Falklands : Hydrocarbons Daily Record (20/02/07)
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 21.02.2007 (Article Archived on 07.03.2007)
Statements by Iran's president and warmer weather in the US have helped to decrease the price of crude today.
HYDROCARBONS DAILY RECORD: TUESDAY, 20 FEBRUARY 2007
By J. Brock (FINN)
At 1800 LMT on Tuesday, 20 February 2007 Light Sweet Crude down $1.32 Cents to settle at $58.07 on the New York Mercantile Exchange and Brent Crude lost 16 Cents to settle at $57.98 on London’s ICE Futures Market.
TRENDS:
Iran’s President Ahmadinejad has said he wants unconditional talks with western leaders and added that if western countries gave up processing enriched Uranium for energy generation, he would do the same. This along with predictions of warmer weather in the United States has helped the price of crude to decrease today.
THE MARKETS:
FTSE 100 closed at 6,412.30 down -32.14
FTSE 250 closed at 11,586.90 down -49.23
FTSE Small Cap closed at 4,094.30 up +6.27
DJI closed at 12,786.64 up +19.07
NASDAQ closed at 2,496.31 up +16.73
S&P500 closed at 1,459.68 up +4.14
REGIONAL DEVELOPMENTS:
(Argentina and Venezuela)
PDVSA has announced that drilling on the Ayacucho 6 block in the former country's Orinoco extra-heavy crude belt will be opened by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez and Argentine President Nestor Kirchner. The announcement goes on to say that drilling will focus on the MFD-29E well in the area of MFD-AJ (A604). Ayacucho 6 covers 477 sq km some 95km from San Tomé in Anzoátegui state. The project is part of Venezuela's Magna Reserva reserve assessment plan PDVSA is performing with partners. PDVSA and Argentina's state hydrocarbons company Enarsa aim to certify 21Bb of reserves at Ayacucho 6. Orinoco boasts estimated reserves of 235Bb crude.
(Falkland Islands)
Relevant Share Prices for Tuesday, 20 February 2007:
Tullow Oil down -6.75 to stand at 389.75
Desire Petroleum down 1.00 at 29.00
FOGL down -1.00 at 87.00
Rockhopper Exploration unchanged at 44.50
Borders & Southern unchanged at 33.50
MINISTER OPTIMISTIC THAT SCIENCE WILL BE INSTRUMENTAL IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
By J. Brock (FINN)
Our use of fossil fuels – hydrocarbons - is at a pace that will deplete the resource by the end of the century. Add to this their burning, adding tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere, and you have a recipe for ecological disaster. Former Energy Minister and currently Minister of State for Science and Innovation, Mr. Malcolm Wicks MP, is in Antarctica to see how science can help stem the flow of CO2 into the atmosphere, while finding alternatives including the more efficient use of the hydrocarbons resources that we have left.
Clearly one can see from ice core testing that the climate of the earth is cyclical but with human activity, things are much different.
FINN: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has blamed human activity for climate change. However there is a war cry about these changes being cyclical. What are your views about this and how do the findings affect us economically? Is it timing of human intervention in the cyclical scheme of things?
MW: Clearly the planet is subject to cyclical change – changes that occur over tens of thousands or even millions of years. There is no doubt about that. But I am convinced myself and more importantly the world’s leading scientists are convinced that what we are seeing at the moment in terms of climate change and global warming is not just cyclical. When you look at the graph paper you can see the cyclical changes and suddenly in this epoch the CO2 rates have spiked and that has to be from human activity. It’s about industrialisation, it’s about modern transport systems and about the fact we are now using fossil fuels, which took tens of thousands of years to create we are using them very rapidly and it’s contributing to global warming. I think very few people are in denial about this. If we don’t tackle it some of the strange weather patterns we are seeing in parts of the world will continue and some communities will be flooded below sea level. Bangladesh is a good example of that. So, we have to take action.
It’s not all doom and gloom. There are alternatives that can ensure there is plenty of energy for everyone.
The more optimistic point is the action we can take is well known. We are neither hopeless nor helpless about this. Now there is a range of technologies that can help us with this problem. What we need is a political will. I am pleased to hear that in the Falkland Islands you are investing in wind turbines. Why not? You have a huge wind resource here. In other communities it might be solar power or marine – tidal power can be of enormous value. I think we are close to finding solutions to this. What we need now is the political will to be mobilised. It’s not just a matter for presidents and prime ministers or governments or the United Nations. It is you and I as individuals. We need to change our life patterns a bit like asking questions about the cars we drive and whether our homes are properly insulated.
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