Gas


June saw the launch of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas (APPGOPO).
All Party Parliamentary Groups are composed of politicians from all political parties and have members from the House of Commons and the House of Lords.  APPGOPO will enable interested MPs and Lords to discuss Peak Oil and all its surrounding issues. The APPGOPO has the support of over twenty MPs and Lords.  This actually makes it the largest political grouping looking at Peak Oil in the world. (more…)

Last week San Francisco announced that it was to outlaw plastic bags from large supermarket chains, the first such law of any city in the US. Ireland has recently seen the fourth anniversary of a 15c plastic bag tax which saw the number of bags being put into circulation falling dramatically. Since then the number has been on the up again, from less than 85 million in 2003 to at least 113 million in 2005, prompting calls for a doubling of the tax and tighter implementation. Yesterday’s Guardian examined the trade in plastic bags, produced, and recycled, in China at high environmental cost. The article contained the extraordinary estimate that the US requires 12 million barrels of oil to manufacture the billion plastic bags used by consumers annually, and noted the UK used 17 billion bags a year. What better example of the profilate waste of the hydrocarbon economy? To put that in perspective 12 million barrels would have driven the US industrial and military machine for three days during the Second World War (or every three years the US uses as much oil on plastic bags as 1% of the oil it used to fight and survive the Second World War). In a generation or less people will look back in disbelief at the idea that on eve of the catastrophic oil depletion crisis such waste could be justified rather than taking a bag to the shops! The North American petrochemical industry is already feeling the pinch with both increasing oil prices and, specific to the continent, the looming gas depletion crisis, chemical manufacturers are migrating to the Middle East.

By Yuras Karmanau in Belarus Published: 04 January 2007 - The IndependantAlexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian President, hit out at Russian leaders yesterday over gas price increases, calling the move “shameless” and threatening to charge Moscow for military facilities and oil transit across his country.

The remarks from an agitated Mr Lukashenko came days after his government averted a New Year’s Day cut-off of Russian natural-gas supplies by grudgingly agreeing to pay twice the previous price this year and more in the future.

The gas dispute was part of a struggle over Russia’s moves to end years of preferential treatment that have helped Mr Lukashenko keep his country’s Soviet-style economy running and maintain his grip on power.

Belarus has stopped importing Russian oil as it seeks to persuade Moscow to reconsider a new customs duty on exports to its former Soviet neighbour, saying the additional charge makes oil too expensive and could badly damage the economy.

Source

In a dramatic demonstration of W Joseph Stroupe’s argument concerning the emerging new world oil order Shell has given in to pressure from the Kremlin over control of the massive Sakhalin-2 gas project.

Terry Macalister and Tom Parfitt of The Guardian write: “The steady drip of months of pressure and accusations against Shell from the Russian authorities have taken their toll. The company is about to back down in its struggle over Sakhalin-2, the huge liquefied natural gas project off the country’s far eastern coast. Shell, which took the lead role in the scheme under the first production sharing agreement with the Kremlin in 1994, has been accused of violating a series of “green” regulations in the pristine environment of the region. The pressure has been mounting since the summer.” (more…)

The small town of Tarko-Sale lies just below the Artic Circle in the remote north-western corner of Siberia.

By Richard Galpin
BBC News, Takro-Sale, Siberia  

In mid-winter there is permanent night as the temperature plummets to -50C. In mid-summer there is permanent day accompanied by tropical heat and swarms of mosquitoes.

For many this would be the precise definition of hell on earth.

But the town has a quiet, contented atmosphere. The buildings are modern and well-kept. There are smart office blocks.

“People love this land, people are proud of it,” says Elena who lived here for many years.

(more…)

Reliable energy supplies are set to rival military capability in their contribution to a state’s security, Tony Blair said on Tuesday.

Speaking at the formal opening of a gas pipeline between Norway and the UK, the prime minister noted that demands on the world’s energy resources were increasing, driven by the growth of countries such as China and India, while Britain was moving from near self-sufficiency in oil and gas to heavy dependence on imports. In little more than a decade Britain could be importing 80% of its gas, he said. (more…)

· Centrica contradicts regulator’s confidence
· Doubts over deliveries from mainland Europe

Terry Macalister
Monday August 28, 2006
The Guardian

Britain’s biggest gas supplier has warned that the country faces an “uncertain” winter of potential energy shortages, contradicting a more upbeat assessment last week from the energy watchdog, Ofgem.

Centrica, owner of British Gas, said new pipelines from Norway and the Netherlands coming on stream over the next couple of months would help, but the supply and demand situation would remain tough. (more…)

British Gas owner Centrica has said it plans to raise gas bills by as much as 12.4% for its 10.7 million customers.The firm’s 5.8 million electricity customers will also face a 9.4% increase in their bills from September.

British Gas said “unprecedented high wholesale energy costs” had made the price increases necessary.

News of the fresh round of price rises came as British Gas reported record losses of £143m during the first six months of the year. Strangely the conditions that have led to these increases have not affected the investors dividends which have in fact increased!
Earlier this week, rival EDF Energy announced it would be raising gas bills by 19% from next Tuesday, while Scottish Power said two weeks ago that it would also be increasing bills.

Tim Flannery debunks the idea that hydrogen is going to provide us with the fuel of the post-oil energy regime:

“TO PEOPLE IN THE PETROCHEMICAL and motor vehicle businesses, the solution to the climate change problem lies in ascending a metaphorical staircase of fuels, which, at each step, contains an ever diminishing amount of carbon.

Yesterday, the argument goes, it was coal, today it’s oil, and tomorrow it will be natural gas, with Nirvana being reached when the global economy makes the transition to hydrogen—a fuel that contains no carbon at all. (more…)

· Petrodollars give Putin weight on world stage
· America is ‘nervous and angry’, say observers
In the Kremlin on Thursday a little-known but powerful Russian official held court for the first time before foreign journalists with a very simple message: Russia is great and getting greater by the week. Sergei Sobyanin, a former governor of the oil-rich region of Tyumen, chief of staff to President Vladimir Putin, and one of the mightiest men in Russia, was enlarging on his leader’s state-of-the-nation speech 24 hours earlier in which Mr Putin identified the key to Russia’s progress in both human and military regeneration. (more…)

gazpromEuropean energy consumers face further big rises in gas prices in the coming years because of acute shortages of Russian supplies and growing tensions between the Kremlin and EU, senior economists and a former Russian premier said Wednesday.
(more…)

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales has signed a decree placing his country’s energy industry under state control.

In a May Day speech, he said foreign energy firms must agree to channel all their sales through the Bolivian state, or else leave the country.

He set the firms a six-month deadline, but the military and state energy officials have already started taking control of the oil fields.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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…)

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

 

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