As oil prices again ride the "cost per barrel" roller coaster then inevitable the economics of supply and demand should decide the final resting place of oil (at any given point in time) - However the supply-demand formula has one key element - "supply" - but what happens if the supply is rapidly diminishing - many analysts have concluded that the world has passed the critical Peak Oil point, others dispute the findings and preach an alternative creed

....click the link to read more

Hopes that Gazprom might open up the Yamal Peninsula to foreign oil companies appeared to be dashed yesterday when the Russian utility’s deputy chief executive gave a cool response to the notion of further investments by international oil companies in Russia’s gas-rich Arctic regions.

Alexander Medvedev, who heads Gazprom’s export business, spoke of “psychological barriers” to further investment by foreign oil companies and said that he had not received any interesting proposals from the Western majors.

....click the link to read more

MOSCOW: Russian natural gas monopoly OAO Gazprom said it signed a memorandum of understanding Tuesday with U.S. giant Dow Chemical Co. outlining plans for potential cooperation, including projects in Russia and Germany.

...click the link to read more 

Mirni Diamond Mine in Siberia holds the title of being the largest open diamond mine in the world.  It is 1200 meters wide and over 500 meters deep.  The sheer size of this is amazing as can be seen in these pictures and also in these pictures.

That we can have such a dramatic effect on the surrounding environment is scary. 

BHP Chief Marius Kloppers has ignored expectations that he would placate the world's most powerful steel industry, promising instead to smash China's preferred iron ore price setting system whether or not he succeeds in swallowing Rio Tinto.

The move demonstrates how a BHP-Rio merger will transform the global commodities trade - and reveals the quietly-spoken, strategic aggression of Mr Kloppers.

He told engineers, steel makers and officials in Beijing yesterday that he would create a new iron ore market place, managed by a third party, which would trade real ore shipments as well as "derivatives" on a futures exchange.

....click the link to read more

You've heard the reasons for high oil prices: instability in the Middle East, booming demand in China and India, the sagging dollar. Now add another one to the list: Engineers.
The world doesn't have enough of them. From Alberta to Azerbaijan, the fervent hunt for new reserves of oil and natural gas is running up against a shortage of experienced oil patch professionals. "We anticipate a 10 to 15% shortfall" in the number of veteran engineers and project managers needed to lead the search for new energy supplies, says Candida Scott, director of cost research at Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

Royal Dutch Shell and its partners have told the Russian Government that developing vast gasfields in the Siberian Arctic would take half a century of engineering and cost “hundreds of billions” of dollars.

Jeroen van der Veer, Shell’s chief executive, met President Putin this month to discuss the proposed project in the Yamal Peninsula and Kara Sea. He was accompanied by a high-level Dutch business delegation.

They estimated that the region could hold more than 30 trillion cubic metres of gas, more than the combined proved reserves of Gazprom, the state-controlled Russian gas monopoly.

An underground fire that has consumed more than 12.43 million tons of coal in northwest China has finally been extinguished after more than 50 years.

The Coalfield Fire Fighting Project Office of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region announced the fire in the Terak field was finally out, saving an estimated 651 million tons of coal from burning.

Officials and engineers will closely monitor the coal seam for several years and submit a final report in 2009 to regional and national authorities, said Cai Zhongyong, deputy head of the office.

The fire, covering 923,500 square meters, was fueled by coal more than 100 meters underground. It released more than 70,000 tons of toxic gas, including sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide each year since it started in the early 1950s, Cai said.

An similar attempt to extinguish this fire was unsuccessful in Aug 2000

Coal fires are also common in underground mines in the US ,  and are difficult to extinguish. The term coal fire refers to a burning or smoldering coal seam, coal storage pile or coal waste pile. The adsorption of oxygen at the outer and inner surface of coal and resulting oxidation is an exothermic reaction. This leads to an increase in temperature within the coal accumulation. If the temperature exceeds approximately 80°C the coal can ignite and start to burn. This process, referred to as “spontaneous combustion”, is the most common cause for coal fires of large extent.

WOODSIDE has boosted the prospects of engineers developing the $30 billion Browse liquefied natural gas joint venture after signing a long-term sales contract with Taiwan's CPC Corp which could be worth $35 billion to $45 billion.

In a key terms agreement, which has yet to be converted into a final sales agreement, CPC has agreed to buy 2 million to 3 million tonnes of LNG a year for 15 to 20 years.

CPC had publicly flagged the possibility of a deal soon after Woodside signed a very similar agreement with China's PetroChina in September.

SINGAPORE: Oil briefly rose above 99 US dollars a barrel for the first time Wednesday as the greenback's fall drove demand for dollar-denominated crude, dealers said.

The jump during early Asian trading hours pushed the price within striking distance of the psychologically crucial 100-dollar level. Dealers said tight global supplies were also helping fuel the spike.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for January delivery, pulled back from a new intraday high of 99.29 dollars but was still 94 cents up at 98.97 from a record finish of 98.03 on Tuesday.