media says.

The plants, to be built on the border between the two countries in China’s northeast, will help provide energy needed for China’s economic boom.

The China Daily said that the sites would be fuelled by coal from Siberia.

China’s State Grid Corp and Russia’s Unified Energy systems are behind the project, the report said.

The plant is predicted to generate 60 billion kilowatt hours annually.

China’s shopping centres and factories have been competing for energy supplies with blackouts occurring across the country.

“China’s electricity demand will continue its fast growth in the coming years,” said Bai Jianhua, an analyst at China’s State Power Research Centre.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/business/6043388.stm

By William Mellor and Le-Min Lim

Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) — In a steamy jungle clearing in Myanmar, a lone drilling rig topped by limp red flags bears testimony to China’s insatiable thirst for oil. (more…)

· Venezuela to supply a million barrels of oil a day
· Beijing scrambling to feed energy-hungry economy

China and Venezuela, two of the biggest nations on Washington’s worry list, drew closer together yesterday with the signing of trade agreements that the Venezuelan president called a “Great Wall” against American hegemonism.

A million-barrel a day oil deal and a promise by China to back Venezuela’s bid to join the United Nations security council were the main fruits of a week of meetings in Beijing, ending with talks between Hugo Chávez and the Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, yesterday. (more…)

As America and Europe diversify oil and gas supplies away from the volatile Persian Gulf, West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea is set to become its counterweight, argue Andy Rowell, James Marriott & Lorne Stockman in “The Next Gulf: London, Washington and Oil Conflict in Nigeria.”

“Since 9/11, the Gulf of Guinea has gained unprecedented strategic importance to the US and its allies. Washington wants the region’s oil and gas resources and is prepared to protect its access with military might. Nigeria is the biggest oil and gas producer in the region and therefore central to US strategy.

Forgotten in this new scramble for African resources are the people of the Niger Delta, who have received little benefit from 50 years of oil production in their midst.” (more…)

Money no object as the big players grab what is left of a diminishing resource

Terry Macalister reported in the Guardian on the huge prices oil companies are now paying for exploration rights - yet another signal of the unfolding depletion crisis and the shifting sands of global geopolitics as China positions itself for the oil end game and the producer nations gain unprecendented economic leverage. (more…)

NEW DELHI: India and China have come together once again to jointly bid for a stake in an oil venture in faraway Colombia for some $800 million.

ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas arm of state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp, and China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec) have jointly submitted a bid to acquire stake in the Ominex de Colombia - a subsidiary of the Texas-based Ominex Resources Inc.
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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…)

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

The Russian state-owned Gazprom is the largest company and
the biggest natural gas extractor in the world.  It supplies
almost all the gas needs of Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union.

Last year, the dispute between Russian state-owned gas supplier Gazprom and Ukraine over natural gas prices started in March of 2005 (over the price of natural gas and prices for the transition of Gazprom’s gas to Europe). The two parties were unable to reach an agreement to resolve the dispute, and in the depths of an extremely bitter winter, Russia cut gas exports to Ukraine on 1 January 2006 at 10:00 MSK. The supply was restored on January 4, when a preliminary agreement between two gas companies was settled.

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