Syria's oil output forecast to fall by more than half

Oil production in Syria is forecast to drop 360,000 barrels per day next year, Oil Minister Sufian Al-Allaw said on Sunday, Allaw said in a statement that the output of the crude peaked in 1995 and 1996, indicating that the output has recently dropped by 385,000 bpd recently.

UAE to cut oil output by 600,000 bpd in November

'A scheduled essential maintenance programme will take place in November 2007 at three offshore fields -- Upper Zakum, Lower Zakum and Umm Shaif. During the maintenance period, production will be reduced by approximately 600,000 bpd,' ADNOC said in a statement.

It did not specify how long the work will last but said it had taken measures to meet its commitments.

More petrol for Iranians

Motorists in Iran are to be allowed to buy an extra one-off allocation of 100 litres of petrol, in addition to their regular monthly ration of 100 litres, reported Reuters.

China potential oil reserve 65 bln tons; 39% proven - report

China's oil reserve potential stands at more than 65 bln tons, of which only 39 pct has been proven, Xinhua news agency reported, citing Wang Tao, director of the China Commission of the World Petroleum Congress.

Wang said that China's natural gas reserve potential stands at 25 trln cubic meters, with just 24.6 of them affirmed.

Foreign companies keen to tap China's coal deposits

Foreign companies that own clean coal technologies and work with their Chinese counterparts to tap China's coal reserves, one of the world's largest, may get good returns as China is seeking to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and ease its increasing thirst for oil.

Greenspan Re-writes the History of the Invasion of Iraq

"That's silly," former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld answered a member of the American media at a news conference at the Pentagon before the war, at the beginning of 2003. The reporter had asked Rumsfeld if the reason for the war against Iraq was US control over oil.

However, it now appears that the issue wasn't that silly, as Rumsfeld claimed at the time.

Who Said Marx Wasn't Green?

First off, with lucid logic and prosaic prose, Foster shows why and how the very nature of capitalism, the "genetic code" of capitalism, is the source and the cause of our current predicament and, most importantly, that no amount of "tinkering" with the system will solve things and, in fact, "tinkering" will, in all likelihood, increase the speed of the slide toward catastrophe through the simple expedient of delaying dealing with the inevitable consequences of an economy that can only survive by expanding its markets or, as it's euphemistically known, "growth."

A new slide into oily stagflation

THIS weekend marks the 34th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur war. In case you have forgotten, it triggered the world's first OPEC oil price shock and the awful era of stagflation.

And oil prices are at it again.

Energy pinch can be good news

One of the biggest question marks facing the global economy today is how we can increase energy supplies by the additional 50 per cent forecast to be needed in the next 25 years and at the same time drastically lower our dependency on hydrocarbons, which currently provide 80 per cent of the world's energy needs.

Opec intervention seen as fading force

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) has stepped in with 500,000 extra barrels of oil a day to calm global markets but the cartel may not have the power it used to have to provide respite for investors.

Mexico becoming one of world's more dangerous countries

"These people that are placing these devices know something about the flow of the oil and gas," said one American official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. "They didn't just place it randomly in the middle of the valve system."

20,000 March Against Myanmar Government

About 20,000 people led by Buddhist monks demonstrated against Myanmar's military junta Sunday, in what has quickly become the largest anti-government demonstrations since the failed democratic uprising in 1988.

IQPC to host Security for Energy Infrastructure in the Middle East event

The security risks faced by the oil and gas industry are diverse and come in many forms. Different parts of the world are beset by geopolitical circumstances that can leave local oil and gas operations in the line of fire for those wishing to compromise operational integrity for reasons of financial gain or simply social and political instability.

The fees for the bus go up and up

Parents throughout the northwest suburbs are reeling from annual bus fees as local districts try to make their services self-sustaining. Mounting fees have fueled calls for the state to support school transportation and kindled concerns about tailpipe pollution from a crush of parents dropping off children at school.

Global Swarming: Is it time for Americans to start cutting our baby emissions?

We're obsessed with our green lifestyles—eating local, driving hybrids, paying off our excess carbon-dioxide emissions. From that perspective, voluntary familial extinction (or at least reduction) might not be such a bad idea. If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, cutting back on kids is the best choice you can possibly make.

Falling German Birthrate Dispels Baby Miracle Myth

A United Nations report this year called this global aging “a process without parallel in the history of humanity” and predicted that people older than 60 would outnumber those under 15 for the first time in 2047.

They’re Electric, but Can They Be Fantastic?

Experts say the cars’ arrival hinges on two make-or-break issues:

Developing safe, affordable lithium-ion batteries lasting 100,000 miles.

Overcoming a psychological barrier among people who can imagine the benefits — but who can also see themselves stranded with a dead battery and no place or time to recharge.

A Busy City Street Makes Room for Bikes

The city is planning to remake seven blocks of Ninth Avenue in Chelsea into what officials are billing enthusiastically, perhaps a bit hyperbolically, as the street of the future.

The most unusual aspect of the design, which will run from 16th Street to 23rd Street, is that it uses a lane of parked cars to protect cyclists from other traffic.

A Chicken on Every Plot, a Coop in Every Backyard

City dwellers who raise chickens are springing up around the country. Groups organized on the Internet in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, Tex., are host to chicken-centric social events, and there are dozens of books — a whole new form of chick lit — on raising chickens, including Barbara Kilarski’s “Keep Chickens! Tending Small Flocks in Cities, Suburbs and Other Small Spaces,” and related titles like “Anyone Can Build a Tub-Style Mechanical Chicken Plucker,” by Herrick Kimball.

Winds of change are blowing in northwest Missouri

The Bluegrass Ridge farm is the first commercial wind project to open in Missouri. The wind farm could produce about 57 megawatt hours of energy — enough electricity to power 34,000 homes.

The Dutch government takes a stand -- against cars, for bikes

The Dutch government has taken a trend to promote eco-friendly cities a step further than its European neighbors by announcing firm measures to discourage cars and driving.

The rising cost of nature

A fundamental global trend nowadays is growing natural resource scarcity. Oil and natural gas prices have soared in recent years. This past year, food prices have also skyrocketed, causing hardships among the poor and large shifts in income between countries and between rural and urban areas.

The most basic reason for the rise in natural resource prices is strong growth, especially in China and India, which is hitting against the physical limits of land, timber, oil and gas reserves, and water supplies. Thus, wherever nature’s goods and services are traded in markets (as with energy and food), prices are rising. When they are not traded in markets (as with clean air), the result is pollution and depletion rather than higher prices.

Agriculture In A Post-Oil Economy

To what extent could food be produced in a world without fossil fuels? In the year 2000, humanity consumed about 30 billion barrels of oil, but the supply is starting to run out; without oil and natural gas, there will be no fuel, no asphalt, no plastics, no chemical fertilizer. Most people in modern industrial civilization live on food that was bought from a local supermarket, but such food will not always be available. Agriculture in the future will be largely a "family affair": without motorized vehicles, food will have to be produced not far from where it was consumed. But what crops should be grown? How much land would be needed? Where could people be supported by such methods of agriculture?

Australia: Group has plan if oil crisis starts to bite here

“The peak oil planning came out of oil shocks in the 1970s (when the cost of oil quadrupled),” said Ms Wallace, who has had a strong interest in peak oil since completing a permaculture course last year.

“It is all about what to do when we run out of energy.”

Access to Oil Is Bedrock of Our Middle East Policy

Should the United States invade a foreign country for its oil?

If that question were posed in a poll, the vast majority of Americans would no doubt answer with a resounding "no." We're the good guys in the world, spreading democracy, freeing the oppressed, opposing tyrants. We wouldn't invade a sovereign country strictly out of a selfish lust for its resources, would we?

Iran oil bourse 'won't undermine US instruments'

Plans for a commodity exchange for oil trading in Iran won't undermine the dollar’s supremacy in the oil markets, its architect says.

US praises deal on cutting threats to ozone

The United States on Saturday hailed an international agreement to ban chemicals threatening the ozone, saying it would bolster efforts to combat global warming.