ODAC News
Sunday 27 May
The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre
1/ A Gas Crisis 30 Years in the Making (The
2/ UK paves
way for new nuclear plants (Financial Times, WED 23 May)
3/ BP scraps green energy
plan (The
Herald, Thu 24 may)
4/ Austrian deal will
extend Gazprom grip on European energy market
(The Times, Fri 25 May)
5/ UAE airport spend to
hit $19bn (Arabian
Business, Wed 23 May)
6/ Petrol to hit £1 a litre
within weeks as oil supply strains show (The Guardian, Fri 25 May)
7/ Battle for the Barrels
[new book - feedback]
(Duncan Clarke, Feb
2007)
**********************************************************************************************************
1/ A Gas Crisis 30 Years in the Making
(The
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/24/AR2007052401121.html
Comment: This is one of the best
summaries of the problem I have seen in a while – one that might appeal to the
unconverted. Short, non-alarmist, non-technical, and does not mention the words oil
depletion or Peak Oil.
Article: ... But I digress. I was writing about the crisis. It
is this: Despite all of the happy talk you hear from lawmakers who have fooled
themselves into believing that the next big exploitable oil reserve is bubbling
just beneath the surface of our national will to pump it from the ground or the
sea, despite profound media hand-wringing over the putative sins of the oil
industry or their cronies in the car business, despite the inane congressional
tendency to try to avert an energy crisis by making the car companies produce
more fuel-efficient vehicles while asking consumers to do nothing except sit
and wait for gasoline prices to come down, world oil production cannot match
the trajectory of demand.
No magic
turn of the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil wheel
is going to alleviate that problem over the long term. No amount of
What is
odd -- indeed what is scary -- is that there are so many Americans who don't
get this, who don't believe it, who think that a quick fix is just around the
corner.
... It's a
useless pursuit. Truth is we've got to withdraw from oil as much as possible.
... There
is not an inexhaustible supply of oil. There is not now, nor has there ever
been, and nor will there ever be an inexhaustible finite resource. Get over it.
Let's start withdrawing now. Let's face, share, and manage the pain.
... When
it comes to oil, it's not going to get much better than this.
**********************************************************************************************************
2/
Comment: One of the sessions I went to
at the All-Energy conference in
Article:
Alistair Darling, the trade and industry secretary,
told parliament the government had reached the “preliminary view that it would
be in the public interest to allow energy companies to invest in nuclear
power”.
“Nuclear is an important part of our energy mix at the
moment... it provides a regular and steady supply of electricity whereas
electricity generated from most renewables is by its very nature intermittent,”
he said.
The government would need to make a decision this year
on whether to continue with nuclear because of the long lead time for building
new plants.
... The government wants to end the consultation
process and make a final decision on new plants by October. Even so, the
process for selecting potential sites will last until 2009. Because of the long
lead times in construction, any new plants are unlikely to make a significant contribution
to generating capacity before 2020.
All but one of the
**********************************************************************************************************
3/ BP scraps green energy plan (The
Herald, Thu 24 may)
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1421398.0.0.php
Comment: If it went ahead, this would
have been one of the first carbon-capture facilities.
Article: Oil giant BP last night
pulled out of a £500m world-leading project which would have brought 1000
construction jobs to the north-east of
The company, which has already invested more than £30m
in the Peterhead carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, said it simply could
not wait for a government-sponsored competition to decide who to back to build
such a plant.
In yesterday's energy white paper Alistair Darling,
the Trade and Industry Secretary, said the competition for the project would be
launched in November.
Alex Salmond, the First
Minister, last night expressed "deep anger and disappointment"
claiming the delay set out in the energy white paper had "effectively
sabotaged the project at Peterhead"...
**********************************************************************************************************
4/ Austrian deal will extend Gazprom grip on European energy market
(The Times, Fri 25 May)
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article1837771.ece
Comment: The media seem to have a
tendency to exaggerate the reliability of
Article: Gazprom is poised to
strengthen its grip over the European energy market with the purchase of a
stake in a strategic Austrian gas hub that would give it a powerful lever over
an EU project to bring in non-Russian supplies of fuel from Central Asia and
the
The Russian giant has agreed to acquire a stake in
Central European Gas Hub (CEGH), a company owned by OMV, the Austrian energy
group, which operates a trading platform and gas storage facilities at Baumgarten, close to the Hungarian border.
The deal, thought to be a one-third share, could give
Gazprom influence over Nabucco, a pipeline project that is opposed by the
Kremlin because it is designed to bypass
Baumgarten
is the proposed terminus for Nabucco, a 3,300 kilometre tube would cost €4.6
billion (£3.1 billion) and is aggressively promoted by the European Commission
as a means to bring more nonRussian gas into the EU.
... Gazprom’s chairman,
Alexei Miller, yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding with Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer, OMV’s chief
executive, pledging to develop Baumgarten as “the
most important gas hub in continental Europe”, a rival to Zeebrugge
in
However, separately, Mr Miller yesterday expressed
doubts that the Nabucco project would ever happen.
“We see no resources for [Nabucco] and no gas reserves
for it either,” he told an Austrian newspaper.
Nabucco will be launching a marketing campaign for
capacity in the pipeline this summer, but Gazprom dealt a blow to the scheme
earlier this month when it secured agreement with
That Gazprom deal also put paid to European hopes of a
separate subsea Caspian pipeline that would link up
with BP’s Shah Deniz pipeline – soon to bring gas from Azerbaijan to Erzurum, a gas hub in Turkey and the proposed starting
point for Nabucco.
Analysts believe that Gazprom’s
involvement may now be the only way to secure the investment needed to turn
Nabucco into a reality.
Simon Blakey, a gas analyst
at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said Gazprom’s
involvement could be a constructive way of ensuring its supply routes were
opened into southeastern
**********************************************************************************************************
5/ UAE airport spend to hit $19bn
(Arabian Business, Wed 23 May)
Comment:
Article: New airport projects in the
UAE account for 60% of all airport investments in the Gulf, according to Gulf
News. Spend is expected to reach $19.23 billion over the next few years across
six airports, in comparison to a total $13.2 billion across the other five GCC
countries.
Six airports are under development, with expansions at
Dubai International and
Dubai World Central, the largest investment at $8.2
billion, will handle 120 million passengers per year.
... Research from the Streamline Marketing Group,
organiser of the Airport Show taking place in
**********************************************************************************************************
6/ Petrol to hit £1 a litre within weeks as oil supply strains show
(The Guardian, Fri 25 May)
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2087711,00.html
Comment: Higher petrol / gasoline
prices in the
Article: Petrol prices were on course
last night to break the pound-a-litre barrier after the cost of crude oil on
global markets rose to its highest level this year.
With the
Industry experts in the
Ray Holloway, of the Petrol Retailers Association,
said petrol prices had been edging higher throughout spring against a backdrop
of US stockpiling of crude. But he said the latest increase meant the upward
pressure would continue for the next two months
... The CBI intensified City speculation yesterday
that the Bank of England will be forced into a fresh interest rates rise after
the employers' organisation's monthly snapshot of industry showed the heftiest
jump in prices from factories in 12 years.
... "The Bank of England will focus on the price
balance contained in the survey, and it will be dismayed by what it sees,"
said Howard Archer of Global Insight. "The CBI survey adds to the pressure
on the Bank to lift interest rates to 5.75% sooner rather than later, and a
back-to-back hike in June is currently looking a very real possibility. There
is an ever-growing danger that rates will reach 6% before the end of the
year."...
**********************************************************************************************************
7/
No link.
Comment: Feedback on this new book from
an ODAC News subscriber.
Feedback: Re. item 9. "
**********************************************************************************************************