Oil cartel doubles its income on soaring prices, production
Financial Times (UK) Aug 11, 08 11:17 AM CDT
(Newser)
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OPEC nations have shattered records for income this year, earning as much money in the first 6 months of 2008 as they did in all of 2007, the Financial Times reports. The Saudi-led cartel of oil-exporting nations took home $645 billion in the first two quarters and is on course to pull in more than a trillion dollars by year's end.
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SUV sales jump 43% over last year
Washington Post Jul 28, 08 3:41 AM CDT
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While soaring gas prices are driving Americans to buy more energy-efficient cars, Chinese consumers are opting for gas-guzzling Buicks and Hummers, reports the Washington Post. China accounts for 40% of the world's recent increase in oil demand. There were few private cars in China 15 years ago, but today there are 15.2 million. The Chinese like them big. The number of SUVs sold rose 43% in May compared with last year.
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OPINION
Republican's 'cowboy antagonism' would sow discord with Russia, China, others
New Republic Jul 16, 08 4:06 PM CDT
(Newser)
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John McCain’s foreign policy—“combustible” and “idealist”—could provoke a second Cold War, pitting the world’s democracies against its autocracies, John Judis writes in the New Republic —at best creating “gratuitous tensions” and at worst wholly “reproducing” the USSR-US “confrontation.” Mac’s proposal for a league of democracies shows that the Republican—erroneously—thinks the world is defined by regimes struggling to impose their form of government on others.
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Prayer group pleads for divine intervention with ascendant pump costs
CNS News Jul 4, 08 6:21 PM CDT
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Many analysts say there isn't a prayer of gas prices coming down any time soon, but there's a group out there bent on proving them wrong, reports CNS News. The Prayer at the Pump Movement, led by Seventh-Day Adventist Rocky Twyman, has been holding vigils at gas stations across the country asking for divine intervention to lower pump prices.
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But OPEC blames speculators and credit crisis for high prices
Bloomberg Jun 22, 08 4:11 PM CDT
(Newser)
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A hastily organized summit meeting in Saudi Arabia today offered little relief to oil consumers, Bloomberg reports. The Saudis did vow to increase production if needed, but OPEC blamed speculators and the credit crisis, not markets, for surging oil prices. "Saudi Arabia is prepared and willing to produce additional barrels of crude above and beyond the 9.7 million barrels per day," a Saudi minister said.
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analysis
Adding half-million barrels won't dent prices, analysts say
Time Jun 18, 08 4:55 PM CDT
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Saudi Arabia consenting to increase oil output is more public-relations ploy than problem-solver, Vivienne Walt writes in Time , since the half-million extra barrels a day won't make much of a dent, if the Saudis even have that much to spare. One analyst says the move is really an attempt “to pump out the message to the West that ‘we are not trying to hurt your economy.'"
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July increase adds 200,000 barrels a day to pipeline
Associated Press Jun 16, 08 7:02 AM CDT
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Saudi Arabia, worried soaring prices could weaken the world's appetite for oil, will increase production by 200,000 barrels a day, beginning next month, the Saudi oil minister told UN chief Ban Ki-moon in a meeting yesterday. The move follows a May increase of 300,000 barrels, the AP notes.
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Kingdom aims to stabilize prices to protect oil market
New York Times Jun 14, 08 6:14 AM CDT
(Newser)
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Saudi Arabia aims to put the brakes on oil prices by raising output to its highest ever, the New York Times reports. The kingdom resisted calls from President Bush earlier this year to boost production, but is now concerned that record oil prices could lead to lower demand in the long term by cutting economic growth and making alternative fuels more viable.
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Washington loses leverage as Beijing gains clout with Riyadh
Los Angeles Times Jun 8, 08 6:46 AM CDT
(Newser)
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The weakening dollar and rising oil prices are marring more than just the American economy: It’s also eroding the long-standing friendly relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia, the Los Angeles Times reports. A bleak economic outlook has cost the US clout with its oil-producing ally. “There’s certainly a perception that the power equation has changed,” said an oil analyst.
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Hayden says terrorists are all but defeated
in Iraq, Saudi Arabia
Washington Post May 30, 08 8:57 AM CDT
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Al-Qaeda is "near strategic defeat" in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and the tide is turning against it elsewhere, CIA chief Michael Hayden says in a surprisingly upbeat Washington Post interview today. In contrast to a reports of an al-Qaeda resurgence a year ago, Hayden now cites “significant setbacks for al-Qaeda globally,” as "a lot of the Islamic world pushes back on their form of Islam.” He says the Iraq war is no longer a boon to al-Qaeda recruitment.
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OPINION
Leave demagoguery, pandering behind, get real on energy policy
Times (UK) May 20, 08 2:37 PM CDT
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Romancing the Saudis and railing against speculators won’t accomplish anything, Gerard Baker tells American pols in the Guardian : A second industrial revolution is driving oil prices up and there’s no turning back. Stop the populism— the "economically illiterate idea for a gas tax holiday," for instance—and the saber-rattling, and instead focus on areas, like energy efficiency, where progress is being made.
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OPINION
Don't publicly ask for oil favors you won't get, WSJ writes
Wall Street Journal May 17, 08 1:23 PM CDT
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Whichever adviser sent President Bush to plead with the Saudi king to help bring down oil prices should be canned, the Wall Street Journal opines. Bush had the same request turned down during a visit in January, and the rebuff is even more humiliating the second time around. If Bush wants to go begging, he'd be better off turning to Fed chief Ben Bernanke, "creator of our current commodity-price spike."
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Leaders again dismiss Bush request for help reining in US gas prices
Associated Press May 16, 08 6:26 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Saudi Arabia's leaders today denied a request from visiting President Bush that they boost oil production to help ease rising gas prices, the AP reports. "Supply and demand are in balance today," the kingdom's oil minister said, with the commodity pushing $128 per barrel. "How much does Saudi Arabia need to do to satisfy people who are questioning our oil practices and policies?"
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