For those who prefer not to cycle or walk, the eco answer to getting from A to B is to mix and match, says Lucy Siegle

Sunday October 1, 2006

I concede that the clean, green mobility charms of the push bike won’t seduce everyone. Unfortunately nobody has come up with such an easy, cheap and benign means of getting from A to B (other than walking), although the conundrum continues to occupy the world’s best minds.

Conversely, millions approach the topic completely mindlessly, which explains why transport accounts for 60 per cent of all CO2 emissions, and emissions from private cars in the UK are projected to reach 88.2m tonnes of CO2 (MtC) by 2010. The worst opprobrium, as ever, should be saved for those who have undone any slight fuel efficiency gains by swanning about in gas guzzlers (formalise your distaste at www.stopurban4×4s.org.uk).

Car clubs such as www.citycarclubs.co.uk are a great idea, liberating cars from being a polluting status symbol to a more sustainable service. Similarly, www.liftshare.com mitigates the eco fallout of driving solo, which causes 50 per cent more CO2 emissions than making the same journey on a bus. Hailing a taxi is becoming marginally less ethically dubious, too, thanks to stricter pollution standards. Or you can play it safe and book a greentomatocar (www.greentomatocars.com), which runs a fleet of 50 hybrid taxis.

The glaringly obvious eco answer is, of course, public transport. But which is better, bus or train? The bendy bus recently featured in London exhibition The Bad Design Amnesty. Rumoured to be prone to combustion, its length also creates congestion, negating environmental bonuses. But don’t let this eclipse the positive points of bus travel: overall, buses emit just one MtC per year, compared with 1.5 MtC emissions from trains. Trains, however, are increasingly switching to electric, substantially decreasing their carbon footprint.

But really, we’re holding out for a marriage between grotty public transport and super-glamorous cutting-edge green technology, such as the hydrogen-cell RV1 bus currently being trialled in London, or the fleet of new buses burning hydrogen in standard engines expected in Rotterdam in the near future.

Until then, it’s about mixing up travel options, including train, bus and car clubs. If you are stuck with the old internal combustion engine, you might want to bear in mind that all oil companies are not created equally. Exxon Mobil (whose UK subsidiary is Esso) spends just $10m a year on non-fossil fuel research and has been linked to the funding of organisations that undermine the scientific consensus on climate change. BP, meanwhile, spends $100m a year on non-fossil fuel research, while Shell invested $1bn between 2003 and 2005. So even if you can’t dump the pump, you can buy better gas.

lucy.siegle@observer.co.uk

Posted at 2:37pm on 01 Oct 2006

The operators of the Pohokura gas field in Taranaki say it is producing commercial quantities of gas for the first time.

Shell Exploration says gas and condensate are now flowing from three completed onshore wells through a production station at Motunui near New Plymouth.

A spokesman, Ajit Bansal, says it is a significant milestone for the companies developing the field as a joint venture, and for their customers.

The companies are: Shell, Todd and OMV. OMV is an Austrian gas and oil company.

He says commissioning of the production station will continue over the coming weeks and the offshore platform installation is underway. Six offshore wells are expected to come on stream during the coming year.

Shell Exploration says natural gas from Pohokura will be fed into the North Island gas network and the condensate will be piped to storage tanks at Omata near New Plymouth before it is shipped to refineries.

Copyright © 2006 Radio New Zealand

By Raymond J. Learsy

This April the Chavez government seized oil fields operated by two European oil giants- Italy’s ENI and France’s Total.

This, after the two companies declined to convert their contracts to joint ventures with the state. “These two multinational companies resist adjusting to our law. Our sovereignty isn’t under negotiation”, bellowed Rafael Ramirez Venezuela’s oil minister.

Chevron and Shell and fourteen other companies did agree to the terms giving Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, at least a 60 percent stake. 

The Venezuelan government is continuing discussions on operating agreements with foreign stakeholders with the objective of giving Petroleos de Venezuela SA a majority stake in upstream operations, raising royalty rates and is even considering bringing criminal charges against former officials who crafted 1990’s era policies that encouraged private investment.

Simultaneously, according to the International Herald Tribune, Venezuela recently announced that it is significantly boosting trade with Russia, establishing joint ventures ranging from oil to agriculture. A total of 23 Russian oil companies offered services and technological help in areas from drilling to processing of heavy crude deposits.

While Venezuelan/Russian cooperation accelerates, the Russians are learning and acting upon the Venezuelan example. On the pretext of environmental concerns, Russiais threatening to halt work on the $20 billion Sakhalin Island energy project run by Royal Dutch Shell by moving to revoke an environmental permit. Russia’s concern for Sakhalin salmon and the grey whale seems eminently suspect given the lack of concern for the threatened extinction of Russia’s famed sturgeon. More to the point perhaps are the complaints from Russia’s natural resources ministry that Sakhalin 2 and similar agreements signed with other major oil companies in the mid 1990’s are far too generous to the western oil companies.

The situation has become so acute that a few days ago Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sought to reassure Western governments, by putting forward a disclaimer that had the markings foreshadowing the the deed to come: “Statements about some sort of revision of production sharing agreements and especially about squeezing out of foreigners from the Russian fuel and energy sector are groundless”. And along with these assurances Russian prosecutors were threatening to suspend the exploration license for TNK-BP to develop the massive gas field in Eastern Siberia.

So that there is no mistaking of the direction of events President Vladimir Putin this past week urged Russian officials to punish companies that violate licensing agreements putting pressure on regulators as they probe several Western oil giants.

Can we learn anything from Chavez and Putin? For all of his grandstanding Chavez may have a point. When being taken to the cleaners by the oil conglomerates he, at least in this instance, acts in the interests of his nation. By contrast we have given away the nations wealth to the oil companies by a government seduced by the oil industry’s lavishing hundreds of millions, all for the purpose of gaining influence in our Congress and Executive branch. It has permitted the oil companies to gain access to the nation’s underlying oil and gas rights for a pittance while pushing through super generous depletion allowances, favorable tax incentives and royalty relief giveaways.

According to the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, the Treasury could lose upwards of $20 billion over the next 20 years. And how does our government react? The Interior Department advised Thursday a week ago that they would not try to recover the more than a billion dollars in royalties lost to date as a result of flawed oil and gas leases it signed in the late1990’s. Rep. George Miller (D. California) was moved to comment “If things keep going like this we’re going to need two sets of handcuffs; one for the oil companies and one for the bureaucrats”

In damning testimony before a House subcommittee Earl Devaney, Interior Department’s Inspector General accused top officials in his agency of fostering a culture of “managerial irresponsibility” that tolerated conflicts of interest, cronyism “short of crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior”.

In my post “The Oil and Gas On Federal Lands Belong to Us!” 03/24/06 argued for a national oil trust to develop the oil and gas on national lands and ocean shelf for the benefit of all Americans. That the trust’s profits would go to funding alternative fuel programs, hybrid car credits, mass transportation and on.

Perhaps when dealing with the oil companies this is Hugo’s “he made the trains run on time” moment. And perhaps the time has come that we took a page from his timetable.

About the author of this article:
Raymond J. Learsy is the author of the book Over a Barrel: Breaking the Middle East Oil Cartel. A graduate of the Wharton School, he made his life in the fast-paced, risk-filled world of commodities trading, beginning in 1959. In 1963, he started his own firm and over twenty years expanded from the U.S. into Canada, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Brazil, and Pakistan, trading in an array of bulk raw materials and commodities, shipping to customers worldwide. In the 1980s, he shifted gears as a private investor, from 1982 to 1988, served as a Reagan appointee to the National Endowment for the Arts. Currently, he is a member of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Learsy’s richly-informed analysis of the international oil trade, OPEC, and its impact on the American and world economy has been featured in the National Review Online and the New York Times. He currently resides in Connecticut, and can be reached at triduane@aol.com.

Eleven energy ministers warned of rising political and commercial risks to Europe’s energy markets as President Vladimir Putin issued a warning to “unconscientious” investors, Agence France Presse reported on Thursday.

“The ministers note the recent developments in energy markets and the ever increasing potential risks of a political and commercial nature,” the 11 Black Sea-region ministers said.

“The reliability of access to energy (is) subject at this stage to challenges and threats of both a short-term and long-term nature,” they said in a statement.

The warnings after a two-day summit of the Black Sea Economic Co-operation organisation (BSEC) came shortly after Russia rattled energy investors by threatening to shut down the world’s largest private oil and gas project.

Russia last week withdrew a crucial environmental permit for the $20bn (15.8bn-euro) Sakhalin-2 project in the Russian far east, citing environmental violations by the foreign companies running the project.

Putin added a further warning yesterday, saying that the government would take action against companies that were too slow in developing their projects.

“I expect the (natural resources) ministry and the government as a whole to take such decisions, including toward companies that work unconscientiously or do not fulfill licence agreements,” he said at a meeting with the minister for natural resources in the southern Russian city of Sochi.

Russian officials also hammered foreign firms developing Sakhalin-2 at a separate energy industry conference in Sakhalin yesterday.

The warnings from the 11 energy ministers seemed to reflect conflicting interests in the Black Sea region, which Russian Energy Minister called an “indispensable” energy bridge between Europe and Asia.

The region’s clearest conflict has been between Russia and its Western neighbor Ukraine, which have had tense energy relations since Russia cut gas to Ukraine on January 1 during a price dispute.

Khristenko’s Ukrainian counterpart Yury Boiko was kept from the Sochi summit by tense talks in Moscow on a new gas supply contract.

Analysts have said that Russia’s ultimate goal is gaining control over Ukraine’s gas transport infrastructure, while Khristenko said that “achieving predictability” was Russia’s main motivation.

“The worst sort of predictability is better than the best unpredictability,” the minister said at a news conference.

The Black Sea ministers also faced conflicts over competing pipeline projects, such as Russia’s plans to expand its Blue Stream gas pipeline through Turkey to Israel and possibly Europe, which would rival the planned Nabucco pipeline.

The planned Nabucco pipeline would bring natural gas from Iran and Turkmenistan to European markets without crossing Russian territory.

Khristenko insisted that the Russian-Turkish Blue Stream gas pipeline had “proved its effectiveness both in financial terms and in terms of securing regional energy security.”

Russia and Turkey have clashed over Blue Stream since the pipeline came online in 2003, however, and delivery volumes have been growing at a slow pace amid price disputes and lower demand projections from Turkey.

The BSEC, which Russia is hosting this year, was formed in 1992 to co-ordinate the economic interests of Black Sea-region states such as Russia, Turkey and Ukraine. The group is one of several regional organisations embracing countries bordering the sea, and holds numerous annual ministerial meetings to coordinate the group’s economic policies.

Russia directs 30% of its gas exports to BSEC members.

The group’s main members are Russia, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, Turkey and Ukraine.

Leading producers do battle over TransCanada plans to switch gas pipeline to oil sands; disagree over outlook for gas supplies

Gary Park
For Petroleum News

In the red corner we have, among others, EnCana, Shell Canada, Nexen and Devon Canada.

And in the blue corner, ConocoPhillips Canada, Canadian Natural Resources and Suncor Energy.

It’s one of those very rare showdowns in the Canadian oil patch.

At stake is the future of almost 500 miles of natural gas pipeline in Canada which has many of the largest oil and gas producers locked in combat and, in the process, feuding over the outlook for Western Canadian gas supplies.

The trigger is TransCanada’s plan to convert a portion of its Canadian mainline from a gas carrier to become a major link in the proposed Keystone oil sands pipeline.

In final submissions to the National Energy Board, EnCana, Shell, Nexen and Devon contend that gas supplies could be endangered if volumes exceed available capacity after the Line 1 conversion.

Backing TransCanada are ConocoPhillips, Canadian Natural and Suncor, along with the Saskatchewan government.

Hearings in October

The boards opens hearings Oct. 23 on the US$2.1 billion Keystone project, which is designed to initially carry 435,000 barrels per day of oil sands production from Hardisty, Alberta, through Saskatchewan and Manitoba and on to the Wood River and Patoka refinery areas in Illinois.

The undertaking also involves the construction of 225 miles of new pipeline in Canada and 430 miles in the United States.

TransCanada insists the portion of Line 1 (one of six forming its mainline network) it wants to convert is needed for only 4 percent of its gas export capacity out of Alberta.

TransCanada Chief Executive Officer Hal Kvisle says there is enough room to move all of the gas the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin can produce and still have 10 percent unused pipeline space.

The company forecasts the excess capacity will rise over the next 5 to 10 years, reaching a peak in 2009 of 1.3 billion cubic feet per day of the available capacity of 6.47 bcf.

A study commissioned by TransCanada points to relatively flat WCSB supply in the short-term, averaging 16.9 bcf per day in 2009-10 compared with 17.1 bcf in 2006-07, with its own mainline volumes declining to 5.1 bcf per day from 5.9 bcf over the same period.

Demand in Western Canada forecast to grow

During the forecast period, demand in Western Canada is forecast to grow to 6.2 bcf per day in 2013-14 from 4.9 bcf in 2006-07 and 5.5 bcf in 2009-10, further lowering the demand on its mainline system. TransCanada said.

However, Andrew Safir, president of Recon Research of Los Angeles, said Line 1 is an economic necessity because it provides spare capacity that allows WCSB gas to meet demand surges in the North American market, with recent flows on the line frequently exceeding 85 percent of capacity.

On behalf of those opposed to the conversion, GLJ Petroleum Consultants said TransCanada’s throughput methodology is “conservative” and does not reflect the “range of realistically possible outcomes.”

GLJ challenges TransCanada’s assessment that “supply fundamentals have weakened considerably,” arguing that gas-related activity in the WCSB remains strong and total supply is in fact growing slightly, creating “excellent” prospects for net supply growth.

In his regulatory submission, Canadian Natural Senior Vice President of Marketing Real Cusson said the chances of lower gas export capacity are “very small” if the conversion is approved.

“The risks of negative impacts on gas shippers are far outweighed by the benefits of utilizing (Line 1) to provide early expansion of oil transportation capacity,” he said.

Suncor, an oil sands major, warns that if Keystone is not ready by late 2009 crude oil “will be stranded” in Canada in 2010.

EnCana, Canada’s largest gas producer as well as being an emerging oil sands major, says Canada has a major investment in gas export pipelines that should not be curtailed.

Introduction by Alfred Donovan.

Robert Aouad, a guest columnist in a U.S. College publication, recently took issue with a suggestion that Shell Oil should be included in a list of terrorist organisations: the following is an extract from his article published on 22 September 2006.
 
EXTRACT: As for Shell Oil, who you suggested should be included in a list of terrorist organizations with extremist groups like Hamas, I have trouble equating an unfortunate oil spill with a terrorist attack. Shell Oil did not set out to Nigeria with 56 million gallons of oil to intentionally spill it onto the farmland of the Ogonis. It was a very unfortunate incident indeed, but definitely not a terrorist attack. Furthermore, how do we expect Shell Oil to get into areas such as these for cleanup when the volatile Nigerian military government and the protesting Ogoni people are at each other’s throats?

Complete article: BG News: Labeling terrorists should be left to government, not colleges

The Ogoni author, Ben Wuloo Ikari, has asked us to publish his passionate views in relation to this controversial suggestion.  Although Shell management has a track record of using what can be described as terrorist tactics against perceived enemies, I do not believe that it is appropriate to categorise Shell alongside extremist groups. Shell management can fairly be described as evil, dishonest, greedy and unscrupulous. And as Ben correctly points out in his article, Shell has been closely associated with an uncover spy firm. (In this connection, Shell admitted, after being cornered as a result of a newspaper investigation, that it has used undercover activity involving deception, faked documents, infiltration and sabotage, against opponents.) But despite these facts, we do not consider that Shell senior managers are terrorist masterminds or that Shell is a terrorist organisation.

However, we do recognise that the Ogoni people see Shell from a unique perspective bearing in mind the way Ogoniland has been plundered and polluted over the decades.  Shell admitted only after an internal report was leaked, that its activities in Nigeria have fuelled corruption and violence. It is also impossible to forget the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa and a number of his supporters as a consequence of their peaceful campaigning activities against Shell.  Ken Saro-Wiwa was found guilty on trumped up charges by a Nigerian military regime which was in Shell’s pocket.

Consequently although we do not agree with all of the views expressed by Ben, we are happy to provide him with a free speech platform.

Article by Ben Wuloo Ikari

I write to contribute to the above subject matter as follows:

I tend to understand the position of Robert Aouad, however terrorism is not limited to the activities of groups like the “Hamas” as recorded inter alia. It is not limited to plane hijacks, bombings, and other strategies used.

And, although both the Oxford Advance Learner’s and American Heritage College Dictionaries summarily defines Terrorism and a Terrorist as “The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence to intimidate or coerce societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons,” and “One that engages in acts or an act of terrorism,” the call to include Shell Oil (HELL) in the popular terrorist organization’s list is indeed wholesome and not out of order.

Shell is no doubt one of the most dangerous human and environmental terrorist groups in the world. It has been linked with “Hakluyt” which is an undercover spy group. The company’s overall activities in Ogoni and Niger River Delta of Nigeria, since oil discovery is nothing but terrorism. Consider when the environment which is man’s first right is despoiled, making it difficult for people to inhabit such. This Shell’s nonchalant act/attitude of environmental ruin is even worst compared to other terrorist groups that target known enemies who kept terrorizing them as well. I know that sometimes real terrorist groups which includes established governments, attack innocent civilians, but terrorism launched at the environment is far deep than not. The killer oil firm terrorized and monitored (ordered the hanging of the Ogoni leaders) Ken Saro-Wiwa of the most blessed memory until he was killed as ordered. It paid Rtd. Colonel Paul Okontimo of the dreaded Rivers State Internal Security Taskforce to intimidate, terrorize, brutalize, tort