PGCC oil production declined by 20,000 b/d in January.

PPPGCC oil revenues reached $23.15 billion in January, a more than $3 billion increase over December’s revenues, says the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center’s (GRC) Monthly Oil Report Ð January 2006. In January, Saudi Arabia generated $12.66 billion, followed by the UAE at $3.89 billion, Kuwait at $3.80 billion, Qatar at $1.41 billion, Oman at $1.27 billion, and Bahrain at $120 million.
The GRC Monthly Oil Report predicts that geopolitical events, accompanied by panic buying, stock piling, and speculation would bring oil prices back to the high $60s range in the next few weeks. These geopolitical events include political turmoil in Nigeria, the stand off between Iran and the West, possibly the UN Security Council, and threats by the Venezuelan leader Hugo Chaves to halt oil exports to the US. This situation may change if economic growth figures in OECD countries, China, and India exceed forecasts or do not meet expectations, menareport.com said.
The GRC Monthly Oil Report indicates that PGCC oil production declined by 20,000 b/d in January. This decline resulted from a decline in Saudi and UAE production by 40,000 b/d and an increase in Kuwait production by 20,000 b/d. The production of the rest of PGCC members did not change.
Average monthly future and spot oil prices increased by more than 10 percent in January. The monthly average price of the OPEC basket increased by $5.62/b to $58.29/b in January, from 52.67/b in December. The average spot price of Brent increased by $6.15/b to $63.181/b in January, from $57.031/b in December. The average spot price of WTI increased by $6.89/b to $67.93/b in January, from $59.49/b in December.
World oil market fundamentals eased slightly on warm weather in North America, but weather-related disruptions reduced production and exports in Russia, Australia, the North Sea, and Iraq. Political turmoil also reduced oil production in Nigeria and Iraq. Various geopolitical issues such as the dispute between Iran and the West over its nuclear program have also influenced oil prices in the last month. The IEA’s latest monthly report stated that weather and political related problems reduced world supplies by 450,000 b/d. However, several small increases from various countries added more than 300,000 b/d in January. The result was a net decline in world oil production by 135,000 b/d.

What’s Ahead?
In January, oil prices were driven by market fundamentals. Weather-related outages reduced world oil supplies and increased prices in January. Turmoil in Nigeria and Iraq also reduced production. The rest of the geopolitical factors increased market volatility.
The GRC Monthly Oil Report predicts that market fundamentals will continue to determine prices in the next few weeks. The market is still fundamentally tight despite recent increases in inventories, which are high in terms of quantities, but not forward cover. Market fundamentals still support WTI in the high $50s range.

The nuclear industry says its technology emits no carbon and does not cause global warming but for many, still wary after disasters like the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl, the lingering fear is that the toxic waste might leak and kill.

It is the regular beeping that grates. But if it stops, prepare to be scared. The signal audible every second in every corridor of the high-level toxic nuclear waste plant on Britain’s sprawling Sellafield site is a sign all the alarms are working. If it stops, or changes tone, something has gone very wrong.
“The people who work here every day tell me they get used to it. But it tends to get on the nerves of everyone who visits the plant,“ Sellafield information officer Ben Chilton told Reuters on a tour of the site 300 miles northwest of London.
The alarms are crucial for an industry that believes it could be granted a new lease of life as the world searches for an alternative to fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, that produce carbon emissions, blamed for global warming.
The nuclear industry says its technology emits no carbon and does not cause global warming but for many, still wary after disasters like the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl, the lingering fear is that the toxic waste might leak and kill.
Sellafield, and a plant at La Hague in northern France, can each reprocess 5,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel each year, accounting for roughly a third of annual global output.
But there will be more waste. China plans to build 30 new nuclear reactors by 2020, India has struck a deal with the United States to build several more plants, the United States is lining up tax incentives for new generators and Britain is considering new plants to plug a looming energy gap.

Hell’s Brew
The sludge that flows down the heavily armored pipe into Sellafield’s vitrification plant after plutonium and uranium have been taken from spent fuel rods for reuse is a hell’s brew still emitting 40 times a lethal dose of radiation.
In shielded chambers with technicians watching through yard-thick leaded glass windows and using remote mechanical arms, the toxic stew is cooked down to a powder, combined with molten glass and poured into stainless steel urns.
These are cooled, closed and scrubbed before being sealed in insulated steel flasks and taken away for storage where, standing 10 deep in a concrete core and capped by a 10-footplug, the heat from the radiation is still tangible.
There are nearly 4,000 of these containers stored at Sellafield, which was the world’s first commercial nuclear power plant when it opened in 1956, with room for 4,000 more.
Final disposal of the waste involves burying it in geologically stable formations. The half-life of plutonium is 24,000 years--in other words, it would take up to 250,000 years before it degrades completely.
Chilton said waste comes from Britain, which has 11 nuclear plants, and from countries as far away as Japan, the third biggest nuclear power user after the United States and France.
Sellafield’s scientists are confident they have the answers on waste and believe nuclear power can help ease climate change.
“From a technical point of view we can deal with any waste that comes from nuclear plants,“ said Graham Fairhall of Nexiasolutions, the research arm of the British Nuclear Group.
But for the green lobby, nuclear waste is an unacceptable legacy, whatever the benefits of nuclear power.
“Nuclear power is dirty, dangerous and expensive,“ said Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth. “We are only talking seriously about nuclear power again because of climate change. But it is not the answer.“

Lethal Legacy
It is not just the high-level waste from fuel rods that has to be dealt with. Intermediate-level waste such as the casings of nuclear fuel rods, and low-level waste such as that produced in hospitals also has to be processed and stored.
Intermediate waste is chopped up and put in steel barrels that are filled with concrete and stored, while low-level waste is put in steel boxes that are crushed and put in a container, which is then filled with concrete and buried.
Industry experts say high, intermediate or low-level waste does not pose a security risk as one would need industrial-style resources--like protective gear and surroundings--to even approach the high-level waste, and the other two forms are either non-retrievable or non-lethal.

John Ivanko uses wind power, solar power, and a wood stove to meet the energy needs at his bed-and-breakfast, Inn Serendipity. He serves food from his organic garden and composts the leftovers. Even the bath tiles at the inn were chosen with the environment in mind--they were produced from recycled windshield glass.
As a result of all this, the two-unit inn in rural Browntown, which Ivanko runs with Lisa Kivirist, was listed as one of the “top 10 eco-destinations“ in North America last year by Natural Home & Garden magazine.
It’s not easy being green, but such efforts are about to be recognized further through an environmental certification program called Travel Green Wisconsin being created for Wisconsin lodgings, restaurants and other tourism businesses.
“This will help Wisconsin set itself apart from equally impressive states because it is the first,“ Ivanko said.
Martha Honey, executive director of The International Ecotourism Society, said she wants to see other states follow the lead of the Travel Green Wisconsin program, cnn.com said.
“We hope that it will spread,“ she said.
Every guest at Ivanko’s inn is offered a tour pointing out the B&B’s “green“ features--from the organic farm where strawberries are grown for breakfast pancakes, to the solar panels on the roof that heat the shower water.
Some people, like recent guests from Japan, stay at the B&B specifically to learn how the place is run. Others, like those who travel the 150 miles from Chicago, come to escape urban life while enjoying the rolling countryside, the bike trails and the region’s culinary offerings, from cheese factories to Swiss-German cuisine.
“It gives them a chance to experiment with a slightly different way of living,“ Ivanko said, AP reported.

Environmental Tradition
Wisconsin has been at the forefront of the environmental movement over the years as the home of famed naturalists John Muir and Aldo Leopold, and the late U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson, founder of Earth Day, said state tourism secretary Jim Holperin.
Creation of the certification program by his agency, working with the Wisconsin Environmental Initiative, can keep the state’s environmental tradition alive, he said.
“We believe this will provide a way to market state businesses that are working toward leaving a smaller footprint on the land,“ Holperin said.
Colette Corwin, 65, of Alva, Florida, stayed at Ivanko’s inn in January and said she plans to consult the list the next time she visits Wisconsin.
“A lot of people can call themselves green,“ she said. “But we went to one hotel in Florida that called itself green and we couldn’t see anything green about it.“
The tourism department contracted with Wisconsin Environmental Initiative -- a nonprofit organization that works with business, government and citizen groups on environmental issues -- to create the certification process after that group developed a similar Green Built Home program with the Madison Area Builders Association.
Plans call for a tourism certification program to begin in about five communities and, if successful, for it to expand statewide, Holperin said.
Businesses seeking certification will have to submit what they have done or expect to complete within six months in categories including waste reduction, recycling, energy efficiency, water conservation, wastewater management, air quality, and wildlife and landscape management.
The Department of Tourism will eventually list all certified businesses on a Travel Green Wisconsin Web site, Holperin said.
Ivanko, who has written a book with Kivirist on the environmentally conscious lifestyle entitled “Rural Renaissance: Renewing the Quest for the Good Life,“ said he believes the Travel Green Wisconsin program will appeal to the traveler “who wants to have a great time but doesn’t want to destroy the planet in the process.“
To offset the environmental impact of the car and plane travel his guests undertake to reach the inn, Ivanko even donates a portion of each guest’s lodging fee to Trees for the Future, which plants trees around the world.
“We are a part of nature, rather than apart from it,“ he said. “If you ruin the area which people are coming to see, you won’t have it any more.“

Two geological basins in northern Afghanistan hold 18 times the oil and triple the natural gas resources previously thought, scientists said Tuesday as part of a US assessment aimed at enticing energy development in the war-torn country.
Nearly 1.6 billion barrels of oil, mostly in the Afghan-Tajik Basin, and about 15.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, mainly in the Amu Darya Basin, could be tapped, said the US Geological Survey and Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Industry.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai described the estimates as “very positive findings,“ particularly since the country now imports most of its energy, including electricity, AP reported.
“Knowing more about our country’s petroleum resources will enable us to take steps to develop our energy potential, which is crucial for our country’s growth,“ said Karzai, whose government was created after the US-led invasion in 2001 and later won national elections.
The $2 million assessment, paid for by the independent US Trade and Development Agency, was nearly four years in the making, said Daniel Stein, the agency’s regional director for Europe and Eurasia. The total area assessed was only about one-sixth of the two basins’ 200,000 square miles that lie within Afghanistan.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton, whose agency includes the US Geological Survey, said the assessment would help Afghanistan better understand and manage its natural resources.
Afghanistan’s petroleum reserves were previously thought to hold 88 million barrels of oil and 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, based on Afghan and Soviet estimates for 15 oil and gas fields opened between 1957 and 1984. But just three of those have operated recently.
“There is a significant amount of undiscovered oil in northern Afghanistan,“ said Patrick Leahy, the US Geological Survey’s acting director. He said the other oil fields were abandoned, or the equipment there is damaged and rocks have filled the wells.
More work remains to assess petroleum reserves, conduct seismic exploration and rehabilitate wells, say government and industry officials.
Companies could drill relatively quickly, potentially bringing in billions of dollars in revenue to the transitional government, said H.E. Said Tayeb Jawad, Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United States.
“Within two to three years, the prospects are there for companies to start exploring oil and gas. The legal infrastructure is in place for the companies to come in,“ Jawad said in an interview.
“As far as security, they may have to take some additional precautions. But the country is much safer than what’s perceived in the media,“ he said. “But of course we are fighting terrorism, it’s a phenomenon, it’s a danger, but it’s not limited to one country.“
The danger comes with the territory, said Barry Gale, a private energy consultant and former director of the Energy Department’s international science and technology office.
“This is a pretty risky investment,“ he said. “But there’s ferocious competition out there among multinationals just to get a foot in the door, even if it’s a scary door.“
Karzai is struggling to deal with an upsurge in violence and suicide bombings in recent months, though Bush administration officials have praised the progress Afghanistan has made since a US-led coalition toppled the hard-line Taliban regime in 2001. The United States plans to give $1.1 billion in aid next year to the nation where Osama bin Laden once trained terrorists and plotted the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.