Tag: oil

Crossing borders between EU countries which have officially eliminated frontier controls remains a challenge, mainly as a result of queues at petrol stations in countries with cheaper gas, journalists from EurActiv discovered while travelling over the vacation period.

While Moscow insists recent reductions in Russian oil deliveries to the Czech Republic were due to technical reasons, there is speculation that the cuts may be politically motivated and linked to Prague’s recent decision to host an American radar that is part of the US missile shield defence system.

Following a major increase in cereal prices over the past year, the current global environment indicates that "the era of cheap food is over," write Juan Delgado and Indhira Santos in a July policy brief for the Bruegel think tank.

Current high food prices are being caused by several complex factors, including high energy prices and poor harvests, according to experts at the Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands.

EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs called for a partnership between producing and consuming countries to bring the price of oil per barrel to a "two-digit" figure, speaking at a summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday (22 June).

As EU leaders prepare to discuss measures to alleviate the current oil price crisis at a summit in Brussels today, leading EU politicians argue that the single best solution is to impose more ambitious fuel efficiency targets for cars.

Finance ministers from the G8 countries met on 13 and 14 June to discuss the current state of the global economy. The group expressed "strong concerns" about soaring crude oil and agricultural commodity prices, issues that are also high on the EU's current political agenda. 

Strikes and protests have spread across Europe amid growing anger at record-high oil prices, with leaders from the 27 EU countries at odds over the best response to the crisis.

The European Commission has launched a public consultation on whether changes should be made to the management of emergency oil stocks held by EU member states as oil prices edged closer to $120 a barrel on Tuesday (22 April).

The EU is finalising a new energy deal with Iraq following a visit by Nouri al-Maliki, the country's prime minister, to Brussels this week. The agreement is part of EU efforts to diversify its energy supply, but there are doubts about how much the EU can realistically decrease its dependence on Russia. 

With oil prices having more than tripled since 2002, petrodollar investments have become the world's largest source of net global capital flows and are leading to a broad shift in global economic markets, an analysis by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) says.

Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs has drawn attention to the 'overlooked' issue of dwindling oil reserves coupled with rapidly growing and unprecedented global demand. His comments were made in the run-up to the publication of a widely-anticipated package of Commission legislative proposals on energy and climate change.

The difficulties faced by developing countries in managing oil revenues efficiently and fairly, the requirements of economic liberalisation and pressure from evolving international standards have placed the governance of the petroleum sector in sharp focus, states this Chatham House report, published in April 2007.

Citing refinery problems rather than supply shortages, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) downplayed its responsibility for high prices at a ministerial meeting on 21 June in Vienna, the fourth annual meeting held as part of the EU-OPEC Energy Dialogue.

The EU should stand ready to help the US protect strategic oil-supply routes and facilities in the Middle East against possible terrorist attacks, said an expert from a leading US think-tank.

Two experts from the French Petroleum Institute (Institut Français du Pétrole – IFP) take a look at the situation created by rising oil prices and argue that, paradoxically, they also bring about new opportunities to push back the oil-production peak. The article was originally published in Total's 'Energies' magazine December 2006 issue.

Russian authorities cut off a major oil pipeline passing through Belarus to Western Europe in a commercial dispute that calls into question Moscow's reliability as the second-largest oil exporter to the 'old' continent.

Policies to support biofuels in the United States are costly and do not help much towards alleviating dependency on imported petroleum or reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, a think-tank warns.

The announcement that new oil production has been succesfully tested in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico was hailed by experts as proof that oil has not yet reached its peak production, but many questions and concerns remain.

A report by the French Senate calls on the EU to lead an energy transition to counter climate change and "an oil shock of great magnitude" which they predict will hit the world by 2020 at the latest.

A proposal to reintroduce fishing subsidies in the form of grants for fuel-efficient engines in small fishing boats is causing uproar among conservationists who warn stocks are already on the verge of collapsing.

A suggestion by the Eurogroup Chairman and Luxembourg Prime Minister to tax the unexpected profits oil companies make from surging oil prices has found modest support at a meeting of EU finance ministers.

Booming oil prices and the warning by Russia's Gazprom that it might redirect its gas deliveries to the US and Asia have refocused the EU's political agenda on its energy plight.

The US Government's Energy Information Administration predicts slowing growth of oil demand and increasing production, but oil prices are to remain high in 2006 and 2007. Some analysts are even more gloomy.