IDEALS

CAIRO, (Aug. 12, 2009) IPS/GIN – Opposition figures and political
activists have slammed a new deal to sell Egyptian liquefied
natural gas (LNG) to Israel at what they say are vastly reduced
prices.

“Egyptian gas is being sold to Israel at prices far below the
international average,” Ibrahim Yosri, former head of legal affairs
and treaties at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry told IPS. “This
agreement is proof that the ruling regime is unconcerned with
public opinion and is insistent on depriving the Egyptian public
of its rightful national assets.”

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QUITO, (May 11, 2010) IPS/GIN – The government of Ecuador hopes to
sign new services contracts with foreign oil firms operating in
the country, to replace the 34 contracts currently in effect, by
the end of the year.

Wilson P†stor, who was named minister of non-renewable resources
on Apr. 21, announced the new timeframes at a press conference with
foreign correspondents Monday.

Most of the companies are now operating under provisional contracts
signed when the government modified the former system, under which
the firms directly benefited from up to 80 percent of the oil they
pumped.

The 120-day deadline for large countries to renegotiate their
production contracts deals and the 180-day timeframe given to small
companies tone down the sense of urgency expressed by centre-left
President Rafael Correa, who threatened on Apr. 17 to expropriate
– with compensation — the oilfields controlled by companies that
refuse to replace their profit-sharing deals with service
contracts.

As soon as Correa took office in January 2007, the government began
to move towards turning private companies into service providers.
But only last year were draft contracts sent to the three largest
foreign oil companies in Ecuador: Spanish-Argentine energy group
Repsol, China’s Andes Petroleum, and Brazil’s Petrobras.
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CARACAS, (Apr. 24, 2009) IPS/GIN – The United States will work on
energy issues with the other countries of the Americas based on “a
variable geometry,” allowing governments to choose to cooperate in
some areas but not others, said Jeremy Martin, head of the energy
programme at the Institute of the Americas at the University of
California San Diego.

This “a la carte” approach would make it possible to work with
Venezuela on the heavy crudes in its Orinoco Belt and with Brazil
on ethanol, or with Mexico and Brazil on the reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions, because the marriage of energy and
climate change means Washington can no longer talk about one
without the other, the U.S. expert said at a forum in Caracas. Read the rest of this entry →

VANCOUVER, Canada, (Jun. 1, 2009) IPS/GIN – A report from one of
the world’s top energy consultancies said oil production in
Canada’s tar sands could see a five-fold increase by 2035.

Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) estimated that even if
global economic growth and oil prices remain low, Canada’s tar
sands will produce about 2.3 million barrels per day by 2035, an
increase of about 1 million barrels a day from present levels.

Development of the oil sands has made Canada the primary foreign
supplier of oil to the United States. In 2008, Canada supplied the
U.S. with 19 percent of its oil imports. That number could rise to
37 percent by 2035, according to CERA. Read the rest of this entry →

BERLIN, (Jul. 15, 2009) IPS/GIN – The faults at the nuclear plant
at Kruemmel near Hamburg surfaced just three days after Chancellor
Angela Merkel declared nuclear energy “indispensable” to Germany.

Merkel told the annual meeting of Atomforum, a group supporting
nuclear energy Jul. 1 that if her ruling Christian Democratic Union
(CDU) wins parliamentary elections in September, the new government
would reverse the phase-out of nuclear power. Read the rest of this entry →