The Peakist

Building programme is response to Russian move
UN to decide on seabed claims to huge oil deposits

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Saturday August 11, 2007
The Guardian

Lancaster Sound, Nunavut, Canada. Global warming has made the Arctic’s oil and gas reserves more accessible Photograph: Louise Murray/Science Photo Library
  An international scramble for the Arctic’s oil and gas resources accelerated yesterday when Canada responded to Russia’s recent sovereignty claims with a plan to build two military bases in the region. (more…)

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…)

Three companies led by US-based Chevron say they have found an oil field under the Gulf of Mexico that could boost US reserves by more than 50%.

Drilling at a test well yielded “a flow rate of more than 6,000 barrels of crude oil per day”, Chevron said.

The discovery may rival the biggest US oil field in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.

Experts caution that the true size of the oil field is not yet known and it will be a long time before any of the oil there enters the market.

“In the last 15 years, there’ve been so many great projects that started out and then petered out,” Matt Simmons, the head of a group of energy investment bankers, told Reuters news agency.

Recently in the Gulf of Mexico, “there’s been a lot more bitter disappointments than phenomenal surprises”, he said.

The head of an energy consulting firm, Art Smith, told the Associated Press news agency that despite the discovery, the US will still be importing more than 50% of its oil needs.

“The US still has a big difference between its consumption and indigenous production,” Mr Smith said.

Experts said the oil from the well is unlikely to be available for many years and the discovery is not going to ease spiralling global oil prices.

Three firms - US oil giant Chevron, Norway’s Statoil and US-based Devon Energy - said test results under the Gulf of Mexico “may indicate a significant discovery”.

“The full magnitude of the field’s potential is still being defined,” Statoil said.

Chevron first revealed it was prospecting for oil in the area in September 2004.

The oil field is located 435 km (270 miles) south-west of New Orleans and 282 km (175 miles) offshore.

According to John Kilduff, an analyst quoted by the AFP news agency, the new oil field could produce 400,000 barrels for 20 years - even at its lowest capacity.

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.

STAMFORD, Conn., BERKELEY, CA, and LISBON, PORTUGAL, APRIL 27, 2006 – GE Energy Financial Services, PowerLight Corporation and Catavento Lda announced today that they will build the world’s largest solar photovoltaic power project. The 11-megawatt solar power plant, comprising 52,000 photovoltaic modules, will be built at a single site in Serpa, Portugal, 200 kilometers (124 miles) southeast of Lisbon in one of Europe’s sunniest areas. (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.
(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…)

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…)

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

“We had hoped this climate review would inject an additional boost to offshore wind to ensure it joined onshore as a major provider of new power and carbon savings to hit our 2010 targets.  The Government’s failure to act in this review must be addressed in the forthcoming Energy Review.  Without a vibrant offshore wind sector it is hard to see how the Government’s 2010 climate targets can be met and how our 20% renewable aspirations by 2020 can become a working reality.”    Marcus Rand, BWEA’s Chief Executive

(more…)

Mexican President Vicente Fox has announced the discovery of a new deep-water oil field, which is believed to contain 10bn barrels of crude.

The field is in the Gulf of Mexico, and Mexico says it could be bigger than its largest oil field, Cantarell.

Production there is said to have declined sharply in recent years.

Mr Fox made the announcement as figures showed the country’s total oil reserves had fallen 2% between 2003 and 2005.
(more…)

A major irritant between the two Asian giants is the issue of gas fields in a disputed area of the East China Sea.

Talks between the two sides ended on Tuesday with a Chinese proposal to jointly develop the gas fields, an offer Japan rejected on Wednesday.

“This proposal is something that is not acceptable,” Mr Abe said.

Japan itself had previously proposed a joint development plan, pertaining to all the disputed gas fields, something China rejected.

China has now offered something more limited - the joint exploitation of gas fields around a group of islands hotly contested by both countries.

All the time they have been discussing the issue, the BBC Tokyo correspondent says, China has been drilling in the disputed area, and sending in its warships.

Japan and China have long had overlapping claims in the East China Sea.

China refuses to recognise Japan’s off-shore border, believing its own territory runs further east to the edge of the continental shelf.

Four rounds of talks on the issue have now failed to reach agreement.

• China and Japan’s exclusive economic zones (EEZs) overlap
• Japan claims EEZ extends 200 nautical miles from its shore, while China claims EEZ extends to edge of its continental shelf
• Two countries have never agreed a maritime border
• The UN says it will arbitrate by May 2009
• Also dispute ownership of Senkaku/Diaoyu islands