Here's a few facts about the Alberta Oil Sands: - Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary uses in a year. - At least 90% of the fresh water used in the oil sands ends up in ends up in tailing ponds so toxic that propane cannons are used to keep ducks from landing in them.
HONG KONG — Faced with increasingly severe fuel shortages nd the prospect of power failures during the summer air-conditionin season, the Chinese government unexpectedly announced sharp increases late Thursday, June 19, 2008 night in regulated prices for gasoline, diesel and electricity.
The increases are the latest sign of how China’s integration into the global marketplace has limited the flexibility of the country’s leaders in responding to economic crises.
Le pétrole est devenu une matière première incontournable. Il sert de carburant, à fabriquer des médicaments, des engrais, les plastiques aux pneus de votre bicyclette.
Bien que les transports engouffrent la plus grande partie de l'or noir, il est précieux pour notre vie quotidienne.
Voici la quantité de pétrole qui est nécessaire pour produire différents articles qui nous entourent:
Investors were weighing whether expected production increases from Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, would do enough to quench rising global demand. The Saudis are planning a meeting of oil producing and consuming nations in Jeddah on Sunday to seek ways to tackle soaring oil prices.
Over the weekend, Saudi Arabia told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that it would increase oil output by 200,000 barrels a day, or by 2 percent, from June to July. In May, the country raised production by 300,000 barrels a day.
"If there is any announcement along those lines, you'd think it would have some positive effect on oil prices," said David Moore, a commodity strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney. "But the markets are also going to be wondering whether they see this as a permanent solution to the issue of adequacy of oil supplies to meet ongoing growth in oil demand."
Light, sweet crude for July delivery rose 57 cents to $134.58 a barrel by noon in European electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract declined 60 cents to settle at $134.01 a barrel on Tuesday.
Tuesday's pullback in oil prices followed broad swings Monday, when prices surged to a record $139.89 per barrel and tumbled as low as $132.84 before closing down modestly.
Le baril a touché les 117,60 dollars lundi. En dépit des assurances de l'OPEP, les marchés craignent de plus en plus un déficit des approvisionnements pétroliers dans les mois à venir.
Toutes les digues à même d'enrayer l'appréciation du prix du pétrole semblent submergées. Chaque jour, le cours d'un baril de light sweet crude - le prix de référence - bat de nouveaux sommets sur le marché new-yorkais. Record de clôture de 116,69 dollars, vendredi soir. Record en cours de journée, lundi après-midi, à 117,60 dollars.
« Les 120 dollars ne sont plus qu'une étape dans cette inexorable marche en avant, et la zone des 125 dollars apparaît comme le prochain objectif», annonce déjà John Kilduff, responsable des risques énergétiques chez MAN Financial à New York.