LONDON –  The price of oil declined below $101 per barrel after disappointing earnings in the U.S. on Friday, having earlier risen on worries about the tensions in Ukraine.

Benchmark U.S. crude for June delivery shed $1.07 to $100.87 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, an international benchmark for oil, gave up 27 cents to $110.06 on the ICE Futures exchange in London a day after gaining $1.22.

Ukraine is going through its biggest political crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union, sparked by months of anti-government protests and President Viktor Yanukovych's flight to Russia. Ukrainian forces launched an operation Thursday to drive pro-Russia insurgents out of occupied buildings in the country's turbulent east. In response, Russia responded by announcing military exercises near Ukraine's border.

read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/04/25/crude-oil-price-eases-after-rising-to-near-102-barrel-on-ukraine-uncertainty/

 

 

 

This is what I was writing about when I mentioned oils in the top story...

When the cost of fuel starts to hurt, most people ponder about driving less or switching cars. But not Rebecca Howe. She switched fuels - to vegetable oil.

PULLING UP at the traffic lights smelling like fish and chips is a feeling youth worker Rebecca Howe knows all too well while puttering around in her 1986 model Toyota Land Cruiser.
“The car was built to last – but not with fuel economy in mind – which is why I’ve converted it to run on vegetable oil,” she said.The Marrickville resident said her conversion kit warms the vegetable oil to an ideal temperature and then automatically switches from diesel fuel to straight vegetable oil.“You need a diesel car to do this but I run it for 5km before switching over to vegie oil and back to diesel 5km before I end my trip because it’s (vegie oil) so thick that it can result in unburned fuel clogging the engine,” she said.Although vegetable oil produces some carbon emissions, Ms Howe said her impact is minimal as her car is fuelled with used and filtered cooking oil.“The conversation with a restaurant owner can be a little awkward at first, but I get oil from pubs, restaurants and cafes from the area,” she said.While there are no statistics available for the fuel economy of a vegie-powered car, Ms Howe has been happy with the returns.“I can get about 300kms from 60 litres of vegie oil,” she said.
Read more: http://newslocal.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx


One of the major problem is that many "industrial" vegetable cooking oils are "solidified" at normal temperatures, this is why the oils mostly need to be "warmed up" ... As well there are a few firms that do the rounds of restaurant and buy the oil for recycling to whatever, including making soap, after a "clean up". Another problem is that should everyone use veggie oil in cars, the air should become a tad loaded with fumes and the price of "used" veggie oil would go through the roof.
Go solar...

 

The competition watchdog has launched legal action against Australia's major petrol retailers for price sharing.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has launched Federal Court action against petrol price information service Informed Sources, and several of its key clients.

The retailers targeted by the ACCC action are BP, Caltex, Eureka Operations (Coles Express), Woolworths and 7-Eleven.

"The ACCC alleges that the arrangements were likely to increase retail petrol price coordination and cooperation, and were likely to decrease competitive rivalry," ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said.

"Given the importance of price competition in petrol retailing, the ACCC is concerned that consumers may be paying more for petrol as a result."

More to come.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-20/accc-takes-action-over-alleged-petrol-price-sharing/5684168
----------------------------------------
Guess what?... Should there be a "penalty" for the petrol companies, guess who is going to pay for it? You, me and everybody in this country... Plus the excise increments, unemployment going up and the Aussie dollar falling on its arse, the petrol price would soon edge towards $2 a litre, I'd imagine....

 

A public servant in New South Wales who claimed perfume worn by colleagues worsened her allergies has lost a compensation claim.

The woman, based in Orange with the Department of Human Services, retired on invalidity grounds in April last year.

The woman had sought compensation for permanent impairment and non-economic loss, which was rejected by Comcare in June last year.

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal heard the matter in Canberra last month.

The Tribunal heard the woman suffers from "multiple chemical sensitivity", a syndrome she attributed to exposure to perfumes, oils and chemicals.

The woman claimed it became worse when her agency moved into a new air-conditioned and sealed building, and when a previous agreement by colleagues not to wear perfumes was abandoned.

It heard the woman lodged six incident reports between October 2011 and January 2012, concerning adverse reactions to chemicals and perfumes at work.

The woman told the hearing after one of the incidents, she suffered from nausea, disorientation, headaches, dizziness and chest pain.

But the Tribunal backed Comcare's refusal of the claim.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-12/perfume-workplace-compensation-claim-rejected/5739556

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What is this article doing in a petrol column? Well there are some perfumes that can send people beserk. Most of these come from a line of mostly artificial perfume derived from benzene or other hydrocarbons. Though some of these can also be found in nature, the concentration levels can induce symptoms as felt by the woman in the story above.

see http://m.wisegeek.com/what-are-aromatic-compounds.htm and other sites about "aromatics". One thing to consider is, though the chemical composition of some artificial molecules are "the same" as that of naturally found chemicals, the shape of the molecules can be slightly different. (see problems with synthetic insulin), creating some disturbances for some people, including me. I can't stay long in an environment where "aromatics" are present in the air, without becoming insane.

 

 

 

Oil and gas producing countries in the Gulf region are struggling to keep their income and expenses in balance.

If they do not adapt to the oil price drop and seek alternatives, countries like Saudi Arabia could run out of buffers in just five years, warns the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a recent report.

"The price of oil has sharply declined in the last 12 months and... we do not see a significant improvement in the near term. So as a result of the new reality, we believe that finance ministers and authorities should take steps in the spending site of their budget, in the revenue site of their budget, and they should also welcome private sector operators in order to create growth from alternative sources," said Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF.

Lagarde travelled to the Gulf countries to deliver this message in person, meeting both, leaders and the younger generation in order to raise awareness and to offer solutions.

One of them involves the imposition of what might have been difficult to imagine just a few months ago: taxes.

"When you are running out of money, you don't have many options. You need to cut expenses or look for other income - or both," Lagarde said.

But aside from the issue of oil prices, there are many other critical issues facing the global economy and thereby the IMF.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/2015/11/lagarde-call-action-oil-taxes-gcc-challenges-151113094249193.html

 

Is there a glut of oil? Are we using less oil because we've turned towards RENEWABLES?  Do the oil producing countries have a hand in sabotaging our switch to renewables? How is this going to affect the sponsorship of ISIL? 

 

Obviously we're not burning enough oil. we need to go for a spin in our cars and burn some tyres doing doughnuts... See articles from top.

On August 28, 1928, in the Scottish highlands, began the secret story of oil. 

Three men had an appointment at Achnacarry Castle - a Dutchman, an American and an Englishman. 

The Dutchman was Henry Deterding, a man nicknamed the Napoleon of Oil, having exploited a find in Sumatra. He joined forces with a rich ship owner and painted Shell salesman and together the two men founded Royal Dutch Shell.

The American was Walter C. Teagle and he represents the Standard Oil Company, founded by John D. Rockefeller at the age of 31 - the future Exxon. Oil wells, transport, refining and distribution of oil - everything is controlled by Standard oil.

The Englishman, Sir John Cadman, was the director of the Anglo-Persian oil Company, soon to become BP. On the initiative of a young Winston Churchill, the British government had taken a stake in BP and the Royal Navy switched its fuel from coal to oil. With fuel-hungry ships, planes and tanks, oil became "the blood of every battle". 

The new automobile industry was developing fast, and the Ford T was selling by the million. The world was thirsty for oil, and companies were waging a merciless contest but the competition was making the market unstable.

That August night, the three men decided to stop fighting and to start sharing out the world's oil. Their vision was that production zones, transport costs, sales prices - everything would be agreed and shared. And so began a great cartel, whose purpose was to dominate the world, by controlling its oil.

Four others soon joined them, and they came to be known as the Seven Sisters - the biggest oil companies in the world.

EPISODE 1: DESERT STORMS

In the first episode, we travel across the Middle East, through both time and space.

We waged the Iran-Iraq war and I say we waged it, because one country had to be used to destroy the other.

- Xavier Houzel, an oil trader

Since that notorious meeting at Achnacarry Castle on August 28, 1928, they have never ceased to plot, to plan and to scheme.

Throughout the region's modern history, since the discovery of oil, the Seven Sisters have sought to control the balance of power.

They have supported monarchies in Iran and Saudi Arabia, opposed the creation of OPEC, profiting from the Iran-Iraq war, leading to the ultimate destruction of Saddam Hussein and Iraq. 

The Seven Sisters were always present, and almost always came out on top.

 

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2013/04/201344105231487582.html

 

Ethanol producer Manildra's political donations are under new scrutiny as details emerge about the dissatisfaction in Liberal ranks with NSW's ethanol in fuel laws. Mark Davis reports.

Former NSW Upper House whip Peter Phelps has revealed he confronted premier Mike Baird over his concerns about ethanol in fuel laws before his dramatic resignation.

Phelps quit as whip in late March when the NSW parliament passed the Biofuels Amendment Bill, which changed the way ethanol was marketed and imposed quotas on service stations.

By law, the ethanol blends must now be called 94, instead of E10 or 91 with ethanol. The quotas essentially mean that 60 per cent of fuel sales must contain ethanol, or stations will face huge fines.

Speaking for the first time in detail about the reasons for his resignation, Phelps told Background Briefing it was 'literally the worst piece of legislation NSW has introduced'.

'It was so bad that I was able to get a number of my colleagues to agree with me—so much so that we actually took a delegation to the premier to see him about it,' he says.

Phelps says they approached Baird the day before the bill was introduced in the Upper House.

'We had a meeting with the premier, which explained our concerns, and he was seemed to be receptive to those concerns. Then the following day the bill was introduced in to our house and we had to make a decision as whether to, to vote on it or not.

'I thought we'd persuaded him. I thought we'd had an agreement that it would be held off and some proper empirical [research] would be done and it wouldn't come back until it had gone through the party room again. But at that stage it was decided to race it through in the last week.'

Baird has told Background Briefing he does not comment on discussions with colleagues. Through a spokesperson, he said: 'On biofuels reform, the government is continuing to consult with the industry to ensure the burden does not fall disproportionately on small to medium operators.'

Do you know more about this story? Contact Background Briefing.

Greens member Jeremy Buckingham says he recalls a 'visceral' mood in the Upper House when the legislation was passed, with the Liberal Party 'almost split to asunder'.

'There were people who excused themselves from the vote, there were people who spoke in support of him, but then voted with their government, but no one was defending the government,' Buckingham says.

'I was in the parliament saying that this process was corrupt. None of them were calling me to order, none of them were saying that I was out of order ... usually they'd howl me down and throw me out but instead they hung their heads in shame because I believe they knew it was true.'

Greens slam process as 'democracy for sale'

The ethanol in fuel legislation is a bonanza for Manildra, the near monopoly provider of ethanol in NSW—a company who, as Buckingham told NSW parliament, is also one of the biggest donors to political parties in Australia.

'Since 2010 the Manildra Group has donated $536,000 to federal Labor, $505,000 to federal Liberals, $683,000 to the Nationals, $123,000 to New South Wales Labor, $77,000 to New South Wales Liberals and $76,000 to New South Wales Nationals,' Buckingham said.

'This is democracy for sale.'

The minister for better regulation, Victor Dominello, says the laws help consumers by putting an alternative fuel into service stations and making it viable.

He doesn't deny the money that has been paid to parties in NSW by Manildra, but he strongly claims it has had no bearing on the legislation.

'NSW has the strongest laws in the country regarding disclosure laws,' he says.

'As long as it's transparent, as long as voters know they can make an informed decision, if it's transparent our listeners can make a judgement.'

Manildra's head of corporate affairs, Kirsty Bevan, says all the company's public donations are on the public record.

'It's all declared on who we meet with and when we meet with them,' she says.

'We make no secret and no excuses for meeting on behalf of our 2,000 employees in regional areas on topics that are relevant to regional communities.'

Five meetings with the minister in six months

Phelps says Manildra certainly had no problem organising meetings with senior politicians when the legislation was being drawn up inside government ranks.

'This is Manildra's modus operandi—they just bombard the minister with complaints and phone calls, bombard them continually with complaints and phone calls,' he says.

'Up to the decision to take this new path, in terms of ethanol, Manildra had five meetings with the minister in a six-month period, which is quite remarkable.'

Asked whether the 'substantial' donations to the major parties had bought access, or legislation, Phelps replies: 'I would suggest that it bought the original legislation. For this new legislation, as I said, they haven't put in anywhere near enough money.

'Manildra's main plant does happen to be in Kiama, which also happens to be a marginal Liberal seat. There's certainly an argument, which was around the corridors, that you have to do something to help Manildra because if Manildra doesn't get help the plant will close down, we'll lose 300 jobs and we'll lose the seat of Kiama.'

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/ethanol-in-fuel-laws-linked-to-substantial-manildra-donations/7368734

 

Read from top. And by the way, when $US101 a barrel was "disappointing" (read second comment at top), The US had to drive the price down to $US30 a barrel in order to bankrupt Russia... But this is another story...

 

 

Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the son of the ailing King Salman and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, has launched a highly ambitious plan under which he says his country will speedily “end its addiction to oil.” In terms of its revolutionary ambition, lack of realism and potential for disruption, the plan has parallels with Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward in 1958 which aimed to change China rapidly from an agricultural to an industrial economy, but produced only disaster.

The Saudi version of the Great Leap Forward is outlined in Vision 2030, a summary of the reform made public last week of which more details will be given in the National Transformation Plan that is to be published in late May or early June. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed, who is defence minister and controls foreign and economic policy, wants the Kingdom to develop its own industries and services, sell off part of the state oil company Aramco to create the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, and end or reduce subsidies for fuel, water, electricity and other essentials. In practice, he wants to end the long-standing social contract under which Saudi nationals get easy jobs in the government sector and a high standard of living in return for political passivity and loyalty to the House of Saud.

It is not going to work. It is not the first time the ruler of an oil state in the Middle East believed that it would be a good idea to build up a diversified non-oil economy paid for by oil revenues. Saddam Hussein, already effective ruler of Iraq in the late 1970s, made a brief effort before the Iran-Iraq war to build factories and irrigation schemes, the wreckage of which can still be seen on the outskirts of Baghdad. But the most striking – and ominous - precedent for Prince Mohammed’s reforms is not Mao or Saddam, but the Shah of Iran in the five years before the revolution in 1979. Using Iran’s oil revenues, he proposed in 1974 for Iran’s economy to grow by a quarter every year under an expanded version of the Fifth Five Year Development Plan. The outcome of the Shah’s manic desire for growth and modernisation was destabilisation and popular rage that contributed significantly to his overthrow.

At the heart of the Shah’s downfall was ill-informed hubris and wishful thinking which led him to saw through the branch on which he was sitting. Monarchs and autocrats notoriously live lives detached from the real world by nature of their status, but this is doubly true of the leaders of oil states who mistake their ability to throw unlimited funds at a problem for real ability to cope with the world around them. This was true not only of Saddam and the Shah but of the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki whose vastly expensive army and security apparatus collapsed instantly when Isis attacked Mosul in 2014.

The Vision 2030 document might be dismissed as one more costly and far-fetched whim of an oil state autocrat fostered by self-interested advisors and consultants. Few take seriously Prince Mohammed’s belief that “in 2020 we can live without oil.” The share of the private sector in the economy is to rise from 40 per cent to 65 per cent by 2030 and Saudi Arabia, the third largest defence spender in the world, is to raise the proportion of arms made in the Kingdom from 2 per cent to 50 per cent over the same period. Experience shows that breakneck economic development, propelled by orders from the top, encourages pervasive corruption, while privatisation in unaccountable autocracies mostly benefits, going by what happened in Syria and Libya, a politically well-connected coterie close to the ruling family.

It is easy enough to be derisive or dismissive about Prince Mohammed’s revolutionary changes within the Kingdom. But the danger is that his naive arrogance is not confined to his handling of the economy. He is also pursuing a double-or-quits foreign policy of confrontation with Saudi Arabia’s neighbours. Since his father King Salman succeeded to the throne last year, Saudi Arabia has escalated its involvement on the rebel side in Syria and has launched a war in Yemen. On 17 April, it was a phone call from Prince Mohammed that terminated the talks between leading oil producers meeting in Doha who came close to agreeing a freeze on oil production. By vetoing any deal without the participation of Iran, which is seeking to rebuild its share of the oil market post sanctions, Prince Mohammed showed the extent and arbitrary nature of his power.

The German intelligence agency BND warned late last year that the concentration of so much power in the prince’s hands “harbours a latent risk that in seeking to establish himself in the line of succession in his father’s lifetime, he may overreach”. In the one-and-a-half page document, which was surprisingly made public, the BND expressed fears that Saudi Arabia had started “an impulsive policy of intervention.” Everything that has happened since confirms the BND view. Saudi Arabia, which of all countries in the Middle East has an interest in containing chaos, is instead helping to spread it.

Saudi Arabia certainly faces real problems that are not of Prince Salman’s making. The population of the Kingdom in 1950 was three million and today is 31 million, though eight million of these are foreign nationals. With the price of oil unlikely to reach its previous heights, oil revenues will be insufficient to look after a fast growing population of young Saudis and bribe them with non-jobs and subsidized living. The problems may be real but old regimes are notoriously at their most vulnerable when they recognise their failings and seek to remedy them by ill-advised and disruptive measures.

Some have a more cynical explanation for Saudi Arabia’s proposed Great Leap Forward, with its heady talk of Saudi citizens getting down to work, starting their own businesses and working in their own factories. They argue that the scheme is a tactic to divert the attention of Saudis away from the progressive privatization of Aramco, the one institution in the country that does make money and on which all else depends.

Initially just 5 per cent of Aramco, though the percentage may grow, will be floated with the proceeds being placed in a sovereign wealth fund that will eventually exceed $2 trillion. This will invest in the Kingdom and will presumably be under the control of Prince Mohammed. But sceptics say that turning the value of Saudi Arabia’s main asset into a liquid form is also be highly convenient for the Saudi royal family. They may calculate that the political and economic tide has permanently turned against them. If the Saudi royals ever have to flee like the Shah, then it is much in their interests to have their wealth in a form that they can be held abroad or swiftly moved to safety.

Patrick Cockburn is the author of ‘Chaos and Caliphate: Jihadis and the West in the Struggle for the Middle East’. 

 

see also: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/iraq-parliament-protest-signals-the-disintegration-of-a-political-system-established-in-wake-of-us-a7008486.html

 

 

The International Energy Agency (IEA)’s most recent report offers a panorama of the global oil market.

Demand is slowly rising.

Supply which still exceeds demand, is stable for the following reason: while there has been a collapse in production in Venezuela and a drop in the levels of extraction in the North Sea and Libya, this has been offset by an increase in production in the United States, Canada and Brazil.

The United States which has now a lot of oil from fracking, especially from the Gulf of Mexico (Pemex), will probably overtake Saudi Arabia in 2018 and rival Russia.

It is predicted that the price of a barrel of crude, currently 63 dollars (West Texas Intermediate) and 68 (Brent), should reach 70 dollars.

Translation 
Anoosha Boralessa

http://www.voltairenet.org/article199601.html

 

Shale oil, which the Energy Information Administration projects will represent a rising proportion of American oil supplies in the coming decades, has a surprising Achilles heel: its low octane levels, which make it a poor fit for the high-efficiency car engines of the future.

For financially troubled shale drillers, that's bad news, since it suggests demand for their oil could fall even if the price of a higher-octane oil barrel rises.

For the rest of the country, shale oil's quality issues raise important questions about whether building infrastructure to support decades of shale oil production is smart public policy, because a shale oil boom could ironically spell higher prices at the gas pump for American drivers. Or if shale oil makes regular but not premium gas cheap, that could deter Americans from buying premium-fueled cars despite better gas mileage, undermining plans to cut tailpipe pollution by building better engines.

Automakers are increasingly interested in premium gasoline because its higher octane levels make gas less likely to prematurely combust in a high-compression engine — and if fuel ignites before it should inside a car or truck's engine, it can make the engine run roughly or suffer damage. Car manufacturers see the promise of greater fuel efficiency in turbocharged engines, which rely on that higher compression and, in turn, on high octane premium fuels.

“IHS forecasts that turbocharged engines will represent 55 percent of production for North America by 2024, up from an expected 33 percent this year,” Automotive News reported in June 2017.

 

Read more:

https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/04/24/octane-surprising-reason-shale-oil...

 

In Australia, the lowest grade is usually 91, the mid-grade with ethanol is 94 and the super grade is 98 octane. Avgas is 100 octane. Read from top.

US WTI Crude Hits $0 a Barrel, Goes Into Double Digit Negative Territory

The slump in prices comes as traders brace for continued fallout from the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus, which has shut down most major economies around the world.

West Texas Intermediate, one of the world's main oil benchmarks, hit its lowest price ever in trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, with futures for May delivery hitting $0 per barrel after 2 pm EST and going negative, to as low as -$34.87 per barrel as of about 2:30 pm, according to market data.

The benchmark is on track to its lowest-ever close since the inception of futures trading in 1983. The previous lowest-ever close of $10.42 was recorded on March 31, 1986, according to Jim Bianco of Bianco Research.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/business/202004201079033041-wti-benchmark-drops-...

 

 

Read from top.