Iraq’s cabinet has given the green light to the Oil Ministry to sign agreements with international oil companies to help increase the nation’s crude output. The two-year deals, known as technical support agreements, or TSAs, are designed to develop five producing fields to add 500,000 barrels per day to the country’s current 2.4 million barrels … Read More
Month: March 2008
UK Plans “Significant” Increase in Nuclear Power
The UK’s reliance on nuclear power will increase “significantly” over the next two decades, the business secretary, John Hutton, has admitted. Hutton says he expects a new generation of nuclear power stations to be built to supply much more of the country’s electricity than the 19 per cent the existing ones deliver. He also said … Read More
Oil Change Challenges SEC on Oil Sands
Oil Change International is urging the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to force oil companies to disclose reserves drawn from polluting oil sands, due to their above-average lifecycle emissions of greenhouse gases The SEC is considering to allow companies to include oil sands reserves for the first time. As the SEC mulls the change, OCI … Read More
Iraq: US Senator Wants Oil Money Used for Rebuilding
The chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee has said he may try to require Iraq to spend more of its oil revenue on reconstruction instead of investing the money in foreign banks. “What kind of an absurdity is it that we are paying for the reconstruction of Iraq with American taxpayers dollars if … Read More
“The Great Green Betrayal”
Environmental groups are accusing UK Prime Minster, Gordon Brown of the “Great Green Betrayal”. They are arguing that his government’s green policies are standing still or even going backwards. First, environmental taxation, which could help curb greenhouse gas emissions and much other pollution, is actually falling rather than rising – and falling substantially, a powerful … Read More
OECD: Remove Subisidies to Fossil Fuels Now
Tackling climate change and other environmental hazards is affordable but urgent action is needed to avert irreversible damage, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said yesterday. The 30-nation OECD said possible environmental safeguards might slow world growth by just 0.03 percent a year — meaning that by 2030 the global economy would be … Read More
BP’s Top Brass Receive Huge “Hypocritical” Pay Awards
Let’s keep those snouts in the trough. People outraged by big oil salaries will choke on the news that despite BP’s recent financial troubles, with the company reporting a 22 per cent fall in profits, its top brass earned nearly $24 million. Lord Browne of Madingley, the former chief executive of BP, earned more than … Read More
“What will it take to wake the Senate up”
Great editorial in today’s New York Times, which argues that “One of the major shortcomings in last year’s admirable energy bill was its failure to extend vital tax credits to producers of wind, solar and other renewable fuels. This was entirely the doing of the Senate, which caved in to the oil companies and their … Read More
EU: Climate Change Poses “Security Risk”
Climate change poses “serious security risks” and fighting it should be part of “preventive security policy”, according to the European Union’s top diplomats. The warning is contained in a paper prepared for an EU summit this month by Javier Solana, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, external relations commissioner. It says that increased … Read More
Ecuador Repairs Ruptured Pipeline
Ecuador is reopening its main oil pipeline, three days after a landslide ruptured an 80-meter (262-foot) section of the duct, spilling thousands of barrels of oil into the local environment. The ecological fallout from the 4,000 barrel spill in a mountainous region 25 miles east of Ecuador‘s capital, Quito, is “grave,” as many tributaries for … Read More