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Politics : THE VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (5057)	12/30/2003 12:17:55 AM
From: calgal	Respond to of 6358

The U.S. natural gas crunch By Idriss Jazairy In 2000, I raised with the Department of Energy the possibility of restoring Algeria's position of the late 1970s as the leading supplier of baseload liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the United States. Four terminals had indeed been built at the time on the Eastern seaboard specifically to regasify the Algerian fuel. Then the U.S. comparator natural gas prices ceased to be cost-based, as deregulation opened the way to competition from Canadian piped gas. The floor dropped out of the LNG market. The terminals had to be mothballed and U.S. LNG importing firms filed for bankruptcy. But by 2000, hemispheric sources of piped natural gas were leveling off, while consumption was soaring (U.S. LNG imports later doubled between 2002 and 2003). However, I was told at the time that, apart from the kind of gas peak-shaving supplies of which Algeria had been the main provider, hemispheric self-sufficiency would continue to prevail. The 1999 report of the Natural Petroleum Council had said so. Washington is now abuzz with experts predicting that the United States could be importing annually within two decades as much LNG as the combined imports of the whole world today. Shortsightedness in anticipating U.S. LNG needs is reminiscent of that concerning world oil projections in the 1970s. Hopefully, the current enthusiastic response, belated as it is, will not lead to another gas bubble that would undermine, when it bursts, the foundation of the nascent international partnership. And this foundation is trust. Building trust is what brought together 14 cabinet ministers and 23 delegations and major corporations from across the world at the Washington LNG Summit hosted by Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham on Dec. 17-18. The summit noted that there is plenty of LNG on the world market, close by in the Atlantic Basin region (including Algeria) and farther afield, offering a new opportunity to develop innovative international partnerships on the wings of our growing interdependence. The price of natural gas is now about $7 per million BTU, in energy terms the equivalent of a barrel of oil at $42. For oil this would have caused an outcry against OPEC. But there is no OPEC to blame in this case. Admittedly, market inefficiencies are the culprits and they do not make news. They are caused by long delays for federal regulatory approval, as in the case of new terminals. They result also from the limited availability of spot loads of LNG, as these are less than 10 percent of overall trade. Unlike oil, LNG trade is still governed by long-term contracts: Because of the huge upfront investments required, few resource providers are prepared to commit tens of billions of dollar unless they anticipate a fair chance of recovering their costs. Both the industry and Energy Minister Chakib Khelil of Algeria made this point at the summit. Local communities may also act to restrain market forces. This may occur in exporting countries, as in Bolivia, where the government was ousted over an LNG export deal. It can also occur in importing countries like the United States, where people feel apprehensive about unfamiliar safety and security risks. The summit recognized that we can address these market inefficiencies cooperatively. The federal regulatory approval period for new terminals may be shortened from three years to one year. LNG markets can be made less rigid through partnerships between resource holders and the U.S. gas industry, spanning the value chain from production to liquefaction, transport, regasification and distribution. The emergence of a real-world market for LNG can help. As for the safety concerns of local communities, there needs to be more awareness promotion on all sides: Japan is entirely dependent on LNG for its gas consumption. It has operated 23 terminals on its limited land mass for several decades without any accident. Mr. Abraham also mentioned that there have been 33,000 LNG carrier voyages covering 60 million miles over a 40-year period without a major accident.Security risks should not give rise to scare-mongering: If a terrorist missile hit a methane tanker bound for Cove Point, Md., in the Chesapeake Bay, the gas would implode rather than explode. It would not effect surrounding communities. Nor would the LNG tanker's draw allow its diversion by a terrorist to a shallow canal leading to the nuclear power plant in the bay. Time remains of the essence. Since mid-2000, 11 ammonia plants have been shut down, causing job losses in the United States. Fertilizer prices have doubled, affecting the viability of U.S. family farms.Meanwhile, a methane tanker smoothly delivered its first load of Algerian LNG to Cove Point on Dec. 6. More than gas, it delivered the reminder that international LNG partnerships can be a win-win situation for all. Idriss Jazairy is the ambassador of Algeria to the United States.

To: calgal who wrote (5057)	12/30/2003 12:18:04 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6358

2003: The Rich Got Richer . . . . . . and so did everyone else. by Irwin M. Stelzer 12/30/2003 12:00:00 AM MOST ANALYSTS expected this year to end with a whimper. Instead, it is ending with a bang, and not only because Saddam Hussein was extracted from his rat hole. The economy is roaring ahead at a pace that so amazes observers they are guessing it will slow a bit in the new year. That would still mean an economy growing fast enough to satisfy those in charge of George W. Bush's reelection campaign. Big-company share prices rose by more than 20 percent, and the high-tech and small-business sectors soared at twice that rate. Productivity is scaling new heights, profits are up, incomes are rising, inflation is nonexistent, and the dollar is in a so-far agreeable decline, shrinking the trade deficit. The unemployment rate has fallen to the level it averaged in the 1990s, which decade included both boom and bust. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' survey of households shows that over 2 million more Americans are working at year end than were employed at the start of 2003. America's industries and workers produced almost $500 billion more goods and services in 2003 than during the previous year. That means that America added to the size of its economy an amount equal to a Brazil, or an India, or over one-and-a-half Russias. Of the world's ten largest businesses, measured by market capitalization, eight are in the United States (the others are the U.K.'s BP and HSBC Holdings). Americans bought over 16 million cars and light trucks and some 2 million houses in 2003 (estimates for the most recent months, as yet untabulated by government, come from Morgan Stanley), as consumers rewarded Bush for his tax cuts by spending about $3 out of every $4 he refunded to them, thereby putting the economy on course to become a plus in the election that is less than a year away, and finally getting our two lagging indicators--employment and CEO confidence--to turn up. BUT ENOUGH about the year we are about to see off. This last column of 2003 (sighs of relief from readers are not appreciated) is the place to take a longer look at the past performance of the American economy. The American system is deservedly famous for the material benefits it produces, but less well known for the system's ability to distribute those benefits very widely. There is some useful evidence of the ubiquity of progress that has seen, according to some observers, the material well-being of today's secretary exceed that of Queen Victoria. As Gregg Easterbrook, an editor at the New Republic, reports in his new book, "The Progress Paradox," there are at least 200 housing developments built around golf courses, and not all are occupied by the very rich. One such, which includes "a well-reviewed eighteen-hole course reached from the porch door via personal cart . . . [offers] beautiful, well-appointed homes . . . from about $285,000 . . . , within the means of tens of millions of Americans." The list goes on. Almost 15 percent of all homes purchased are for use as second, vacation homes, at which Americans deploy their 3 million all-terrain recreational vehicles (cost: about $5,000 each), or their recreational watercraft, on which they spent an amount greater than the GDP of North Korea. All of this, says Easterbrook, illustrates "the grand increase in living standards for people who aren't rich." Indeed, so widespread is American affluence that "old money"--from the merger boom of the 1980s--is complaining about the crowding of marinas, golf clubs, and ski slopes created by "new money" arrivistes who made their fortunes in the high-tech boom of the 1990s. URL:http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/545jspjt.asp