February | 2011 | The Price of Oil

Posts in February 2011

Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Andy Rowell
Feb28
As Colonel Gaddafi’s power slowly ebbs away in Libya, many people will be worried that he is planning a brutal, bloody, finale. Predicting the unpredictable dictator is a dangerous game. But in mapping how the end game is going to play out, you could also play the blame game in how we got here. And…
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Join the International Call: World Bank, Free Us from Fossil Fuels
Traci Romine
Feb24
It’s time to shift international energy investments to support energy services that are clean, reliable, and sustainable, and honestly provide energy access for the poorest. You can help. The World Bank – an influential development bank that runs on taxpayer money – is currently updating its Energy Strategy that will guide its investments for the…
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Here we go again! Blah baby Blah
Lorne Stockman
Feb24
As oil prices surge in response to the appalling violence in Libya, the House Natural Resources Committee offered their usual worn out suggestions for addressing America’s vulnerability to oil price shocks; more domestic drilling. Clearly energy only means one thing to this GOP dominated committee, fossil fuels. Domestic drilling may help Americans feel like something’s…
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Tar Sands Threatens Canada-EU Deal
Andy Rowell
Feb23
This is a diplomatic row that has been rumbling for some time and it could get nasty. Back in 2009, the EU proposed legislation that would cut imports of dirty tar sands from Canada, as part of its Fuel Quality Directive, which was introduced to encourage cleaner, greener fuels. Canada was worried that the tar…
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“The last man will switch off the button”
Andy Rowell
Feb22
At one point yesterday, Brent crude, the European benchmark grade of oil was topping $108 a barrel—its highest level in 2½ years. Such is the surge in oil prices caused by the Libyan crisis that it could derail the global economic recovery according to Fatih Birol, the International Energy Agency’s chief economist. Analysts argue that…
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Welcome to the “Invertebrate Graveyard”
Andy Rowell
Feb21
Do you remember when last August that the US government announced that seventy-five per cent of the oil from BP’s Deepwater disaster had miraculously “disappeared”? This led to a plethora of press reports and blog posts that the ecological effects of the disaster had been over-exaggerated. At the time Samantha Joye, a marine scientist at…
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Oil Industry front group attacks fracking critics
Steve Kretzmann
Feb17
This post by Brendan DeMelle originally appeared on DeSmog Blog. DeSmogBlog has uncovered an industry memo revealing that ‘Energy In Depth’ is hardly comprised of the mom-and-pop “small, independent oil and natural gas producers” it claims to represent. In fact, the industry memo we found, entitled “Hydraulic Fracturing Under Attack,” shows that Energy In Depth…
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Exxon is Running Out of Oil
Andy Rowell
Feb16
When the history of the hydrocarbon age is written, the one company that will personify Big Oil more than any other will be Exxon. Yes, there are other oil majors like Shell and BP, but they are like young pretenders to the Oil King. Exxon is the company that has bet its future on oil,…
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Chevron Guilty
Andy Rowell
Feb15
In an historic victory, a small court in Lago Agrio, in Ecuador’s Amazon has ordered that Chevron pay some $8.6 billion in damages. The court ruled in favour of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon who have spent the last 18 years seeking damages for systematic and chronic oil pollution. Chevron inherited the suit when…
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Republicans Wield the Knife
Andy Rowell
Feb14
The knives are out. Well its more more like they are wielding axes or even chainsaws, as they pick up the pace in their attack on Obama’s budget proposals. Late last week, the House Appropriations Committee released a partial list of where it’s wants to find nearly $75 billion in cuts in federal spending cuts….
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