Global Energy

Pipeline crisis 'could halve flow of oil'

The price of crude oil could hit $300 (£158) a barrel if BP's pipeline corrosion crisis in Alaska turns out to be an endemic problem for the industry, according to the leading oil industry analyst Matthew Simmons.

Mr Simmons, a US-based industry commentator and financier, said BP's discovery of unexpectedly severe corrosion in its pipelines at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, could just be the tip of the iceberg. He described the sudden emergence of the issue as the "Pearl Harbour Day" for energy...

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Trust Eroding in Oil Pipelines Close to Home

The pipeline problems that shut down the largest U.S. oil field early this month brought a chilling reminder of what can go wrong with the extensive, aging maze of pipelines that carries volatile fuels across the nation.

Poor pipeline maintenance led to extensive corrosion and leaks, leading oil giant BP to turn off the spigots at Alaska's Prudhoe Bay. Energy markets were roiled, but no human lives were threatened in Alaska's North Slope wilderness.

California's unusually large web of oil, fuel and natural gas pipelines also has been plagued with corrosion and other maintenance and safety issues. Here, however, the risk is compounded by the spread of suburbia, where houses now crowd pipelines that were built and buried in the middle of what was nowhere...

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Iranian troops fire on Romanian oil rig

Romania said Iranian troops opened fire from a warship and seized a Romanian oil rig Tuesday off the coast of
Iran, holding its workers in an incident stemming from a commercial dispute

Sergiu Medar, a national security adviser to Romanian President Traian Basescu, said the seizure resulted from a commercial dispute Iran is treating "in an extreme way." He gave no details...

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CANADA'S BLACK GOLD-Debt Free Thanks to Oil Sands

The Canadian province of Alberta contains massive amounts of oil sands. But extracting the petroleum contained in them is costly and harmful to the environment. Still, the sands are a temptation oil companies can't resist. They're investing billions in order to secure the abundant source of energy.

You would have to be a firm believer that a boom is coming to stick around for long in Fort McMurray, high up in the wilderness of northern Canada. On bad days you'll wait 45 minutes for your coffee at Starbucks, and foul-smelling smog clouds begin darkening the sky every afternoon, long before sunset. On the better days you can at least find a place to sleep. But if you want to live here, it's a different story: A couch in the basement will set you back at least 500 Canadian dollars a month...

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Brazil's Road to Energy Independence

Record oil prices have made the world's energy landscape a darkly foreboding place this year, inhospitable to optimism and celebration. Except in Brazil.

It has been something of a banner year here, full of milestones. The government predicts that for the first time in its history, Brazil will achieve energy equilibrium, exporting as much oil as it imports. The production of sugar cane-based ethanol is expected to reach an all-time high. And just three years after the introduction here of flex-fuel vehicles -- cars that run on either ethanol or gasoline -- several major automakers predict that such vehicles will represent 100 percent of their production by the end of the year, eliminating gas-only models...

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Comments from our readers:

Why the Government Won't Debate Industrial Hemp Re-legalization
Submitted by EV Rider

Hemp Prohibition was created in 1937, not to protect society from the "evils of the drug Marijuana," as the Federal government claimed, but as an act of deliberate economic and industrial sabotage against the re-emerging Industrial Hemp Industry.

Industrial hemp does not contribute to the greenhouse effect and is a renewable living resource. The growing plants absorb as much CO2 as will later be released when oil or other plant matter is burnt. Unlike fossil fuels, (oil, coal, gas), or nuclear fuels, hemp has provided us with raw materials for thousands of years, without ever changing our climate and without producing waste that remains radioactive for millions of years.

During the Second World War, the U.S. federal government faced an extreme economic emergency when its supply of hemp was cut off by the Japanese. The government responded to the emergency by suspending marijuana prohibition***. Patriotic American farmers were encouraged to apply for a license to grow hemp. They responded enthusiastically and grew 375,000 acres of hemp in 1943.

August 22, 2006

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