Free Republic

Petropolitics: If there's a bright spot to greenhouse gasbags curtailing carbon output, it's watching the Saudis squirm. The sheiks worry they may have to make do with one or two fewer yachts. During recent U.N. talks over global emissions cuts, Saudi Arabia quietly demanded that OPEC states get special financial aid if a new climate pact calls for big cuts in fossil-fuel use. The kingdom's whimpering comes despite a new International Energy Agency report showing OPEC revenues would still grow $23 trillion between 2008 and 2030 — a fourfold jump compared with the 1985-2007 period — if countries agree to...

Celebrating Petrobras’ 56th anniversary, CEO José Sergio Gabrielli de Azevedo and the boards of Petrobras and of its subsidiaries held a press conference this Wednesday (10/07) at the company’s main office building, in Rio de Janeiro. snip "We are the world’s only major company that uses most of its production to feed its own refineries, which, in turn, market their products mainly in the domestic market. This characteristic is unique in the world," emphasized the CEO, who highlighted the role the company will play from now on, particularly in the supplier chain. "Petrobras will not only supply oil derivatives, natural...

Traffic, congestion and related pollution in large cities could be problems of the past with the implementation of a futuristic, personal rapid transit system called SkyTran, according to the system’s designers.Unimodal Inc., the project’s overarching company, originally looked at ASU’s Polytechnic campus as a possible site for the first track, said Jon Fink, director of ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability. The plan fell through because the details weren’t sorted out fast enough to meet the pending deadline for a federal grant Unimodal intended to apply for. “This summer, when stimulus fund grants became available from the U.S. Department of Transportation,...

Environment: With much of the world still feeling the sting from last year's oil shock, a group of federal scientists is encouraging Washington to limit offshore drilling. Its counsel would best be ignored. Citing harmful effects on marine life and oil spills in the Arctic, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are asking the Interior Department to "drastically reduce plans to open the coast to offshore oil and gas drilling," the Los Angeles Times is reporting. Their concerns are justified. Marine life is affected by offshore oil production, and spills do happen. The issue is how and to...

As soon as the Oslo committee issued its Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama, an expected debate raged in America about the legitimacy of such a move so very early in a U.S. presidential term. The debate soon will espouse the dividing lines between domestic and foreign policy issues and, in a few weeks, will die out under the awe of new unfolding events. What will remain are future policy debates that will refer to one of the world's most prestigious awards as a fact in international relations. Months and few short years from now, supporters of the "new...

Welcome to our web site about natural oil and gas seeps in the state of California. Seeps are like springs that ooze oil and gas instead of water. Tour our site to learn about: how oil and gas seeps form, where they occur, and how they affect the environment the relationship between oil seeps and underground oil fields the La Brea Tar Pits, a world-famous oil seep in downtown Los Angeles

The government is, increasingly, the enemy. Imagine the jobs, the wealth, the independence, and cutting the jihad snake off at the head. There is no downside. We could easily extract that oil with minimum impact to the trees. ..... For decades, Democrats have blocked efforts to responsibly develop this nation's energy resources, transforming vast areas of opportunity into "The No Zone." (hat tip Jim)

"New Mexico’s oil and gas producers are used to cyclic ups and downs, but operators say the current slump is the worst they’ve seen in decades." .... "Industry representatives also blame adverse environmental regulations, especially new state rules on the management of oil-and-gas pits that took effect in New Mexico last June. “The overzealous and out-of-control regulatory environment makes it very tough to do business in New Mexico,” said Bob Gallagher, president of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association. “I’d say that’s even a bigger concern than price instability.”"

James Burkhard, IHS CERA's global oil director, is a self-described "peakist." But it's not what you might think. Whereas most adherents to peak oil theory believe petroleum production has plateaued and will fall back down, driving up oil prices, Burkhard sees the situation somewhat in reverse, with global oil demand peaking and falling off as developed countries become more efficient with how they use oil and require relatively less of it. Not even the seemingly insatiable appetites of countries such as China and India can reverse the trend, he said in an interview Thursday. "The long-term rate of oil demand...

WASHINGTON — The Department of the Interior has frozen oil and gas development on 60 of 77 contested drilling sites in Utah, saying the process of leasing the land was rushed and badly flawed. The 77 government-owned parcels, covering some 100,000 acres in eastern and southern Utah, were leased in the last weeks of the Bush administration. But the leases were immediately challenged by conservation groups, and in January a federal judge blocked drilling on the ground that the Interior Department had failed to follow its own procedures for reviewing the appropriateness of lands designated for oil and gas extraction.

BANGKOK — There are plenty of needy countries at the U.N. climate talks in Bangkok that make the case they need financial assistance to adapt to the impacts of global warming. Then there are the Saudis. Saudi Arabia has led a quiet campaign during these and other negotiations — demanding behind closed doors that oil-producing nations get special financial assistance if a new climate pact calls for substantial reductions in the use of fossil fuels.

Scared petro-bucks might dry up, the Kingdom wants financial helpThe Saudis, those nice folks who were charging us $147 a barrel just over a year ago, now say they'll need economic aid if the world keeps cutting back on oil consumption. The United Nations is currently holding climate talks in Bangkok, where Saudi Arabia, suddenly spooked at the idea the world might need less of their No. 1 export, is privately demanding that oil-producing nations get special financial assistance if a new climate pact calls for big cuts in the use of fossil fuels. That campaign comes despite an International...

There are plenty of needy countries at the U.N. climate talks in Bangkok that make the case they need financial assistance to adapt to the impacts of global warming. Then there are the Saudis. Saudi Arabia has led a quiet campaign during these and other negotiations — demanding behind closed doors that oil-producing nations get special financial assistance if a new climate pact calls for substantial reductions in the use of fossil fuels. That campaign comes despite an International Energy Agency report released this week showing that OPEC revenues would still increase $23 trillion between 2008 and 2030 — a...

For those of you who are not familiar with the term, Chutzpa it means unmitigated gall. It has best been described as a man who kills his father and mother and then throws himself on the mercy of the court on the grounds that he’s an orphan. Saudi Arabia has Chutzpah. The oil-rich country and de facto leader of OPEC has been milking the rest of the world for decades by helping to keep oil prices artificially high. Now it it is saying that it might need a bailout. It is telling the world that if climate change protocols are...

There are plenty of needy countries at the U.N. climate talks in Bangkok that make the case they need financial assistance to adapt to the impacts of global warming. Then there are the Saudis. Saudi Arabia has led a quiet campaign during these and other negotiations — demanding behind closed doors that oil-producing nations get special financial assistance if a new climate pact calls for substantial reductions in the use of fossil fuels. That campaign comes despite an International Energy Agency report released this week showing that OPEC revenues would still increase $23 trillion between 2008 and 2030 — a...

Oil prices rose above $70 a barrel Thursday in Asia amid a weakening U.S. dollar and mixed crude inventory data. Benchmark crude for November delivery was up 62 cents at $70.19 by midday Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract lost $1.31 to settle at $69.57 on Wednesday. A slide in the U.S. dollar has helped bolster oil prices, which are traded in the American currency. The euro rose to $1.4758 on Thursday from $1.4687 the previous day, and the dollar slipped to 88.30 yen from 88.60. Investors were also mulling mixed signals in...

Two days ago, British newspaper The Independent reported that a secret cabal of oil-producing Arab states, Russia, and China had conspired to dump the dollar for oil trading, a move which would have seriously weakened our currency and influence abroad. Many publications picked up on this report, written by the notoriously unreliable Robert Fisk, and a round of denials promptly appeared from the named states. Left unexplained by Fisk and the Independent was how these same states, with massive holdings in the dollar (especially China), would benefit in the short or long term by attacking it. However, it once again...

(IsraelNN.com) The MEMRI organization has translated an Alarabiya.net report which says that 40,000 well-trained operatives, mostly Shi'ites, are in the service of Iran in the Arab Gulf states - 3,000 in Kuwait alone. The story is based on an interview with an Arab Ahwazi man who says he was a former undercover agent for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The assessment is in line with an intelligence report from an Iranian regime opposition group. The Ahwazi Islamic Sunni Organization says it has classified Iranian Air Force information that reveals Iran has a comprehensive military plan to attack the Gulf countries...

Note: Photos included. "Ahwazi Organization: Iran is Planning to Attack the Gulf Countries; Iran is Producing Chemical Weapons and Burying the Waste in Ahwaz" SNIPPET: "On October 5, 2009, Alarabiya.net posted an interview with an Arab Ahwazi man who was presented as a former undercover agent for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The man claimed that 40,000 well-trained operatives, mostly Shi'ites, are in the service of Iran in the ArabGulf states - 3,000 of them in Kuwait alone. He stated that the cells formed by these operatives were trained to collect intelligence, sabotage installations in the Gulf region, and...

This may have been the big business news of the day. The move would see oil priced not in dollars but in a unit based on a basket of currencies including the Chinese yuan, the Japanese yen, and a new currency intended for use by the Gulf emirates, according to a report in Tuesday's Independent newspaper. The paper added that the transistion from the dollar to a new currency will take almost a decade. Finance ministers and central bankers have held meetings in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to discuss the idea, which the Americans are aware of, the Independent...

The world's oil producers will continue using the U.S. dollar as the currency for buying and selling crude, high-ranking oil and finance officials in the Gulf said on Tuesday, denying a report in a British newspaper. Earlier, The Independent reported that Gulf Arab states, as well as China, Russia, Japan and France, are in secret talks to end the use of the U.S. dollar to trade oil, causing the American currency to fall in overseas trading Tuesday. Qatar's oil minister, Kuwait's finance minister and sources in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi central banks all denied the report... The newspaper...

A recently declassified, formerly Confidential, 30 year old memo prepared by Henry Owen for President Jimmy Carter's eyes only, highlights the perils facing the United States if oil were to be priced in SDRs instead of dollars, a topic which is all the rage today as rumors are swirling that this is an imminent transition to be "put" upon the United States. In response to your request, we have considered, and discussed with other agencies, whether the US should favor use of SDRs instead of dollars, to pay for cure oil... I have concluded that dollar pricing should be maintained...

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar. Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-demise-of-the-dollar-1798175.html

ARAB STATES LAUNCH SECRET MOVES WITH CHINA, RUSSIA, FRANCE TO STOP USING DOLLAR FOR OIL TRADING... DEVELOPING...

ARAB STATES LAUNCH SECRET MOVES WITH CHINA, RUSSIA, FRANCE TO STOP USING DOLLAR FOR OIL TRADING... DEVELOPING...

President Obama has opposed any expanded oil drilling off American shores largely on environmental grounds, turning a deaf ear to conservative cries of "Drill, Baby, Drill." But now Obama may start hearing cries of "foul" after the U.S. Export-Import Bank promised Petrobras, Brazil's state-owned oil company, $2 billion in loan guarantees to help finance lucrative drilling off the shores of Rio De Janeiro.

President Obama declared war on oil and natural gas at the United Nations global warming summit, and he made the same pitch to the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports. "I will work with my colleagues at the G20 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies so that we can better address our climate challenge," he told the U.N.

The Chinese government is in a massive resource grab in Africa, which has huge ramifications for natural resource prices, not the least of which will be the cost of imported oil to the U.S., and ultimately the stock market and economy. Beijing's latest foray is trying to buy 6 billion barrels of oil that is already spoken for via leases to Exxon, Chevron , Royal Dutch Shell, and Total SA. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. presently leases 16 oil blocks on what remains of the oil industry's dominant Seven Sisters. It's a monster development, and a dramatic signal of how...

The husband of former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has quit his oil field job on the North Slope. http://www.adn.com/palin/story/958492.html

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The husband of former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has quit his oil field job on the North Slope. Todd Palin's resignation as a production operator for oil giant BP PLC comes almost two months after his wife stepped down as Alaska governor and shortly before the release of her highly anticipated memoir in a deal rumored to be worth millions. "Todd loved his union job on the Slope and hopes to return," Meghan Stapleton, Sarah Palin's personal spokeswoman, said in an e-mail Friday. "For now, he is spending time with his family." The resignation was...

Loony Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) last night doubled down on his wild health care rhetoric.  On Tuesday Grayson let loose with the statement that Republicans had no health care plan and just wanted everyone to “die quickly� instead of getting care. Yesterday, after Republicans demanded an apology for the slander, Grayson returned to the House floor where he apologized to people who have died and their families, comparing America’s health care system to the Holocaust (video here.)  (Advice to Republicans:  leave the man alone and let him speak.  He’s doing more damage than you could possibly do in response.) Grayson...

A month ago oil giant BP announced a 600 million dollar investment in green algae research. Exxon did not stand still for that. Now they are matching that with their own 600 million bucks. Green algae is a very versatile crop. You can literally and inexpensively make anything from Green Algae that you can make from petroleum or from corn. Hundreds of companies world wide are already hard at work building infrastructure; hundreds of thousands of jobs will result as the Bio Tech Age and the green algae technologies mature over the next few years. Our defense department is supporting...

All of it begs the question not only whether you or I will have two nickels to rub together, or two gold eagles, or a bundle of six month US Treasury bills, or a zillion shares of Apple, or a gainful vocation, or a roof over our heads, or a hot meal at the end of the day, or a safe place to sleep, or a country we can recognize. I’ve done my share of forecasting, with some episodes of notably bad timing. I don’t do it for grandstanding effect but to provide some basis for knowing what to do...

On Thursday, Americans will mark the first anniversary of perhaps the most historic change in our nation's energy policy — a change supported by the vast majority of the American people — that came in the form of the Oct. 1, 2008, retirement of the congressional embargo on offshore energy exploration and production. This oil embargo, first imposed by Congress in 1981 as a rider on the Interior Department appropriations bill, was the official policy of the United States for nearly three decades, even as oil imports soared. Many Americans will never forget the summer of 2008: $4 gasoline, crude...

With its economy in the worst shape in decades, Florida has few places to turn. This probably means that the state will have to consider...

Could the U.S. block sales of refined gasoline to Iran as a way of ratcheting up pressure on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian regime? That's a prospect U.S. politicians have talked up for months. But as the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China prepare for crucial talks with Iran in Geneva on Oct. 1, there's a growing realization that the strategy might not work. "The hype around blocking gas is hugely overdone," says Richard Dalton, who was British ambassador to Iran until 2006 and is now an associate fellow at the London think tank Chatham House. "People use this...

Obama Administration to Push for Tough New Economic Sanctions if Iran Doesn't Come Clean on Nuclear Plans The Obama administration is planning to push for new sanctions against Iran, targeting its energy, financial and telecommunications sectors if it does not comply with international demands to come clean about its nuclear program, according to U.S. officials. The officials said the U.S. would expand its own penalties against Iranian companies and press for greater international sanctions against foreign firms, largely European, that do business in the country unless Iran can prove that its nuclear activities are not aimed at developing an atomic...

Energy: An amazing number of oil finds have been made this year, including the biggest in California in 35 years. If the world is running out of oil, why do we keep finding more of it? The mantra of the anti-drilling crowd has been that oil companies like to sit on their leases and the oil in the ground, hoping to drive up the price. They should use the leases they have or lose them, these critics say. They also like to add that the world is running out of oil so it doesn't matter anyway. Occidental Petroleum hasn't been...

Energy: An amazing number of oil finds have been made this year, including the biggest in California in 35 years. If the world is running out of oil, why do we keep finding more of it? The mantra of the anti-drilling crowd has been that oil companies like to sit on their leases and the oil in the ground, hoping to drive up the price. They should use the leases they have or lose them, these critics say. They also like to add that the world is running out of oil so it doesn't matter anyway. Occidental Petroleum hasn't been...

Govt to raise oil reserve enough to last 90 days China will stockpile a third phase of strategic oil reserves after the second phase is finished, in a move to meet international standards of reserve capacity, a senior energy official said Friday. In accordance with the standards of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), China will work to increase its strategic oil reserves capacity to 90 days, Zhang Guobao, head of the National Energy Administration (NEA), said at a press conference Friday. "At present, we are far from this level," said Zhang, who is also vice-minister of the...

The United States was self-sufficient in energy until the late 1950s when energy consumption began to outpace domestic production. At that point, the nation began to import more energy to fill the gap. In 2008, net imported energy accounted for 26 percent of all energy consumed.

Pipeline at Risk By Michael Lelyveld 2009-09-14 China’s Central Asia gas pipeline project is increasingly at risk amid ethnic unrest in Xinjiang. BOSTON—Renewed unrest in Xinjiang has come at a critical time for China’s energy development as the country prepares to open its first gas import pipeline through the western region by the end of the year, experts say. Central Asian countries report they are on schedule for the mid-December startup of the 2,000-km (1,240-mile) pipeline from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, forming part of an ambitious 7,000-km project to supply China’s eastern cities. On Aug. 14, China National Petroleum...

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered the replacement of the US dollar by the euro in calculating the value of the country's Oil Stabilisation Fund (OSF). The edict, issued on Sept 12, follows a recommendation by the trustees of the country's foreign reserves, Iran's English-language daily The Tehran Times said on Monday, citing Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency. The move was taken because the government wishes to protect itself from the fragility of the US economy and the weak dollar.

An early morning fire at Tesoro Corp's 100,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Wilmington, California, has been extinguished, according to local media.

FIRE AT TESORO REFINERY IN L.A. NO INJURIES, EVACUATIONS UNDERWAY.

My buddy Yossi Gestetner makes a good point: "The left claims that despite the U.S. having only 5% of the world population, the States use 25% of the world energy, which is – according to the left – very wrong. However I look at it differently: a third of the world economy is (generated) in the USA, yet only a quarter of the world energy supplies get burned here, which means the U.S. actually uses LESS energy than its percentage of the world economy."

The biggest find in the state in 35 years, somewhere in Kern County, could herald new exploration in California and the U.S., experts say. But some worry it could lead to a false sense of security.A few years ago, Occidental Petroleum Corp. executive Stephen I. Chazen sounded like a cryptologist out of a Dan Brown novel as he told investors that an oil bonanza awaited any outfit that could "crack the code" of California's seismically fractured underground. Occidental's engineers may have done it. The Westwood company revealed in July that it had found the equivalent of 150 million to 250...

As the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) approaches capacity (721.5 million barrels filled out of a total possible 727 million, and will be filled by January 2010), the federal government will fade out of the oil-buying business. Some bearish traders believe that this factor can weigh in on prices, since most petroleum stocks in the United States are government-held rather than private. Bullish traders have also used the filling of the Chinese SPR as a reason that oil should go much higher. Planned government buying or selling of crude oil for SPRs actually have very little impact in the overall...

New oil discovery in California; one more place to not drill here drill now. Oxy oil discovery could spark new interest in California's energy potential The biggest find in the state in 35 years, somewhere in Kern County, could herald new exploration in California and the U.S., experts say. But some worry it could lead to a false sense of security.