LAGOS (Reuters) - Gunmen abducted eight foreign workers in a night-time raid on an oil rig off the coast of Nigeria on Friday, raising new security fears after a series of militant attacks that cut output from Africa's top oil producer.

Some 20 to 30 attackers fired shots as they boarded the rig from four speed boats but no one was injured, security sources familiar with the situation said.

I'm sure the market will react with an upward spike to this news.

Some Detailed Views on UK's Oil Production

One bottleneck has been Los Angeles/Long Beach ports (as well as serving that megapolis).  By the end of 2008, Burlington Northern-Santa Fe will have double tracked the entire Los Angeles-Chicago route and by the end of 2007, Union Pacific will have double tracked most of the Los Angeles-El Paso line (1/2 CA, 3/4 AZ, 100% NM).

The capacity of a double track line is far higher than a single track line (where trains take turns going in opposite directions).  

CSX & UP share a line into thw WY coal fields that is triple tracked, and that line is being extended.

"We do know that the Orinoco is underdeveloped," said Mr. Nelson, 49, a geologist from California with 27 years' experience developing heavy-grade oil. "And the resources in the Middle East are at their midpoint."

For Venezuela, a Treasure in Oil Sludge

Maybe it's as simple as the Iraq deal just being really sweet (but obviously risky). However, this move makes me nervous about tar sands development in general.

Comments on Lessons from Brazil

Unfortunately, "boodog", an apparent ethanol propagandist, also appears to be mathematically challenged. He has also been trolling in my E85 thread:

Comments on E85

I suspect it's one of my two ethanol antagonists from TOD. The responses have all the earmarks: Lots of bluff and bluster, backed up with pseudofacts.

RR

The results are in. We're proud to announce the MoveOn member choice for our new, positive agenda:

1. Health care for all
   
2. Energy independence through clean, renewable sources
   
3. Democracy restored

These three goals were nominated, debated, and overwhelmingly selected by more than 100,000 people in local house parties and then online. Most groups would say this is a far too risky way to make such a big decision. But it's this grassroots consensus that makes this agenda different--and powerful.

So what's next? This month, we'll launch a major campaign for a clean energy future, starting by breaking the vise-grip of big oil in Washington with our "Oil Free Congress" initiative. Expect hundreds of local events, advertising, national media attention and accountability at the ballot box--and that's just for the first of our 3 new goals.

Of course, we won't let up in our work to end the war in Iraq, and we'll still respond to immediate threats in Congress. But our new agenda will focus our long-term work, offer voters a positive, inspiring reason to support progressives on Election Day, and push Democrats to think big and fight hard.

Let's be clear: we've chosen big goals here, and seeing them through won't be easy. There are powerful interests who prefer things the way they are, and we'll never match them in sheer dollars or backroom deals.

Our strength lies where it always has: the voice, energy, and creativity of 3 million MoveOn members. If we're going to make health care a right, power America with clean energy, and restore our democracy, we're going to need as many likeminded folks on board as we can get. So today, we're turning to you to help build the team.

I just hope it's not going to call for an ethanol pump in every garage! I hope CONSERVATION is the main aim.

http://www.kunstler.com/eyesore.html

It involves the dessication of a quaint old barn by covering up all the archtectural detail by wrapping it completely in vinyl siding.  I've often wanted to do a study to determine what percentage of garage spaces in America are actually occupied by cars.  In my experience, many (and maybe most) garage spots get overrun with the storage of useless crap and people end up parking their precious cars outside bc/ they run out of space to store their worthless junk.  How ironic.

Continuing our conversation from May 30's drumbeat....

You brought up an interesting point about the role of imports/exports in the food market.  In terms of a reduction in exports of food as we begin to produce less, I think it could go two ways.  One is that our capitalistic system will allow the highest bidder to buy food, so we very well may starve some people here to pay for others around the globe.  As a farmer I am going to sell to the highest bidder.

If you get an agent to negotiate a forward contract on my sale price now and add in a currency covenant to hedge against a currency loss (a given) a farmer would only worry about how much money he can make.  Do farmers really want to know WHERE there food goes?  I mean sure as a matter of curiosity, but do they dictate who gets it?  They could, but the majority of farmers would seek their own best self interests and thus would be more income for their families.

However at some point, the government would probably get involved once the people realized this bigger picture.  At that point the gov't may institute some form of protectionism measures.

One last thought about the starving people here in this event.  The prices that foreigners would be willing to pay, would spur the competition back at home to farm.  There are swaths of lands in Mexico that were destroyed by the agri business of the USA.  The majority of Mexicans stopped farming because it was so cheap to buy the super cheap american food.  However if the people of Mexico begin outbidding Americans for american grown food, the locals in Mexico are going to want some of that money so they will start competing.

This is the basis of globalization, and it's too bad that so many people who are hurt by it and not taken care of seem to think it's so bad.  I wholly believe in international trade, but I do think that those who are harmed by globalization should be re trained by our gov't to do something else.  

I could go so far as to say too bad you should have learned to go to school and better yourself and you wouldn't have had to worry that your call center job got farmed out to better qualified Indians who have computer programming degrees that work for less than you.  However I think the real solution is for anyone who was directly harmed by globalization (no room for political b.s., but it would happpen I know), then you should have access to near free schooling to retrain yourself to do something more valued in this worldwide economy.  There are so few people who understand the bigger picture and so many who don't even care to understand.  People seem to wait for someone to bail them out and the gov't is most happy to do it most times.  Why aren't people rioting because the taxpayers gave our airlines billions of dollars and yet they are mostly all still entering bankruptcy?  That is a bunch of money we literally threw away.  Things are disasterously out of control.  So what kind of gov't is this?

I mean c'mon do you really think it's all that bad that you can get cheap bannanas year round?  They don't grow in abundance here, so if it were not for trade where do they come from?

News Flash: We're Running Out of Oil. Get Used to It.

By Warren Brown
Sunday, May 28, 2006; G02

There is no cheap gasoline.

Accept that.

Now get on with your Memorial Day weekend and summer travels, and have a good time.

I'm serious.

End the silliness. Stop worrying about whether gasoline will go up to $4 a gallon. It will. In some California communities, the price is already there. Stop running around all over the place wasting time and the gasoline you have looking for fuel a few cents a gallon cheaper. What's the point? You save 10 cents and lose 10 minutes. You can always find another 10 cents. What about the 10 minutes?

And while you're at it, stop listening to those goofy TV news reports about "price gouging," or "finding the cheapest gasoline," or about worried consumers switching to hybrid cars. It's all ratings hype that has little to do with reality.

Take the hybrid car thing. Gas-electric hybrids constitute barely 1 percent of the nearly 17 million new cars and trucks sold in the United States. They are a marginal percentage of the fleets of Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Ford Motor Co., the three major car companies that make them. Hybrid battery and related technologies are changing so quickly, the hybrid vehicle you buy today might not be the one you'll want to keep tomorrow.

There is also the matter of fiscal common sense. I've grown weary of people who owe more on their current car than it's worth asking me about the feasibility of trading in their automobile for something more fuel-efficient. Doing that is neither feasible nor sensible. Here's why:

Presumably, your goal in getting a less fuel-thirsty car is to save money. But how can you save money by wasting it? Do you think a dealer is going to give you the new car free? Do you think a bank or financial company is going to forgive the debt on your current car? Do you believe the bank or other financial institution will allow you to roll that existing car debt into a new auto loan at an annual percentage rate that is disadvantageous to the lender? Are you serious? Get real!

Here is the hard truth:

Oil is running out.

It probably will not disappear before many baby boomers and their immediate progeny run out of life. But it will disappear.

Every oil company knows that.

Every major automobile manufacturer knows that.

Every politician who got a decent score on a scholastic aptitude test knows that.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney and all their aides know that.

Oil is running out, and it is running out as global demand for available energy resources is growing rapidly. That means per barrel prices and pump prices are going up and will stay up.

All influencing externalities -- global terrorism, political unrest in oil-producing nations such as Nigeria, refinery disruptions caused by Gulf Coast storms, the odd and often suspicious behavior of oil futures markets -- are important. But not one of them changes the essential fact that oil is running out.

So, stop wasting your time worrying about pump prices. If you don't have enough money to hit the road and buy all of the hamburgers and trinkets you want, sacrifice some of the hamburgers and trinkets. If you are in a vehicle that uses lots of gasoline, look at how much you owe on the thing and do the math. You might be better off keeping it and driving less. Ever consider using the Metro?

Do you have a recreational vehicle, a motor home? I love those things! My fellow RVers love them. You know what? High fuel prices, or not, we're still going to roll this summer. We're just not going to roll as far and as long as we used to roll, but we're going to roll!

And when we get back, we're going to put pressure on Congress to do something real for the American people. Enough of this meaningless showmanship of putting the Federal Trade Commission on the dock in search of "price gouging" that no one ever really expected to find. That's just a ruse. We want something real. We want a national energy policy that deals firmly, fairly, sensibly with the reality that oil is running out.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052600900.html

Weird article. "We all have a bad cough, but let's keep smoking.  After summer vacation, we'll have the government do something about lung cancer."

I got the following off a defense blog and it does not mention the problems with the Azeri's over the last two weeks. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are the religious military wing of the military (a sort of 4th service). I think of them as the SS and/or SA of Iran, high on religion:

Iran struggling with U.S.-backed insurgencies in its western border areas

NICOSIA -- Iran appears frustrated over the Arab and Kurdish insurgency in the western part of the country.

Officials said Teheran has failed to quell the insurgency in both northwestern and southwestern Iran, along the Iraqi border. They said Arab and Kurdish separatists, financed by Britain and the United States, have maintained a stream of attacks against Iranian government targets in the region.

"There has been a proliferation of conspiracies," said Iranian deputy parliamentary speaker Mohammed Reza Bahonar.

[On early May 24, protests erupted in Teheran's two major universities, followed by clashes between students and police. About 40 officers were injured by stones hurled by students from Teheran University protesting the dismissal of professors.]

Bahonar said the government has lost control over the provinces along both the Iraqi and Afghan border. He said parliament could transfer security for these provinces to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

"It has been almost proven that security actions alone cannot solve the problems," Bahonar said. "There should be a combination of security and intelligence work, and the disciplinary force of the country should use its capabilities to the best advantage."

Teheran has blamed the United States and its allies for fomenting unrest along Iran's borders. Iran has several large minorities, including Azeris in the north, Kurds and Arabs in the west and ethnic Afghans in the east.

In the east, Teheran has sought to block the flow of heroin from Afghanistan, which has helped create a huge drug problem in Iran. Al Qaida has also used the drug route.

Officials said the Supreme National Security Council would soon explore the use of the IRGC and Basij in border areas. The Basij has already been trained for border security.

I don't know if you are aware of the following website:

http://visz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert.php?lang=eng

It is a map of the world indicating trouble spots and quite addictive.

At the top of the map you will see a nuclear icon flashing over Thule Island in Greenland, if anyone here understands the Maygar language could they provide a translation, please?

Here is an article:
http://dymaxionworld.blogspot.com/2006/01/silver-bullet.html

Here is their patent:
http://dymaxionworld.blogspot.com/2006/01/silver-bullet.html

Comments?

From today's Global Economic Forum over at Morgan Stanley ( http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/20060602-fri.html ), a piece by Stephen Roach, "A Commodity-Lite China". A relevant excerpt:

"A second factor likely to be at work is commodity conservation -- in effect, retrofitting China's commodity-guzzling production platform with more commodity-efficient technologies. Oil has been singled out for special attention in this regard. China's newly enacted economic plan contains an explicit target of reducing the energy content of Chinese GDP by 4% per year through 2010 -- or fully 20% over the five-year planning horizon. For a nation that currently consumes twice as much oil per unit of GDP as the rest of the world, this goal appears eminently achievable. The Chinese do not have to reinvent the wheel in terms of developing alternative energy technologies. Instead, "all" China needs to do is to begin replacing its existing production technologies with energy-efficient alternatives already in place elsewhere in the world. This is hardly a costless endeavour, but for a nation with the highest saving rate in the world and the largest reservoir of foreign exchange reserves, China can certainly afford to earmark a small portion of those funds toward oil conservation efforts."

Now, if we could just get that memo translated from Chinese into English, and placed on the relevant desks in the U.S.

One can always hope, I suppose...

Crude oil prices closed up 3.4% at $72.70 a barrel, getting a last minute push according to traders amid reports that BP plc (BP 71.97 +0.89) found undersea leaks to its huge Thunder Horse production platform in the Gulf of Mexico.

Oil major BP is still targeting a second-half of 2006 start-up of its giant Thudner Horse oil field in U.S. Gulf of Mexico despite the discovery of two leaks in a subsea manifold during commissioning testing, a company spokeswoman said. "While conducting pressure testing with the subsea system we detected two leaks in one of the manifolds," said Ayana McIntosh-Lee. The manifold testing was conducted using water and no oil was spilled, Lee added.

High fuel prices hit US automakers in May

Some excerpts:

DETROIT, United States (AFP) - The Big Three US automakers' reliance on trucks and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) to drive profits hit another pothole in May as consumers switched to more fuel-efficient passenger cars and cross-utility vehicles.

"We have seen the mid-size sport utility market collapse and I don't think that is going to change," Healy told AFP. "This is liable to have a big impact on profits because... the margins on the car side are much smaller."

Healy said he expects demand for full-size pickups to remain relatively healthy, since few alternatives offer their flexibility.

Ford Motor Co. took the offensive Thursday by offering vehicle buyers a 1,000-dollar gift card for gasoline (petrol) for a year along with zero percent financing.

Ford's incentive follows a gasoline "price-cap" deal rival General Motors Corp. offered some customers in Florida and California that gave new car buyers pre-paid gasoline cards that compensate them when pump prices exceeded 1.99 dollars per gallon.

That deal did little to boost GM sales, however.

GM posted Thursday a 16 percent decline in demand in May from a year ago, ending at 345,157 units. Passenger car demand was lower by 19 percent at 129,905 units, while truck sales were off by 13 percent to 215,252 units.

"This was a challenging month for us," Paul Ballew, GM's director of global market and industry analysis, told reporters on a conference call.

He said demand for some traditional truck-based SUVs, particularly the Chevrolet Trailblazer and GMC Envoy, were running at nearly half the pace of a year ago.

The story was similar at Ford, where sales were off 1.9 percent from May 2005 at 278,546, after strong car sales were unable to offset a steep drop in demand for trucks and SUVs.

RR

About 7 minutes into the show, Jack Beatty comments that in 1860, slavery accounted for what in today's economy would be about $9,000,000,000,000, a majority of the national economy.  Yet, in just a few years after 1860, slavery was abolished and the economy transformed.  This seems like a close parallel, economically, to where we are today with fossil fuels. The fact that the US survived abolition gives me strange hope that we will not totally blow the transition away from fossil fuels.

Reflecting further, I think that there are equivalent moral dimenensions too.  While racism and oppression operate with slavery, complacency and selfishness operate with fossil fuels. While slave holders were blind to the humanity of the slaves, we are now blind to the raw deal that is our legacy to the future. Somehow, at a fundamental level, we do not appreciate how our technology and industry is allowing us to trade present comfort for future destitution. I think that in order to really deal with Peak Oil/fossil fuels/Global Warming, we need to develop a moral sense of stewardship for the future  equivalent to what the abolitionists felt against slavery.