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

To: Rolla Coasta who wrote (10951)	11/2/2006 12:46:16 AM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217842

more gold-bullish news, and also Danish Kroner friendly Blow to US hopes of Arctic energy bonanza By Sheila McNulty in Houston Published: November 2 2006 02:00 \| Last updated: November 2 2006 02:00 The US has overestimated the Arctic's potential as an energy source and must look elsewhere to meet rising demand, according to a study released yesterday by Wood Mackenzie, the international energy consultants, and Fugro Robertson, the geosciences company. "This assessment basically calls into question the long-considered view that the Arctic represents one of the last great oil and gas frontiers and a strategic energy supply cache for the US," said Andrew Latham, Wood Mackenzie's vice-president of energy consulting. The report concluded the US could no longer consider the Arctic as a strategic energy source and must look to nations in the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, such as Venezuela and Russia. It noted that being forced to look outside its borders carried broader, geopolitical concerns relating to security of supply. The US has long estimated 25 per cent of the world's undiscovered resources are in the Arctic. But Fugro-Robertson's assessment of global "yet-to-find"' energy resources is 864bn barrels of oil equivalent. On this basis, the Arctic's "yet-to-find" potential, of 166bn barrels of oil equivalent, represents a fifth of global potential. Beyond that, the study said most of those unfound resources were gas, and the big finds were outside the US. The study determined 85 per cent of the discovered resources and 74 per cent of the exploration potential was gas. That means there is only about one-quarter of the oil volumes previously assessed in key north American and Greenland basins. "This oil/gas mix is not ideal because remote gas is often much harder to transport to markets. In addition, export and technology constraints are expected to delay production of a large portion of the commercial gas until 2050," said Mr Latham. The study determined that the big finds were in Russia and Greenland. The team said it analysed individual basins and their petroleum reservoirs. Estimates with the US varied because of different modelling tools, though it considered the US approach optimistic. "While these results are disappointing to the US . . the Arctic still holds great potential for individual oil and gas companies with the advanced technology, money and time to de-velop the challenging re-sources and build the infrastructure required to transport it," Mr Latham said. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

To: Rolla Coasta who wrote (10951)	11/2/2006 12:48:08 AM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217842

still more gold-bullish trends, also cheers for uranium World urged to build more N-plants By Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent ft.com Published: November 1 2006 22:36 \| Last updated: November 1 2006 22:36 For the first time in its 32-year history, the International Energy Agency will next week urge governments around the world to help speed the construction of new nuclear power plants. Although several countries, including India, China, the US and France, are already planning more nuclear plants, and others such as the UK are in the early stages of backing new reactors, others oppose any addition to nuclear capacity, including Germany and Spain. However, Fatih Birol, IEA chief economist, said: “We need a decision almost tomorrow if we are going to act before we reach a point of no return in climate and security of supply.” In an interview ahead of the release of the agency’s World Energy Outlook, he said politicians needed to persuade reluctant voters that nuclear power was safe and necessary. They also need to create investment climates conducive to investors. The IEA report – the first to offer advocacy rather than analysis – comes after the Group of Eight last summer asked the agency to come up with guidance on how governments could bolster energy security and combat global warming. It will argue that nuclear power is as an “essential tool” for meeting energy security and climate change goals for all countries other than those in which it is illegal, such as in Austria. The agency found nuclear power to be cost competitive with coal and gas, its main rivals, and concluded that there were enough uranium deposits to meet renewed demand. Mr Birol said the $17,000bn (€13,318bn) the IEA calculated the world needs to invest in energy until 2030 had risen significantly because of cost inflation and would be revised upwards. The report looks into whether the increased investments energy companies have made in the past five years have gone to building more capacity or just covered the rise in costs. “We are on an energy path that is vulnerable, dirty and expensive,” the report says. Mr Birol said the goal was to “prepare an alternative path ... to a cleaner, safer, less costly system”. The report will push for greater energy efficiency, especially in transport and home electrical appliances, and advocate renewable energy, especially biofuels for transport and wind for power generation. A small group of companies lead the field of reactor technology. Areva of France is one of the biggest manufacturers of reactors in Europe, while Westinghouse and GE have strong positions in the US market. In Europe, new nuclear plants are likely to be built and operated by larger energy suppliers, led by Electricite de France, Eon and RWE. In the US there is a larger range of private-sector players, such as Duke Energy. In China, India and Russia any expansion would be undertaken by state-owned groups. Additional reporting by Rebecca Bream Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006