Peak oil forecasters win converts on Wall Street to $200 crude

Peak Oil proponents say global oil production is now at or near its zenith. Once the flow crests and starts to decline - and some geologists say it already has - oil will no longer be able to slake the world's growing thirst for energy. The result will be the oil shock to end all oil shocks. The price of a barrel of crude will spiral to $200 - and keep rising. To the peaksters, today's energy crunch is nothing next to the pain that will follow.

As energy prices soar and violence convulses the Middle East, the peak-oil movement - an unlikely alliance of geologists, physicists, oil industry consultants and environmental activists - is winning converts. Peak-oil ideas are bubbling up from scientific journals and offbeat Web sites, much the way warnings of global warming did a decade ago. For the first time, the peaksters have begun to grab the attention of Washington and Wall Street.

Billionaire Boone Pickens says he's a peak believer. So does Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal and now runs Clarium Capital Management, a $2.1 billion hedge fund firm. Pickens, Thiel and other investors are positioning themselves to profit from what they say will be the biggest oil squeeze of all time. Even some oil companies and industry veterans sound nervous. Chevron has run a series of full-page ads in U.S. newspapers that declare, "The era of easy oil is over." Thierry Desmarest, CEO of Total SA, told the World Gas Conference in Amsterdam in June that global oil production would peak in 2020. Matthew Simmons, whose investment bank Simmons & Co trades oil and gas stocks, says Saudi Arabia's production may decline soon.

- That is just a small excerpt of a long article on Bloomberg - probably the biggest coverage of peak oil on Bloomberg ever.

Now that the "Investing for Peak Oil" story is out among the investment elite, I have only one regret - I wish I had put in much, much more money, and much, much earlier. Only problem : I don't have much, much more money than I have already put in, and I didn't act on it until relatively recently. Well, as a small consolation, a 45% portfolio gain ain't bad.

But you know, I aim for 100% - or better ... :)

RadioShack lays off 400 employees via e-mail

news.yahoo.com :

RadioShack followed through on its announced plans to cut about 400 jobs, but the electronics retailer has been forced on the defensive about its method of notifying laid-off employees by e-mail. Employees received an e-mail telling them they were being dismissed immediately. "The work force reduction notification is currently in progress," the notice stated. "Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated."

Management experts expressed surprise at RadioShack's use of electronic notification instead of face-to-face meetings with supervisors. Derrick D'Souza, a management professor at the University of North Texas, said he had never heard of such a large number of terminated employees being notified electronically. He said it could be seen as dehumanizing to employees.

- This has got to rank right up there with the "SMS divorce" in Malaysia some time back.

(2006-08-31 12:30:11 SGT) [Biz] Permalink

Russian $30 billion aluminum merger creates world leader

news.yahoo.com :

Russia's leading aluminum firm, RUSAL, will take over its main competitor SUAL and the aluminum industry assets of Glencore to create a world market leader. The transaction, which may be finalized by October and create a company worth around $30 billion, would confirm Russia's renaissance as a world powerhouse in energy and strategic commodities after the post-Soviet economic collapse.

"The new company will be the world's number one aluminum producer with output of 4 million tonnes per year, and also the top alumina producer with output of 11 million tonnes," a source said. Putin has capitalized on booming oil and commodities prices as a means to recover Russia's lost status as a great power. A national aluminum champion would join state-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom in projecting power abroad.

(2006-08-31 12:21:52 SGT) [Biz] Permalink

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