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a community peak oil portal
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| Petroleum : A Historical Review |
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 The effect that rising oil prices have on a market is not directly proportional to the cost of crude oil. For example, while crude oil prices increased 400% from 2003-2008, United States gasoline prices did not rise by the same amount. This is because the profits of distributors and retailers, production costs (such as refining, transportation), and taxes are all part of the price of auto fuel.
There is debate over the effect the current long term elevation of oil prices will have. Some speculate that an oil-price spike could create a recession comparable to those that followed the 1973 and 1979 energy crises or a potentially worse situation such as a global oil crash.
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| Venezuela's Chavez to buy Chinese K-8 planes |
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| Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday the OPEC nation will buy Chinese military training planes, expanding recent arms purchases and further cementing a growing relationship with China.
Chavez in recent years has stepped up purchases of weapons and planes. Washington accuses the self-styled revolutionary of carrying out an arms spending spree that could destabilize the region.
Venezuela and China on Friday signed an accord to build a refinery on Chinese soil as part of a broader plan to reduce Venezuela's reliance on U.S. energy markets.
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 Two years ago a leading economist published a study provocatively titled: "What would $120 oil mean for the global economy?" Answer: a global recession, if the price stayed there for a year.
Now the future has arrived, with the United States and other nations getting a double whammy from both the mortgage crisis and oil futures hovering at $120 per barrel. If oil prices stay stratospheric, the cost of fueling cars and planes could slash US economic growth up to 2.3 percent and global growth by 3.6 percent, says Robert Wescott, former chief economist of the president's council of economic advisers and author of the $120 oil report.
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| Economy and the World in Crisis: Gas, Food, Thought |
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| Crisis is defined first as a "turning point" and secondly as a "crucial situation." Currently the world is deep into the latter as it relates to energy and food, though inevitably the present situation will evolve into the former. The international community, and particularly the United States, must be willing to think differently about energy, food, and the environment. The current paradigm, as expressed by consumption and inaction, reflects an underlying belief that there will always be more and that this crisis, and others before it, are temporary. Just as society had to accept that the Earth is not flat and the Sun is the center of the universe, we must now accept that oil is not a renewable resource and that how we live today will determine how our grandchildren live tomorrow. We must think about problems in a new way or we will never generate a new reality; we are, in fact, destroying our current reality.
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| Who's Really to Blame for Rising Oil? |
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| This might be the worst kind of oil spill. The bubbly high price of oil has spilled over into food and the damage appears to be life threatening. Somalia is the latest to join the growing list of African countries where rising food prices have led to violence. A sack of rice that sold for $32 only one month ago is now going for $52. Over one billion Asians are requiring assistance to weather the effects of the soaring price of food around the globe. Haruhiko Kuroda, the Chinese bank's president, said an erosion of purchasing power has put Asia's poor at risk of hunger and malnutrition and could “seriously undermine the global fight against poverty and erode the gains of the past decades.”
Food prices have an extremely high dependence on oil and oil-based products. Food processing, storage and distribution are all extremely energy intensive processes. In order to curb food inflation, we first need to lower oil. World leaders have no control over pricing and don’t know what to do.
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| Drillers blame rules for gas costs |
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 Workers in the gas industry and their bosses turned out in force last week for the ninth Four Corners Oil & Gas Conference at McGee Park.
Conference chairman Rod Troxell, the Health, Safety and Environmental Professional for Pesco Inc., called the conference "really more of a trade show," as evidenced by the 370-plus vendors' booths. More than 1,600 people attended the conference representing 310 industry companies.
"It's a place for all the engineers and field people to come together and learn about the new technologies," Troxell said Wednesday.
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| China's energy security moves it closer to the Middle East |
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| Energy consumption in China is growing as fast as the rapidly growing Chinese economy. China has changed from a net oil exporter to a net oil importer. In recent years, 40 to 50 percent of the oil that China consumes is imported. Of that, 60 percent comes from the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar and Sudan are the main suppliers.
Therefore China has a significant interest in the Middle East, and any changes in the situation there will affect China's energy security. It is only natural for energy factors to play a role in China's policy toward the Middle East.
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| Russia becoming energized |
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| Even so, as energy prices soar, Russia grows wealthier and more powerful by the day, a sort of Saudi Arabia with snow. Interestingly, Russia today commands far more influence over Western Europe than it did when 100 Red Army divisions threatened the continent to the point where France began re-arming the Maginot forts.
Russia's Gazprom now accounts for nearly 40% of Germany's and Ukraine's gas consumption, 33% of Italy's, 26% of France's heating needs, 70% of Austria's, and almost all of Eastern Europe's gas. Moscow does not need tanks to threaten Europe.
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| Saudi keeps June crude supplies to Japan steady |
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| Saudi Arabia, the world's top crude exporter, will supply full contracted volumes of crude oil in June to two Japanese lifters, steady from May levels, industry sources said on Monday.
"The supply will be the contract volume for June," said the source with a Japanese refiner.
A second source with another Japanese lifter also said the supply was steady at full contracted volume for June.
The two lifters did not ask Saudi Arabia for additional volumes on top of the contracts, the sources said.
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| Trains may not be our biggest worry |
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| vox_mundi writes: U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., stopped by last week and said, among a lot of other things, that America needs bigger ideas. He lamented that for 25 years we've been mired in things too small.
As a nation, "we need more creativity and imagination," he said, not quite pounding the conference table, but he seemed to mean it. "We need big ideas," he said with an exclamation point!
... Now, I like senators who ask us to think big. But often it is writers who are way ahead of our political class.
Take James Howard Kunstler, for example, who had big ideas on the burbs. In the past 15 years he has had two insightful, scathing, best-selling attacks on suburbia in his "Geography of Nowhere" and "Home from Nowhere."
He didn't set out to solve the two Connecticuts — the poor and failing urban education systems and the better schools in the suburbs.
But his big idea now encompasses the end of two Connecticuts, two Americas in a way that is disturbing, but in his mind, coming.
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| OPEC talk of pumping more oil |
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something_awfull writes: THE oil cartel OPEC said it would consult on a possible increase in production after the price of crude rose for a fifth successive day on Friday, trading above $US126 a barrel for the first time.
Amid heavy speculative buying by hedge funds, an OPEC source said member countries might discuss action aimed at bringing down the cost of fuel ahead of its scheduled meeting in September.
OPEC has insisted until now that the reason for the sharp increases in global prices has been due to factors other than demand and supply, and that production of crude has been adequate.
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| Civilization's Last Chance |
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 billg writes: Even for Americans -- who are constitutionally convinced that there will always be a second act, and a third, and a do-over after that, and, if necessary, a little public repentance and forgiveness and a Brand New Start -- even for us, the world looks a little terminal right now.
It's not just the economy: We've gone through swoons before. It's that gas at $4 a gallon means we're running out, at least of the cheap stuff that built our sprawling society. It's that when we try to turn corn into gas, it helps send the price of a loaf of bread shooting upward and helps ignite food riots on three continents. It's that everything is so tied together. It's that, all of a sudden, those grim Club of Rome types who, way back in the 1970s, went on and on about the "limits to growth" suddenly seem ... how best to put it, right.
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| Ghana: 'Literally, This Is Energy From Dirt' |
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 You've heard of solar power, and also wind power. Now, you might start hearing about soil power as well.
Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) that make use of the energy given off by soil microbes are amongst the technologies that hold promise for bringing power to developing states, where electricity is often scarce.
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| High oil prices will break some airlines: Ryanair boss |
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| The current record highs in oil prices will force some airlines into bankruptcy, the outspoken chief executive of budget airline Ryanair told a German newspaper on Sunday.
World oil prices have rocketed 25 percent since the start of 2008 and have doubled in the past 12 months from around 62 dollars.
If the high prices remain or rise over the next 12 months, some Ryanair competitors will go out of business, Michael O'Leary told the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
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 Nothing can rise exponentially, even if it is crude Oil. The asset's exponential rise is more an indication of an ending trend and not vice versa.
There aren't any chilly warnings of Oil heading to $200, like many in OPEC believe. Does OPEC really know? The axiom linked with $40 plus Oil, as harbinger of recession has been long trashed and now not only we are waiting for recession but also for $200 Oil. It all seems a bit strange.
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