From Pritchard Capital today:
In a misleading article, Pemex has said it has detected new oil deposits in the Gulf of Mexico with a potential of 54 billion barrels
of oil equivalent, daily El Universal reported on Monday. The new finds, located mainly in deep waters that Pemex will need large
investments and technology-sharing agreements to access, and could potentially double Mexico's total reserves to 102 billion
boe from 48 billion at present. "This will put us on a par with reserves levels of the big players like Iraq, United Arab Emirates,
Kuwait or Iran," El Universal quoted Pemex Exploration and Production head Luis Ramirez as saying. "What's more, we would
be in a position to reach production levels like those of Saudia Arabia, which produces 7.5 million barrels per day, or Russia,
which produces 7.4 million." Ramirez said that, following three years of exploration at a cost of $4.55 billion, Pemex had mapped
seven new offshore blocks where it expects to extract both oil and natural gas. Mexico's 48 billion boe of reserves includes
possible, probable and proven reserves. Proven reserves are 18.9 billion boe and proven plus probable reserves are 34.9 billion
boe.
Evidence is mounting that China is buying more oil than it consumes, raising fears that oil hoarding may be supporting the
current high price of crude. The signs of aggressive Chinese stockpiling emerge from research by Merrill Lynch, the investment
bank, which suggests that China is importing crude and refined products at twice the rate of growth in actual demand. Rampant
economic growth in the People’s Republic over the past two years has enabled China to overtake Japan this year as the world’s
second largest oil consumer, burning some 6.3 million barrels a day. Projections of the rate of growth in consumption in the
People’s Republic suggest that China’s power generators, road haulers, petrochemical plants and factories will burn an extra
500,000 barrels a day of crude oil this year. But Merrill Lynch’s analysis of implied demand, based on import data in the first and
second quarter of this year, suggests that demand will increase this year by one million barrels a day. More signs of
stockbuilding emerged three months ago when it transpired that India had bought cargoes of 25 million barrels. Data on Chinese
consumption was sparse because the country did not provide oil stocks data, so inventories had to be inferred from import
statistics, he added. Fears about the lack of data has also been highlighted by the International Energy Agency. “People arrive at
Chinese demand by computing derived demand from import and consumption data,” a spokesman said.
A Japanese tax on the carbon content of fossil fuels could lead to a reduction in coal imports of almost 30% by 2010, according
to a new report by ABARE, the Australian government’s economic research bureau. Such an outcome would result in the loss of
45 million tons of cargo for dry bulk shipowners. Japan has been pondering the imposition of a carbon tax as one way of meeting
its Kyoto Protocol target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 94% of their 1990 levels during 2008-12. The report notes
that some areas of the Japanese bureaucracy are discussing the introduction of a carbon tax as early as 2005. ABARE
examines the economic impact of a tax of about $31 a ton of carbon and a tax of about $410 a ton. These two options have been
considered by an expert committee of the Japanese Central Environmental Council. Under a third scenario it also assesses the
introduction by Japan of a domestic emissions trading scheme. Coal is the most severely affected under all three scenarios
because of its higher carbon content. |
