The Arctic has become more stormy in the past 50 years due to the warming climate, which in turn has quickened the pace of drifting sea ice, a new NASA study finds.

"Those companies that are able to keep costs under control continue to do okay. Those that can't are in a world of hurt," said Rick Kment, analyst at DTN in Nebraska.

Corn ethanol caught the imagination of U.S. policymakers as a way to fix multiple problems: rising oil prices, dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuel pollution. But the use of corn for ethanol is now embroiled in controversy, being held responsible by critics for recent spikes in food prices that spurred riots in some countries.

"I don't think it would do that (cut off supplies). It hasn't done that to Western Europe in the past and I don't think it's going to do it intentionally," C. Boyden Gray said.

Experts say no because most drivers assume the dip in prices will be short-lived, and motorists have adjusted their habits accordingly.

"The concept of alternative energy has a lot of momentum," said Dan Pickering, head of research for Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities in Houston. "But lower oil prices make it harder to justify investment. At $50 a barrel, a lot of that investment will die."

Taina Honkalehto, a research fishery biologist with the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, said pollock biomass in U.S. waters was down to 940,000 tons from 1.8 million tons last year.

That would be a departure from a long-held public perception that flying -- while increasingly expensive -- still makes sense because the cost of driving is almost as bad and driving takes longer.

Tripoli wants to increase output to 3 million barrels of crude oil per day by about 2012 from 1.7 million now, raising extra revenues to help rebuild infrastructure that is crumbling after years of sanctions.

Among companies with units off line are Petro-Canada (nyse: PCZ - news - people ) , whose Edmonton, Alberta, refinery has been in a major turnaround since this summer, and Suncor Energy Inc (nyse: SU - news - people ), whose oil sands plant is currently pumping none of the fuel, officials with the refiners said.

``Saudi Arabia has not joined the OPEC hawks, led by Venezuela and Iran, in calling for another supply cut, and we think we could be witnessing the beginning of the end for the organization,'' Neil McMahon, a London-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., wrote in a report today.

A barrel of oil hasn't been this cheap in 13 months — a rare silver lining for consumers amid a rapidly imploding financial landscape.

With the letters of credit needed to facilitate exports subject to rising interest rates, refineries are finding it hard to maximise the value of their production, the Paris-based International Energy Agency said in its monthly oil market report.

In a new report Friday, Deutsche Bank uses a number of interesting yard sticks to suggest crude is currently way too expensive and may fall to the $60 a barrel range as the economy worsens.

The escalating rise in demand and the dramatic spikes in oil price to almost $150 a barrel in July 2008, doubled the price from mid 2007. It seemed this was all a manifestation of peak oil playing out on the world stage of oil markets confronting rising demand producing dramatic oil scarcity.