High oil prices are certainly putting downward pressure on demand in the US and in other countries where the market is allowed to work, as opposed to countries that have fuel subsidies in place for consumers.
While recent increases in US gasoline and diesel fuel prices result mainly from a global surge in the price of crude oil, room must be reserved in any explanation for regulatory changes that have lifted the costs of fuel manufacture and distribution.
Politics and physics have disparate meanings for the word “energy” yet adhere in their treatment of the subject to natural laws with interesting similarities.
Increased energy consumption in China and other developing countries is outstripping demand destruction in the US and Europe and is pushing oil prices still higher, analysts said.
While US energy demand this year will be limited by weak economic growth and improved fuel-use efficiency, China, Latin America, and the Middle East will sustain worldwide oil demand growth despite high global prices and keep pressure on supply.
The chief executive officer of Brazil’s Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras), revisiting proposed changes in the country’s oil law, said the state firm will present a new business plan later this year.
Speculation is contributing to higher world oil prices, not imbalances between supply and demand, according to Saudi Arabia’s former minister of oil, Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, in a published interview.
A federal appeals court reversed a US district court’s decision granting Texaco Inc. a more than $100 million tax refund, the US Department of Justice said on June 17.
Saudi Aramco, repeating long-announced plans, will increase production by yearend by a combined 850,000 b/d from its Khursaniyah, Nuayyim, and Shaybah fields, according to a senior official.
The US Energy Information Administration on July 8 increased its predicted decline in domestic petroleum consumption for 2008 by 100,000 b/d to 400,000 b/d in its latest short-term energy outlook.
Plains Exploration & Production Co. agreed to acquire a 20% interest in Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s Jurassic Haynesville shale play leasehold for $1.65 billion in a new joint venture.
Canadian oil and gas firm EnCana Corp., which in May announced a bifurcation of its oil and gas businesses into separate companies, has designated the executives who will head the new firms.
Colombia’s oil and gas industry doubtlessly got a shot in the arm last week when the Colombian military completed a daring raid to release some 15 hostages held by rebels of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC).
BP is developing a minor sand reservoir in the Prudhoe Bay field after appraising the potential by recompleting existing wells, building 3D stochastic reservoir models, and running VIP simulations.
Changing feed operating conditions at Khalda Petroleum Co.’s Salam gas processing plant in Egypt’s Western Desert led the company to make changes to its membrane system for removing CO2.
Currently planned storage capacity increases in the Southeast US-Gulf Coast region would add nearly 30% to working-gas storage capacity and have an even greater effect on withdrawal capacity.
