ODAC News
Wednesday 28 March
The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre
1/
2/ Headlines from last week’s
Petroleum Intelligence Weekly (Google News,
Sat 24 Mar)
3/
4a/
4b/ New
5a/ OPEC Dictates Higher Prices, Scarcity as
Crude Rises (Bloomberg,
Mon 26 Mar)
5b/
6/ Russian Partners to Cover 10%-15% of
British Centrica’s
Requirements (FC
Novosti, Tue 20 Mar)
7a/ Chinese President Hu
Holds Energy Talks With Putin (Bloomberg, Mon 26 Mar)
7b/ Not Enough Oil for Siberia-Pacific
Pipeline (FC Novosti, Wed 14 Mar)
7c/ Russian agencies at odds on
8/ Ford to Annually Produce Over One
Million Cars in
9/
10/ Major gas producers agree to set up export
cartel: report (Platts, Mon 19 Mar)
1 ton of crude = approx 7.3 barrels of oil (6.6-8.0
bbl. of crude oil with 7.333 bbl. taken as average)
100 million tonnes/year = 2 million barrels/day
(approx)
mbd OR mn b/d OR Mb/d = million barrels per day
mn cf/d OR Mcf/d = million cubic
feet per day
Quotations from articles are now always in this type
of chevron: <<>>
If an ODAC comment is within an article, it will begin
with: ODAC:
where appropriate for clarification.
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1/
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dilip_hiro/2007/03/central_asia_its_a_gas.html
Dilip Hiro explains very well why the yet-to-be-constructed
Nabucco pipeline (Wikipedia) is probably a waste of an awful lot of money,
indeed might never get built. There is potentially no source of gas.
The article states “Gazprom's
short-term objective is to sabotage the Nabucco pipeline project”.
<< This week German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and other top European Union diplomats are
flying to the Kazakh capital of Astana to confer with their counterparts from
the Central Asian nations. The leading item on their agenda is to be the
hydrocarbon riches of
Though overall only a quarter of EU's
gas needs come from
... In June 2006, Andris Piebalgs, the EU's energy
commissioner, announced the formation of a consortium of five companies from
It would start at
... But it may be too late. Already Gazprom has signed
a deal with
... Gazprom's short-term
objective is to sabotage the Nabucco pipeline project... >>
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2/
Headlines from last week’s Petroleum Intelligence
Weekly
(Google News, Sat 24 Mar)
PIW is probably the best journal around for reporting
oil and gas depletion issues, but it is pricey. Fortunately, Google News
presents a weekly summary of the headlines that gives the gist of what is going
on.
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3/
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IC24Df01.html
Most of the article discusses India’s lack of
success at getting natural gas out of Myanmar (Burma), and ends with a summary
of the rather appalling state of energy supplies in India - note the coal
shortage in India (China and the USA are now both importing coal) :
<<...
According to government estimates,
India, Asia's third-biggest oil market, is promoting
exploration to reduce dependence on imports as prices rise to record levels and
output from aging fields drops.
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4a/
No link. From a
It appears not only
Green
Community residents threatened with legal action (Gulf News, Mon 26
Mar)
http://www.gulfnews.com/nation/Society/10113772.html
>>
I have been warning people for the last few years about
[Update,
Tue 27 March]
Looking
through the Gulf News web site I came across another article on fee
hikes at Green Community in
http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/03/25/10113400.html
>>Sarcasm
is based on the knee-jerk reaction to a somewhere near 300 per cent increase in
service charges. The salt-in-the-wound is added by the fact that nobody has
actually defaulted yet, but residents have received threats of legal action for
non-payment, as well as the warning that service charges for previous years
might be retrospectively added to the burden.<<
This
is insanity, there are thousands of buildings going up - who will buy when
these sort of events are now becoming more commonplace?
"The
Greens", a government-owned development where property was rented,
the tenants got told they had to buy or get out. That strikes me as
desperation to raise capital.
http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/02/17/10104916.html
>>
The powers that
be in these developments are strangling the golden goose.
Following an
earlier construction boom here in late 70s early 80s, rents dropped up to
75% when all construction staff left. As some estimates put over 50% of people
here dependent on the construction industry, I expect a repeat event.
4b/ New
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6496473.stm
<<Sales of new
Commerce Department data showed the number of new
homes sold fell 3.9% in February, after January's 15.8% drop.
The latest data puts the annual rate of new home sales
at 848,000 - the slowest pace in nearly seven years.
The lower-than-expected figure adds to concerns that
the
... The latest figures follow recent forecasts that
the number of new homes will drop by 15% this year, well beyond an earlier
prediction of a 5% decline.
The National Association for Business Economics poll
suggested a worsening of the housing market, following a slowdown over the past
year. >>
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5a/ OPEC
Dictates Higher Prices, Scarcity as Crude Rises (Bloomberg,
Mon 26 Mar)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aWOvca2retTw&refer=home
It has been a while since we saw the word
‘scarcity’ referring to oil supplies. General article on the power
of OPEC:
<<
Credit Ali al-Naimi, oil
minister of
``We are happy with the level of compliance,'' Mohamed
al- Hamli, president of the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries, said in an interview in
OPEC's unity may keep oil from dropping below $50 a
barrel for years to come, energy experts say. While global demand, supply
disruptions in Nigeria and concern about a conflict with Iran contribute to
higher energy costs, the 12-nation consortium's decision to pump less oil
underpins crude prices... >>
5b/
Are we back in the era where USA-Iran (or UK-Iran)
sabre rattling causes oil prices to continue to go up? Quite possibly, since as
article 5a points out, OPEC have actually got their act together and put the
squeeze on global oil supplies. We are not that far off $70/barrel now. The
<<Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards warned the
United States against attacking the Islamic Republic, a news agency reported on
Monday, two days after the United Nations imposed new sanctions on Iran.
International tension over
The
"If
"Our people will not even allow one American
soldier to enter our country," he said in the southwestern
city of
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6/
Russian Partners to Cover 10%-15% of British Centrica’s
Requirements (FC Novosti, Tue 20 Mar)
http://www.fcinfo.ru/themes/basic/materials-rfcm-index.asp?folder=3192&pg=1
“He also predicted that
<<Russian partners may cover 10%-15% of
requirements of British energy group Centrica, said Jake Ulrich, managing
director of Centrica Energy, the exploration and production arm of the group.
It is rumoured that Russian energy giant Gazprom is
considering ways to acquire minority stakes in Western companies, including
Centrica.
Ulrich had earlier said that “a joint venture
deal or something more”
was likely between Gazprom and Centrica after Nord Stream is put into operation in the autumn of 2010. He
also predicted that
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7a/ Chinese
President Hu Holds Energy Talks With
Putin (Bloomberg, Mon 26 Mar)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aIHuDrUa9ZK0&refer=europe
It has been clear from the beginning that Putin has
had doubts about committing to sending up to 80 bcm (billion cubic metres) of
gas per year to
<< Chinese President Hu Jintao met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for talks
on China's need for Russian oil and natural gas to power its economy.
The Chinese leader flew into
...
... In March last year during a visit to
That project has not advanced because it depends on
the development of gas fields to fill the pipelines, said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Alfa Bank in
7b/ Not
Enough Oil for Siberia-Pacific
Pipeline (FC
Novosti, Wed 14 Mar)
http://www.fcinfo.ru/themes/basic/materials-rfcm-index.asp?folder=3192&pg=1
<<Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov has officially confirmed that there is not enough
oil for the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline to reach the projected capacity
within the planned timeframe.
For the project to go on stream at least by 2025, oil
output in East Siberia must grow by 50 mln metric
tons a year [1 Mb/d], which requires $102 bln of
investment. Last year, however, oil producers' investment in the region was 30%
of the planned sum, as was said at a meeting on the pipeline project in Yakutia, and the project is on the brink of insolvency
already at the early stage.
Alexei Varlamov, Deputy
Natural Resources Minister, has calculated that if the production rate in East
Siberia and Yakutia remains the same, there will be
enough oil only for the first of the two planned pipelines, 30 mln metric tons.>>
7c/ Russian
agencies at odds on
http://www.platts.com/Oil/News/8952971.xml?p=Oil/News&sub=Oil&src=energybulletin
<<Russian ministries remain divided over the
country's long-awaited program for the development of natural gas projects in
East Siberia and Russia's Far East, with the fate of the giant Kovykta field
being the main bone of contention, Russia's business daily Vedomosti
reported Friday.
At a meeting at the industry and energy ministry
Thursday, officials failed to coordinate the so-called Eastern gas program and
will have to send the contradictory draft to the government, three participants
at the meeting told Vedomosti.
The program for the development of gas fields and
infrastructure for domestic supplies and exports in East Siberia and
The main disagreement is over the development schedule
for the Kovykta gas field, the largest in the region. The field is being developed
by TNK-BP's subsidiary Rusia Petroleum.
The industry and energy ministry, together with gas
giant Gazprom - the coordinator of the East Siberian gas program - believe that
Kovykta development should be deferred until 2017, Vedomosti
said. They also believe all gas from Kovykta should be sold domestically, while
gas from projects on
TNK-BP and Rusia Petroleum
have insisted that gas from Kovykta might be supplied to China and South Korea
via a pipeline to be built… >>
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8/
Ford to Annually Produce Over One Million Cars in
http://www.fcinfo.ru/themes/basic/materials-rfcm-index.asp?folder=3353
The most recent data available shows that while
Russian oil production increased by over 400,000 barrels/day Feb 2006 –
Feb 2007, oil exports remained flat. If Putin goes ahead and caps Russian oil
production, the implication is serious falls in Russian oil exports:
<<Within the next three years, Ford is planning
to commission seven new automobile production lines in Russia, said Ford
Russia’s president Henrik Nenzen.
After 2010, the company is going to produce over one
million cars a year, he said at the 10th annual conference on the Russian Automotive
Industry, organised in
At present, Ford has one auto plant in
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9/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6364195.stm
It is useful that the BBC reminds us of just how
phenomenal the growth of vehicles/roads in
<<… Ten years ago there were almost no
privately owned cars in
By the end of 2005 there were almost 24 million.
... "There will be another 20-25% growth in
2007," says Yale Zhang, an auto analyst in
"There were nearly seven million vehicles sold in
China 2006,
... Before the country's market reforms began in the late-1980s
it had almost no national road network.
It now has almost 50,000 kilometres and a further
25,000 kilometres will be added over the next five years.
... But in 14 years time it is expected that there
will be a 140 million cars on Chinese roads, more than the United States has
today.>>
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10/ Major
gas producers agree to set up export cartel: report (Platts, Mon 19
Mar)
It is difficult to see what a ‘gas OPEC’
could achieve when
<< Russia, Iran, Qatar, Venezuela and Algeria have
reached an agreement to set up a natural gas export group similar to OPEC, to
be signed April 9 in Qatar at a meeting of gas exporting countries, Russia's Kommersant newspaper reported Monday.
The five countries agreed last week to take part in
the project, the report said, citing an unnamed
The official representative of Russian gas giant
Gazprom also declined to confirm the report but said a high-level company
delegation would attend the forum in
... Analysts believe a working gas cartel similar to
OPEC's position in the oil market is unlikely to arise. "We remain skeptical that a workable cartel will be formed, since gas
prices in the Eurasia region tend to be set by long-term contracts (as opposed
to spot and futures markets for oil) and gas deliveries are much more tied to
fixed onshore infrastructure than oil deliveries," UBS said in a report.
"This does not however preclude some public muscle-flexing statements next
month during the meeting," it added.
"The gas cartel is most likely to be a pure
political and consultative organization in the foreseeable future," said Valery Nesterov, an analyst with
Moscow-based Troika-Dialog asset management company.
The gas cartel will not have an impact on gas prices
due to the big differences between the gas market and the oil market, he said.
>>
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