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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: energyplay who wrote (6879)	6/1/2006 5:53:18 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217713

Hello EP, I was thinking the main point worthy of note, when eliminating the piece of political agenda, is that in long term asymmetric competition, sustainable cost matters, especially when debt financing is called for. Chugs, J

To: energyplay who wrote (6879)	6/1/2006 7:47:21 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 217713

Seismic shift in policy on Iran Bush agrees to nuclear talks as his popularity plummets, gas prices rise, Iraq war rages Glenn Kessler, Washington Post Thursday, June 1, 2006 ELMAT: Bush needs to boost popularity. Appeasing Iran and getting positive traction on Iraq will help him. Washington -- The Bush administration's decision to consider sitting down with the Iranian government underscores a central truth of diplomacy today: Nuclear weapons buy leverage. For six years, President Bush and his aides have dismissed the idea of talking with Iran about its nuclear programs, and until last year gave little support to European efforts to restrain Iranian nuclear activity. Attempts by former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, a moderate, to foster a dialogue were rejected, and even back-channel moves failed to gain traction. Now, in perhaps the biggest foreign policy shift of his presidency, Bush has approved the idea of sitting down at the table with the Iranian government -- one headed by a former student radical who denies the Holocaust. Attached to the U.S. offer was a stern condition: a verified suspension of Iran's nuclear enrichment operations. But the offer overturned a long-standing taboo and it came from an administration some of whose officials have made little secret of their desire to overthrow the government in Tehran. The administration made this move at a moment of weakness. ELMAT: The journalist don't know the weakness of Iran!!! Hopefully Iran does well in the world cup, populace relaxes and Ahmadinejad gives some news that he's going to seat with Condi Rice. The president's public opinion ratings are among the lowest ever recorded for a modern president and oil prices have reached record levels, in part because of the confrontation with Iran. The high price of oil in turn has enriched the Iranian treasury. Iran recently announced it had learned how to achieve a key aspect of enriching uranium -- sooner than expected -- raising the stakes in the confrontation. Even so, the lingering fallout from the administration's decision to attack Iraq has made it increasingly difficult to win the support for sanctions on Iran from critical nations such as Russia and China. A key factor in Bush's decision Wednesday is the influence of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who announced the offer in a televised news conference. "We urge Iran to make this choice for peace, to abandon its ambition for nuclear weapons," Rice said. Refusing to do so, she added, "will lead to international isolation and progressively stronger political and economic sanctions." Initial reaction in Tehran was discouraging -- the Iranian news agency called the U.S. offer "a propaganda move" -- but the government had no official reaction. Since becoming secretary of state last year, Rice has worked assiduously to make certain that the United States does not maneuver itself into becoming the world's enemy No. 1, as it did on the Iraq war. When Rice made her first trip overseas as secretary last year, to Europe, she had expected to hear a lot of concern about Iraq. Instead, she later said, she was surprised to learn that the confrontation over Iran's nuclear program was a bigger concern -- and that the United States was considered the problem. She very quickly won Bush's approval for a public shift in policy: active support of the European negotiating track. The support included withdrawing the U.S. objection to Iran's application to the World Trade Organization and allowing Iran the potential to purchase civilian aviation spare parts. At the time, Rice insisted that the decision to support the Europeans did not mean the Americans would join the talks. "We've made very clear that we have a lot of other problems with the Iranians," Rice said when she announced the decision in March 2005. "What we're looking at here is helping the Europeans in their diplomacy, not shifting policy toward Iran." But the Iranians walked away from those talks, and the administration slowly found itself drawn into a different stance as the diplomacy unfolded. Rice needed to win over the Russians and Chinese -- and keep the Europeans in line -- so she quietly dropped the objections to the Iranian desire for nuclear power. Previously, the administration had insisted Iran had no need for nuclear power because of its vast oil and gas reserves. But to placate other nations, U.S. officials retreated from that insistence. "The Iranian people believe they have a right to civil nuclear energy," Rice said Wednesday. "We acknowledge that right." Over the past two months Bush and Rice, along with Vice President Dick Cheney and national security adviser Stephen Hadley, have considered the question of whether the time is right for the United States to sit at the talks. Once Bush received assurances earlier this week from leaders of China, Russia and other nations that if this offer was rejected they would accept a harder line against Iran, U.S. officials decided to go forward with the plan. Rice said Wednesday that she advocated this decision in part because of echoes of the concerns that she heard on her first trip -- that the United States was not serious about resolving this issue with diplomacy. "This is the last excuse, in some sense," she said. "There have been those who have said, 'Well, if only the negotiations had the potential for the United States to be a part of them, perhaps then Iran would respond.' '' Conservatives in the administration have chafed at the shifts, suggesting it shows weakness on the part of the United States because Iran apparently has been able to make significant progress in nuclear energy -- with little apparent consequence. "If this is what it takes to get Russia and China to join in sanctions, so be it," one administration skeptic said. "But I am most concerned that we will end up renegotiating with ourselves again." Chronicle news services contributed to this report.

To: energyplay who wrote (6879)	6/1/2006 8:10:42 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217713

Iran desperate to avoid UN sanctions over its nuclear program. Iran’s `economic paradox:’ Oil everywhere, but not enough to fill gas tanks (AP) 1 June 2006 khaleejtimes.com. TEHERAN, Iran - Iran is flush with huge oil reserves and cash, but - ironically - a refinery shortage leaves it heavily dependent on imported gasoline and diesel to keeps its cars and trucks rolling. That’s one reason the country - already beset with serious economic troubles - is desperate to avoid UN sanctions over its nuclear program. “Oil is where Iran is most vulnerable,” said Behzad Nabavi, a former parliament member who also headed a state-directed oil company, Petropars. “It’s one of the great economic paradoxes.” Concern over fuel supplies has become so serious that energy planners are considering a highly unpopular two-tier pricing system. The plan would limit the amount of gasoline motorists can buy at the state subsidized price of about 9 US cents a liter (32 US cents a gallon) and establish a still-unspecified market price for purchases above that amount. Planners believe that would help offset the cost of imports and curb rising consumption. Even a moderate drop in gasoline or diesel imports as a result of sanctions would be a punishing blow for an economy with many soft spots - double digit inflation, chronic unemployment and cumbersome state controls among them. One of the possible sanctions under consideration Thursday at a Vienna, Austria, meeting of the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany will be an embargo on exporting refined petroleum products to Iran. After a flurry of telephone diplomacy, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced Wednesday that the Americans would be ready to join in talks with Iran over the nuclear dispute. Rice will attend the Vienna meeting Thursday. Iran has no shortage of oil in the ground or cash in hand. Its oil reserves are estimated at second only to Saudi Arabia’s, and Iran is OPEC’s fourth-biggest producer of crude. Rising prices - now hovering around US$70 a barrel - pushed Iran’s special petrodollar fund to a record US$24 billion earlier this year. What Iran lacks, however, are sufficient refineries to keep pace with its soaring thirst for fuel. Iran is almost fully dependent on trucks to move goods. The number of cars is rising each year as drivers from the baby-boom decade after the 1979 Islamic Revolution take the wheel. Iran imports more than 40 percent of its gasoline and diesel needs. It comes mostly from the Middle East but also from as far away as Venezuela. Closing the import tap could force Iran to either impose rationing - as it did during the 1980-88 war with Iraq - or raise prices and risk the backlash from a public accustomed to paying more for bottled water than gasoline. Making up the refinery shortage would take years, meaning Iran would have no alternative fuel supplies if cut by UN sanctions. The United States and its European allies want sanctions imposed if Iran refuses to give up its uranium enrichment program which is feared to be designed for producing nuclear weapons. “Iran really does not have a lot of room to maneuver on the basic issue of refinery capacity and demand,” said Narsi Ghorban, an independent energy consultant based in Teheran. China and Russia, two of the five permanent UN Security Council, have opposed sanctions which is what - effectively - has pushed diplomats to the Vienna meeting on Thursday to examine a set of economic incentives to sway Iran. Iranian authorities, however, have not budged on their stated determination to continue uranium enrichment and a peaceful nuclear power program as a “national right.” Iran’s troubled economy, however, could make a sweet trade and technology package from abroad sufficiently enticing. The country is suffering from sparse direct foreign investment and a creaky telecommunications system that appears years behind that of hard-charging regional centers such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. “Iran has a vision of being a regional economic and technological powerhouse. They know very well this vision will not be realized ... by domestic companies alone,” said Siamak Namazi, managing director of Atieh Bahar Consulting, a Teheran-based firm providing economic surveys and analysis. “High oil prices mean (Iran) is less reliant on outside financing. They have their own money. But that doesn’t help the technology gap,” he said. Much of the blame, analysts say, rests at the top. At least 80 percent of the economy is under the thumb of the ruling clerics, whose legacy includes hundreds of false starts including unfinished bridges and roads. Official unemployment is about 16 percent, but some analysts place it above 30 percent. An estimated 25 percent of the nation’s 65 million people live below the poverty line, where income cannot keep up with basic needs. Strategic planning - plotted in old Soviet-style, five-year blueprints - is only now starting to warm up to privatization and direct foreign investment. But Iran has proven an unreliable partner in deals with French automaker Renault SA and Turkish mobile-phone network operator Turkcell, for example, with whom big deals fell through because of bureaucratic or security intransigence in Teheran. Many other investors have either pulled out of the Iranian market or put plans on hold on fears the nuclear standoff could lead to UN punishments or possible military action. Yet that hasn’t stopped everyone. Suitors keep knocking at the door for a piece of Iran’s energy wealth, including its vast natural gas reserves. China’s state energy company has signed long-term deals for natural gas. India and Pakistan are negotiating for a possible pipeline from Iran’s natural gas fields. Those deals display the growing disregard for Washington policy. In 1996 the US said it would consider sanctions on any company that invests more than US$20 million annually in the Iranian oil and gas sectors. The threat was never enforced.