Random Notes  

It appears my earlier theorising was on the mark, with Woodside stating that all is well following the Mauritanian coup.

Woodside Petroleum Ltd. said Monday that the new military leaders of Mauritania are committed to backing the Australian energy company's US$625 million Chinguetti oil development. "The situation there remains calm at this stage and our operations are continuing - we are drilling," Woodside Chief Executive Don Voelte told reporters.

Perth-based Woodside has received "assurances" from Mauritania's Military Council for Justice and Democracy about the safety of the company's 450 staff and contractors in the West African country, Voelte said. The council has also "acknowledged on several occasions that they will honor our existing agreements," he added. Voelte was responding to the military uprising last week that shook investors in the company. He referred to the Mauritania situation while unveiling the company's A$5 billion Pluto liquefied natural gas project offshore Western Australia.

Woodside continues to get lots of press about its Pluto development, with speculation from the company that it may supply European customers as well.

Voelte said Pluto may be a "company changer" for Woodside, having more gas than Woodside's remaining equity share of reserves in the world-class North-West Shelf Gas venture. "Woodside's equity share of processing capacity from Pluto is potentially more than double our equity share from North West Shelf," he said. Woodside's one sixth share of the North-West Shelf project gives its 2.7 mln tons a year of LNG capacity compared with 5-7 mln tons from Pluto.

"We're on the cusp of doing something very special," Voelte said, adding that at this point Woodside plans to retain 100 pct of the project, which will include an onshore gas processing plant which may also be used to process gas reserves owned by other companies in the area.

He said the project will deliver gas ahead of the company's planned Browse Basin LNG project off the northern Australian coast, which is looking to deliver LNG from 2013 and its Sunrise joint venture project in the Timor Sea, which has an even longer development time frame.

On the other side of the energy-transacting fence, Qantas is looking at introducing further fuel surcharges as the oil price keeps rising. Qantas' share price has remained fairly stable over the past year or so in spite of the big rise in oil prices, no doubt due to their usual policy of hedging well out into the future - but at some stage they are likely to start suffering like a lot of other airlines already are. The USAF has the same problem - but their fuel surcharges go to the American taxpayer rather than the passengers.

Energy Bulletin has some interesting snippets from articles on Saudi Arabia and West Africa today.

Bush Administration’s efforts to `promote democracy’ in Saudi are a charade. The royal family relies for legitimacy on the ultra-conservative Wahabi faith, a narrow-minded, rustic form of Islam that sees many other Muslims as infidels. A prime tenet of Wahabism, like medieval Catholicism or communism, is total loyalty to one’s rulers. So the Wahabi establishment will keep supporting the Saudis who, in turn, will keep enforcing the Wahabi’s social strictures and obscurantism.

The Saudi royal family and the most powerful elements of the US Republican Party are joined at the hip. A thick network of hugely lucrative business partnerships ties the Bush family and Washington’s powerful Carlyle Group to the Saudi royals.

Princes Turki and Bandar have worked hand in glove with CIA for decades. Turki was the liason between the Saudis and Osama bin Laden during the 1980’s Afghan War. The Saudis, at Washington’s behest, fueled Iraq’s aggression against Iran during the same period, to the tune of US $27.5 billion, and Saddam’s abortive nuclear program.

The Saudis keep $100 billion dollars in US banks with Republican connections. Saudi’s military keeps buying advanced arms it can’t use but which keep arms plants humming in politically important American states. Saudi bases still quietly serve the Pentagon’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Saudi money continues to pour by devious routes into some Republican campaign coffers.

The old deal will continue: the royals sell oil cheap to the west in exchange for US protection. US domination of Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading oil producer, means it controls the economies of Europe, Japan and, to a growing extent, China and India. So Saudi is about much more than just oil. It’s all about raw geopolitical power.

But a note of caution to the wildly spending Saudi, who have been running government deficits for years. Back in 1974, the last really respected Saudi ruler, King Faisal, warned that the way the royals were squandering the nation’s oil wealth, the next Saudi generation might be back riding camels.

I like Eric Margolis' comment about Peter Jennings as well:

Jennings had the guts to feature news stores that irritated a lot of viewers and strive to bring out some truth among all the lies fed to Americans about the Mideast. He stood out from today’s Soviet-style `journalists’ in America who parrot back government PR releases. Rest in peace, Peter.

PeakOil.com has a snippet from ENN about solar power being "too hot" - there is a worldwide shortage of solar panels. They talk about rising prices but the example mentioned doesn't seem particularly unreasonable, especially when compared to oil and gas prices.

You can look but you can't buy.

That was the word Friday from the solar energy corner of the Southwest Sustainability Expo at NAU. A worldwide shortage of solar panels has put most local projects on hold. "They're shipping them to Germany," Lauzon said. "Germany's just going real big on solar. I hear they make four times what they make if they sell them over there."

A 120-watt Kyocera photovoltaic module (solar panel) from Japan that was about $400 several years ago now sells on sale for about $550, if you can find one, he added. Other reasons for the backlog of orders include the recent passage in California and other states of generous tax credits for solar energy installation by homeowners.

Wind turbines, however, are not as scarce. "Compared to solar, wind per watt is cheaper than solar, but, of course, you have to have wind and you have to get it above the pines," said John Ervin, another Wind & Sun salesman.

PeakOil.com also has a clip from Montana about efforts there to build a coal gasification plant (which they term "clean coal" for some reason I've never understood - isn't this an oxymoron - or is Governor Schweitzer professed belief that "The coal-conversion process produces no air pollution, uses no water and creates electricity as a byproduct" actually true ?).

The always illuminating Energy Blog had a great and very detailed piece describing the coal liquefaction process recently, which is fairly positive about the process, though not quite as rosy hued as the Guvnor.

Two methods of producing liquid fuels are direct coal liquefaction (DCL) and indirect coal liquefaction (ICL). In DCL the coal is directly contacted with a catalyst at elevated temperatures in the presence of added hydrogen. The ICL process consists to two major steps: 1) gasification to produce a synthesis gas and 2) conversion of the gas to a liquid by synthesis over a catalyst in a Fischer-Tropsch process. Removal of the sulfur from the coal before passing the gas over the catalyst is necessary to prevent "poisoning" of the catalyst. Removal of the CO2 is also desirable to improve synthesis efficiency.

Without mitigation coal liquefaction emits 7-10 times the CO2 of oil production. This deficiency is nearly totally eliminated in the coal gasification projects being demonstrated by DOE. DCL processes are more efficient than ICL processes, 67% vs 55%, but higher quality coal and a more complicated process is required for DCL. Combining coal liquefaction with electricity production leads to a much more efficient process that utilizes some of the heat that would otherwise be wasted.

Back in Australia, uranium exporters all aglow about the agreement with China to commence exports - the Chinese having assured us they've built all the bombs they need already and really will stuff all this uranium into the flock of reactors they have under construction.

Australia will start exporting uranium to China after the Federal Government announced yesterday it would begin negotiating a nuclear co-operation agreement with Beijing. The announcement, by the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, came after months of sensitive negotiations and lobbying from China, which wants to expand its civilian nuclear program as a way to deal with its increasing energy needs and pollution problems. Mr Downer said the nuclear agreement would contain safeguards to ensure the uranium was used "exclusively for peaceful purposes".

Australia has 39 per cent of the world's uranium resources, and has 19 nuclear agreements with countries including the US, Britain, France, Japan, Russia, the Philippines and Egypt. The Minerals Council of Australia welcomed the Government's announcement, saying it was "clear that nuclear power will play an increasingly important role in China's energy mix over the next two decades" and that "Australia certainly has the capacity to supply a growing Chinese market for uranium".

Mike Whitney at ICH wonders if the rest of us will be glowing too if there is an attack on Iran.

If Iran retaliates against Israel or the US in Iraq, then both nations will proceed with a plan that is already in place to destroy all of Iran's biological, chemical and conventional weapons sites. In fact, this is the ultimate US strategy anyway; not the elimination of the "imaginary" nuclear weapons facilities. Both the US and Israel want to "de-fang" the Mullah-regime so that they can control critical resources and eliminate the possibility of a regional rival in the future.

In the short term, however, the plan is fraught with difficulties. At present, there is no wiggle room in the world's oil supply for massive disruptions and most experts are predicting shortages in the 4th quarter of this year. If the administration's war on Iran goes forward we will see a shock to the world's oil supplies and economies that could be catastrophic. That being the case, a report that was leaked last week that Dick Cheney had STRATCOM (Strategic Command) draw up "contingency plans for a tactical nuclear war against Iran", is probably a bit of brinksmanship intended to dissuade Iran from striking back and escalating the conflict.

It makes no difference. If Iran is attacked they will retaliate; that much is certain.

It is always the mistake of extremists to misjudge the behavior of reasonable men; just as it is always the mistake of reasonable men to mistake the behavior of extremists.

He doesn't mention what happens when extremists analyse the bahaviour of other extremists...

PeakOil.com has a link to an article about another meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which likens this group to a revival of the Warsaw Pact. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the Iranians were to join them at some point in the future.

Finally, I haven't seen much news from Venezuela lately - either I haven't been paying attention or its gone quiet. A few snippets I noticed today were from the Narcosphere and NarcoNews, which seem (to my relatively ignorant mind) to straddle the border of left wing politics and conspiracy theories - but I guess they could be right about the purpose of "The War On Drugs" being every bit as machiavellian as "The War On Terror". Apparently the US is threatening to pull Venezuela's "Drug War Certification", which has only happened to 2 other countries, one being Panama just before it was invaded. Meanwhile Hugo Chávez is accusing the DEA of "Supporting Narco-Trafficking" in Venezuela.

I guess if World War III does break out Venezuela will be the second front that is opened up.