The tar sands operator raises $575m on the Hong Kong exchange. FT: “Sunshine, which is backed by Chinese state-owned investors, raised $350m, or 60 per cent of the total amount, from cornerstone investors including China Investment Corp, China’s sovereign wealth fund, and Sinopec Group, the country’s biggest oil refiner.”
Solarcentury
The company I founded in 1998 to design and supply solar energy solutions for the built environment. Solarcentury
Solar Aid
The charity I founded in 2006, with a 5% contribution of Solarcentury profits, to help deliver solar lighting to Africa. Solar Aid
Archive for the ‘Oil’ Category
Oil reaches a sterling highest-ever price on Iran fears.
February 22, 2012 OilJitters over a possible attack on Iran are outweighing concerns that slowing export orders in China and the eurozone crisis could jeopardise global growth. The cost of Brent crude hit $121.92 a barrel, or £77.77. The previous sterling record was set last year at the height of the Libyan war. US crude hit a nine-month high of $106 (£67.62) a barrel this week. The highest price recorded in dollars was $147 in July 2008, when the pound was stronger. A high oil price pushed UK inflation last year to above 5%.
“No peak oil – why then is Saudi opening old wells for heavy crude?”
February 17, 2012 OilOilPrice.com: The Damman field, shut down 30 years ago, is one such. It is now in a metropolitan area.
Citigroup says shale oil means peak oil is dead.
February 17, 2012 OilWSJ: “After decades of decline, ‘U.S. oil production is now on the rise, entirely because of shale oil production,’ said Citigroup. Shale oil could add almost 3.5 million barrels a day to US oil production between 2010 and 2022 and has already slashed 1 million barrels a day from U.S. oil imports. One day it may allow the U.S. and Canada to be self-sufficient in oil, it said.”
Saudi Arabia to open oldest field to tap heavy oil.
February 16, 2012 OilBloomberg: “Saudi Arabian Oil Co. plans to re- open the Gulf kingdom’s oldest oil field and produce there for the first time in 30 years as the company boosts output of heavy crude, the Economist Intelligence Unit said.” The mothballed Dammam field contains some 500 million barrels of oil and may yield as much as 100,000 barrels a day of Arabian Heavy crude. “Aramco is also speeding up a project to increase capacity for heavy crude at the Manifa field.”
Outlook for global oil supply grim even before latest Iran threats.
February 15, 2012 OilFT: “Risks to output, once confined to the Middle East, are now spreading to Africa. Inventories are low. And the ability of Saudi Arabia to make up for any shortfall is being called into question. “Not since the late 1970s-early 1980s has there been such a serious threat to oil supply,” a report by Deutsche Bank said.
“End the Big 6 Energy Fix” public campaign launches.
February 10, 2012 Clean Energy, Coal, Gas, Nuclear, OilCaroline Lucas speaking for 100 public figures: “First, we are calling on the Government to impose a similar levy to the one it has imposed on North Sea oil companies and the big banks. Over time, such a levy could raise billions, revenues that could be ring-fenced and used to ensure that every home is insulated and highly energy-efficient – starting with the homes of the fuel-poor. This would form part of a Green New Deal and would help to create thousands of new skilled jobs. Second, to prevent energy companies from passing the cost of any levy on to customers, we want the Government to give Ofgem the power to cap prices. This could be linked to the wholesale price to make energy prices fairer. Third, we want the Government to launch a public inquiry into the Big Six energy companies.”
“Fracking boom could finally cap myth of peak oil:” investment banker.
February 1, 2012 Gas, OilA Citicorp investment banker professes that the gas (fracking) revolution will spread to oil. “Maybe” is the comment from Conoco Phillips CEO Jim Mulva.
BP sees non-fossil fuel growing faster than any single fossil fuel.
January 18, 2012 OilThis is the first time any of their long term energy forecasts have said this.
Saudi Arabia targets a $100 oil price.
January 16, 2012 OilUp a third from $75, the price it put forward as fair in 2008. The IMF has estimate $80m is needed to balance the domestic budget.
Oil price in euro equivalent is almost at July 2008 peak.
January 15, 2012 Finance, OilAnd as the Washington Post reports, economic concern is rising with it. The gathering sanctions on Iran is a big factor. Price now is not much more than $100, but the euro is not what it was. Last year’s average oil price was a record $107, up 14% on the previous record year, 2008.
America Petroleum Institute threatens Obama with “political backlash”.
January 5, 2012 OilThe API launches a political campaign called “Vote 4 Energy”, which will use all modern comms to press both Republican and Democratic politicians to support the industry’s agenda, notably the Keystone XL pipeline.
BP sues Halliburton for the costs of the Macondo spill.
January 3, 2012 OilMeanwhile, Halliburton stands firm that it was indemnified by BP. The total costs may be as much as $42bn. But the US DoJ is believed to be preparing criminal charges against BP engineers.
JL blog: Energy dramas for 2012.
January 2, 2012 Clean Energy, Climate, Coal, Finance, Gas, Nuclear, Oil2011 was a year of growing polarisation for those of us who long for renaissance fuelled by renewables. The Germans announced targets to run their railway system entirely on renewable energy, mostly wind,and solar. Yet BP announced it will quit solar entirely to pile ever further into tar sands, unconventional gas and the rest of the carbon status quo. The IEA pronounced that the cost of energy will rise “viciously” on a global basis without clean energy. Yet the British “Big Six” opted for so much gas that the installation rate of British renewables fell steeply: this despite conventional UK energy prices soaring so steeply that fully 1 in 4 of UK households fell into fuel poverty in 2011, up from 1 in 5 in 2010.
There were so many of these stark contrasts in the theatre of energy last year.
It seems that the closer renewables advocates get to their dream, the harder the defenders of the status quo push back the other way, notwithstanding the increasingly clear economic, environmental and social downsides. They surely are teeing up some dramas for 2012.
Not to mention interesting research material for neuroscientists interested in how dysfunctional human cultures work. Its not as though Big Energy, and their cosy nexus with conventional capital, just do these things and be done with it. They lobby for their short-term perceived interests – hard, and mostly below the radar – entraining many in officialdom and politics to their ruinous causes.
To the extent that solar energy in cloudy Britain might be a tiny-corner microcosm of a much bigger picture of the potential for renewable-powered renaissance, there is a particularly interesting drama unfolding as we enter 2012. In case you missed it, the British High Court ruled on 21st December that the UK government has acted illegally in proposing a retrospective reduction in the solar feed-in tariff. The arguments for and against were summarised that night on the BBC, here (headline and 7 mins 20 secs in for the detail). The government can appeal by January 4th, risking further humiliation in its efforts to cut back a solar market just a tiny fraction the size of Germany’s. Or it can switch tack, resurrect an industry that was creating thousands of jobs – at net economic benefit to the UK economy – in a time of dire need for such, while realigning with some its core strategic themes, not least a Big Society countering austerity-related unemployment with a domestic green industrial revolution. This will be a choice to watch as the dramas in the triple crunch of financial crisis, climate crisis, and energy crisis roll on in 2012.
Iran threatens to shut Straits of Hormuz if nuclear sanctions go ahead.
December 27, 2011 OilOn 1 December EU ministers said a decision on further sanctions would be taken no later than their January meeting. EU countries import some 18% of Iranian exports, 450,000 barrels. About of third of seaborne oil passed through the 4 miles Straits in 2009.
Some executives now raise concerns about a glut on US oil capacity.
December 20, 2011 OilHuge tanks are being added to the biggest pipeline hub in the world, at Cushing in Oklahoma, where capacity will be 79 million barrels by end of next year, up 20%.
EDF and other Big Energy firms have loaned 50 employees to government.
December 5, 2011 Clean Energy, Coal, Gas, OilThe Guardian reveals that at least 50 employees of companies including the Big 6 have been placed within government to work on energy issues in the past four years: free of charge and working within the departments for secondments of up to two years. “There have also been 195 meetings between ministers from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) and the energy industry between the 2010 general election and March 2011, according to a Guardian analysis of declared meetings with Decc.” Caroline Lucas: “Companies such as the big six energy firms do not lend their staff to government for nothing – they expect a certain degree of influence, insider knowledge and preferential treatment in return. … None of the staff on secondment in Decc work for renewable energy companies. … Secondments also work in reverse, with civil servants going to work in the energy industry, such as a two-year secondment to Shell and another to Horizon Nuclear Power, a joint venture of E.ON and RWE npower that aims to build nuclear power stations in the UK.”
Brazilian government orders Chevron to shut an offshore well.
December 5, 2011 OilThis at one of Chevron’s 11 production wells in an important offshore field where the company suffered an oil leak last month. A safety audit last week of the Frade offshore oil platform found that the company did not report the presence of hydrogen sulphide in crude at the facility.
BP claims Halliburton destroyed Deepwater Horizon evidence.
December 5, 2011 OilThey claim intentional destruction of test results and computer analysis least it be used in evidence against them. This in a court filing ahead of February’s trial to sort out claim and counter claim.
Countercurrents: the triple crunch we face and the barriers to renaissance.
December 5, 2011 Clean Energy, Commentaries, Finance, OilIn an extended interview in India, I talk about the similarities between the credit crunch and the peak oil issue, and the power of renewables and why clean-energy industries are being held back.
Investors ask BoE to probe risk that fossil-fuel reserves pose “sub-prime” risk.
January 19, 2012 Climate, Coal, Commentaries, Finance, Gas, OilFossil fuel reserves listed in the City of London are “sub-prime” assets posing a systemic risk to economic stability. So warns a high-profile coalition of investors, politicians and scientists , writing an open letter to Sir Mervyn King asking him to launch an investigation. Signatories include Aviva Investors, Climate Change Capital, Conservative politician Zac Goldsmith and Solarcentury chairman Jeremy Leggett. Abatement policies could mean billions of pounds of fossil fuel reserves will rapidly lose value and cause a “major problem” for institutional investors and pension funds. Guardian: “CarbonTracker’s latest report reveals that coal reserves held by 16 London-listed companies will release 45bn tonnes of CO2 when burned, equivalent to 86 years of annual UK emissions, which are the tenth highest in the world. Most of the coal is in other countries such as Australia and South Africa.”
Tags: Banks, UK