Britain facing fresh oil supply crisis, warn independents

Britain is in the grip of a fresh oil crisis, with supplies to hospitals, petrol stations and households all under threat, according to independent wholesalers and retailers.

The looming crisis has been caused by a combination of factors such as bad weather, Hurricane Katrina, the Buncefield oil depot fire and fears that the dispute between Russia and Ukraine over gas supplies would cause a run on oil. But it has been exacerbated by the sharp rise in gas prices, which has prompted some gas-fired power stations to switch to gasoil and kerosene.

Coal offers hope of new gas supplies

peakoil.com -> yorkshiretoday.co.uk :

The coal seams that helped make Yorkshire a centre of industrial power have been identified as the biggest resource for gasification in all the UK's regions. Government and private interests are poised to collaborate on costs and the organisation required to fast-track the idea into a working experiment.

UCG has been under investigation for a decade as a way of reducing our dependence on imports and the rising price of natural gas has made it more attractive. And now it is even seen as a relatively "green" solution. It would be possible to pump waste carbon dioxide – the gas blamed for global warming – into the underground holes created. Hydrogen could be extracted from the gas for a new generation of motors emitting nothing but water vapour.

UCG involves setting fire to coal without digging it up. With the process contained and controlled by streams of water this would imitate, underground, the old gasworks reaction that produced "town gas" for Britain until natural gas was first piped ashore in the 1970s. The technique would enable the exploitation of resources beyond the reach of traditional mining.

Venezuela oil fields back in state control

rense.com, peakoil.com -> news.xinhuanet.com :

Venezuelan oil minister Rafael Ramirez said in a statement that Venezuela has successfully completed "the recovery" of the 32 fields whose control was ceded to private hands in the 1990s under concessions allowing companies to independently pump oil under contract.

The 32 operating agreements were signed between 1990 and 1997 during the opening of Venezuela's petroleum industry to private and foreign capital. As oil prices crept back up in recent years, the government of President Hugo Chavez has sought to boost its control and share of profits from the oil industry. The state's stake could be as much as 90% in the new ventures. The amount the private companies have invested in the fields will determine the amount of control they have, Ramirez has said.

The 32 oil fields have been responsible for about 500,000 of Venezuela's official declared production of 3.2 million barrels a day. Venezuela is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter and has the largest proven reserves outside of the Mideast.

Kids no safer in SUVs than cars : study

cnn.com :

Children are no safer riding in sport utility vehicles than in passenger cars, largely because the doubled risk of rollovers in SUVs cancels out the safety advantages of their greater size and weight, according to a study sponsored by Partners for Child Passenger Safety, a research project of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the world's largest insurer, Bloomington-based State Farm Insurance Co.

The study found that the extra weight of SUVs enhanced safety, reducing the risk of injury by more than a third. But that was offset by findings that SUVs were more than twice as likely as cars to roll over in crashes. Children in rollovers were three times more likely to be seriously injured than those in non-rollover accidents.

Researchers said the findings dispel the bigger-equals-safer myth that has helped fuel the growing popularity of SUVs among families. SUV registrations climbed 250% in the United States between 1995 and 2002.

(2006-01-11 07:47:11 SGT) [Tech] Permalink

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