+ + Wir haben ÖL Peak + +
hello again am 31.08.08 09:22
Da das nach deiner Meinung nach im peak oil thread "treffend formuliert" ist, kann ja jeder seine Schlüsse ziehen, was du damit gemeinst hast.
Solltest Du keine Analogie hergestellt haben wollen zwischen, dann hast Du diech ziemlich missverständlich ausgedrückt. Und unpassend in diesem Fall sowieso, denn wie gesagt - kein peak oil protagonist meint, dass morgen oder in kürze das öl ausgehen wird. da brauchst du dann nachher mit mit mehreren pargraphen herum zu interpretatieren....
Seid einigen Wochen genau das gegenteil, egal ob schlechte Bestandszahlen, Krise Georgien, Hurrikangefahr usw. das Öl geht runter.
Ich glaube der Ölmarkt hat sein Eigenleben je nachdem was der "Spekulant" für die richtige Richtung hält gefunden.
Zur Zeit will der "Spekulant" eben das das Öl fällt.
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das einzige, was man über öl sagen kann, ist, dass es auf langer sicht AUF JEDENFALL steigen wird.
Reuters
30 Aug, 2008, 1855 hrs IST,
TEHRAN : Iran has more than 85 bn barrels of recoverable heavy oil, an official said, suggesting about 60 per cent of the country's reserves are of that crude category.
Mohammad-Ali Emadi, director of research and development at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), did not give a total crude reserve figure in his comments on Friday to the Oil Ministry news website. Iran's total recoverable oil reserves were put at 138.4 bn barrels at the end of 2007 in the BP Statistical Review.
Heavy oil sells at a discount to lighter categories on the international market because of higher refining costs. Emadi said one reason for the visit to China last week by Seifollah Jashnsaz, managing director of state-owned NIOC, was to discuss heavy oil extraction technology.
"China has obtained good experience in the past few years in the extraction of heavy oil, and it has managed to increase its heavy oil production using chemical, polymer and thermal compositions," Emadi was quoted as saying.
"One of the aims of the NIOC delegation to China last week ... was the signing of an agreement in regard to heavy oil reserves technology transfer and management," he said."
By Clifford Krauss
NY Times
SALT LAKE CITY — The best deal on fuel in the country right now might be here in Utah, where people are waiting in lines to pay the equivalent of 87 cents a gallon. Demand is so strong at rush hour that fuel runs low, and some days people can pump only half a tank.
It is not gasoline they are buying for their cars, but natural gas.
By an odd confluence of public policy and private initiative, Utah has become the first state in the country to experience broad consumer interest in the idea of running cars on clean natural gas.
Utahans are hunting the Internet and traveling the country to pick up used natural gas cars at auctions. They are spending thousands of dollars to transform their trucks and sport utility vehicles to run on compressed gas. Some fueling stations that sell it to the public are so busy they frequently run low on pressure, forcing drivers to return before dawn when demand is down.
It all began when unleaded gasoline rose above $3.25 a gallon last year, and has spiraled into a frenzy in the last few months.
Ron Brown, Honda’s salesman here for the Civic GX, the only car powered by natural gas made by a major automaker in the country, has sold one out of every four of the 800 cars Honda has made so far this year, and he has a pile of 330 deposit slips in his office, each designating a customer waiting months for a new car.
“It’s nuts,” Mr. Brown said. “People are buying these cars from me and turning around and selling them as if they were flipping real estate.”
Advocates for these cars see Mr. Brown’s brisk sales as a sign that natural gas could become the transport fuel of the future, replacing much of the oil the nation imports. While that remains a distant dream, big increases recently in the country’s production of natural gas do raise the possibility of making wider use of the fuel.
To a degree, it is already starting to happen in Utah, where the cost savings have gotten the public’s attention. Natural gas is especially cheap here, so that people spend about 87 cents for a quantity of gas sufficient to propel a car approximately the same distance as a $3.95 gallon of gasoline.
The word about natural gas cars has been spreading in news reports and by word of mouth, and so many Utahans are now trying to get their hands on used natural gas vehicles that they are drying up the national supply. Used car lots are stocking up, and beginning to look like county government parking lots with multiple lines of identical white Civic GXs once used in out-of-state fleets.
Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. got into the act last year, spending $12,000 out of his own pocket to convert his state sport utility vehicle to run on natural gas. “We can create a model that others can look to,” Mr. Huntsman said in an interview. “Every state in America can make this a reality.”
In fact, some unique factors apply in Utah. Natural gas prices at the pump here are controlled and are the cheapest in the country, while the price of conventional gasoline is one of the highest. Questar Gas, the public utility, has compressed-gas pumps around the state open to the public, a fueling infrastructure that few states can match.
Special factors or not, the sudden popularity of natural gas vehicles here demonstrates their potential, according to advocates like T. Boone Pickens, the Texas oil billionaire who is financing a national campaign promoting wind power and natural gas to replace imported oil. “Utah shows that the technology is here and the fuel works and the fuel is better than foreign oil,” Mr. Pickens said.
Natural gas cars produce at least 20 percent less greenhouse gas per mile than regular cars, according to a California study.
No official figures are available on how many natural gas vehicles Utah has, in part because so many people go to garages that install conversion kits that are not certified by the Environmental Protection Agency and are therefore illegal.
(Governor Huntsman has expressed concern, and some in the installation business have requested that the E.P.A. close down the unauthorized operations; the agency says it does not comment on possible investigations.)
But Questar estimates the number at 6,000 and growing by several hundred a month. That is small compared with the 2.7 million vehicles registered in the state, but natural gas executives and state government officials say it makes Utah the fastest-growing market in the country for such cars.
Cars fueled by compressed natural gas have been available intermittently in the United States for decades, and have found wide use in fleets, but have never attracted much consumer interest. The situation is markedly different abroad. Of the eight million natural gas vehicles operating worldwide, only about 116,000 were in the United States, mostly as fleet vans, buses and cars, according to a 2006 Energy Department estimate.
Congress mandated the use of fleets capable of using alternative fuel cars for governments and some energy companies in the early 1990s, but public interest petered out as gasoline prices plummeted. Over the years, all the major car companies except Honda dropped their production in the United States.
The cars have two major disadvantages — a shortage of fueling stations and limited range. (A typical natural gas car goes half as far on a full tank as a gasoline car.) Utah is one of the few states where a driver can travel across the state without being out of range of a station.
The situation is a Catch-22: Carmakers do not want to make natural gas cars when few filling stations are set up for them, and few stations want to install expensive equipment to compress gas with so few cars on the road.
Hundreds of stations supply compressed gas in a few states like California, New York and Arizona, but most are either closed to the public or charge only modestly less than regular gasoline prices.
Retail natural gas prices in some states are triple the price in Utah. The only state that comes close to Utah’s low gas prices is Oklahoma, and a surge of natural gas car buying is going on there, too.
The natural gas industry and some politicians are pushing to open up the market to gas-powered vehicles across the country. Even in states without fueling stations, a few drivers have switched by spending several thousand dollars to install a home gas compressor.
A proposal on the ballot in California this fall would allow the state to sell $5 billion in bonds to finance rebates of $2,000 and more to buyers of natural gas vehicles. Legislation has been introduced in Congress to offer more tax credits to producers and consumers and mandate the installation of gas pumps in certain service stations, with the goal of making natural gas cars 10 percent of the nation’s vehicle fleet over the next decade.
“If the incentives are right and the fuel and cars are available, natural gas can work,” said Gordon Larsen, supervisor for natural gas vehicle operations at Questar Gas. But he said that any drop in gasoline prices douses enthusiasm among drivers considering the switch.
With gasoline hovering just below $4 a gallon for unleaded regular here, interest in the Salt Lake City area is strong.
Questar reports that the volume of natural gas pumped at its 21 filling stations is up 240 percent this year from last, after a 50 percent rise in 2007. Demand has grown so fast that the compressors at many of Questar’s stations run low during the day, forcing drivers to settle for half a tank or fill up during off-peak hours.
The natural gas car surge in Utah is because of several factors. Questar has had filling pumps around the state to fuel its own fleet of service vehicles since the 1980s, and because it had excess capacity, it opened those stations to the public. Natural gas prices are cheap because under Utah regulations, the utility is obliged to offer about half of the gas that it sells to its retail customers at the cost of production.
The state and a few municipalities are preparing to open more filling stations. If the trend continues, it could eventually lower the environmental impact of driving in Utah.
For now, demand for compressed-gas cars is outstripping supply.
“People get into a frenzy and they just have to buy,” said Rick Oliver, owner of a company that converts vehicles. He said that in a recent online auction, a Utah buyer paid $19,000 for a 2001 Civic GX with 50,000 miles — the price a buyer of a new GX would pay after state and federal tax credits.
Gary Frederickson, a 48-year-old computer technician, has bought six natural gas vehicles on Craigslist over the last year, flying as far as Portland and Oakland to pick up the cars. One 1998 Ford Contour he bought for $3,000 in effect cost him nothing because he will receive a $3,000 state tax credit for buying an alternative fuel car.
“It’s crazy to be in Utah and have access to 85-cent-a-gallon fuel and not take advantage of it,” he said before a recent 2-cent increase."
By Ayesha Rascoe
Reuters
Thursday August 28 2008
WASHINGTON, Aug 28 (Reuters) - American drivers faced with $4 gasoline have embraced conservation and consumers are unlikely to easily return to their old gas-guzzling ways now that pump prices are retreating from record levels.
As U.S. gasoline prices burst above $4 a gallon this summer, U.S. gasoline demand staged its biggest drop in more than a quarter of a century.
But even with gasoline prices falling to their lowest level in 16 weeks to average $3.69 a gallon on Monday, Americans will continue to ride public transportation and buy more fuel-efficient cars.
"There was a period when SUVs were a kind of status symbol and everyone in the suburbs wanted one," said James Hamilton, an economics professor at the University of California at San Diego. "I think that has really changed. I think there are a lot of people kind of embarrassed socially now with the kind of car they have."
U.S. motorists drove 12.2 billion fewer miles in June compared with a year earlier, while gasoline demand shrank by an average 800,000 barrels a day during the first half of this year, the biggest decline since 1982, because of soaring pump prices and a weak economy.
In the 1990s the price of gasoline seemed cheap to consumers as incomes rose. But, when gasoline began its steep climb this year, Americans could no longer ignore the cost.
In July, U.S. auto sales fell to a 16-year low as Americans turned away from fuel-intensive SUVs and pickup trucks. In a reversal of the past decade, cars sales outpaced truck sales at a ratio of 55 percent to 45 percent.
The move toward more fuel-efficient cars will have an enduring impact on U.S. gasoline demand, Energy Information Administration head Guy Caruso told reporters this week. The EIA is forecasting for the first time that gasoline demand will continue to decline in the long term.
"Some of it's permanent, but some of it is highly dependent on two things: the price, but probably even as important is personal disposable income," he said.
Americans made a similar shift to smaller cars during the energy crisis of the 1970s. By the early 1990s, however, gasoline prices had dropped significantly and Americans began to prefer larger vehicles.
There is concern that, if prices keep falling, some Americans would likely revert back to their old ways.
But Ken Medlock, energy fellow at Baker Institute at Rice University, said consumers burned by $4 a gallon gasoline may be more cautious than in the past.
Medlock said people will be more conscious of conservation because, if prices spike again, they "don't want to be riding around in a Hummer, when they could be driving something fuel-efficient."
The giant Hummer SUV may be one of the most identifiable brands in the long line of gas guzzlers. But in another sign of the times, General Motors has put the brand on the block and two investors from the oil-rich Gulf Arab region have expressed interest.
The EIA sees gasoline demand falling to 9.17 million barrels per day this year, from 9.29 million barrels in 2007. In 2009, demand is to fall again, to 9.15 million barrels.
"Even though, as prices fall, we'd expect some increase in travel, unfortunately, household budgets have been strained by these high prices," said Tancred Lidderdale, senior economist with the EIA.
Americans have also turned to public transport in record numbers to save money and are unlikely to alter their new money-saving habits. Ridership on public transportation rose 3.4 percent in the first three months of 2008, according to the American Public Transportation Association.
Virginia Miller, a spokeswoman for the group, noted that fuel prices spiked in the spring of 2006 and public transit ridership rose. By the end of the summer prices declined, but ridership had not.
"As gas prices came down, they could have chosen to go back to the car, but for the most part they didn't, and gas prices were significantly less then than they are now," Miller said.
Still some worry that if gasoline prices fall below $3.50 a gallon, Americans will leave their energy-efficient ways behind.
As well, Republican presidential hopeful John McCain has struck a cord by mocking the idea that Americans need to do things like inflate car tires to save gas, saying the solution was more drilling and more supply.
"Everybody wants to consume gasoline and they would prefer to have a larger vehicle, so consumers don't give up the wanting," said Mary Novak, managing director of energy services for Global Insight. "The thing that makes them give up the wanting is the price." (Editing by Walter Bagley)"
Haben wir jetzt das Tief erreicht ? Sehen wir noch die 100 Dollar Marke ?
Ich bin seit gestern in ein call eingestiegen bei Ölpreis 111,30 Dollar.
Knockoutgrenze ist 90,4 Dollar. Als ich heute nach hause gekommen bin hätte ich mich verbtteln können.
gut Ok jetzt geht es wieder. Ich hätte halt gedacht das die 110 Dollar Marke kurzfristig hält und wieder etwas nach oben geht. hier wollte ich halt schnell geld machen.
Manche sagen es geht noch bis 80 runter aber das gaube ich nicht. Klar haben wir eine Blase doch die ist eigentlich meiner Meinung nach schon fast keine mehr.
Ich denke da die 110 gefallen sind könnten wir die 100 Dollar noch sehen aber dann ist auch schon schluss (denke und hoffe ich ).
Auf jedenfall denke ich das wir längerfristig wieder Richtung 130 Dollar gehen.
Ich habe halt nur schiss das mein Knockout von 90,4 nicht hält.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/...urrent/txt/table1.txt
So langsam kann jeder denken was er will, seid Anfang 2008 oder auch schon früher ist der Anstieg rein durch Spekulation und nix mit geringem Angebot oder Peak Oil oder sonstigem zu begründen.
Von Tag zu Tag werd ich mir sicherer das wir in absehbarer Zeit auch wieder Richtung 80 $ kommen werden.
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High fuel prices and the weak economy could make heating a luxury this winter. And the government's low-income assistance plan may not suffice.
By Ben Rooney
CNNMoney.com staff writer
September 2, 2008: 5:54 AM EDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Home heating bills are expected to rise dramatically this winter and there is growing concern that the government program aimed at helping poor families cope with energy costs may not be able to meet the needs of cash-strapped households.
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is a federally funded program that gives money to states to help low-income households, the elderly and the disabled cope with the financial strain of high heating bills.
This year, however, the program could be squeezed by a projected 20% average increase in heating bills nationwide and an influx of people applying for assistance due to sour economic conditions, high gas prices and a weak labor market.
"This could be the worst winter ever for low-income folks," said Jerry McKim, who oversees Iowa's LIHEAP program for the state's Bureau of Energy Assistance.
While heating oil and natural gas prices have fallen from recent highs, they remain well above last year's level and still pose a significant threat to poor and fixed-income Americans.
"Anything over $2.50 a gallon for low-income family is a budget buster," said Richard Moffi, who manages Vermont's LIHEAP program.
Heating oil prices are expected to reach $4.34 a gallon nationwide this winter, according to estimates from the Energy Information Administration.
A growing number of families in need: In addition to the run-up in fuel prices, the slowdown in the economy has led to an increase in the number of households that qualify for assistance.
In Vermont, there has been a 20% rise in the number of people applying for LIHEAP benefits, Moffi said. With a larger number of people to assist, many LIHEAP programs could be forced to reduce the amount of money they provide to eligible households.
Although some states contribute to the fund, the bulk of the money for LIHEAP is provided by the Federal government.
Moffi said Vermont's LIHEAP was able to provide an average benefit of $1,362 last year, which covered roughly 54% of an average household's heating costs for the year. This year, based on current numbers with no additional money from Washington, the average benefit will be less than half last year's amount.
What's more, many low-income families are still behind on payments for last year's heating bills.
Facing a cold winter: The National Energy Assistance Director's Association (NEADA) recently reported that more than 15 million households are currently facing utility shutoffs because they can not pay their energy bill. That's an increase of nearly 10% over the comparable period in 2007.
Mark Wolfe, executive director of the NEADA, said that low-income energy assistance programs usually focus on families that make roughly $31,000 a year. Now, more middle-class families, including those that earn up to $50,000 a year, could be in need of assistance, he added.
"The real tragic thing is that there's not much out there for the lower side of middle income," said David Fox, executive director of the National Low Income Energy Consortium. "And that's most of America right now."
To cope with higher energy prices, many low-income households have cut back on other essential expenditures.
A recent survey by the NEADA showed that 70% of low-income households said they reduced spending on food as a result of high energy and gas costs. That was followed by 31% that said they have cut back on purchases of medicine and 19% that curtailed spending on education.
Some families are even considering moving in with relatives to cope with the cost of heating, Wolfe said. "These are things we haven't seen since the Depression era," he said.
But before resorting to such drastic measures, consumers should contact their heating oil supplier or local utility to discuss their options, said John Maniscaoco, executive vice president of the New York Oil Heat Association.
"Suppliers will try to make amends," Maniscaoco said. "Nobody wants to shut off anybody," he said.
Many utilities offer payment programs aimed at softening the blow of high energy prices. And heating oil prices vary from dealer to dealer, which means households may have some bargaining power.
While lawmakers have expressed concern over the issue, Congress has yet to make a decision on how much money will be dedicated to the program, which has prompted some concern among state LIHEAP managers.
"We can only count on less federal dollars," McKim said.
LIHEAP's budget for fiscal year 2008, which ends in September, was almost $2.57 billion in federal dollars. For fiscal year 2009, President Bush has issued a budget request of $2 billion for the program, which is a decrease of 22%.
Senate Democrats made a push in July to provide additional funding for LIHEAP but Republicans opposed the bill because it did not include provisions for increased offshore drilling and it failed to pass.
A spokesman for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who sponsored the bill in July, said expanding LIHEAP's budget is a "top priority" for the Senator and that the issue will be revisited when Congress returns from recess next month.
Other lawmakers have hinted that additional LIHEAP funding could come this year as part of a second economic stimulus program.
The issue of home heating assistance has "a lot of bipartisan support," Wolfe said. And he is cautiously optimistic that Congress will ultimately come through with additional funding as the public becomes more aware of this "potentially very serious problem."
The question is: Will Washington act in time to make a meaningful difference?
"The government is better when disaster strikes," Wolfe said. "It's not as good when we say the disaster is coming."
By Diane Munro and Mark Shenk
Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) -- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' oil production dropped 0.6 percent in August, led by declines in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, a Bloomberg News survey showed.
OPEC pumped an average 32.575 million barrels a day last month, down 200,000 barrels from July, according to the survey of oil companies, producers and analysts. July output was revised down by 50,000 barrels a day. Production by the 12 members with quotas, all except Iraq, declined 50,000 barrels to 30.265 million barrels a day.
The decline was the first since April, as producers took advantage of surging prices. Crude oil in New York has fallen 26 percent since reaching a record $147.27 a barrel on July 11. Futures settled at $109.35 a barrel today on the New York Mercantile Exchange. OPEC ministers will meet on Sept. 9 in Vienna to review production targets.
``These are still pretty high numbers,'' said Rick Mueller, director of oil markets at Energy Security Analysis Inc. in Wakefield, Massachusetts. ``The question is how long they keep pumping at such a high rate. Unless there is a dramatic falloff in prices in the next few days they will probably roll over production targets at the meeting next week.''
Iraqi production fell 150,000 barrels to an average 2.31 million barrels a day last month, the lowest since January. It was the biggest decline among OPEC members and came amid lower output in the northern region and shipping delays from the country's Persian Gulf ports.
Iraqi Exports
Iraq exported an average 1.77 million barrels of oil a day in August, down 150,000 barrels from the previous month, the survey showed. Exports of Basrah crude oil from the two terminals in the south, Basrah and Khor al Amaya, averaged 1.45 million barrels a day, down from 1.52 million in July.
Exports of Kirkuk crude oil from Iraq's northern fields to Turkey's Ceyhan export terminal on the Mediterranean Sea fell 55,000 barrels a day to 310,000 barrels last month. Iraq exported about 10,000 barrels a day overland to Syria.
Demand from domestic refineries for power eased in August to 540,000 barrels a day from 565,000 barrels a day the previous month, the survey showed.
Saudi Arabia, OPEC's biggest producer and the world's top oil exporter, cut output by 100,000 barrels to an average 9.5 million barrels a day from a three-year high in July.
Iranian Increase
Iran, OPEC's second-biggest producer, raised output by 100,000 barrels to an average 4.08 million barrels a day last month, the largest increase of any member. Venezuela and the United Arab Emirates were the only other members to increase production in August.
Nigeria, Libya and Angola, three of OPEC's four African members, curbed output by a combined 80,000 barrels a day last month because of equipment failures and militant attacks. Algeria, OPEC's other African member, left production steady at 1.41 million barrels a day.
Nigerian production dropped 30,000 barrels to an average 1.9 million barrels a day in August as damage from attacks to onshore facilities in late July outpaced increases offshore, where Chevron Corp. started new output at the Agbami oil field.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc was forced to cut production of Bonny Light and Brass River crude oil because of the attacks on the Nembe pipeline and Tebidaba flow station.
The Agbami field is located 70 miles off the Nigerian coast and is the largest deepwater development in Nigeria, according to Chevron's Web site. The company expects production to rise to 250,000 barrels a day by 2010.
Libya and Angola
Libyan oil production declined 20,000 barrels a day to 1.63 million barrels a day in August, the lowest since April 2005, because of technical problems and planned maintenance.
Angola cut production by 30,000 barrels to 1.88 million barrels a day in August because of the shutdown of BP Plc's Plutonio oil field on Aug. 16. BP said Sept. 1 it expected to resume exports in October.
``This looks like just a blip in Angolan growth,'' Mueller said. ``The drop was due to the shutdown of Plutonio.''
Exxon Mobil Corp. and its partners started production at the Saxi and Batuque oil fields off Angola's coast, adding to output at its largest offshore project last month. When combined with the Mondo field, which started up in January, production from the Kizomba C project is expected to reach 200,000 barrels a day of oil later this year, Exxon Mobil said."
By Grant Smith and Ayesha Daya
Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) -- OPEC, the supplier of 40 percent of the world's oil, will probably keep producing at a record pace as $109-a-barrel crude squeezes the global economy.
The 13-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will reject calls from Venezuela and Iran to trim supplies at its Sept. 9 meeting in Vienna, according to 29 of the 32 energy analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
``They want to prevent a build-up of crude stocks, which rules out an increase, but don't want to send prices skyrocketing by announcing a cut,'' said Mike Wittner, head of oil research at Societe Generale SA in London. ``OPEC won't take any formal action.''
Oil plunged $38 a barrel, or 26 percent, from its record $147.27 on July 11 as economies slowed, the dollar halted a three-year slide against the euro and Hurricane Gustav caused almost no damage to drilling platforms and refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. Demand for crude will increase 1 percent in 2009, the slowest growth in seven years, according to an Aug. 15 OPEC forecast.
Record oil prices spurred European inflation to 4 percent in July and contributed to the first quarterly contraction in the region's economy since the euro was introduced almost a decade ago. In the U.S., gasoline demand fell for 19 consecutive weeks, according to MasterCard Inc., with fuel now near $3.70 a gallon.
The world economy is ``precariously close'' to a recession in 2009, UBS AG said last month as it cut next year's global growth forecast to 2.9 percent. It considers a 2.5 percent rate as one that is consistent with a recession.
Exceeding Limit
Oil for October delivery was trading 1 cent down at $109.34 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 12:54 p.m. in Singapore. Yesterday, the contract fell 36 cents to $109.35 a barrel, the lowest settlement price since April 8.
The OPEC members with quotas produced about 592,000 barrels a day more than their official limit of 29.673 million last month, according to Bloomberg estimates. Iraq has no quota. All the countries except Saudi Arabia are pumping at close to capacity to meet rising demand and compensate for declining supplies from Nigeria, Iran and Venezuela.
While leaving quotas unchanged, the group may curtail production to prevent inventories from swelling, said Adam Sieminski, Deutsche Bank AG's chief energy economist in Washington.
``If prices are rising they will leave production alone, and if they are falling they will trim a little,'' he said.
Oil stockpiles, excluding government reserves, were above average in July and enough to meet 54 days of demand, according to the International Energy Agency in Paris.
Economic Burden
The agency urged OPEC not to cut back because prices are ``putting a burden on the global economy,'' Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said in an Aug. 27 interview in Stavanger, Norway.
``If stocks were ballooning then you could see pressure mounting within the cartel for a cut,'' said Harry Tchilinguirian, senior oil analyst at BNP Paribas SA.
Most extra pumping came from Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, which raised output by 500,000 barrels a day in June and July to calm markets.
Venezuela and Iran, OPEC's second- and third-largest producers, want the group to consider reducing supply to keep prices from falling below $100 a barrel.
``Returning to quotas does not mean a production cut, it's a return to previous output commitments,'' Iranian OPEC Governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi said in a Sept. 1 telephone interview in Tehran. ``The result will be a decrease in output, but it's different from a cut in the ceiling.''
Prices `Fair'
Prices of just over $100 a barrel are ``fair,'' Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Aug. 27.
Nigerian Petroleum Minister of State Odein Ajumogobia and Ecuadorean Oil Minister Galo Chiriboga said in the past week that OPEC should maintain current production.
OPEC ``probably doesn't want to see another run at $150,'' said Societe Generale's Wittner. ``But they're worried the $35 downward correction will continue.''
The group meets again Dec. 17 in Algeria."
By Ed Crooks in London
Financial Times
September 3 2008 23:36
Oil companies’ profitability fell last year as rising costs eroded gains from the rise in oil prices, an industry study has found.
The companies’ return on capital from their oil and gas production fell to 19 per cent, 3.5 percentage points lower than in 2006, according to the study from IHS Herold, a research firm, and Harrison Lovegrove, a corporate finance firm owned by Standard Chartered bank.
The study of 232 leading quoted oil and gas companies also found that they had not increased their total reserves last year, and raised production only slightly.
Rodney Schmidt of Standard Chartered suggested that if oil prices continued to fall, oil companies could face growing difficulties. “We are now at a point of greater uncertainty...where there are questions about demand and about where prices will end up. At the same time, profit margins have not been increasing.”
Company profits have been squeezed because costs have risen along with revenues, and governments of resource-holding countries have been taking a greater slice of the proceeds through tax increases or contract renegotiations.
Although big companies have still been making record profits, they have also had very high levels of capital expenditure. Organic capital spending, excluding acquisitions, has soared from $139bn in 2003 to $342bn last year, the study found.
The result has been that, in spite of the steep rise in oil prices over the decade, profitability has risen only slightly from 16.5 per cent of cumulative capital costs in 2003 to 19.1 per cent last year.
The difficulties facing the industry are also reflected in slow production growth, which averaged just 1.3 per cent last year. Production increases in the US, Russia and the Caspian area and the Asia Pacific region were offset by declines in Canada, Europe, and South and Central America.
Companies also found it hard to add to their reserves: proved oil reserves dropped by 1.5 per cent, while gas reserves rose 3.3 per cent, reflecting a shift by many international companies away from oil towards gas, which is often more difficult to extract and market profitably."
By Upstream staff
Saudi Arabia has started pumping oil from the 500,000 barrels per day Khursaniyah oilfield, a source at state oil firm Saudi Aramco said today.
The oilfield is the largest single increment to global oil production for several years and was initially due to start up in December.
"The facility is operational and producing crude," the source told Reuters.
"Its production rates are dependent on our (the company's) monthly production targets for each facility."
Thu Sep 4, 2008 5:19am EDT
ASTANA (Reuters) - Commercial production at Kazakhstan's giant Kashagan oil field could start later than the agreed 2013 deadline, an oil industry official said on Thursday.
Tumir Kulibayev, head of the influential KazEnergy association that unites major Kazakh oil companies including state-owned KazMunaiGas KMG.UL, said the delay would be technical.
"They are talking about October 2013, but it would be impossible to launch (the production) during the winter so it will be 2014," Kulibayev told an energy conference.
In June, Kazakhstan and the group of oil majors developing the field agreed to hold off the start of production until 2013 after a year of tension over the world's biggest oil discovery in 30 years.
"We (Kazakhstan) are actually saying that by the end 2013 all the facilities must be ready," Kulibayev, who is also a son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, said.
As part of the same deal, the consortium agreed to prevent further cost overruns, pay floating royalties linked to the oil price and have the PSA expire in 2041.
The consortium unites Eni (ENI.MI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Total (TOTF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), ConocoPhillips (COP.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), KazMunaiGas KMG.UL and Japan's Inpex Holdings Inc (1605.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).
Kulibayev also said Kashagan would produce 450,000 barrels per day in 2014."
By Jad Mouawad
Herald Tribune
NEW YORK: The decline in oil prices in recent weeks has been a welcome relief for consumers and a rare piece of positive news in an otherwise bleak economic landscape. But for oil producers, increasingly accustomed to rising revenues, falling prices are fast turning into a cause for concern - if not quite panic.
Oil prices have fallen by a third in the past seven weeks and are headed for a drop below the symbolic $100 threshold for the first time since March. Though not a full-blown collapse, the speed of the decline is prompting some soul-searching within the OPEC oil cartel.
Venezuela and Iran, the leading price hawks within the group, said they did not want oil to fall below $100 a barrel, a price Iran's oil minister recently said was a "minimum" level. Both countries signaled that members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries needed to reduce their output to prevent prices from dropping further.
Other OPEC members, like Algeria or Kuwait, fear that high energy costs could jeopardize their exports as the global economy slows down and consumers reduce their consumption. Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, has not said what would be a fair price, although King Abdullah has said that $100 was too high.
For OPEC's dignitaries, meeting in Vienna next week, managing the current slowdown is tricky. Cutting production to stem the price drop could spark a backlash and paint the oil cartel as greedy and short-sighted. Leaving production unchanged may precipitate the decline in prices at a time when oil demand is slowing.
"The biggest signal for OPEC is price," said Michael Wittner, the global head of oil research in London for Société Générale. "They are playing a balancing game: if prices are too high, they will kill the golden goose and hurt consumption. But at the same time, they see the weakening economy and are thinking the world doesn't need so much oil right now."
The price for oil for October delivery was down $1.57 at $107.78 a barrel in New York trading Thursday afternoon, the lowest level in five months. The drop accelerated even after Hurricane Gustav's passage over the Gulf of Mexico interrupted oil and natural gas production. Three other tropical storms are forming over the Atlantic Ocean and could yet thwart the slide in prices.
Still, prices remain historically high. Despite their fall from the record of $147.27 a barrel on July 11, oil prices are up 12.5 percent this year. They have more than quadrupled in five years.
Producers have become used to these high prices, which have powered an unprecedented economic boom in the Middle East, Russia and South America. From the gleaming towers of Abu Dhabi to the new cities burgeoning in Saudi Arabia, producers are relying on the income to develop new industries, attract new businesses and expand their economies.
This year should be no exception. OPEC's export revenue should exceed $1 trillion, according to estimates from the U.S. Department of Energy. The exporters have earned $642 billion during the first seven months of 2008, nearly as much as they did last year.
But the cartel is facing a dilemma. Demand for oil in the United States, the world's biggest market, has fallen by about one million barrels a day as a result of high prices, slowing economic growth and credit woes. The economic slump is spreading to Europe, and could also affect Asia, the main driver of oil demand growth. Also, the third quarter of the year is traditionally the time when refineries need less oil as they shut down for their annual maintenance.
At a recent meeting of producers and consumers in Jidda, Saudi Arabia pledged to keep pumping full out to bring prices down. The kingdom is OPEC's biggest producer and the group's de facto leader. At the same time, analysts said, the Saudis realize that if they keep their output at the current level, they will create a glut in the market. The kingdom is pumping about 600,000 barrels a day more than its official quota.
Some analysts believe the group may opt for an informal cut in production, reducing output without much fanfare, instead of a formal announcement that could prove to be too politically sensitive for some of the cartel's pro-Western allies, especially with the U.S. election season in full swing.
Another option may be to convene another meeting in six to eight weeks and announce a big reduction then. The group is already scheduled to meet in December in Algeria, but that could be too late for OPEC to act if prices keep declining through the autumn.
"The focus of the debate among OPEC ministers gathering in Vienna next week will not be whether there is a need to cut crude oil production, but rather when," PFC Energy, a consulting firm, wrote in a note Wednesday. "The question facing OPEC ministers is the optics of how to engineer this reduction."
Some analysts suspect that OPEC is already trying to prevent prices from dropping below $100 a barrel by discreetly paring production.
Saudi Arabia, for example, has reduced its output in the past month by 50,000 barrels to 100,000 barrels a day, according to various estimates. Saudi Arabia, like most OPEC producers, does not provide timely production figures.
Many questions remain unanswered: What is the minimum price that OPEC is willing to defend? Can the cartel prove more effective than it has in the past at imposing discipline among its members? How low does Saudi Arabia want to see prices fall?
OPEC accounts for about 40 percent of the world's oil production. It does not set prices directly. Instead, its members manage global supplies through production quotas that are periodically assigned to all member countries except for Iraq.
Its 13 members are, ranked by July production level, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iraq, Venezuela, Nigeria, Angola, Libya, Algeria, Qatar, Indonesia and Ecuador. Indonesia, which has become a net importer of oil, will leave the cartel at the end of the year.
"There is a clear divergence within OPEC between countries that want to keep oil prices high, such as Iran and Venezuela, and those that want to lower prices to a level where they do not hurt global demand, such as Saudi Arabia," Brad Bourland, chief economist at Jadwa Investments, said this week."
Fri Sep 5, 2008 10:43am EDT
MOSCOW, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Russia's Energy Ministry suggested on Friday a further cut in the mineral resource tax saying the reduction already approved by the government was not sufficient to mitigate falling oil output.
Deputy Energy Minister Stanislav Svetlitsky was quoted by news agencies as saying his ministry was preparing proposals for the government to raise the tax-free threshold on extraction to $25 from already approved $15.
"We believe and will suggest it to the government that we should switch to $25," Russian news agencies quoted Svetlitsky as saying.
The government has this year approved amendments to the tax code which raise the threshold on extraction to $15 per barrel from the current $9. It also approved tax breaks for new fields in hard-to-access regions of East Siberia, Timan Pechora and Yamal. The amendments are due to come into force next year.
Svetlitsky said the approved benefits were not enough to stimulate oil companies to invest more in new fields to compensate for falling oil output from mature deposits in traditional oil producing regions.
Oil companies, which are estimated to save over $5 billion from the approved amendments next year, have welcomed the reform but said it should go further as they needed at least $16 billion of additional investments next year to support output.
Oil production in Russia has been falling since the beginning of the year after last year's 2.3 percent growth, already a slow-down after impressive spikes earlier this decade including an 11 percent rise in 2003.
The decrease concerns the government, which depends heavily on oil revenues, and global markets, as Russia is the world's second-largest oil exporter.
Svetlitsky said his ministry still expected oil output to rise by one percent to 497-500 million tonnes (9.95-10.00 million barrels per day) in 2008 from 491.5 million tonnes last year. In the first eight months of 2008 output fell 0.5 percent.
Svetlitsky said the ministry expected new barrels to come from East Siberia's Talakan deposit to be launched by Russia's fourth-largest oil producer Surgut (SNGS.MM: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), and nearby Verkhnechonsk field, developed by BP's Russian oil venture TNK-BP. (Reporting by Tanya Mosolova)"
Beitrag von ZDF Mediathek-Link:
http://wstreaming.zdf.de/zdf/veryhigh/080903_sendung_afo.asx
Wirtschaftsexperten gehen von einer weiteren Reduktion aus. „Ein Ölpreis von 40,00 Dollar je Barrel ist natürlich möglich“, sagte der britische Energieforscher und Ex-BP-Manager Nick Butler. ...
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Wertpapier: WTI Rohöl NYMEX Rolling |
Nach verschiedenen, unterschiedlichen Quellen werden zur Zeit aber ohnehin (hauptsächlich von Saudis, aber angeblich auch der Iran) die offiziellen Quoten recht deutlich übertroffen. Einige Insider erwarten daher eher keine Änderung der offiziellen Quote, aber dass sich die OPEC (in der nicht offentlichen Sitzung) darauf einigen, den "Oversupply" über die offizielle Quote langsam abzubauen.
2 Klappen auf einen Schlag:
- man verschreckt nicht Markt mit einer Förderkürzung)
- durch eine inoffizielle Drosselung verhindert man, dass die langsam nachlassende Nachfrage zu einem relativen Überangebot führt.
Halte dieses Szenario auch für wahrscheinlich. An eine Kürzung glaube ich aktuell auch nicht. Ganz auschließen kann man dies aber nicht.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080908/opec_meeting.html
OPEC in Vienna -- a call for production cuts
Monday September 8, 9:44 am ET
By Pablo Gorondi, Associated Press Writer
OPEC ministers consider options as oil prices continue to fall
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- There is too much crude on global oil markets, senior oil officials from Iran and Libya said Monday, and added that OPEC was reviewing supply levels.
Energy officials representing members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries arrived in Vienna where they will discuss production levels and global demand.
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Oil prices have fallen 26 percent from their highs of $147 a barrel and Iran, the group's No. 2 producer, has become one of the most vocal proponent of tightening the oil spigots.
"We believe the market is oversupplied," Gholam Hossein Nozari, Iran's oil minister, told reporters, adding the ministers planned to make a decision on production levels after a review Tuesday.
Shokri Ghanem, the chairman of Libya's National Oil Corp, told The Associated Press, "There is a glut in the market that warrants creating order."
He said OPEC members producing above assigned quotas should be urged to curb output in line with those limits.
Saudi Arabia, the dominant OPEC member, has boosted production by 250,000 barrels per day after repeated requests from Western nations, and direct pleas from President Bush.
Libya's Ghanem now says the market is oversupplied.
"There is a lot of oil in the market, much more than demand," Ghanem said.
Nigeria's junior minister for petroleum, Odein Ajumogobia, indicated he had not yet taken a position on output.
"I really haven't made up my mind," Ajumogobia said upon his arrival in Vienna. Asked whether OPEC might maintain current output levels, Ajumogobia said he had "no idea."
If production is cut, most industry experts expect it will be very small, though it would come two months after crude prices hit all time highs above $147.
Since crude surged to a record $147.27 a barrel on July 11, it has tumbled more than $40. Over the summer, OPEC was resisting calls by the U.S. and other Western nations for more oil. Oil ministers, however, blamed speculators and a weak U.S. dollar for crude's rise.
The greenback has since strengthened, global economies have slowed and investor appetite for commodities has cooled. The crude market has begun to look terribly bearish.
In Europe, light, sweet crude for October delivery rose $1.90, nearly 2 percent, to $108.13 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, as Hurricane Ike threatened oil and gas facilities in and around the Gulf of Mexico. The contract fell Friday by $1.66 to settle at $106.23, a five-month low.
The downward spiral has led Iran to suggest that it is time to reduce output from the nearly 30.5 million barrels a day being pumped last month by the organization's members.
Not far behind is Venezuela. While moderating recent demands for immediate output cuts, Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez has drawn the line at $100 per barrel of oil. Anything below that should serve as a wake-up call for OPEC to tighten the spigots, he says -- sentiment that is shared by other OPEC members.
Still, a major cutback is unlikely without Saudi compliance, and the Saudis -- de-facto OPEC policy setters who are now producing nearly a third of total OPEC output -- have given no hint they favor that option. Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi has instead talked about a floor of $80 as the red line for action.
OPEC has reason to be cautious.
Despite their precipitous fall, prices remain 14 percent higher this year than in 2007, and a barrel of benchmark crude still fetches four times what it did five years ago.
Any OPEC move Tuesday to pare back output would result in a howl of protest from the U.S. and other major consumers, and give a larger platform to Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Barack Obama, his Democratic counterpart, to call for reduced dependence on foreign oil.
Additionally, OPEC understands that high prices drive down demand and will likely try to find a balance between high profits and a price that the market can accept.
In a forecast last month, OPEC predicted that the world's forecast appetite for oil for this year overall will have fallen by 30,000 barrels a day and noted that world demand growth next year will be "the lowest since 2002."
Such factors have led some experts to predict OPEC would opt for no change.
"The ministers will hold the status quo (although) there is going to be the usual jawboning from the usual suspects" for a cutback, says trader and analyst Stephen Schork. Even now, "oil is by no means cheap and that is certainly adding a lot of pressure to the (world's) economies -- the smarter ones, the Saudis, the Qataris the Kuwaitis are aware of this."
Others think that OPEC, which accounts for about 40 percent of world oil production, will compromise between doing nothing -- thereby chancing a further erosion in prices -- and slashing boldly -- thereby risking skyrocketing prices and an ensuing fallback in demand.
That middle way would mean agreeing to pare away at overproduction without reducing the overall output quota of 27.3 million barrels a day set in November for the 12 OPEC members under production limits.
Associated Press writer George Jahn contributed to this report from Vienna.
Ich schätze für diese "ROTE LINE" wird Venzuela auch einige Verbündete finden.
Genauso schätze ich auch die OPEC insgesamt ein:
"MAN WILL KEINEN ÖLPREIS MEHR LÄNGERE ZEIT UNTER 100 USD" sehen.
Nur wenn der USD weiter deutlich zulegen sollte, wäre ein solches Szenario akzeptable für die meisten OPEC länder. Nicht jedoch: 100 USD bei einem "schwachen" USD.