High stocks and low refinery runs in the US and OPEC cuts are also weighing on freight costs.

The world’s leading crude oil freight routes from the Persian Gulf were close to their lows for this year but analysts said the freight market was not on the brink of collapse.
Industry sources also said there was no sign that crude demand was faltering, blaming the weakness on the dynamics of the tanker market instead.
Ship brokers said VLCC freight rates from the Persian Gulf to Japan, the world’s benchmark crude route, were trading at an average of W60, close to a year low of W52 hit in January.
Rates for double-hulled units were trading five Worldscale points higher and single-hulled tonnage up to 10 points lower .
Below that level, a three-and-a-half year low was in sight at W50.5, struck in October 2003, according to Reuters data, Reuters reported.
Analysts said rates were pressured by long-standing OPEC cuts, refinery maintenance in Asia, high stocks in the US and bulging ship supply.
They said there was no evidence that crude oil demand was being eroded, pointing instead to strong demand for long-haul oil into China, which was buoying rates.
“We wouldn’t speak of it as a freight collapse...but it does seem to have moved into a softer summer trading market that we’ve had in previous years,“ said Clare Grierson, an analyst with Simpson, Spence & Young in London.
EA Gibson ship brokers said VLCC voyage rates to Japan were trading at W105 or $67,200 a day in June 2006 compared with W59 or $34,750 on Monday.
In a report it also cited the VLCC and ULCC trading fleet rising to 494 by mid-2007 from 477 in mid-2006.
Rates for VLCCs from the Persian Gulf to the US were similarly pressured, trading at an average of W50, five points short of a low for the year.
Beyond that, costs on the major route were close to a four-year low of W42.50 hit in August 2003.
Brokers said rates averaged $30,000 to $40,000 a day to Asia, down from closer to $50,000 in the last couple of weeks.
High stocks and low refinery runs in the US--inventories hit nine year highs last week--and OPEC cuts were also weighing on costs, they said.
“Westbound trade has been curbed by refinery outages and the fact that the US hasn’t been able to process crude quickly enough.
“We’ve also had problems with Nigerian supply, with volumes shut in,’ Grierson said.
In addition, she said some of the 10 or so VLCCs used for storage in the US Gulf last month were being released back on to the market, pressuring long-haul routes.
Consultancy Oil Movements said last week oil in transit from OPEC producers, excluding Angola, had fallen in a surprise counter-seasonal move.
It said oil in transit had slumped 18 million barrels to 400 million barrels in the four weeks to July 14.

Spain will remain Europe's largest growing wind power market through 2015.

European wind power markets will continue to grow steadily in the next eight years from a total installed base of 48,452 MW at year-end 2006 to 130,816 MW at year-end 2015, according to a new study from Emerging Energy Research (EER).
“European wind power markets are evolving at three speeds. Large Western European countries Spain and Germany are entering a consolidation phase (1,500 MW to 2,000 MW per year); mid-size Southern and Northern markets are picking up significant momentum (200 MW to 1,000 MW per year); and emerging Eastern European markets are slowly laying the foundation for wind power development (50 MW to 200 MW per year),“ said Catalina Robledo, an EER European Wind Energy Advisory analyst.
The report speculates that Spain will remain Europe’s largest growing market through 2015, adding an average of 2,200 MW per year during the next eight years. Like Spain, Germany will continue to be a high-growth market, adding over 1,000 MW per year through the forecast period--with offshore compensating for paced decline onshore after 2012, Solaraccess.com said.
While Spain and Germany will account for over 50% of Europe’s wind power capacity through 2015, their participation will diminish over time as other Western European markets scale up and project flow and size increases in a number of Eastern European markets, led by Poland and Turkey.
“European wind power markets are evolving at three speeds. Large Western European countries Spain and Germany are entering a consolidation phase (1,500 MW to 2,000 MW per year); mid-size Southern and Northern markets are picking up significant momentum (200 MW to 1,000 MW per year); and emerging Eastern European markets are slowly laying the foundation for wind power development (50 MW to 200 MW per year),“ added Robledo.
In terms of the European offshore market growth, the industry has been hampered by barriers including lengthy permitting processes, technical complexities, low incentive schemes, and lack of turbine availability. Despite these inhibitors, EER anticipates that the offshore market will begin to surge by 2009, surpassing 1 GW per year net additions, with 170 MW to 225 MW installed each in the UK, Germany, and Sweden and single project activations in Belgium, the Netherlands and France.
Between 2010 and 2015, the offshore market will continue adding an average of 1,300 MW per year, growing to 10.4 GW by the end of the forecast period, representing 8% of Europe’s total wind power installed base, according to the study.

Hungary will fully liberalize both its wholesale and retail electricity market from January 1, 2008, after the new Electricity Act was passed by parliament last week, Minister of Economy and Transport Janos Koka said Monday.
“The new act will establish conditions that increase competition on the market, as well as improve the security of supply and the protection of consumers,“ Koka said after holding talks with representatives of Hungarian power sector firms.
The new act will separate so-called universal providers--the six current regional power utilities--that will be required by law to continue supplying their own regions, from free market providers, which will be allowed to offer power to consumers anywhere in the country, according to Interfax.com.
The current monopoly of state-owned power company MVM as the sole wholesaler on the market will be eliminated, as from January 2008 any electricity company will be able to procure power directly from producers, instead of through MVM.
In addition, households and small companies will also be able to choose their providers, by either remaining with their universal providers or opting to buy power from a free-market provider. Industrial users have had this option since 2003.
“If at least 7-8% of households change provider, then the new system will already be operating efficiently; however, I expect this rate to be higher,“ Koka said.
The market will be opened to an unlimited number of providers, either Hungarian or foreign, he added.
He added that although MVM will lose its monopoly position, it will be able to apply for a universal provider license and thus compete with other companies on the market.
Mavir, a subsidiary of MVM, will continue to act as system operator, with Koka declaring that the independence of the company must be guaranteed and strengthened.
The minister said that many Hungarian firms are at a competitive disadvantage, as they are able to buy power only at prices that are sometimes 2-3 times higher than in Western Europe.
Among other provisions of the new act, Koka said that support of renewable energy production will continue, with special emphasis on bio-energy and geothermal.
Relevant legislation, including some five government and 20 ministry-level decrees, are to be finalized in the next few months, while universal providers will have to submit their price proposals 45 days ahead of their start of operations at the latest.

A new method of electricity generation combines the advantages of large-scale nuclear power generation with modern combined cycle gas turbine-based power technology (CCGT).
The innovation, developed and patented at international consultant services company, PB Power has been designed to create a hybrid system, for either retrofitting to existing nuclear stations or newbuild installations.
The process, known as NuGas, links the steam cycles of two power plants--one nuclear, the other gas turbine in combined cycle--to provide improved efficiency and greater flexibility. The system combines the advantages of both nuclear and gas power generation, which will create a reliable, efficient hybrid system, according to one of the engineers behind the design, Paul Willson, a PB project director, Solaracess.com said.
Willson said that gas turbines used in today’s CCGT power stations are the result of billions of pounds of research funding. ’Manufacturers are finding that even the smallest incremental improvements needed to achieve a combined cycle efficiency of 60 per cent have become prohibitively expensive and complex to achieve without sacrificing reliability,’ he said.
Willson said he and another PB engineer thought one way to improve the efficiency and reliability of CCGT would be to combine it with nuclear power--which has been a proven reliable and carbonfree source of energy. “NuGas is very elegant and simple,’ he said. ’Some say it’s almost obvious.“
Linking the steam systems of the two plants reduces the losses inherent in power generation. This increases the combined generated output and delivers an a level of efficiency of more than 63 per cent compared with 57 per cent for power generation in a comparable conventional CCGT plant, E4engineering.com said.
Willson said he achieved these efficiency figures through sophisticated computer-generated models of nuclear and gas turbine plants.
As an example, he said, the thermal efficiency gains achieved by integrating a 1,200MWe nuclear plant with a conventional 400MW
CCGT block would provide an additional 42MW of power without burning any more gas. The combined plant is a lower risk option for plant upgrading, as it uses existing technology operating under conventional conditions.
Operating at a higher efficiency means that less carbon dioxide is emitted for each unit of electricity generated--a key driver for power utilities around the world. With careful consideration of the plant layout and connections between the two plants the overall safety of the nuclear plant would be affected.
“The nuclear cycle is an absolute standard Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) cycle,’ said Willson. ’We don’t change anything. You can dismantle the gas turbine and take it away and the nuclear power station would remain the same.“
“The only thing that is missing that would make the heat recovery and the steam generator standard in the CCGT is a steam drum and an evaporator section in that boiler,“ he added.
That doesn’t mean the CCGT could not function if the nuclear part of the plant shut down. “When the nuclear plant shuts down, and the gas turbine remains in service what happens is you revert to a steam raising boiler,“ he said.
“The super heater is able to keep the steam temperatures under control and the remaining heat that isn’t picked up in the super heater goes to evaporating steam and the plant reverts in a perfectly civilized way into behaving just like a combined cycle plant.“
NuGas can be applied to newbuild nuclear plants or retrofitted to existing plants. While the new-build design would allow for maximum optimization, the retrofit option will give exceptional returns on investment with minimal impact on the normal day-to-day operation of the nuclear plant while the CCGT unit is being constructed.
Willson said space is the key issue when deciding whether a NuGas system can be fitted on to a nuclear plant. He added that between 30 and 40 existing nuclear power plants around the world are thought to be suited to retrofitting with a NuGas system.

Catalytic converters, which keep exhaust pollutants from vehicles down to an acceptable level, all use platinum.

A Cardiff University research collaboration is working to recycle precious metals from road dusts and vehicle exhausts to create greener energy.
The innovative research by scientists from the School of Earth, Ocean and Planetary Science working with the University of Birmingham is to be featured at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition(2-5 July).
Catalytic converters which keep exhaust pollutants from vehicles down to an acceptable level all use platinum, however over the years the platinum is slowly lost through exhaust pipes. Hazel Prichard, School of Earth Ocean and Planetary Science estimates that many kilograms of platinum is being sprayed on to streets and roads every year, Fuelcellsworks.com said.
Prichard said: “Platinum is a vital component not only of catalytic converters but also of fuelcells. Fuel cells are an important new source of clean energy. Platinum is a precious metal and resources are scarce and expensive. Our research is looking at ways of recycling platinum and other precious metals.“
Prichard is working with her team to find locations where platinum is concentrated enough to recover in order to develop cost-effective and sustainable ways to re-use this finite resource. One prime target is the waste containers in road-sweepers.
The research collaboration is also exploring how food wastes, and ’friendly’ bacteria can be used to create greener energy. Their goal is to see these techniques being applied to produce clean fuel cells to create reliable, greener energy whilst minimizing waste.

More than 20 companies plan to submit bids for Kuwait’s planned 615,000 barrels per day Al Zour Oil Refinery with a German-Italian alliance expected to make the best offer, a report said.
In May, Kuwait doubled the planned budget to $12 billion for the plant, which would be the largest in the Middle East. Rapidly rising costs in the energy industry have delayed the project and threatened its viability, according to Reuters.
The state issued a new tender for the project in June. It cancelled the first tender in February after bids came in far above its initial budget. Bids reached as much as $15 billion, according to local media reports.
Kuwaiti daily Al Rai said in an unsourced report Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) expected to receive more bids than at the last tender when 20 foreign firms were declared qualified for the tender.
An unidentified German-Italian alliance was expected to make the best offer to win one of the tenders, the paper said.
Prequalification bids for the five engineering, procurement and construction packages have to be submitted by July 3.
At 615,000 bpd, Al Zour would exceed the capacity of the Middle East’s largest refinery, Saudi Arabia’s 550,000 bpd Ras Tanura plant. Saudi Arabia plans to build another 400,000 bpd refinery in Ras Tanura.