Freedom's just another word for oil
Today's most important story, from Reuters:
Oil Rebounds, China's Crude Imports Surge
Oil rebounded from sharp recent losses on Friday as China reported a fresh record in crude imports and a U.S. cold snap was expected to keep up demand for heating fuels.... Customs data released on Friday showed China's crude imports hit a record 12.1 million tonnes in December, sending total 2004 imports to 122.7 million tonnes, a rise of almost 35 percent from last year.
Sharply higher oil demand in China, now the world's second biggest consumer, was partly behind the surge in oil prices last year to a record peak above $55 a barrel.
"We should expect record import volumes from China every month. Demand growth is slowing but is still growing faster than domestic production," said Gordon Kwan, director of oil and gas research at CLSA in Hong Kong.
And today's most important analysis, from Petroleum World:
China's risky scramble for oil
Look at this imbalance: The average American consumes 25 barrels of oil a year. In China, the average is about 1.3 barrels per year; in India, less than one. So as the 2.4 billion Chinese and Indians move to improve their living standards, they're going to want more oil - likely more than can be produced.
That perceived shortage is setting off an intensifying scramble to tie up oil reserves around the world. So far, China has been the most aggressive player. But the competition is just getting going.
The pattern is clear. China has been weighing buying Unocal, a major US oil firm. Last month in Beijing, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez promised to open that nation's oil and natural gas fields to China. Russia, in effect renationalizing the giant oil subsidiary of Yukos, may offer China a 20 percent chunk of the new firm. China's efforts to tie up oil and gas resources - in places such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan - have not been cheap....
"There is a growing recognition of future oil scarcity, or at least the end of growth," says Jim Meyer, director of The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre in London. "The challenge of producing more and more oil is getting more and more difficult."
I don't know if this is you, but me, whenever I hear the petro-fascist alibis of spreading democracy and ending tyranny in the world, swallowed whole and regurgitated by the American media, I need a helmet. A thick one, well-padded, with which to bang my head against the desk. And I would soon need a new desk.
I would have thought it impossible to watch the pending tragedy in Iran play itself out, or the dark designs against democratic Venezuela unfold (Condoleeza Rice says the Bush administration finds Hugo Chavez "really very deeply troubling"), without being informed by the fact that energy policy is national security. Yet still, even after the debacle of the phantom WMD crusade, many do.
What to do? Once we've connected the dots, what can we do? It's like stumbling upon a murder scene, and the killer, still with blood on his hands, smirks "Scream all you want - no one's going to believe you!"
Oil Rebounds, China's Crude Imports Surge
Oil rebounded from sharp recent losses on Friday as China reported a fresh record in crude imports and a U.S. cold snap was expected to keep up demand for heating fuels.... Customs data released on Friday showed China's crude imports hit a record 12.1 million tonnes in December, sending total 2004 imports to 122.7 million tonnes, a rise of almost 35 percent from last year.
Sharply higher oil demand in China, now the world's second biggest consumer, was partly behind the surge in oil prices last year to a record peak above $55 a barrel.
"We should expect record import volumes from China every month. Demand growth is slowing but is still growing faster than domestic production," said Gordon Kwan, director of oil and gas research at CLSA in Hong Kong.
And today's most important analysis, from Petroleum World:
China's risky scramble for oil
Look at this imbalance: The average American consumes 25 barrels of oil a year. In China, the average is about 1.3 barrels per year; in India, less than one. So as the 2.4 billion Chinese and Indians move to improve their living standards, they're going to want more oil - likely more than can be produced.
That perceived shortage is setting off an intensifying scramble to tie up oil reserves around the world. So far, China has been the most aggressive player. But the competition is just getting going.
The pattern is clear. China has been weighing buying Unocal, a major US oil firm. Last month in Beijing, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez promised to open that nation's oil and natural gas fields to China. Russia, in effect renationalizing the giant oil subsidiary of Yukos, may offer China a 20 percent chunk of the new firm. China's efforts to tie up oil and gas resources - in places such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan - have not been cheap....
"There is a growing recognition of future oil scarcity, or at least the end of growth," says Jim Meyer, director of The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre in London. "The challenge of producing more and more oil is getting more and more difficult."
I don't know if this is you, but me, whenever I hear the petro-fascist alibis of spreading democracy and ending tyranny in the world, swallowed whole and regurgitated by the American media, I need a helmet. A thick one, well-padded, with which to bang my head against the desk. And I would soon need a new desk.
I would have thought it impossible to watch the pending tragedy in Iran play itself out, or the dark designs against democratic Venezuela unfold (Condoleeza Rice says the Bush administration finds Hugo Chavez "really very deeply troubling"), without being informed by the fact that energy policy is national security. Yet still, even after the debacle of the phantom WMD crusade, many do.
What to do? Once we've connected the dots, what can we do? It's like stumbling upon a murder scene, and the killer, still with blood on his hands, smirks "Scream all you want - no one's going to believe you!"
posted by Jeff Wells at 3:20 p.m.
14 Comments:
This really is the problem of our age, isn't it?
It seems we either have to hold down the development of India and China or reduce our standard of living. The latter ain't gonna happen.
I'd like to think this problem can be solved with rationality and science and technology. But with the Bush administration in power, I have feeling this scramble for oil may not end up well.
Although I doubt that the Bush administration is truly interested in Iran for the oil, and I actually doubt they will do anything with Iran in the near future. More likely, they will keep Iran in a holding pattern with sanctions, like they did with Iraq after the first gulf war and then in another ten years find some reason to go into Iran.
Frankly, Bush is very constrained right now between massive deficits and an ugly war in Iraq. I doubt he's going to get much of his "big agenda" accomplished.
On a more mundane matter, Jeff-- I have had problems logging into your comments section lately. As this blog becomes more popular, you might want to try getting Haloscan or something like that. I think these blogger comments aren't very practical for an active blog.
Hope you're right, Spooked, even though what you say would be bad enough. I think time is not on the neocons' side - America weakens as its rivals gather strength and fashion alliances - so I'm afraid they will move against Iran sooner rather than later, even if they're not prepared for the worst, and most likely, outcome.
And thanks for the tip about the comments. I'll check that out.
And once again in my opinion: The issue isn´t oil, the issue is power.
The pushing of "peak oil" is no more than a justification for a war for power.
When China and India will be the biggest customers of oil, and the US on the verge of bankruptcy, those countries might not want to pay in worthless dollars any more and by this keep the US-economy afloat foregoing better living-conditions for their own people.
The minute the petrodollar is gone, the US is broke, of course.
Even if the world was running out of oil, the technology to go to renewable resources is there already. With mass-production of this technology energy costs will for sure not get higher than when oil-prices were by 55$ a barrel. The differences between production cost(2 or 3$) and sales (for up to 55$) is insane, and still we, the consumers can live with that. So oil is not really a "cheap energy". It might be cheap to produce and it gives immense profits for the producers.
The oil-producing countries only take a small percentage of the profits. The rest goes in the pockets of the oil-corporations and their major share-holders.
And these people use it to finance their expensive power structure.
However with either oil being supplanted with other energy sources, or if oil can be drilled from far more places and far more countries in the world, without the interference of the oil-monopolies, the prices will go down the drains, golden rain for those elites will stop, and so will their reign over major parts of the world.
While Bush´s "Freedom" might be another word for oil, in reality oil has been another word for power, for the last hundred years.
(B.t.w.: If you are interested, maybe you could go to the website of David McGowan. In his newsletter #49 he had one little passage about doubting the "peak oil" propaganda. He then was attacked by Ruppert and so from newsletter #52 on, it is McGowan´s main-theme. And while he is very polemic against Ruppert, McGowan´s argument seem very convincing to me.
He went into research about the Russian and Ukrainian oil extraction methods and the theory of anorganic origin of oil, all very acribicly documented.
He also researched the background of those people pushing the "peak oil" theme(the so-called respectable scientists, not Ruppert)http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr55.html
"Peak oil" and the pushing of this population-reduction theme is no longer the only reason why Ruppert seems to discredit himself. As you probably have read on Kurt Nimmo´s site, Ruppert tells people now, that it is useless to try to get the government people behind 9/11 to justice. People should rather buy gold and get prepared for disaster.
Other people think it rather strange, that Ruppert has refused to follow many obvious and quite convincing leads on 9/11, like the physical evidence.
For me it´s not a personal vendetta against Ruppert like with Dave McGowan. It´s just, that somebody propagating population reduction as a solution to world problems, creeps me out big time.)
erlenda--
I've seen McGowan's stuff that you refer to and he has some interesting points. However, there really is no solid evidence for abiotic origin of oil.
Also, I don't think Rupert is pushing population reduction in the way you seem to think. A lot of people seem to want to ascribe really bad motives to Ruppert, but he is really just saying what a lot of peak oil proponents believe-- that when the oil and gas subsides, the planet can't support so many people-- so it is rational to try to plan ahead for population reduction-- basically family planning on a large scale.
While I am not convinced by Ruppert's ideas on this-- I tend to believe in the power of alternative technologies-- I also don't think Ruppert has any evil motivation behind his theories.
If you have real reasons to think Ruppert has some hidden agenda, let us know.
@Spooked
I´m giving Ruppert the benefit of the doubt, he might be just mistaken or misled by mainstream, no real sinister motives.
And McGowan has in his other newsletter and books quite a few topics I definitely don´t agree with.
But the abiotic oil stuff is really well documented and the Russian have worked with this theory for decades, drilling far below fossil ground finding their oil there, while the biotic oil theory is 150 years old and has never been scientifically proven, it just has been taken for granted.
If you follow the links in McGowans newsletters you can also find a lot of scientific data, found mostly by eastern European scientists. And do we westeners really think, we are the only people with good and clever scientists?
It´s about paradigm shift again. I never thought, that what I had learned in school about the origins of oil could be wrong, because I trusted my teachers and I trusted them having learned themselves their facts from trustworthy sources.
In the middle-ages most people trusted the Church to be right about the sun revolving around the earth. But by the times of Galilei even within the Church some people had started to doubt, but they thought the findings of Galilei could shatter the people´s faith in the Church. And since some of those Churchleaders thought more about their own power than about following Christ, they fought with claws and teeth against the unorthodox teachings of Galilei.
There are Galileis in our times and the mental the descendants of the medieval Church-leaders don´t have to be catholic or even religious.
erlenda-- thanks for the reply.
I'd love there to be abiotic oil and I certainly won't rule it out.
But the vast majority of western geoscientists think it is very unlikely.
"scream all you want" - lol
but google "sasol china" for an updated view or see this article
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/article.print?id=4249
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