The Middle Eastern oil producers account for some 26 percent of the global oil production.

India wants an Asian oil market complete with all the facilities, including trading exchanges, to ensure steady supply of oil to the Asian economies and soften price volatility.
India which imports 70 per cent of its crude oil needs, with an estimated annual growth in demand of 3.6 percent for 2005-2007, has been forced to hasten the move for an Asian petroleum market by the recent record rise in world price of oil which touched $55 a barrel and the prevailing high prices with their sudden fluctuations for one reason or another.
India made the first public move in that direction by having a one-day conference in New Delhi last week of the major oil producers and major Asian oil consumers, who supported the move to secure steady supplies at reasonable prices.
Asia is consuming 40 percent of the world oil production of 82 million barrels a day, which is bound to increase in the next 20 years before its decline. As the Asian economies expand, as China's and India's have been, the demand for oil will increase. And both China and India are eager to line up their oil needs for the next 40 years. The preliminary agreement signed by India with Iran for the supply of liquefied natural gas will last for 25 years from the year 2009 at a cost of $40 billion, dawn.com reported.
Mani Shankar Aiyar, India's minister for petroleum, who is the leading spirit behind such a move, said at the one-day conference that it is essential that we develop a sophisticated Asian market for petroleum and petroleum products to ensure supply stability and reduce price volatility.
Other major oil guzzlers in Asia--Japan, South Korea and China--too attended the meeting and supported the move. The conference noted that booming economic growth has turned Asia into one of the main buyers of Gulf oil, but lack of partnership between the producers and consumers has made Asian nations vulnerable to global oil price volatility, and that vacuum has to be filled now instead of the major Asian economies competing with each other in securing their oil supplies and at reasonable prices.
Mani Aiyar, who was consul general in Karachi, in the 1980's also called for the setting up a strategic storage and mutual investment in each other's territories to promote oil supply security.
He said that a regional market would spur transparent pricing, allow for derivatives trading, and reflect the real role in the global oil economy of Asian production, Asian consumption and Asian trade.
Iran's oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanghaneh said with emergence of giant Asian consumers the continent was set to become the gravity centre of the world's energy consumption. He said Asia contained the world's largest oil reserves.
The Middle Eastern oil producers account for some 26 percent of the global oil production, which is expected to jump to 31 percent by the year 2025. Following India's suggestion to invest in each other's territories in the petroleum industry, India is to explore for oil in the Iranian oil fields.
Right at the moment, the selective bargaining phase appears to be over with the end of the Saudi Oil Facility after it had lasted for six years when it was very useful.
Saudi Arabia, which until recently pumped 9.5 million barrels of oil per day sold 60 percent of its oil or 4.5 million barrels a day to Asia, says it is ready to pump more oil to meet the needs of its Asian customers. Saudi Arabia's export of oil to Asia represented 20 percent of its consumption.
Assuring the one-day conference of steady supply of adequate oil to Asia, the Saudi Oil Minister Ali Nuwaimi said that Saudi Arabia had a good track as a responsible and reliable energy supplier. And apart from the 9.5 million barrels of oil it produces it had always a spare production capacity of 1.5-2 million barrels a day to meet the special needs of regular customers.

Capitalizing on sunlight in the pursuit of a comfortable life is no longer a pipe dream. For many who want to do so, it has become an attainable reality.
For one thing, environmentally friendly and cost-effective solar-powered houses are on the rise because they are now within the reach of modest income earners thanks to significant markdowns.
Capturing attention as a fixture in these houses is a solar lighting system in which sunlight captured by several lenses is sent into rooms through fiber-optic cables.
All the 29 houses now under construction in a newly developed section of Kamagaya, Chiba Prefecture, are furnished with a solar power-generating unit developed by Sekisui Chemical Co.
In the unit, a giant solar panel on the roof generates a direct current, which is converted to an alternating current and then distributed to wall sockets.
Most of the 29 houses are two-story steel-framed structures, and many have already been sold.
But the remaining houses are still visited, particularly on weekends, by many prospective buyers, who take their time inspecting solar power units of different capacities.
A unit with a capacity of 1 kilowatt costs about 450,000 yen. Of the amount, the government-funded New Energy Foundation pays about 45,000 yen, leaving the buyer to pay the remaining 405,000 yen or so, yomiuri.co.jp reported.
Sekisui says that a 1-kilowatt unit can save the average household about 26,000 yen a year in its electricity bill.
The saving will amount to about 416,000 yen in 16 years, 11,000 yen over the 405,000 yen initially paid by the buyer.
Compared with conventional thermal power generation, solar power generation can lower the emissions of carbon dioxide by 360 kilograms per kilowatt in capacity each year.
The house owner will technically be able to bring down the electric bill to zero if he uses proper insulating material to minimize energy loss and sells surplus electricity to Tokyo Electric Power Co., which provides power to the households in the area.
In an earlier movement, Sekisui started in October to sell wooden houses under the "Grand To You" brand, featuring insulated walls five centimeters thicker than those of steel-framed houses and solar power generators.
The foundation says the number of solar-powered houses around the country rose from 5,299 in fiscal 1997 to 44,269 in fiscal 2003.
The foundation, affiliated with the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry, attributes the increase to the subsidies it has granted since April 1994 and the drop in the average price of solar generators by two-thirds over the past 10 years.
Expectations are high in the housing industry that solar lighting systems will be used more extensively, particularly in houses under the shadow of tall buildings.
So-called delivered sunlight is more comfortable for people than fluorescent light, according to engineers at Laforet Engineering Co., which has developed a solar lighting system called Himawari (sunflower).
Technology Network Inc., a competitor of Laforet, sells a different system dubbed Natulight.
With the Natulight system, sunlight is reflected into rooms by a precision mirror that adjusts to stay aligned with the sun.
Both Sunflower and Natulight are equipped with sensors that can calculate the sun's movement and continue turning their receptors toward the sun.
"We've received orders from people who complained about scant sunlight... but our system can effectively create a comfortable environment," a Technology Network official said.
A solar lighting system typically costs between 900,000 yen and 1.5 million yen per unit.
"We need to raise the public awareness of these solar light systems, drive down the price and ask for government aid," said an official at the League of Sunlight System, an industrial association administered by Laforet.
The business of sunlight also has made its way out of the housing industry. Impress Corp., for example, marketed a portable solar power generator in 2000, which weighing only 125 grams, is designed to recharge cell phones and digital cameras.
It has a mono-crystal silicone plate that can convert sunlight into electricity, generating 0.75 watts per hour.
The company now sells about 1,000 units a month, and is hoping to tap a broader market.

Global energy major British Gas plans to double investments in India from $500 million and expand operations to set up captive gas-based cogeneration plants.
"We plan to increase our investments in India to $1 billion in two to three years' time with an additional investment of $250 million in the Panna-Mukta and Tapti fields and another $250 million in setting up cogeneration facilities," Frank Chapman, CEO of British Gas India, told reporters Monday.
Chapman was speaking on the sidelines of the ongoing Petrotech 2005 conference here.
British is partnering state-owned exploration major Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and private conglomerate Reliance Industries in the oil and gas rich Panna-Mukta and Tapti fields off the west coast.
The three partners plan to invest around $750 million in the Panna-Mukta and Tapti fields to raise production. Of the total additional investment planned, British Gas will contribute $250 million.
The investment is expected to further raise gas production at the Panna-Mukta field from 135 million metric standard cubic feet a day (MMSCFD) to 200 MMSCFD.
"Theoretically there is more potential depending on how gas production will affect oil production. The matter is currently under discussion," said Chapman, newkerala.com reported.
In the case of the Tapti field, the additional investment is to raise gas production from 250 MMSCFD to 450 MMSCFD.
Panna-Mukta, one of the largest oil and gas producing fields in India, currently produces 60,000 barrels a day. "Our efforts are directed towards maintaining the plateau of production," said Chapman.
The company plans to replicate its experience of cogeneration in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where small plants have been set up using gas to generate electricity and heat for heating or air-conditioning purposes.
"We welcome the government decision to allow us to sell gas produced by us to our customers. We will be looking at delivery within India," said Chapman, disclosing plans to set up captive cogeneration units of 1MW and above for industries and companies including the hospitality industry.
"We have started putting a team in place specifically for cogeneration," he said.
"Two customers have approached us so far for cogeneration projects, which tend to be small units. Whether British Gas will use it own molecules of gas or not will be seen."
The decision will depend on the government's policy on gas pipelines. "It is important to have open access pipelines. It is crucial that the new regulatory framework allows for competition," said Chapman.
While focusing on developing gas markets through supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) mostly to Europe and the US, British Gas is keen initially to meet gas demands within India from its own production in the country.
"In some part of our evolution, we will engage in LNG trade with India," Chapman said.
"An LNG terminal is not the end, but for supply of LNG to ensure against short supply. What we are trying to do is to develop the market and pull in the supplies."
The British energy major is targeting to enhance its LNG ship fleet to 15 by 2010 for supplies to its customers globally. At some point in the future depending on demand, it plans to redirect cargos to India.

Every time oil prices go higher, everybody begins to think of alternative ways of providing energy.

The fields of western Palm Beach County in Florida, USA support the sugar cane that provides quick energy to people.
Before too long, that same cane could provide energy for vehicles, in the form of ethanol. The manufacture of ethanol has been confined almost exclusively to the Midwest and the Great Plains, where there are 81 plants in 19 states that convert corn into the fuel. Now the sugar industry, under pressure from a weak and changing market, is taking a hard look at using molasses, a byproduct of sugar production, to make ethanol.
Florida Crystals Corp. in West Palm Beach and the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida in Belle Glade have received a preliminary report from two Miami firms they hired to determine the feasibility of producing ethanol from molasses, said Jose Alvarez, senior vice president for planning and operations at the cooperative.
"We got together about six months ago and decided it would be in our best interest to look at ethanol," Alvarez said. "We have not come to any conclusions.
"It must make economic sense, or there's no reason to do it."
During the last 25 years, South Florida's sugar industry has considered ethanol production two other times and concluded it wouldn't be worth the cost. But today's analysis is taking into account two major changes, palmbeachpost.com reported.
One is the rising cost of and competition for the world's oil and gasoline. The other factor is the sugar industry's uncertain economic outlook.
"Every time oil prices go higher, everybody begins to think of alternative ways of providing energy," Alvarez said. "We are trying to determine whether we should be in the game."
Sugar's economic crunch stems from a variety of factors, including decreasing sugar consumption, increased importation of sugar-containing products from other countries and free-trade agreements that will open the United States to even more foreign sugar.
Florida's only other sugar company, Clewiston-based US Sugar Corp., is also researching whether ethanol production makes sense here, Senior Vice President Robert Coker said.
"Our company is reviewing it," he said. "We are clearly a long way from making a decision."
The Florida firms are not alone in their quest, said Dalton Yancey, executive vice president of the Florida Sugar Cane League in Washington.
The majority of cane growers in the country are considering the idea, he said.
"At today's energy prices, everybody has to look at it," Yancey said.

$60m, to Start
So far, the co-op and Florida Crystals have learned it would cost roughly $60 million in "investment costs" to build an ethanol plant and the infrastructure needed to produce 30 million gallons of ethanol a year. That comes to roughly $2 a gallon, not including production costs. The study, being conducted by International Technical Services Inc. and CBT Corp., is continuing, Alvarez said.
"It's a lot more complicated than we originally anticipated," he said. "We are trying to determine whether we can get a return on our investment that would be adequate."
Aside from the millions of dollars needed to ramp up, another stumbling block is what to do with a byproduct of ethanol production known as stillage that must be disposed of properly to avoid environmental contamination.
If the project comes to fruition, the cane plant would be the first in the US to make ethanol from molasses. Along with the sugar and molasses, producers also would be able to pull about a gallon and a half of ethanol out of each ton of cane.