BURMA: China’s Thirst for Oil Ignores Environment, Rights
October 31, 2008 by editor
Filed under Burma, China, Environment, Oil and Gas, Report
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Friday, October 31, 2008
All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Oct 31 (IPS) - The largest island off Burma’s west coast is emerging as another frontier for China’s expanding plans to extract the rich oil and gas reserves of military-ruled Burma.
Initial explorations by a consortium, led by China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), has left a deep scar on Ramree Island, which is twice the size of Singapore and home to about 400,000 people. ‘’They have destroyed rice fields and plantations when conducting the seismic surveys and mining the island in search of oil,’’ says Jockai Khaing, director of Arakan Oil Watch (AOW), an environmental group made up of Burmese living in exile.
‘’The local communities have been directly and indirectly affected,’’ he Said during an IPS interview. ‘’Hundreds of people have been forced to relocate as a result of the drilling conducted near their communities. The locals hate the Chinese; their world has become crazy after the Chinese arrived.’’
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MEXICO: Oil Reforms Leave State in the Red
October 29, 2008 by editor
Filed under Debt Crisis, Fiscal Policy, Mexico, Oil and Gas, Politics, Report
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.
Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, Oct 29 (IPS) - The oil industry reforms approved by the Mexican Congress and applauded by the government and most of the country’s parties, with the exception of factions on the left and part of the business community, will deprive the state of a source of funding that currently finances 40 percent of the public budget.
”Good for the oil industry, which will now have more funds, but the lack of an alternative source of financing for the state is very worrisome,” Roberto Gutiérrez, an expert on energy issues at the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM), told IPS.
From 2009 to 2016, the flow of funds from the state oil monopoly PEMEX to the state coffers will gradually be reduced, according to the reforms approved Tuesday by the lower house of Congress after six months of heated debate. (They passed the Senate last week).
The hope is that by increasing the proportion of revenues left in the hands of the oil company, Pemex will improve its performance, which has been undermined by a lack of funds and up-to-date technology, while output has steadily fallen and reserves have shrunk (according to official figures they will last less than nine years).
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ENERGY: Harsh Blow for OPEC
October 25, 2008 by editor
Filed under OPEC, Oil and Gas, Report
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Saturday, October 25, 2008
All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.
Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Oct 24 (IPS) - In an unexpected reaction, oil prices continued to slide, by up to six percent Friday, despite OPEC’s decision to cut output by 1.5 million barrels a day as of Nov. 1.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was trading at 64 dollars a barrel Friday, nearly four dollars down from Thursday, and Brent experienced a similar drop, to just over 62 dollars.
The drop ”is an extremely harsh blow for OPEC (the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries), because the market that it has refrained from regulating since 2003 is responding to its cutback with less demand, and the cancellation of orders,” Elie Habalián, a former Venezuelan OPEC governor, told IPS.
In 2003, OPEC abandoned the price band system on which it had based decisions for years to increase or reduce production, in order to keep prices within that range. Habalián pointed out.
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