Peak Oil News

SUB-Saharan Africa’s economy would probably expand 6,3% next year, the fastest pace in more than three decades, boosted by higher output from oil-exporting countries such as Angola, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says in its World Economic Outlook released yesterday. Growth in the region was forecast to reach 5,2% this year, the third consecutive year it would exceed 5%, the Washington-based lender said in its semi-annual report released in Singapore. Next year’s growth rate would be the highest since 1971. Growth in SA would moderate as higher oil prices and rising interest rates curbed spending. » Source: Business Day Economic growth would probably slow to 4% from 4,2% this year, the IMF report said. SA’s $239bn economy expanded at a 21-year high of 4,9% last year. Rising oil prices have boosted investment in countries such as Angola, sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest oil producer. Other African ...

World oil demand was weaker than expected in the first half of 2006 because increasingly efficient use of oil is limiting consumption despite economic growth, OPEC has said in a monthly report. "World oil demand growth in 2006 has been revised down by 0.1 million barrels per day (bpd) since the last MOMR (OPEC monthly report) to stand at 1.2 million barrels pr day," The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said in its September report on world oil markets. "Recent data shows weaker-than-expected demand in the first half of the year," OPEC said Friday. » Source: Yahoo News Gasoline demand in the United States "grew by only 0.7 percent, well below the annual average of 1.6 percent despite the stabilization of gasoline prices. "This has led to downward revisions of 0.2 million bpd and 0.1 million bpd to second- and third-quarter oil demand figures for North America," the report said. "Developing Countries, which account ...

In its need for more fuel to supply an expanding economy, China is pursuing a dynamic "holistic" approach to energy partnerships in Africa that has surprised many Western competitors, says South African Warrick Davies-Webb. Davies-Webb, political analyst at Executive Research Associates, a risk-management consulting firm headquartered in Pretoria, South Africa, spoke at a September 13 briefing sponsored by the African Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS), a U.S. government agency located at Fort McNair near downtown Washington. Established in 1999, ACSS sponsors seminars and training sessions for African midlevel military officers and defense officials. It recently opened an office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to oversee programs on the continent aimed at increasing the professional skill of African militaries while building closer ties with U.S. counterparts in the defense community. » Source: US INFO With oil, gas and coal use far ...

Leading players in the petroleum industry, including Saudi Arabia and Exxon Mobil Corp., are aggressively arguing that plenty of crude oil remains for world consumption, in an effort to counter critics who contend crude output is about to plateau. That argument, known as the peak-oil theory, has provided intellectual backing for the boom in crude prices and sowed doubts among some policy makers about crude's long-term reliability as an energy source. Such doubts, coupled with concern over sky-high prices, have added impetus to the search for oil substitutes--including in Washington, where President Bush this year declared the U.S. "addicted to oil" and sparked a boom in interest in ethanol. » Source: Mail Tribune Some in the industry now are keen to fight the threat posed by such fears. Tuesday, Abdallah S. Jum'ah, chief executive of Saudi Arabian state-owned Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil ...

A slowing US housing market and the possibility of a major oil supply disruption were two of the biggest risks to the world economy, International Monetary Fund (IMF) head Rodrigo de Rato said yesterday. Speaking at an Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) conference in Vienna of policy makers and oil executives, he underscored the importance to economic growth of stable oil flows. Moves by some oil-producing countries to raise taxes on international oil groups or change contract terms could lead to their rebound by cutting investment. » Source: Business Day “With the housing market in the US cooling faster than anticipated, there is a risk of an abrupt slowdown in the US which could derail the global expansion. “There are clear signs of increasing risks,” De Rato said, referring to global growth. “Adequate investment in the oil sector will help alleviate ...

The world has tapped only 18 percent of the total global supply of crude, a leading Saudi oil executive said Wednesday, challenging the notion that supplies are petering out. Abdallah S. Jum'ah, president and CEO of the state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known better as Aramco, said the world has the potential of 4.5 trillion barrels in reserves - enough to power the globe at current levels of consumption for another 140 years. Jum'ah challenged oil ministers and petroleum executives at an OPEC conference in Vienna to step up exploration "and leave the minimum amount of oil in the ground." » Source: The Jerusalem Post "The world has only consumed about 18 percent of its conventional potential," Jum'ah said, contending that should lay to rest fears that the world is in danger of being tapped out within a few decades. Many experts ...

High oil prices are still being propped up by a shortage of refinery capacity and there is little sign of the bottleneck easing until 2010, industry executives and officials discussing OPEC's future have warned. That potential respite relies on the unlikely prospect all 66 refineries planned by oil companies and producers being built, as well as a total of about 300 billion dollars in investment by 2015, they added. "The need for downstream capacity is just as important as other issues," said Claude Mandil, executive director of the International Energy Agency at a two-day conference which was continuing Wednesday. » Source: Middle East Online "There is a general recognition now that no spare capacity in refining together with no spare capacity in crude production are the key factors we have to manage on high prices," he added. Mandil said: "If everything goes ...

China will reduce its reliance on petroleum imports by basing its energy supply on coal and developing new and renewable energies, said a senior official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on Tuesday. China successfully reduced its net imports of petroleum last year, said Zhang Guobao, vice minister of the NDRC at the 7th Sino-U.S. Petroleum & Natural Gas Forum held in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province. According to Zhang, China's oil consumption was 317 million tons last year, down slightly from the previous year and its net imports of petroleum are 136 million tons, less than that of 2004. » Source: People's Daily Online The Chinese economy has maintained a growth of over 10 percent for three years running so it is normal for China to see a rise in its ...

EurActiv has seen a draft of an ambitious energy-efficiency plan to be unveiled by the Commission that includes a binding target to slash fuel consumption in cars. On 22 June 2005, the Commission tabled a 'Green Paper' on energy efficiency, outlining a series of ideas which it said could save Europe some 20% in energy consumption by 2020 and slash its energy bill by €60 billion every year. EU member states have highlighted housing and transport as the sectors where the savings potential is greatest. But they insisted that the EU adopts realistic and wide-ranging measures such as soft law, product labelling, support measures, certificates and voluntary agreements. » Source: EurActiv Issues: The Commission will tell EU countries that they can cut their energy bill by €40 billion annually from 2012 if they follow the recommendations of an energy-efficiency action plan to ...

The world has an abundant supply of oil, and high petrol prices are just the reality of a globally traded commodity, ExxonMobil Australia chairman Mark Nolan said today. Mr Nolan used his speech to the Asia Pacific oil and gas conference in Adelaide today to debunk the theory of peak oil, which suggests oil supplies have peaked and will dwindle over the next 20 years. Such predictions, he said, had been around since the 1920s, particularly at times of high oil prices. » Source: The Australian “The fact is that the world has an abundance of oil and there is little question, scientifically, that abundant energy resources exist,” Mr Nolan said. “According to the US Geological Survey, the earth currently has more than three trillion barrels of conventional, recoverable oil resources. “So far we have produced one trillion.” Mr Nolan said the oil industry had ...