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  • Last week, the Russian government predicted 2009 oil output of 9.68 million b/d, a 1.1 percent annual drop. But a survey of 12 analysts puts the decline at more than twice that rate, with the most pessimistic predicting a slump of 7%. Moscow-based Alfa Bank reckons the annual rate of decline in production at Russian oil fields totals 15 to 17 percent, compared with a rate of 7 percent in 1998. The higher rate implies producers would need to bring 1.5 million b/d in new output on stream just for production to stay flat. (3/26, #17)
  • The CEO of Brazil’s Petrobras said the state-controlled firm will be one of the world’s largest oil companies by 2020, when it intends to produce 5.7 million barrels per day, or more than double its current output of 2.5 million bpd. (3/26, #9)
  • The number of very large crude carriers to be used as floating storage for Forties crude oil is likely to rise to four to five in mid-April from the current two to three. As many as eight were employed for storage in early February. One VLCC typically holds 2 million barrels. (3/28, #6)
  • Following the collapse in oil prices, Kuwait has plunged into a political and economic crisis, and projects worth at least $33 billion have been cancelled since December 2008. (3/26, #5)
  • In Nigeria, the national oil company’s CEO reported that oil revenues dropped from an average of $2.2 billion per month in 2008 to $1 billion in January 2009.  He called for urgent measures by the government to protect the economy from collapse.  (3/28, #8)
  • President Chavez said his government will create several state companies to replace oil service contractors now doing business in Venezuela. Chavez said oil contractors often “take a chunk of cash” for their work and, he asked, “Who keeps the big earnings?”  (3/23, #9)
  • Venezuela’s PdVSA is offering oil service companies joint venture deals as a way of capitalizing billions of dollars in unpaid service bills. PdVSA is facing a cash crunch since prices for Venezuelan oil plummeted last year. As a result PdVSA has stopped paying for services at the well since August. (3/27, #9)
  • PdVSA has begun the gradual payment of outstanding bills to large oil contractors, some of which insist the oil company isn’t doing enough.  PdVSA has paid a fraction of its debt-up to 7% to some-to a group of 56 oil-service companies and rig operators struggling to get paid by the cash-strapped government.  (3/25, #10)
  • PdVSA has cut its investment this year by almost 40 percent to $12 billion.  The remaining funds will go to projects that include the modernization of two refineries and further development of the Orinoco Belt.  The government also announced a revised 2009 budget, as it was based on $60 oil. (3/28, #10)
  • Venezuela will increase its value-added tax from 9% to 12% and almost triple its debt to counteract a drop in the price of oil that is squeezing the government’s finances. (3/23, #5)
  • In Mexico, new production from the Chicontepec project will help compensate for declining output elsewhere in the country. In April, Pemex will start connecting new Chicontepec wells to the pipeline network. This should add 5,000 b/d in April, and a similar amount per month in following months. (3/26, #7)
  • Mexico‘s February oil sales revenue plunged 56.4% year on year to $1.66 billion.(3/28,#11)
  • EnCana and ConocoPhillips are seeking approval from environmental regulators for a 120,000-barrel-a-day expansion of their joint Christina Lake oil sands project in northern Alberta. The companies aim to boost the project’s output limit to 218,000 barrels a day in three phases, using the Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage technology. (3/28, #18)
  • In a report titled “The Beginning of the End for Oil?” Peter Hughes, a director of Arthur D. Little’s global energy and utilities practice, cites three converging drivers-climate change, politically undesirable price volatility, and questions about security of supply-that are likely to bring about changes in energy policy around the globe, perhaps resulting in an earlier-than-anticipated decline in demand for oil. (3/28, #20) [Editors’ note: talk is cheap.]
  • The Obama administration’s push to raise taxes on the oil industry is reigniting a battle the industry fought and won last year. Under pressure to narrow projected deficits, President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget proposal calls for raising more than $31 billion over the next decade by eliminating the oil and gas industry’s eligibility for various tax breaks. (3/27, #10)
  • New US fuel-economy requirements for 2011 cars and light trucks (combined) will increase 2 mpg.  The standard for cars will average 30.2 mpg, up from 27.5 currently, and 24.1 for light trucks, up from 23.1 mpg for 2009 models. The new mileage standard marks the first increase for cars since the mid-1980s. (3/27, #12)
  • Tri-State Generation & Transmission, a Colorado-based electric power wholesaler, is going ahead with plans to build a 500,000-solar-panel (500 megawatt) project in northeast New Mexico, in part because their other proposal-building a coal-fired power plant in southeastern Colorado-represents too heavy a water use in arid Colorado. (3/27, #18)
  • US oil output was poised to increase by 8 percent this year to 5.4 million barrels per day — the first increase since 1991 after a six-year rally in prices fed exploration and production projects — according to the US Department of Energy. But the drilling spree has collapsed alongside a 65 percent slump in oil prices since last July, putting any increase in domestic output at risk and raising the specter of increased foreign dependence in years to come. (3/26, #12)
  • Drilling rigs have become cheaper and more abundant due to the oil price and demand slump, but the cost savings are little consolation to many drillers, since a credit crunch has made bank funding scarce…Small wells, also known as stripper wells, produce 1.4 million barrels a day in the United States, but their output is expected to decline by over 10 percent a year at current prices. (3/26, #12)
  • World airlines are set to lose $4.7 billion this year as a result of the global recession that has shrunk passenger and cargo demand, industry body IATA said. (3/24, #6)
  • Some US airlines hedged their price for jet fuel when crude oil was at $100 a barrel or higher in 2008, assuming that costs would keep rising. But oil maxed out in July at $145 a barrel, then tumbled 75% over the next five months as a global economic downturn took hold. Airlines were forced to pay peak prices for fuel even as the recession cut the number of passengers they served. (3/26, #14)
  • US oil refiners are required by law next year to start using at least 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol. But industry officials acknowledge they will not come close to providing enough of the fuel to meet that target or the targets for subsequent years. (3/26, #20)
  • Oilfield services company Weatherford International expects the US rig count to bottom out at about 900, down from above 2,000 last year, as drillers respond to a collapse in oil and gas prices. (3/25, #15)
  • Chesapeake Energy, the largest independent producer of U.S. natural gas by volume, has already cut its conventional drilling 75% over the last six months and plans to reduce it to 85% in the next 60 days. “You simply cannot make money in a sub-$7-and-$8 environment,” said CEO Aubrey McClendon. (3/25, #16)
  • A “perfect storm” of food shortages, scarce water and high-cost energy will hit the global economy before 2030, said the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, John Beddington, last week.  (3/25, #20) [Editor’s note: “before 2030” could be uncomfortably soon.]
  • U.S. Navy researchers claimed to have experimentally confirmed cold fusion in a presentation at the American Chemical Society’s annual meeting. (3/25, #21,#22)
  • China called for the creation of a new currency to eventually replace the dollar as the world’s standard, proposing a sweeping overhaul of global finance that reflects developing nations’ growing unhappiness with the US role in the world economy. (3/24, #3)
  • China‘s inventories of gasoline, diesel and kerosene rose by about 36 percent at the end of last month from a year earlier, the Beijing Times reported. (3/24, #15)
  • The world economic crisis is likely to cause only a “blip” in the “inexorable” growth in energy demand, said Grant King, chief executive officer of Origin Energy Ltd, Australia’s second-biggest power and gas retailer. (3/24, #5) [Editors’ note: we respectfully disagree.]
  • Tata Motors has started work on plans to launch the Nano, the world’s cheapest car, in the US by 2011-2012 .  The Nano was launched in India on Monday with a starting price of U.S. $1,980 before transport charges and tax. Tata plans to sell a version of the Nano in Europe in 2011. (3/24, #18)
  • Suncor Energy of Canada is to buy rival Petro-Canada for C$19.6bn ($15.9bn), in a deal that will create North America’s fifth biggest oil and gas producer and accelerate consolidation in the Alberta oil sands. The largest deal in the oil and gas industry since 2006 comes amid troubled times for operators in the expensive oil sands. (3/24, #20)
  • The U.S. Air Force, with a staggering $US7.7 billion ($10.93 billion) spent last year on aircraft fuel alone, is the military’s biggest energy consumer. (3/29, #10)
  • Jeff Rubin, who quit as chief economist of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Friday to promote his book ‘Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller,’ said the coming oil scarcity will change the world more profoundly than any other crisis. (3/29, #18)