Important information tables on Iranian OIL (why mess with nuclear energy?)

Oil
Iran is OPEC’s second-largest oil producer and the fourth-largest crude oil exporter in the world.	According to Oil and Gas Journal, Iran has 136 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, or roughly 10 percent of the world's total proven petroleum reserves as of January 1, 2007. Iran has 40 producing fields, 27 onshore and 13 offshore, with the majority of crude oil reserves located in the southwestern Khuzestan region near the Iraqi border. Iran's crude oil is generally medium in sulfur content and in the 28°-35° API range. Iran is OPEC’s second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia. In 2006, Iran produced an estimated 4.2 million barrels per day (bbl/d) of total liquids, of which 3.8 million bbl/d was crude oil, equal to 5 percent of global production. Iran’s oil consumption totaled 1.6 million bbl/d in 2006. The Iranian government heavily subsidizes the price of refined oil products which has contributed to increased domestic demand. Iran has limited refinery capacity to produce light fuels, and imports much of its gasoline supply. Iranian domestic oil demand is mainly for gasoline and automotive gasoils, but domestic demand for other oil products are declining due to the substitution of natural gas. However, it is an overall net petroleum products exporter due to large exports of residual fuel oil. Oil export revenues represent the majority of Iran’s total exports earnings, but the country suffers from budget deficits due to a growing population and large government subsidies on gasoline and food products. In 2005, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that energy subsidies accounted for 12 percent of Iran’s GDP, the highest rate in the world according to an International Energy Agency (IEA) study. Iran produced 6 million bbl/d of crude oil in 1974, but has been unable to produce at that level since the 1979 revolution due to a combination of war, limited investment, sanctions, and a high rate of natural decline in Iran’s mature oil fields. Iran’s oil fields need structural upgrades including enhanced oil recovery (EOR) efforts such as natural gas injection. Iran’s fields have a natural annual decline rate estimated at 8 percent onshore and 10 percent offshore, while current Iranian recovery rates are 24-27 percent, 10 percent less than the world average. It is estimated that 400,000-500,000 bbl/d of crude production is lost annually due to reservoir damage and decreases in existing oil deposits. Upstream Projects The Azadegan project phases I and II represent the greatest potential increase in Iranian crude oil production. Azadegan contains 26 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, but is geologically complex and difficult to extract. Iran and Venezuela have agreed on a $4 billion investment in the Ayacucho 7 block, where there are an estimated 31 billion barrels of oil. Iran’s Northern Drilling Company (NDC) has also worked with Russia’s Lukoil on oil field development in the Caspian Sea. (See Caspian Sea Analysis Brief) Iran plans to increase oil production to over 5 million bbl/d by 2010, but it will need foreign help. According to Global Insight, an estimated $25-35 billion is required to meet the government’s 5.8 million bbl/d target by 2015. Investment in Iran’s energy sector has been tempered due to the election of the conservative government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, the international controversy surrounding the Iranian uranium enrichment and nuclear program, and economic sanctions. According to the IEA 2007 Medium-Term Oil Market Report, Iran will not be able to increase its net expansion capacity through 2012. U.S. Sanctions U.S. sanctions against Iran due to Iran’s historic support for international terrorism and its actions against non-belligerent shipping in the Persian Gulf impact the development of its petroleum sector. According to the Iran Transactions Regulations, administered by the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), U.S. persons may not directly or indirectly trade, finance, or facilitate any goods, services or technology going to or from Iran, including goods, services or technology that would benefit the Iranian oil industry. U.S. persons are also prohibited from entering into or approving any contract that includes the supervision, management or financing of the development of petroleum resources located in Iran. Sector Organization The state-owned National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) is responsible for oil and gas production and exploration. The National Iranian South Oil Company (NISOC), a subsidiary of NIOC, accounts for 80 percent of local oil production covering the provinces of Khuzestan, Bushehr, Fars, and Kohkiluyeh va Boyer Ahamd. Though private ownership of upstream functions is prohibited under the Iranian constitution, the government has allowed for buyback contracts which allow international oil companies (IOCs) to enter exploration and development through an Iranian affiliate. The contractor receives a remuneration fee, usually an entitlement to oil or gas from the developed operation. In August 2007, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appointed NIOC executive Gholamhossein Nozari to serve as Acting Oil Minister, replacing Vaziri Hamaneh and creating controversy over President Ahmadinejad’s role in the energy sector. Exports According to International Energy Agency’s Monthly Oil Data Service and Global Trade Atlas, Iran’s net crude and product exports in 2006 averaged 2.5 million bbl/d, primarily to Japan, China, India, South Korea, Italy, and other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations, making it the fourth-largest exporter of crude oil in the world. In 2006, Iran’s oil export revenues amounted to $54 billion. Export Terminals Iran has the largest oil tanker fleet in the Middle East, the National Iranian Tanker Company, which holds 29 ships including Very Large Crude Carriers. Kharg Island is the country’s largest terminal with a holding capacity of 16 million barrels of oil and a loading capacity of 5 million bbl/d, followed by Lavan Island with capacity to store 5 million barrels and loading capacity of 200,000 bbl/d. Other important terminals include Kish Island, Abadan and Bandar Mahshar, and Neka, which helps facilitate imports from the Caspian region. The Strait of Hormuz, on the southeastern coast of Iran, is an important route for oil exports from Iran and other Persian Gulf countries. (See Persian Gulf Analysis Brief) At its narrowest point the Strait of Hormuz is 34 miles wide, yet an estimated 17 million barrels, or roughly two-fifths of all seaborne traded oil, flows through the Strait daily. Iranian Heavy Crude Oil is Iran’s largest crude export at 1.6 million bbl/d followed by Iranian Light at 1 million bbl/d. Refining Iran’s total refinery capacity is 1.5 million bbl/d from nine refineries operated by the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC), a NIOC subsidiary. Iranian refineries are unable to keep pace with domestic demand, and face major infrastructure problems. The country plans to add around 985,000 bbl/d of refining capacity by 2012, mostly through expansions and upgrades for gasoline yields at the Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, and the 90-year-old Abadan refineries. Large expansion projects at Bandar Abbas, including new catalytic reformers, distillation units, and condensate splitters will help supply the domestic demand, but it will probably not eliminate all gasoline imports. Iran has also discussed joint ventures in Asia, including China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore to expand refining activity. Pipelines Iran has an expansive domestic oil network including 5 pipelines, and multiple international pipeline projects under consideration. Recently, an expansion of the 150 mile pipeline from the port of Neka on the Caspian coast to Rey, Tabriz, and Tehran refineries has reached a capacity of 300,000 bbl/d according to Global Insight. Iran has invested in its import capacity at the Caspian port to handle increased product shipments from Russia and Azerbaijan, and enable crude swaps with Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. In the case of crude swaps, the oil from the Caspian is consumed domestically in Iran, and an equivalent amount of oil is produced for export through the Persian Gulf with a Swiss-trading arm of NIOC for a swap fee.
In 2006, Iran imported over 192,000 bbl/d of gasoline and relied upon imports to meet almost half of its fuel needs costing $5 billion.	Gasoline Iran is the second biggest gasoline importer in the world after the United States, consuming over 400,000 bbl/d. According to FACTS Global Energy, Iran imported over 192,000 bbl/d of gasoline in 2006 costing $5 billion. The gasoline consumption growth rate has averaged ten percent annually over the past six years, and the cost of imports is expected to reach $6 billion in 2007, up from $2.8 billion in 2005. Gasoline prices are heavily subsidized, and sold below the market price at around 42 cents per gallon, which has encouraged increased consumption. An increase in vehicle sales in recent years has also contributed to the problem. According to PFC Energy, car ownership in Iran grew 250 percent between 1990 and 2006, and a majority of these vehicles are older models. Gasoline powered vehicles in Iran are expected to reach 14.9 million by the end of 2007. Iran does not have sufficient refining capacity to meets its domestic gasoline and other light fuel needs. Therefore Iran imports gasoline from India, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, the Netherlands, France, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates. Iran also imports from large, multinational wholesalers such as BP, Shell, Total, Vitol, LUKoil, and several Chinese companies. New Gasoline Rationing System In June 2007, the Iranian government instituted a gasoline rationing system. The decision followed a 25 percent price increase to 42 cents per gallon in May. NIORDC is responsible for the program which allows private cars to purchase 26 gallons per month and taxis to buy 211 gallons per month. The rations and increased costs are politically unpopular in Iran. Customers are allowed to purchase their ration six months in advance. Part-time taxis, commercial vehicles, and government vehicles also have special allowances. Records are maintained on smart cards, and later this year the government is expected to announce the price for gasoline bought beyond quota levels. Iran’s gasoline consumption dropped 30 percent immediately after the rationing scheme was adopted. NIOC executive, Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, stated that Iranian gasoline imports for August 2007 dropped 14 percent, although an additional $1.5 billion was requested by the Iranian Oil Ministry to increase gasoline imports through March 2008. The International Energy Agency reported in its August 2007 Oil Market Update that gasoline consumption will likely increase again due to the fact that Iran allows advance purchase of gasoline at a subsidized rate. The combination of rationing, price hikes, increased refining capacity, as well as compressed natural gas (CNG) production, will reduce Iranian gasoline import demand by an estimated 30,000 bbl/d in the next three years according to FACTS Global Energy.

SPP update on power generation

Yesterday the "Making the Lakes Great" conference conclusions was posted on the H2O list by Dr. Gail Krantzberg, Director of the McMaster Univ. Dofasco Centre for Engineering and Public Policy, under the subject heading, "energy options to protect Great Lakes waters".
 
Here were the presentations, including the Canadian Nuclear Assoc., US Dept. of Energy, Suncor, Acelor Mittal, Hydro One.
 http://www.energy2100.ca/Presentations.html
 
check out the merged US-Canadian flags on slide 3 of
http://www.energy2100.ca/pdf/Energy2100_Scott%20Minos_U.S.%20Perspectives%20on%20Sustainable%20Energy.pdf
 
the rest of that slideshow is also instructive, eg. slides 21 and 22, and 55 (arms, and happy face nuke towers- seriously) !!!
 
or how about the rebranding of James Lovelock, author of "The Gaia Hypothesis" as nuclear advocate on slide 9 at:
http://www.energy2100.ca/pdf/Energy2100_Murray%20Elstons_Canada%92s%20Nuclear%20Industry%20-%20Preparing%20For%20The%20Future.pdf
 
And the conference conclusions, translated, mean a US-Canada integrated power grid, based on primarily carbon sequestered tar sands and coal sources, and nukes, with some wind, sun, and geothermal thrown in for PR. The dirty sources are to be heavily subsidized by government, with high consumer pricing supposedly for energy and water 'conservation' (of course while industry gets bulk reduced rates, and while shareholders make record gains). Measured by an integrated metred system with data collation, analysis, and all policy formulation to be carried out by a new 'government' structure, no doubt to be a P3 as other new federal and Ontario infrastructure boards are, heavily embedded with the same players that gathered at this conference.
 
We can do better.
 
Dust off the better studies sitting on the shelf that show there's enough wind and sun on the planet to fuel 6X our current use, and conserve by getting rid of dirty industries, with transition programs for unionized workers to build the renewables, rather than mainly the nonrenewables and nukes. Do all of the above with public power, not the exorbitant costs of privatized P3 power. Eliminate speculation, and pull self-governance from industry heads and investors. Roll-back NAFTA and put a moratorium on further entrenching of the SPP, TILMA, and bilateral deals.
 
Do not use 'renewable energy' to mean building more hydro dams and canals to channel more Hudson Bay Basin water down to the Great Lakes, killing what's left of our wild north for the sake of profiteers who don't have the smarts and humility to shift gears.
 
And above all, read beyond 'green' headlines to expose and reject policy which would entrench the problems.
 
Thanks to all activists for your work for real change, inspite of the kind of nonsense noted here, tossed from various quarters.
 
Our words and actions, of critique and substantive alternatives, are the change we want to see.
 
Leigh Thompson

things to expect in 2011, solar cycle, satellites

Solar Cycle Heats Up Threatens Satellites

Published on Sunday, April 20, 2008.

Source: Wired

Solar radiation reaches an 11-year high again in 2011, making things interesting for those reliant on satellites -- the U.S. military included.

As Inside the Air Force notes this week, the solar cycle -- "the frequency in which sun spots and solar flares occur" -- waxes and wanes every 11 years. The last one reached its apex in April 2000, so it's gonna get warm again soon. And while solar flares can and do damage satellites even in non-peak times, 2011 still looms big.

Radiation from solar flares or coronal holes -- areas on the sun that can cause geomagnetic storming past Earth similar to a flare -- can lead to increased “drag” on satellites as well as affect communications, Crown said.

The Air Force has collected data on the space weather environment for “many years” and has characterized the natural environment in space from charged particles to radiation, Lt. Gen. Michael Hamel -- commander of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base -- said at an April 10 briefing . . . .

“We know different orbital regimes have different characteristics, we know the degradation that happens in certain subsystems, and so we build this into the specifications and standards of the materials and the designs, and we put that margin into that so if we say . . . that a system must have a design life of 10 years, that isn’t just something that you assert; you actually have to run the tests for the components, the individual subsystems, so that you can actually statistically and predictably be able to say it’s going to live that long,” the three-star said.

During the 2003 solar flare event, a NASA-operated Martian Radiation Environment Experiment sensor was overloaded by solar activity and now is no longer functional, Crown said. In addition, another NASA asset, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-13 in Earth-orbit had “some problems with an imager” when it was saturated with a large solar flare.

“There’s countless, countless other” examples, Crown said. “There’s GPS impacts: errors in meters and location. They were temporary; they were localized and temporary. Some of them lasted three days. Off-shore drilling uses GPS, and they have to be accurate to the centimeter, and, when you’re talking about meters of error, it can really affect them.”

The Peninsula (Qatar): Oil boom: The winners and losers

Web posted at: 11/16/2007 8:44:41
Source ::: LAT-WP
By Steven Mufson

High oil prices are fuelling one of the biggest transfers of wealth in history. Oil consumers are paying $4bn to $5bn more for crude oil every day than they did just five years ago, pumping more than $2 trillion into the coffers of oil companies and oil-producing nations this year alone. The consequences are evident in minds and mortar: anger at Chinese motor-fuel pumps and inflated confidence in the Kremlin; new weapons in Chad and new petrochemical plants in Saudi Arabia; no-driving campaigns in South Korea and bigger sales for Toyota hybrid cars; a fiscal burden in Senegal and a bonanza in Brazil. In Burma, recent demonstrations were triggered by a government decision to raise fuel prices.

In the United States, the rising bill for imported petroleum lowers already anemic consumer savings rates, adds to inflation, worsens the trade deficit, undermines the dollar, and makes it more difficult for the Federal Reserve to balance its competing goals of fighting inflation and sustaining growth.

High prices have given a boost to oil-rich Alaska, which in September raised the annual oil dividend paid to every man, woman and child living there for a year to $1,654, an increase of $547 from last year. In other states, high prices create greater incentives for pursuing non-oil energy projects that once might have looked too expensive and hurt earnings at energy-intensive companies like airlines and chemical makers. Even Kellogg’s cited higher energy costs as a drag on its third-quarter earnings.

With crude oil prices flirting with $100 a barrel, there is no end in sight to the redistribution of more than 1 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product. Earlier oil shocks generated giant shifts in wealth and pools of petrodollars, but they eventually faded and economies adjusted. This new high point in petroleum prices has arrived over four years, and many believe it will represent a new plateau even if prices drop back somewhat in coming months.

“There’s never been anything like this on a sustained basis the way we’ve seen the last couple of years,” said Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University economics professor and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. Oil prices “are not spiking; they’re just rising,” he added. The benefits, to the tune of $700bn a year, are flowing to the world’s oil-exporting countries.

Two of those nations — Iran and Venezuela — may be better able to defy the Bush administration because of swelling oil revenue. Venezuela has used its oil wealth to dispense patronage around South America, vying for influence even with longtime US allies. And Iran could be less vulnerable to sanctions designed to pressure it into giving up its nuclear programme or opening it to inspection.

Saudi Arabia

The world’s biggest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, is using its rejuvenated oil riches to build four cities. Projects like these are designed to burnish the country’s image, develop a non-oil economy and generate enough employment to maintain social stability.

One is King Abdullah Economic City, a mega-project on the kingdom’s west coast. According to Emaar, a real estate development firm in Dubai, the city will cost $27bn and be spread across an area three times the size of Manhattan. A contractor who works there said a wide, palm tree-lined boulevard cuts a dozen miles across an ocean of sand and ends at the Red Sea. Construction workers in hard hats are navigating excavators, dredging land and digging foundations for a power plant, a desalinisation plant and a port. The project will eventually include an industrial district, a financial island, a university and a residential area and is expected to house 2 million people.

Despite mega-projects like this, Saudi Arabia is running a budget surplus. It has paid down much of the foreign debt it accumulated in the late 1990s and is adding to its foreign-exchange reserves.

Russia

Russia, the world’s No. 2 oil exporter, shows oil’s transformational impact in the political as well as the economic realm. When Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, less than two years after the collapse of the ruble and Russia’s default on its international debt, the country’s policymakers worried that 2003 could bring another financial crisis. The country’s foreign-debt repayments were scheduled to peak at $17bn that year.

Inside the Kremlin, that sum now looks like peanuts. Russia’s gold and foreign-currency reserves have risen by more than that amount just since July. As Putin nears the end of his second term as president, the soaring price of oil has helped allow Russia to increase the federal budget ten-fold since 1999 while paying off its foreign debt and building the third-largest gold and hard-currency reserves in the world, about $425bn.

“The government is much stronger, much more self-assured and self-confident,” said Vladimir Milov, head of the Institute of Energy Policy in Moscow and a former deputy minister of energy. “It believes it can cope with any economic crisis at home.”

With good reason. Using energy revenue, the government has built up a $150bn rainy-day account called the Stabilisation Fund. “This financial independence has contributed to more assertive actions by Russia in the international arena,” Milov said. “There is a strong drive within part of the elite to show that we are off our knees.”

The result: Russia is trying to reclaim former Soviet republics as part of its sphere of influence. Freed of the need to curry favor with foreign oil companies and Western bankers, Russia can resist what it views as American expansionism, particularly regarding Nato enlargement and US missile defence in Eastern Europe, and forge an independent approach to contentious issues like Iran’s nuclear programme.

The bonanza of petrodollars has also led to a consumer boom evident in the sprawling malls, 24-hour hyper-markets, new apartment and office buildings, and foreign cars that have become commonplace not just in Moscow and St. Petersburg but in provincial cities. Average income has doubled under Putin, and the number of people living below the poverty line has been cut in half.

But many economists have called petroleum reserves a bane, saying they enable oil-rich countries to avoid taking steps that would diversify their economies and spread wealth more equally. Russia, for example, has rising inflation, soaring imports and a lack of new investment in the very industry that is fueling the boom.

Nigeria

The problems are worse in Nigeria, which is battling an insurgency that has curtailed output in the oil-rich Niger River Delta. The central government has been disbursing its remaining oil revenue, though corruption has undermined the programme’s effectiveness. The government has also cut domestic gas subsidies, raising prices several times over in the name of improving health, education and infrastructure.

“Our oil wealth is a curse rather than a blessing for our country,” said Halima Dahiru, a 36-year-old housewife, as she waited for a bus near a Texaco station in Kano, the commercial capital of northern Nigeria. Billows of dust enveloped the gas station as vehicles frenetically cruised along the laterite-covered road, adding to the harmattan haze that blankets the city.

“You go to bed and wake up the next morning to hear the government has increased the price of petrol, and you have to live with it,” she said. “The only sensible thing to do is to adjust to the new reality because nothing will make the government listen to public outcry.”

Sudan and Chad

Newly oil-exporting countries such as Sudan and Chad and the companies operating there — including Malaysia’s Petronas and France’s Total — are winners. Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, is booming, with new skyscrapers and five-star luxury hotels, despite US and European sanctions aimed at pressuring the country to halt attacks against people in the Darfur region.

Chad’s government has used some of its oil revenue to buy weapons rather than develop the country’s economy. In eastern Chad, there are hardly any gas stations; people buy their gas — often for motorcycles, not cars — from roadside stands that sell it out of glass bottles. Oil-importing countries face their own challenges. The hardest hit are the poorest. Last year, Senegal’s budget deficit doubled, inflation quickened and growth slowed. The cash-strapped state-owned petrochemical business had to shut down for long periods.

China

In China, the government increased domestic pump prices on October 31 by nearly 10 per cent amid shortages, rationing and long lines throughout the country. Violence broke out at some gas stations, including an incident last week in Henan province in which one man killed another who had chastised him for jumping to the front of the line.

A scarcity of diesel fuel even hit China’s richest cities — Beijing, Shanghai and trading ports on the east coast — which in the past have been kept well supplied. In Ningbo, a city south of Shanghai, the wait at some gas stations this week was more than three hours long, and lines stretched more than 200 yards.

Rumours circulated that gas stations or the government was hoarding fuel in anticipation of further price increases, prompting the official New China News Agency to warn that anyone caught spreading rumours about fuel-price increases will be “severely punished.”

Li Leijun, 37, a taxi driver, said he was so angry that he was unable to purchase fuel that he argued with gas station attendants and called the police. “I still didn’t get any diesel,” he said. Since shedding orthodox Maoist economic policies, China’s leaders have unleashed decades of pent-up demand. China now consumes 9 per cent of world oil output, up from 6.4 per cent five years ago, according to the International Energy Agency. Yet it still subsidises fuel. As a result, consumption this decade has skyrocketed at an 8.7 per cent annual rate despite soaring prices and concerns about the environmental impact of profligate fuel use.

Consumption in South Africa is also defying high prices as long-impoverished blacks join the middle and upper classes. Cars are a status symbol, and petrol consumption jumped 39 per cent in the decade after the end of apartheid in 1994. New-vehicle sales last year rose 15.7 per cent over 2005.

Japan

Highly developed consumer nations have been better able to adapt. In Japan, which relies on imports for nearly 100 per cent of its fuel, nearly everyone is a loser — with the big exception of Toyota. Yet Japan has been weaning itself off oil for years. It now imports 16 per cent less oil than it did in 1973, though the economy has more than doubled. Billions of dollars were invested to convert oil-reliant electricity-generation systems into ones powered by natural gas, coal, nuclear energy or alternative fuels. Japan now accounts for 48 per cent of the globe’s solar-power generation — compared with 15 per cent in the United States. The adoption rate for fluorescent light bulbs is 80 per cent, compared with 6 per cent in the United States.

Still, rising fuel prices are pushing up the prices of raw and industrial materials, as well as for food, which relies on fertilisers and transportation. Because of rising wheat prices, Nissin Food Products, the instant-noodle industry leader, will increase prices 7 to 11 per cent in January, the first price hike in 17 years.

A winner is Toyota. Soaring petrol prices have buffed the image of the hybrid Prius and its other fuel-efficient models, such as the Camry and Corolla. Although stagnant in Japan, sales were strong in North America, Europe, Asia and emerging markets. In October, Prius sales stood at 13,158 vehicles, up 51 per cent from 8,733 in October last year. Worldwide, the number of hybrid cars sold by Toyota surpassed 1 million in May.

Britain

Britain’s national average petrol price topped £1 per litre, or about $8 a gallon, for the first time this week because of record oil prices. “But there is very little publicity about it — you don’t see many headlines saying, ‘Oil at all-time record high’,” said Chris Skrebowski, editor of Petroleum Review, a published by the Energy Institute in London. “It’s different from the United States. Here, everyone has just accepted that it is expensive.”

While British drivers are feeling the pinch, the government is gaining revenue, Skrebowski said, because about 80 per cent of the cost of gas is tax. Because Britain produces almost all the oil it consumes, its economy has been cushioned against increasing oil prices, Skrebowski said.

But Britain’s North Sea oil production is dwindling, having peaked in 1999 at 2.6 million barrels per day. Today, production is 1.4 million to 1.6 million barrels per day, Skrebowski said, while domestic oil consumption is about 1.7 million barrels a day. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who took office in June, has made energy independence a top priority.

Meanwhile, analysts said, Europeans buying oil priced in dollars are finding the rising prices somewhat cushioned by the strength of their currency. The value of the dollar has been sliding to record lows against the euro and the British pound.

Latin America

Argentina has tried to keep fuel prices for consumers at artificially low levels. President Nestor Kirchner in recent years has leaned heavily on energy companies to keep prices down, going so far as to call for a public boycott of Royal Dutch Shell when the company raised pump prices.

Now individual suppliers — wary of attracting the ire of the government — have adopted a policy of raising prices gradually and by small amounts.

As the market pressures have mounted, Kirchner has signed a series of agreements with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. This year, the two created a project called Petrosuramerica, a joint venture designed to promote cooperative energy projects and provide energy security to Argentina.

In Brazil, the region’s largest economy, high oil prices have had a different political effect. Last year, the country became a net oil exporter, thanks to major increases in domestic oil exploration and the country’s broad use of sugar-based ethanol as a transport fuel.

But new oil wealth can trickle away even more easily than it comes. Last month, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Kazakhstan’s credit rating after the country’s banks lost billions on purchases of subprime mortgages.

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