This brochure about emergency preparation came together with the utilities bill (said my sister) and that sounds a strange warning….hmm The coming Thursday tv series “without warning?” is about terrorist attacking our power plant…causing major black out? Does this brochure spell something we don’t know? hmmm Let’s hope we don’t have such incident soon but it’s better safe then sorry right!? Let’s prepare for any emergency Ladies and Gentlemen.

According to Boston.com :

Taking a page from US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2000 campaign “listening tour” across New York, Shell Oil Co. has launched a two-year, 50-city tour by senior executives aimed at improving communications — and defusing hostility to Big Oil and its recent record-breaking profits.

Shell, which recently bought Texaco stations across Massachusetts, controls about 10 percent of the Bay State gasoline market. Shell president John Hofmeister came through Cambridge this week and spoke with the Globe’s Peter J. Howe before a speech at Harvard Business School.

Q Where’s the price of gasoline headed?

A One thing we can say is, it’s likely to change, one way or the other. But the industry’s learned a hard lesson: We don’t get into these predictions. We’d be wrong. We’ve been wrong in this business many times. Many of us thought back in 1998 and 1999 that under-$10-a-barrel oil was here to stay. Boy, were we dead wrong.

One thing I can say, though, is that coming into this season, after last year’s hurricanes, we planned for more inventory to cope with the possibility of plant shutdowns. We also incentivized dealers to keep their tanks full. As a consequence, we have a short-term surplus of supply, which is affecting prices.

Q How much longer can that excess supply keep dampening prices?

A We’re pretty much getting to the end of it and back to more of a living hand-to-mouth situation in terms of supply. When you get to a hand-to-mouth situation, you can see a lot more volatility in prices. Demand is higher than a year ago, and once that’s worked off, we could see the same supply-demand tensions we saw a year ago.

Q Are higher gas prices curbing long-term demand?

A What we see over the next 20 years is demand rising from 85 million barrels a day to around 120 million barrels. Shell is spending $19 billion this year and $21 billion next year to get more oil and gas.

Today 4.5 percent of the world’s people, who live in this country, use 25 percent of the oil supply. If the rest of the world wants that kind of well-being , that’s going to put tremendous pressure on supply.

Q Isn’t the world running out of oil?

A We’re going to have an extraordinary challenge meeting the demand of the future if we don’t drill somewhere. I agree with the premise that we’ve moved on from the easy oil environment. We’ve moved on to simply more technically challenging basins and more harsh climactic conditions. That can mean more outer continental shelf drilling. We’re also looking at sources like the oil sands in western Canada or shale in Colorado or what they call heavy oil in Venezuela. These are trillion-barrel reserves. We look at the unconventional sources as an opportunity.

Q Shell’s also very active in liquefied natural gas projects and proposing an LNG facility 11 miles off Long Island. How do you overcome the widespread opposition to LNG?

A I know that LNG sites are controversial, but they’ve existed safely around the world for 40 years. There are countries like Japan and Korea that are entirely dependent on LNG for their gas supply. Given the demand curve for the future, and what we know about the availability of supply , supply will not keep up with demand for natural gas in the future. What we see as the ideal is that by about 2020, 20 percent of the US gas supply would come through LNG. That compares to about 2 or 3 percent now.

- What Shell Executive sees can be important indication the end of the low oil prices…due to over supply.

According to PeakOil -> euractiv

Ulf Bossel of the European Fuel Cell Forum, an organisation that supports technical and scientific advances on fuel cells, challenges what he calls ‘the hydrogen illusion‘.

“Hydrogen is clean only if it is made from renewable electricity,” says Bossel. But he adds that if a hydrogen-based economy becomes a reality, it will be characterised by a massive increase in demand for electric power, which he says is unlikely to be met by renewables alone.

According to Bossel, a substantial part of the increased demand for power will therefore need to come from coal-fired or nuclear power plants with all the known consequences for the environment and for safety.

- See more at euractiv

I totally agree with the article…there goes another wet dream… Well…Hydrogen must be created by electrolysis and if the electricity used can be stored and use directly might over shadow hydrogen totally! haha.. We just need a better battery storage…that’s all.

According to PeakOil -> Planetark :

MILAN – The installed capacity of photovoltaic systems that turn sunlight into power will rise 50 percent to some 60 megawatts in Italy in 2006 and will grow fast due to new incentives, an energy analyst said on Thursday.

“This year the new capacity will be 20 MW. It’s a four-fold increase from last year’s (new capacity of) 5 MW,” Gianni Silvestrini, energy adviser to Italy’s Economic Development Minister Pierluigi Bersani, told a photovoltaic conference. “There is room for four or five-fold increases in the next few years,” Silvestrini said.

Sun-washed Italy, which lags behind Europe’s solar energy leader Germany, installed only 5 MW of photovoltaic power generation last year, raising the total capacity to some 40 MW, while Germany built 603 MW of new capacity.

Italy would install 80-100 MW of photovoltaic systems in 2007 and 100-120 MW in 2008 as new tariff subsidies, aimed at boosting this segment of renewable energy, and new energy-savings rules for buildings were due to kick in next year, Silvestrini told Reuters on the conference margins.

- Ok, Italy had join the SOLAR Family… Where are ours?? I want SOLAR Power Plant in our offshore island! Anyone please slap those oil companies a few tight ones to wake them up….

According to Peak Oil -> Bloomberg :

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) — Japan, dependent on imports for 99 percent of its oil and gas, may turn to Iraq and Indonesia after it lost control of Iran’s biggest untapped field.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government promised this week to invest in Iraq’s shattered energy industry in the hope that Japan will be able to tap the world’s third-largest oil reserves. State-controlled Inpex Holdings Inc. may spend $4.2 billion to develop the Abadi gas field off Indonesia.

Iran’s decision to strip Inpex of its majority holding in the Azedegan field has jeopardized plans to acquire overseas assets capable of meeting 40 percent of Japan’s oil demand within 25 years. The country is competing for reserves with China and India as they try to meet soaring energy demand, bidding up the cost of assets.

“The fields that Japanese companies are currently invested in won’t meet the target,” said Lalita Gupta, an oil analyst at Morgan Stanley in Tokyo. “It’s not enough to invest in the fields, just thinking about the 40 percent target and overpaying for assets, they must have shareholder value.”

Japan, the world’s largest oil importer after the U.S, needs to strengthen ties with oil-producing nations and give financial aid to Japanese explorers for developing overseas projects, the Trade Ministry’s draft proposal on energy policy said on May 29.

Libya, Vietnam

Japanese oil and gas companies including Nippon Oil Corp. hold licenses to explore and develop deposits in countries including the U.S., Libya, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea and Canada.

Japan’s government is lending Iraq $3.5 billion to finance three projects in southern Iraq aimed at helping the conflict- stricken country boost exports.

The yen-denominated loan will finance the redevelopment and upgrade of a refinery in Basra, improvements to oil export infrastructure and a project to produce liquefied petroleum gas, Shin Hosaka, director of the oil and gas division at the Trade Ministry, told reporters in Tokyo on Oct. 24.

“We don’t want to miss a boat that leads to vast oil reserves in Iraq,” Hosaka said. “The next promising source of oil is Iraq.”

AOC Holdings Inc., a Japanese oil explorer and refiner, said on June 2 it had proposed a $3 billion plan to Iraq to upgrade war-torn oil export terminals. Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., the country’s second-biggest oil explorer, has a contract with Iraq’s oil ministry to assess four oilfields.

Peak Production

Oil production in Iraq peaked in December 1979 at 3.7 million barrels a day, according to the U.S. Energy Department. Iraq is producing almost 2.5 million barrels a day, Oil Minister, Hussain al- Shahristani said this week. That’s close to output before the March 2003 invasion by a U.S.-led coalition.

Iraq, where insurgents have attacked pipelines and oil export terminals, plans to boost production to 4.5 million barrels a day by 2010, he said in Tokyo this week.

Inpex plans to drill four appraisal wells at the Abadi natural gas field next year, aiming to start production in 2015. Inpex is studying processing options including turning the Indonesian field’s output into liquefied natural gas, spokesman Kazuya Honda said on Oct. 18.

The Abadi field, situated in the Timor Sea, may hold between 7 trillion and 10 trillion cubic feet of gas, Andrew Andrejewskis, Australia’s Northern Territory’s director of petroleum developments, said last year. Japan consumed 2.86 trillion cubic feet of gas in 2006, according to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy.

Sakhalin Threat

Developing Abadi including turning the field’s gas into LNG may cost 500 billion yen ($4.2 billion) including a liquefaction plant in Australia, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said on Oct. 18.

At the same time, Japan’s largest gas investment to date is under threat. The Royal Dutch Shell Plc-led Sakhalin-2 liquefied natural gas and oil project has been delayed after Russian authorities questioned the development’s cost increase to $20 billion and its environmental impact.

Shell, based in The Hague, owns 55 percent of the Sakhalin- project, the largest foreign investment in Russia. Japanese trading company Mitsui & Co. holds 25 percent. Mitsubishi Corp., Japan’s biggest trading company, owns 20 percent of the venture. OAO Gazprom is in talks with Shell and the two Japanese companies about acquiring a stake in the project.

On Oct. 8, Iran slashed Inpex Holdings Inc.’s stakes in Azadegan oilfield to 10 percent from 75 percent because the Japanese company delayed developing the field. Inpex, which hadn’t managed to arrange financing for the project, blamed uncleared minefields in the area.

Inpex’s loss of operator rights at Azadegan may not be bad for shareholders, Morgan Stanley’s Gupta said. The terms governing the development of the oilfield wasn’t economically attractive, she said.

“Its important for companies to think of net profit, shareholder value and quality of assets,” she said.

- Well, my gut tells me that Iraq is practically impossible to penetrate if the country is still in a mist of civil chaos and Indonesia might not have the capacity to increase exports to Japan…so… Japan suffer the same fate as Korea as the shortage for Natural Gas will cripple them eventually….or will they turn to Nuclear Power instead? Hmmmmmm So they are not desperate after all??? Next, Nuclear debate on the agenda for Japan! ^_^

According to Gulf Times :
LONDON: Europe this winter looks likely to escape a repeat of last January’s gas crisis but pipeline bottlenecks and a shortage of storage sites could threaten supplies when cold weather forces up demand.

Mainland Europe ran short of gas during a cold spell at the turn of the year when imports from Russia fell as Moscow halted supplies to transit market Ukraine because of a price dispute.

“The risks are lower than last winter,” Mark Spelman, head of energy at consultants Accenture said.

“But it is not a foregone conclusion that there will be no disruptions because some of the underlying risks have not gone away; in particular there is still a lack of storage and the need to improve cross border interconnections.”

About 80% of Russian exports to Europe is pumped via Ukraine, with the rest going through Belarus. Russia supplies a quarter of Europe’s gas.

Russia this week struck a new gas deal with Ukraine, easing European concerns about winter supply. During January’s crisis Ukraine used gas that was meant to be pumped to Europe, Russia said.

Moscow remains at loggerheads with Belarus over oil and gas issues but Europe-based analysts doubt that Russia would let the row threaten supplies to Europe and sour relations with Germany and other big consumers.

“Russia and Germany have been working closely on energy security. With Germany taking the Presidency of the EU and G8 in January, there is a strong mutual interest in not rocking the boat,” Spelman said.

“The Russians will also be keen to ensure there are no unnecessary political waves next year ahead of the presidential elections in 2008,” he added.

Russian gas specialist Jonathan Stern at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies also doubts that Moscow would let its disputes with Belarus boil over into a gas blockade.

“Belarus is potentially problematic but would the Russians want to provoke a situation given what happened last winter? I think probably not,” Stern said.

Belarus has threatened to sever all relations with Russia if Moscow forces through sharp price increases.

Russia’s gas export monopoly Gazprom has threatened to quadruple gas prices for Belarus from next year. Gazprom has said it will impose higher prices if Belarus does not cede control of its gas pipeline network.

Europe’s overall supply situation is improving on the back of growing imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from North Africa and the Middle East, and pipeline gas from Norway which should help utilities avoid a supply crunch this winter.

“Suppliers know the spotlight is on them so they’ll probably be working extra hard to avoid last year’s problems,” Chris Le Fevre of Le Fevre Consulting Ltd said.

Italy, which had to tap emergency gas stocks when Russian supplies fell during January’s cold spell, has used LNG to raise its expanding stores ahead of the winter, analysts say.

Britain, Europe’s biggest gas market, is boosting imports to counter a drop in output from ageing North Sea fields.

But Structural weaknesses in the wider European gas network have not been addressed since January’s crisis.

One conclusion from the post mortem following January’s Russian gas crisis was that the situation was made worse by bottlenecks on certain borders.

Britain’s reliance on one large storage site was exposed last winter when the facility had to close during a cold snap because of a platform explosion and fire. The closure caused shortages and helped force up energy bills.

“(The UK’s) infrastructure is getting old and unreliable, nobody wants to talk about that,” Stern said.

- There are simply too many unknowns in the equation in Russian Natural Gas supply…the only known is they are the largest Oil Exporting countries higher then Saudi… (That means they are being exploited the most I guess…) Let’s pray hard that the Europe will not freeze this coming January!

According to Asia Times Online : 

TOKYO – The imbroglio over the huge Sakhalin-2 oil-and-gas project in Russia’s Far East involving two Japanese firms has cast a cloud over resource-poor Japan’s new national energy strategy. It has also served as a fresh reminder that Japan’s economic power seems to have lost much of its luster, at least in the eyes of the Russians.

Last month, the Russian Natural Resources Ministry froze a key environmental permit for the project off the coast of Sakhalin Island, citing problems with conservation. The decision drew immediate protests from Japan and the European Union. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was still his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi’s chief cabinet secretary, said a major delay to Sakhalin-2 could hurt diplomatic relations.

Japan’s ambassador to Moscow, Yasuo Saito, was blunter. He criticized the “unilateral” Russian decision as “lacking transparency“. The British government said it was “deeply concerned“. 

The project is operated by an international consortium called Sakhalin Energy, in which Royal Dutch Shell has a 55% stake. Japanese trading firms Mitsui and Co and Mitsubishi Corp hold shares of 25% and 20%, respectively.

Natural gas taken from two fields off the northeast coast of the island will be transported through an 800-kilometer pipeline to Prigorodnoye, in the island’s southernmost part, where it will be liquefied and shipped to Japan, South Korea and the United States.

Japan is the world’s largest LNG importer, purchasing 58 million tons of LNG from abroad in 2005, of which 25% was from Indonesia. Most of Indonesia’s long-term LNG supply contracts with East Asian countries, such as Japan, China, Taiwan and South Korea, start expiring from 2010. Indonesia is poised to cut in half its Japan-bound exports of gas when long-term contracts expire in 2010 to boost the availability of natural gas for domestic industries amid decreasing natural-gas production at home. 

If imports from Sakhalin-2 are delayed for an extended period, affected Japanese companies would need to find alternative suppliers. It remains to be seen, however, whether Japan will be able to secure the same volume it has been importing up until now, as countries with large energy demands, such as China and India, are increasing their imports of LNG. In 2010, China and India are expected to need an additional 5 million tons and 8 million tons, respectively, compared with current levels.

The island of Sakhalin also started producing and exporting crude oil in 1999, with exports to Japan beginning in 2001. In 2005, the area provided Japan with 10.89 million barrels, accounting for about 1% of the country’s crude-oil imports. The new pipeline, scheduled to start operating in late 2007, will allow crude oil to be exported year-around, instead of only in summer at present.

Headwinds against Japan’s energy security
The Sakhalin issue has come at an awkward time for Japan, which adopted this year the “New National Energy Strategy”. The new strategy reflects growing Japanese concerns about energy security in the medium and long terms amid high oil prices and an intensifying global rush for oil, gas and other resources, led by China and India.

But this 40% target for “Hinomaru oil” has become even more difficult to achieve following Japan’s recent agreement to give up its controlling interest in the $2 billion development of Iran’s massive Azadegan oilfield amid tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program. 

There is growing international distrust toward Moscow, particularly with regard to energy security. At this July’s Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg, where energy security was high on the agenda, Putin failed to dispel the distrust. In January, Russia temporarily stopped gas supplies to Ukraine in a price dispute. All of this has stirred considerable alarm among European countries that depend heavily on oil and natural gas supplied by Russia.

Prime Minister Fradkov is expected to visit Tokyo by the end of the year. Topping his agenda will be energy issues, including Sakhalin-2 and the Pacific-route oil pipeline. Fradkov’s Japan visit will be preceded by a meeting of the trade and economic committee between the two governments, co-chaired by Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso and Russian Energy and Industry Minister Viktor Khristenko. 

See more at  Asia Times Online

- Well, the whole article is about Russian instability of Energy Supplies and how Japan will be in trouble very soon by 2010 when Japan’s LNG  contract with Indonesia will be HALVED. Russian “roulette” had spooked the Japanese… Are Russian waiting for something like North Korea issue to settle before agreeing to Japan pipeline construction? The pipeline construction will eventually send LNG to Japan, South Korea and USA…does this have an impact? Or does CHINA and INDIA might demand more from the Russia natural gas resources. How about the European countries like Ukraine which temporally got their gas shut off and left to freeze?

I wonder what will Russia do when everyone is bidding for it’s natural gas and everyone claim to have the right to buy it… I guess it’s hard for Moscow to decide right? Previously, Russia had also say they might have a Natural Gas Crisis in 2 years?  Now, I guess Singapore might have less hope in bidding higher then China or India or Japan? Hmmm