Mar 2009

The economic recovery that will – eventually – boost oil prices seems ever more distant. Last week, the US government said GDP contracted by a worse-than-expected 6.2% in the fourth quarter; this week, US insurer AIG recorded the biggest quarterly loss in US history – $61.7bn.

Falling oil prices are playing havoc with the ambitions of the world's petro-nationalist countries. Venezuela has some backtracking to do. Derek Brower reports

PRESIDENT Evo Morales is making some headway with efforts to bolster dwindling foreign investment in the country's energy sector. A decade ago, Bolivia was one of South America's most exciting exploration plays, but a mass exodus of Western companies occurred three years ago when the leftist government nationalised the hydrocarbons industry and made investment terms much less favourable.

As prices dropped, particularly for Canada's oil sands operators, is now the time to invest?

With production curtailed by its Opec quota, the long-planned licensing round on ice and the president recently back from asking China for another loan, the Angola of 2009 is very different from the rapidly expanding producer of the past 10 years

Having dropped below $35/b last month, oil prices had recovered to around $40/b at press-time

World oil supply fell by 0.52m b/d in January, to 85.2m b/d, as Opec succeeded in implementing quota cuts – agreed in December, but effective from the beginning of the year

Engineering a sustainable building is easy, says Max Fordham. But poor planning is preventing progress

The rapid pace of exploration and development behind Angola's remarkable growth as a deep-water producer has slowed

Officials are hailing Mexico's recent energy reforms as a significant step towards reversing sliding oil production, but doubts abound outside government circles

Falling oil prices are playing havoc with the ambitions of the world's petro-nationalist countries. Venezuela has some backtracking to do

Brazil's state-controlled oil company is not cutting investment yet, but may have to if oil prices continue to fall or its financing options look too unappealing

What provisions does the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act make for the US energy sector?

Policy changes, the economic slowdown and the vagaries of the oil market are assailing the global tanking business. A recovery could follow, but not until around the start of the next decade

Lower oil prices and the economic downturn make the outlook less certain for tanker owners, but shipbuilders still have substantial orders on their books

Despite the economic downturn, E.On expects to report strong results for 2008 and maintain the momentum in 2009

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has called on Opec to continue to maintain investment in long-term oil-production capacity and says a "radical" rise in prices would harm economic recovery

Production growth from the oil sands will come to a virtual standstill over the next six years and spending will fall by at least C$97bn ($78bn) from now until 2020. But new investment could still reach C$218bn in the 2009-20 period, according to the Canadian Energy Research Institute (Ceri)

President Evo Morales is making some headway with efforts to bolster dwindling foreign investment in the country's energy sector

Sevan Marine is to design the platform for the Goliat platform

China's Development Bank is to lend to Transneft and Rosneft in exchange for 15m tonnes of oil a year

Norwegian government supports planned gas-export pipeline

The global economic downturn is starting to have a deflationary effect on Middle East energy projects, increasing the chances that upstream investment will continue

The terms of the deal struck between Russia and Ukraine that ended January's bitter gas war seem slanted very much in Moscow's favour, making a repeat of the dispute likely, warn analysts

Sakhalin Energy inaugurated its liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, in the country's far east, last month

The country will nearly quadruple biofuels production over the next decade, says energy minister Hernán Martínez

With the US jobless total rising, car sales slumping and stock markets at 12-year lows, the flow of bad economic and financial news continues unabated. Yet oil prices have held above $40/b. The Centre for Global Energy Studies (CGES) says the oil market "appears to have developed a resistance to the bad news continuing to emerge from the banking sector and the dire state of the global economy".

Lower oil prices and the economic downturn make the outlook less certain for tanker owners, but shipbuilders still have substantial orders on their books, writes Martin Clark

Policy changes, the economic slowdown and the vagaries of the oil market are assailing the global tanking business. A recovery could follow, but not until around the start of the next decade, says Nikhil Jain

OPEC has shrugged off the International Energy Agency's (IEA) calls for it to maintain upstream investment through the economic downturn. The producer organisation cannot invest in any new additional capacity with prices at present levels, the cartel's secretary general, Abdullah Salem El-Badri, said at a conference in Vienna on Wednesday.

Despite the economic downturn, E.On expects to report strong results for 2008 and maintain the momentum in 2009, writes NJ Watson

FACED with a shortfall in energy supply and the need to boost economic activity during the recession, the country has commissioned three new gas-fired power stations. They will add nearly 4 gigawatts (GW) of capacity to the grid – the largest increase to be announced by the government at one time for more than two decades.

Some producers found themselves carried away with the euphoria of last year's oil-market rally. They talked with gay abandon of prices reaching $200 a barrel oil before 2008 was out; Gazprom's chief executive, Alexei Miller, said he thought oil would reach $250/b in 2009. So much for the forecasts of the cognoscenti; as demand collapsed, so did prices.

GAS NATURAL should complete its acquisition of Unión Fenosa this month – its third attempt in five years to buy a power company. Analysts say the industrial logic of the deal is robust. Gas Natural's gas assets and Unión Fenosa's electricity assets are a natural fit; combining them should enable the gas supplier to lower its dependence on gas sales and to add value to its gas-supply operations through power generation.

BG Group bought control of Pure Energy last month, giving it another crucial foothold in the country's burgeoning coal-seam gas (CSG) sector. BG is already the largest of several gas developers hoping to base new liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports on Queensland's growing CSG reserves.

The oil-price collapse has weakened Opec. The cartel is scrambling for a response, write Derek Brower and Tom Nicholls from Vienna

OIL PRICES are in retreat again this week, falling back below $50 a barrel in the wake of more worries about the future of the global economy. The latest sell off, hitting equity markets as well as commodities, followed US President Barak Obama's tough stance on a new bailout for automakers GM and Chrysler.

STOP going on about renewables. They're a distraction from the real business of supplying energy: they lack the energy density and user friendliness of petroleum, which will continue to make an unmatched contribution to the smooth running of society.