Petroleum , petrol ,pétrole

Petroleum (L. petroleum, from Greek: Πέτρα (rock) + Latin:oleum (oil)^[1][2][3]) is a naturally occurring flammable liquidconsisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. The name Petroleum covers the both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oils and petroleum products that are made up of refined crude oil. A fossil fuel, it is formed when large quantities of dead organisms, usually zooplankton andalgae, are buried underneath sedimentary rock and undergo intense heat and pressure.

Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling. This comes after the studies of structural geology (at the reservoir scale), sedimentary basin analysis, reservoir characterization (mainly in terms of porosity and permeable structures).^[4][5] It is refined and separated, most easily by boiling point, into a large number of consumer products, from petrol (or gasoline) and kerosene to asphalt and chemical reagents used to make plastics and pharmaceuticals.^[6] Petroleum is used in manufacturing a wide variety of materials,^[7] and it is estimated that the world consumes about 88 million barrels each day.

The use of fossil fuels such as petroleum can have a negative impact on Earth's biosphere, releasing pollutants and greenhouse gases into the air and damaging ecosystems through events such as oil spills. Concern over the depletion of the earth's finite reserves of oil, and the effect this would have on a society dependent on it, is a field known as peak oil.

‘Oil!’ and the History of Southern California ,petroleum ,petrol

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By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Published: February 22, 2008

Eric Schlosser, the author of "Fast Food Nation" and "Reefer Madness," owned the film rights to "Oil!" the 1927 Upton Sinclair novel that was the inspiration for "There Will Be Blood," the movie made by Paul Thomas Anderson. In this interview Mr. Schlosser explains how and why he became entranced by the book, and discusses the tumultuous era in Southern California that Sinclair wrote about.

Related

Times Topics: Upton Sinclair

The Meatpacking Connection
Q. How did you come to be an executive producer of "There Will Be Blood" and to own the movie rights to "Oil!"? Had you already read a lot of Upton Sinclair before writing "Fast Food Nation," which was compared to "The Jungle," the only Sinclair book most of us are familiar with?
A. When "Fast Food Nation" was published, I was constantly asked questions about Upton Sinclair, I guess because he wrote about meatpacking and I wrote about meatpacking. But I didn't really know a lot about him. I'd read "The Jungle," but I didn't know much more than that. So I decided to sit down and read as many of his books as I could — the man wrote about 90 — and I found many of them compelling. Sinclair looked at almost every aspect of American culture and the American economy and wrote an exposé about it. He wrote an exposé of evangelical Christianity and religion in general, called "The Profits of Religion." He wrote an exposé of the banking industry and a wonderful exposé about corporate control of journalism in the United States.
And he wrote a novel called "Oil!" that I read and absolutely loved. It's a flawed novel but it hit deeply and stayed with me. And I was immediately struck by the idea that it would make a great film: it had a great setting and characters and set of issues — the corruption of government by oil money, the rise of the car culture, the birth of Los Angeles — which seemed fascinating and cinematic.
Now, this isn't something I normally do, but I contacted the estate of Upton Sinclair and bought the film rights to the book. Before I became a journalist I worked for an independent film company in New York, and I thought that when I finished the book I was writing I would try to get "Oil!" made into a movie. What I really wanted to do was find a director who felt as passionately about the book as I did. Oddly enough, what happened was the director found me. It turned out that Paul Thomas Anderson had found a copy of the novel in a used bookstore in London, and become obsessed with it and its themes, much the same way I had. He got in touch with me and told me he really wanted to do a film inspired by the book.
To be honest, at first, I wasn't sure he was the right guy for the job, which shows how smart I am. But then he came up to see me, and we spent a couple of days together, and I realized that he was the real deal, absolutely brilliant, a real artist. He had a bold and original vision of how to tell this story. He felt intensely passionate about the material. So I decided he should do it. That's how I became executive producer.
'Los Angeles Was the Kuwait of the Jazz Age'
Q. "Oil!" takes place about a decade or so later than the movie and, at 548 pages, sprawls over practically every social and economic trend of the era, from California's new car-crazed culture to face lifts to the factional battles of America's "reds." But the heart of it is a detailed chronicle of the Southern California oil boom. How would you summarize how all these themes fit together?
A. The novel is epic in scope, and it's really about the day and age in which Sinclair was living, the society of Southern California in the 1920s. George Bernard Shaw regarded Sinclair as the great historian of his era, who managed to capture the essence of the times in his novels.
Los Angeles during the 1920s was a laboratory of the future. It was the first city created to serve the needs of the automobile — it's where the car culture was born. And for a brief period, it was the center of world oil production. A handful of major discoveries — at Huntington Beach, at Signal Hill near Long Beach, at Telegraph Hill and Santa Fe Springs in Orange County— made Southern California the world's biggest oil producer. The oil industry became the leading sector of the California economy, and the state was soon responsible for about a quarter of the world's supply.

Judge Gives Final Approval to BP’s Oil Spill Settlement

A federal judge gave final approval on Friday to BP’s settlement with people who lost money and property in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The order only addressed economic and property damage claims, not separate medical benefits claims for cleanup workers and others. BP has estimated that it will pay $7.8 billion to settle more than 100,000 claims in the class-action litigation. Judge Carl Barbier of Federal District Court in New Orleans initially approved the deal in May, but held a hearing in November to weigh objections from about 13,000 claimants who challenged the settlement

Breakaway Oil Rig, Filled With Fuel, Runs Aground , petrol ,petroleum

An enormous Shell Oil offshore drilling rig ran aground on an island in the Gulf of Alaska on Monday night after it broke free from tow ships in rough seas, officials said.

Petty Officer 1St Class Sara Francis/United States Coast Guard, via Associated Press

The Kulluk is one of two rigs that Shell has used to drill test wells off the North Slope of Alaska as part of the company’s ambitious and expensive effort to open Arctic waters to oil production.Go to your Portfolio »

The New York Times

The rig, the Kulluk, which was used for test drilling in the Arctic last summer, is carrying about 139,000 gallons of diesel fuel and 12,000 gallons of lubricating oil and hydraulic fluid, the officials said.

A Coast Guard helicopter flew over the rig after the grounding at 8:48 p.m. and “detected no visible sheen,” said Darci Sinclair, a spokeswoman for a unified command of officials from Shell, Alaskan state agencies and other groups that has been directing the response since the troubles with the rig began last Thursday.

Ms. Sinclair said that more overflights were planned after daybreak on Tuesday, and that the unified command would be monitoring the fuel situation as it planned further actions. “The focus will be around salvage,” she said.

The 266-foot diameter rig ran aground on the east coast of Sitkalidak Island, an uninhabited island that is separated by the Sitkalidak Strait from the far larger Kodiak Island to the west. The nearest town, Old Harbor, is across the strait on Kodiak Island; it has a population of about 200 people.

Ms. Sinclair said the coast where the Kulluk ran aground has a combination of rocky and sandy terrain.

Earlier Monday, a Shell spokesman had said that the rig had been brought under control after towlines were reconnected to two ships during a break in what had been several days of extremely rough seas and high winds.

But late Monday afternoon the line from one of the ships, the Aiviq, became separated. Then several hours later, the other ship, the Alert, was ordered to disconnect its towline, out of concern for the safety of the ship’s nine-person crew. At the time, Ms. Sinclair said, swells were as high as 35 feet and winds were gusting up to 65 miles an hour.

The Kulluk, one of two rigs that Shell used to drill test wells off the North Slope of Alaska as part of the company’s ambitious and expensive effort to open Arctic waters to oil production, was being towed by the Aiviq to a Seattle shipyard for off-season maintenance when the towline initially separated during a storm on Thursday.

The Aiviq then lost power, and other support ships and a Coast Guard cutter were brought in to help with engine repairs and to reconnect towlines to the Kulluk, which does not have its own propulsion system. The 18 workers aboard the rig were evacuated by Coast Guard helicopters on Saturday.

Over the weekend, support crews struggled in 25-foot swells to reconnect towlines, succeeding several times. But each time the lines separated again, leaving the rig in danger of drifting toward land.

The Kulluk, which was built in Japan in 1983 and upgraded over the past six years at a cost of $292 million, is designed for icy conditions in the Arctic. It can drill in up to 400 feet of water and up to 20,000 feet deep. During drilling season it carries a crew of about 140 people, Mr. Smith said.

Shell has spent six years and more than $4 billion in its effort to drill in Arctic waters, one of the last untapped oil-producing regions in the United States. But the effort has faced regulatory hurdles and opposition from American Indian and environmental groups.

Last summer, the Kulluk drilled a shallow test well in the Beaufort Sea while another rig drilled a similar hole in the Chukchi Sea to the west.

But Shell announced in September that it would be forced to delay further drilling until this year after a specialized piece of equipment designed to contain oil from a spill was damaged in a testing accident.

The episode was one of a number of setbacks for the Arctic drilling program last year.

Shell now says it hopes to drill five exploratory wells in the region during the 2013 drilling season, which begins in mid-July.

Italy's Oil Leader Is Pursuing Its East African Bet ,petroleum , petrol

MILAN — Tucked away in a building on the outskirts of Milan is the “nirvana room,” so called perhaps because of the good tidings it contains. There, geologists working for the Italian oil company Eni don 3-D glasses to contemplate fluorescent images of underground geological formations and try to divine which might be worth tens of millions of dollars in exploratory drilling.

The mood around Eni has been nirvana-like lately as the company’s explorers have made some lucrative enlightened guesses. Beginning in 2010, Eni and a rival, the Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum, made a series of finds off Mozambique, a country in East Africa, that add up to the largest natural gas discovery of recent years — the equivalent of about 16 billion barrels of oil.

Eni controls the largest share of the Mozambique findings, with 70 percent of an offshore block in the Indian Ocean called Area 4, in what is known as the Rovuma Basin.

Eni’s chief executive, Paolo Scaroni, said the discoveries had come after Eni spent five years studying East Africa, where very little oil and natural gas had been found. When Mozambique made exploration blocks available in 2006, Eni bid and got the one it wanted.

The challenge now will be to fully capitalize on that opportunity, which will require the company to help manage Mozambique’s transition into a major energy exporter. And building multibillion-dollar plants in remote areas to turn natural gas into liquids for transport on specialized ships will also test Eni’s skills.

These days, oil and natural gas exploration is an industry as fraught with geopolitical risks as it is with geological ones, as the recent hostage-taking attack in Algeria has made clear. And Eni is as aware as any European energy company of the dangers of politically volatile North Africa, given its own extensive operations in Algeria and Libya.

But for now, at least, Mozambique is not one of Africa’s trouble spots. And in any case, energy companies tend to follow opportunities wherever they can find them.

“Although Mozambique was a new country, we thought the chances were reasonable, about 20 percent,” of finding something, Mr. Scaroni said during an interview in Milan. “Of course it was high-risk, high-reward.”

It was after Anadarko, a U.S. independent, announced a discovery in an adjacent tract that Eni, which had been preparing to drill in another part of its block, decided to put its first well near Anadarko’s tract.

Mr. Scaroni, a graduate of Columbia Business School in New York with a master’s degree in business administration, took the top job at Eni in 2005 after spending much of his career outside Italy and the oil business. He has been gradually reshaping the company into more of a machine for finding and producing oil and natural gas and less of the lumbering state conglomerate that had toiled in the second tier of global oil giants.

Mr. Scaroni, 66, also has the crucial task of maintaining Eni’s relationships with a group of fossil-fuel-rich but prickly host countries that include Iraq, Libya, Russia, Venezuela and, elsewhere in Africa, Angola and the Republic of Congo. He regularly turns up in places like Baghdad or Brazzaville that might give other chief executives pause.

During the interview, the Zubair field in Iraq was on his mind. “We have a company with 150 expatriates in Iraq, with a huge effort for security, and the economic result for us is very little, since we are paid $2 per barrel,” he said. “From time to time, we ask ourselves: Is it worth it?”

Eni is the largest foreign producer of oil and gas in both Algeria and Libya. Eni executives say they were surprised and shocked by what happened to BP and Statoil, which are partners in the Algerian plant that was seized, and are tightening up their own security measures. They note that Eni already has large numbers of Algerian troops inside the perimeters of its Algerian sites, while troops apparently were not posted inside the seized complex at In Amenas.

So far, Mr. Scaroni has smoothly sailed Eni through Libya’s chaotic transition from the regime of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to a new government that is still trying to find its balance. Unlike most other oil companies, Eni thrived under the Qaddafi regime, developing new fields and building a $9 billion facility at Mellitah, west of Tripoli, to pipe natural gas under the Mediterranean.

Oil and Gasoline and Petrol

 discovery, oil continues to play an essential role in the global economy, despite fears that reliance on petroleum More than a century and a half after its

is fueling rapid climate change. Over the last decade, the price of oil has taken a roller coaster ride, usually in a cyclical pattern that is in sync with the global economy. A strong economy tends to increase the demand for oil and drive up the price, while a weak economy generally has the opposite effect.

As a rule of thumb, economists say a $10 decline in the price of a barrel of oil increases economic growth 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points, helping many businesses dependent on oil, like airlines and makers of plastics and fertilizers. But the opposite is true as well, and the surge in gas prices in early 2012 raised fears that it might damage the still-vulnerable economic recovery. But the price leveled out later in the year — perhaps in a reflection of slowing growth.

Overall, oil consumption has dropped more than 5 percent since 2005, while natural gas use has risen 10 percent.

Overview

While it remains the top source of energy, oil has fallen off its pedestal since the energy shocks of the 1970s and 1980s, which proved how reliant the developed world had become on petroleum products, and how vulnerable it was to shortfalls in supplies.

In 1973, oil accounted for 46 percent of the world’s total energy consumption; by 2005, its share had declined to 35 percent. But oil remains well ahead of other energy sources: coal meets 25 percent of the world’s energy needs; natural gas is next with a market share of 20 percent; and nuclear power meets 6 percent of the planet’s energy needs.

Besides price volatility, concerns about energy security, as well as the environment and the threat of global warming, have put oil’s position under pressure. There are also concerns about the effects of instability in the Arab world, as well as tensions between the United States and Iran.

The U.S.: Inching Toward Energy Independence

Across the United States, the oil and gas industry has been vastly increasing production, reversing two decades of decline. Using new technology and spurred by rising oil prices since the mid-2000s, the industry is extracting millions of barrels more a week, from the deepest waters of the Gulf of Mexico to the prairies of North Dakota.

In November 2012, a report by the International Energy Agency concluded that the United States would overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s leading oil producer by about 2017 and become a net oil exporter by 2030.

Increased oil production, combined with new American policies to improve energy efficiency, means that the United States will become “all but self-sufficient” in meeting its energy needs in about two decades — a “dramatic reversal of the trend” in most developed countries,

Reckonings; Britain's Stormy Petrol

Tony Blair showed real backbone last week. Faced with a stunningly effective blockade by truckers protesting high fuel prices, the British prime minister flatly refused to give in to demands for tax cuts. The initial result was extensive disruption -- not just closed gas stations but shortages of bread and milk in supermarkets, delays in medical procedures and in general a state of chaos all too reminiscent of the U.S. gasoline shortage of 1979. By the end of the week, however, the protests seemed to be subsiding in Britain (though similar protests were still growing elsewhere in Europe). So for the time being Mr. Blair has won -- though no good deed goes unpunished, and he is likely to pay a heavy political cost for his stand on principle.

But Britain's fuel crisis -- and even more important, the public reaction -- may have implications that reach far beyond the political prospects for Mr. Blair and his party.

There is little question that Mr. Blair was right to be so intransigent. It's true that because of the high taxes the British government levies on petroleum products, gasoline and diesel fuel are very expensive, even compared with prices in other European countries. (Gasoline currently costs about $4.25 per gallon.) But the overall tax take of the British government, while high by U.S. standards, is actually low by European standards. Basically, high taxes on fuel are more than offset by lower general sales taxes and income taxes -- and any reduction in fuel taxes would eventually have to be matched by increases in other taxes.

And there are good reasons why fuel should be singled out for high taxation. Among other things, traffic congestion is, believe it or not, a much worse problem in Britain than in the United States. A tax that discourages motorists from getting on the road and hence getting in the way of other motorists serves a social purpose over and above the revenue it raises.

Even if Britain should eventually decide to tax fuel less and other things more, there's a question of timing: reducing fuel taxes in the face of a world oil shortage would be a terrible idea. There's the question of precedent: if Mr. Blair had given in to the protest on fuel prices, he would in effect have signaled every other interest group with a plausible grievance that disruptive protests were an effective political tool.

Also, cutting taxes on oil when oil prices rise gives exactly the wrong signal to the oil cartel. It tells the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries not to worry -- higher oil prices won't reduce sales because importing nations will make sure that those higher prices aren't passed on to consumers.

So Mr. Blair has the theory of the case on his side. Yet according to polls the vast majority of Britons sided with the protesters. And the same is apparently true in the rest of Europe.

Why do fuel-price protests command such wide support? American conservatives -- and Britain's hapless Conservative opposition -- would like to think of this as an anti-tax movement. After all, don't truckers want a cut in fuel taxes? But while the letter of the protesters' demands may involve tax cuts, the spirit of the protest is quite different. This isn't a rebellion against taxes per se: it's a rebellion against markets. In effect, European truckers have been saying that it isn't right that they should suffer just because the world price of the fuel they need has gone up.

It is a telling detail that the wave of European fuel-price protests began in France, the Western nation that has been most reluctant to let market forces rip. Of course the government of France, true to form, quickly caved in to the protesters' demands -- to the fury of other European governments that are trying to make a stand on principle. But it turns out that the French are not that exceptional -- even in post-Thatcherite Britain most people support the truckers.

What this says is that what seems to be the defining feature of Western political economy at the turn of the millennium -- the triumph of free-market ideology -- is far less complete than some would imagine. Ordinary people, when push comes to shove, feel that sometimes the market just isn't fair -- and have sympathy for those who protest that unfairness, even if those protests adversely affect the population at large.

Petrol Emotion

WITH a tangle of guitar riffs and shouts of defiance and frustration, That Petrol Emotion played a high-adrenalin set Friday night at the Ritz. That Petrol Emotion hails from Northern Ireland and was founded by Sean O'Neill, formerly the guitarist for a punk-pop band, the Undertones. And while Mr. O'Neill's songs for That Petrol Emotion still have the economy of pop, their guitar lines layer on dissonances and the lyrics are filled with fury, political as well as personal. ''You think I should show some respect,'' one taunts, ''I'd rather tear down all I can wreck.''

The frenzied drive of That Petrol Emotion's two albums, ''Manic Pop Thrill'' and ''Babble,'' came through clearly at the Ritz. In slower songs, such as ''Big Decision,'' the band can sound like a youthful, unjaded Rolling Stones, and occasionally it tries a funk beat. But most of its songs, and its best ones, suggest a revved-up revival of the New York band Television. Fast, gnarled, modal guitar lines propel tune after tune, barely leaving space for Steve Mack's lead vocals.

Mr. Mack was a boyish figure on stage, wearing bicycle shorts and bounding and skipping around; he spent most of the set on one foot or in the air. But with his exuberance came a sense of genuine urgency - an urgency that makes That Petrol Emotion essential listening.

Petrol price pain to grow

MOTORISTS can expect even higher petrol prices in coming weeks as improved investor sentiment globally and tensions in the Middle East affect regional prices.

The Australian Institute of Petroleum said the national average price for unleaded petrol rose 2.7¢ per litre in the past week to 140.3¢. The metropolitan average rose by 3.7¢ per litre to 139.9¢, while the regional average rose by 0.7¢ to 141.3¢.

CommSec economist Savanth Sebastian said further increases were expected. He said the benchmark Singapore unleaded price had risen by a staggering $29 in the past seven weeks to a three-month high, with almost half the gains having been made in the past fortnight.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/petrol-price-pain-to-grow-20120813-244z9.html#ixzz2Jjcupaoo

Reckonings; Britain's Stormy Petrol

Tony Blair showed real backbone last week. Faced with a stunningly effective blockade by truckers protesting high fuel prices, the British prime minister flatly refused to give in to demands for tax cuts. The initial result was extensive disruption -- not just closed gas stations but shortages of bread and milk in supermarkets, delays in medical procedures and in general a state of chaos all too reminiscent of the U.S. gasoline shortage of 1979. By the end of the week, however, the protests seemed to be subsiding in Britain (though similar protests were still growing elsewhere in Europe). So for the time being Mr. Blair has won -- though no good deed goes unpunished, and he is likely to pay a heavy political cost for his stand on principle.

But Britain's fuel crisis -- and even more important, the public reaction -- may have implications that reach far beyond the political prospects for Mr. Blair and his party.

There is little question that Mr. Blair was right to be so intransigent. It's true that because of the high taxes the British government levies on petroleum products, gasoline and diesel fuel are very expensive, even compared with prices in other European countries. (Gasoline currently costs about $4.25 per gallon.) But the overall tax take of the British government, while high by U.S. standards, is actually low by European standards. Basically, high taxes on fuel are more than offset by lower general sales taxes and income taxes -- and any reduction in fuel taxes would eventually have to be matched by increases in other taxes.

And there are good reasons why fuel should be singled out for high taxation. Among other things, traffic congestion is, believe it or not, a much worse problem in Britain than in the United States. A tax that discourages motorists from getting on the road and hence getting in the way of other motorists serves a social purpose over and above the revenue it raises.

Even if Britain should eventually decide to tax fuel less and other things more, there's a question of timing: reducing fuel taxes in the face of a world oil shortage would be a terrible idea. There's the question of precedent: if Mr. Blair had given in to the protest on fuel prices, he would in effect have signaled every other interest group with a plausible grievance that disruptive protests were an effective political tool.

Also, cutting taxes on oil when oil prices rise gives exactly the wrong signal to the oil cartel. It tells the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries not to worry -- higher oil prices won't reduce sales because importing nations will make sure that those higher prices aren't passed on to consumers.

So Mr. Blair has the theory of the case on his side. Yet according to polls the vast majority of Britons sided with the protesters. And the same is apparently true in the rest of Europe.

Why do fuel-price protests command such wide support? American conservatives -- and Britain's hapless Conservative opposition -- would like to think of this as an anti-tax movement. After all, don't truckers want a cut in fuel taxes? But while the letter of the protesters' demands may involve tax cuts, the spirit of the protest is quite different. This isn't a rebellion against taxes per se: it's a rebellion against markets. In effect, European truckers have been saying that it isn't right that they should suffer just because the world price of the fuel they need has gone up.

It is a telling detail that the wave of European fuel-price protests began in France, the Western nation that has been most reluctant to let market forces rip. Of course the government of France, true to form, quickly caved in to the protesters' demands -- to the fury of other European governments that are trying to make a stand on principle. But it turns out that the French are not that exceptional -- even in post-Thatcherite Britain most people support the truckers.

What this says is that what seems to be the defining feature of Western political economy at the turn of the millennium -- the triumph of free-market ideology -- is far less complete than some would imagine. Ordinary people, when push comes to shove, feel that sometimes the market just isn't fair -- and have sympathy for those who protest that unfairness, even if those protests adversely affect the population at large.

Petrol generator

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Petrol price pain to grow

MOTORISTS can expect even higher petrol prices in coming weeks as improved investor sentiment globally and tensions in the Middle East affect regional prices.

The Australian Institute of Petroleum said the national average price for unleaded petrol rose 2.7¢ per litre in the past week to 140.3¢. The metropolitan average rose by 3.7¢ per litre to 139.9¢, while the regional average rose by 0.7¢ to 141.3¢.

CommSec economist Savanth Sebastian said further increases were expected. He said the benchmark Singapore unleaded price had risen by a staggering $29 in the past seven weeks to a three-month high, with almost half the gains having been made in the past fortnight.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/petrol-price-pain-to-grow-20120813-244z9.html#ixzz2JjbNGWh1

Petrol

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Premium car buyers now seeking CNG version of Honda CR-V, Honda Civic, Honda City, Toyota Camry and Corolla

MUMBAI: Even the rich are now turning to the fuel of taxi drivers, as skyrocketing petrol prices threaten to rock household budgets. Demand for compressed natural gas (CNG) kits from premium car owners has risen 25-30% in the last few months, companies dealing with CNG kit fitment say. CNG is not only cheaper than both petrol and diesel but also gives better running average.

petrol , petrol station , petrol price , petrol ofisi turkey ,petrol price today ,Crude Oil ,petroleum ,

Reckonings; Britain's Stormy Petrol -Petroleum

Tony Blair showed real backbone last week. Faced with a stunningly effective blockade by truckers protesting high fuel prices, the British prime minister flatly refused to give in to demands for tax cuts. The initial result was extensive disruption -- not just closed gas stations but shortages of bread and milk in supermarkets, delays in medical procedures and in general a state of chaos all too reminiscent of the U.S. gasoline shortage of 1979. By the end of the week, however, the protests seemed to be subsiding in Britain (though similar protests were still growing elsewhere in Europe). So for the time being Mr. Blair has won -- though no good deed goes unpunished, and he is likely to pay a heavy political cost for his stand on principle.

But Britain's fuel crisis -- and even more important, the public reaction -- may have implications that reach far beyond the political prospects for Mr. Blair and his party.

There is little question that Mr. Blair was right to be so intransigent. It's true that because of the high taxes the British government levies on petroleum products, gasoline and diesel fuel are very expensive, even compared with prices in other European countries. (Gasoline currently costs about $4.25 per gallon.) But the overall tax take of the British government, while high by U.S. standards, is actually low by European standards. Basically, high taxes on fuel are more than offset by lower general sales taxes and income taxes -- and any reduction in fuel taxes would eventually have to be matched by increases in other taxes.

And there are good reasons why fuel should be singled out for high taxation. Among other things, traffic congestion is, believe it or not, a much worse problem in Britain than in the United States. A tax that discourages motorists from getting on the road and hence getting in the way of other motorists serves a social purpose over and above the revenue it raises.

Even if Britain should eventually decide to tax fuel less and other things more, there's a question of timing: reducing fuel taxes in the face of a world oil shortage would be a terrible idea. There's the question of precedent: if Mr. Blair had given in to the protest on fuel prices, he would in effect have signaled every other interest group with a plausible grievance that disruptive protests were an effective political tool.

Also, cutting taxes on oil when oil prices rise gives exactly the wrong signal to the oil cartel. It tells the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries not to worry -- higher oil prices won't reduce sales because importing nations will make sure that those higher prices aren't passed on to consumers.

So Mr. Blair has the theory of the case on his side. Yet according to polls the vast majority of Britons sided with the protesters. And the same is apparently true in the rest of Europe.

Why do fuel-price protests command such wide support? American conservatives -- and Britain's hapless Conservative opposition -- would like to think of this as an anti-tax movement. After all, don't truckers want a cut in fuel taxes? But while the letter of the protesters' demands may involve tax cuts, the spirit of the protest is quite different. This isn't a rebellion against taxes per se: it's a rebellion against markets. In effect, European truckers have been saying that it isn't right that they should suffer just because the world price of the fuel they need has gone up.

It is a telling detail that the wave of European fuel-price protests began in France, the Western nation that has been most reluctant to let market forces rip. Of course the government of France, true to form, quickly caved in to the protesters' demands -- to the fury of other European governments that are trying to make a stand on principle. But it turns out that the French are not that exceptional -- even in post-Thatcherite Britain most people support the truckers.

What this says is that what seems to be the defining feature of Western political economy at the turn of the millennium -- the triumph of free-market ideology -- is far less complete than some would imagine. Ordinary people, when push comes to shove, feel that sometimes the market just isn't fair -- and have sympathy for those who protest that unfairness, even if those protests adversely affect the population at large.

L'exploration : à la recherche des gisements de pétrole et de gaz et Huile

La sismique terre et mer.
© Keblow
Les ressources en pétrole et en gaz et Huile naturel se trouvent dans les entrailles de la Terre depuis des dizaines de millions d'années. Pour les repérer depuis la surface terrestre, il faut être attentif à plusieurs indices. Mais ce n'est qu'en creusant le
sous-sol jusqu'à plusieurs kilomètres de profondeur que l'on peut vraiment confirmer la présence d'un gisement exploitable...

Comment repère-t-on un gisement pétrolier potentiel ? 

Au cœur des bassins sédimentaires, les hydrocarbures sont détectables grâce à la sismique réflexion. Cette technique fournit des images en volume du sous-sol. Avant d'explorer ces territoires, les compagnies doivent toutefois obtenir un permis de l'État concerné.
Avant le forage : étudier le sous-sol 

Le forage est une opération coûteuse et délicate. C'est pourquoi les géologues étudient soigneusement sa pertinence et sa faisabilité avant l'installation des infrastructures nécessaires aux travaux.
Comment se déroule un forage ? 

Derrick, trépan, boue de forage, tubage… Autant d’outils indispensables pour creuser le sous-sol en toute sécurité afin de savoir s’il recèle des hydrocarbures.
Après le forage : les études complémentaires 

Une fois terminé le forage d’exploration, on réalise d’autres tests pour lever toute incertitude sur le gisement. On peut alors décider s’il faut abandonner le site ou le mettre en production.

Washington veut réduire les émissions toxiques de 95 %

Le Canada, qui dit aligner maintenant ses normes environnementales sur celles des États-Unis, était muet hier sur cette question.
L'Agence de protection de l'environnement (EPA) des États-Unis, l'équivalent de notre ministère fédéral de l'Environnement, a promulgué hier toute une série de normes pour réduire globalement de 95 % les émissions toxiques et de gaz à effet de serre (GES) de l'industrie pétrolière et des gaz de schiste.

Les deux industries émettaient en 2008 quelque 2,2 millions de tonnes de composés organiques volatils (COV), des molécules à l'origine du smog urbain, en plus de millions de tonnes de gaz à effet de serre. La nouvelle réglementation devrait permettre d'éviter annuellement aux États-Unis l'émission de 190 000 à 290 000 tonnes de COV, de 12 000 à 20 000 tonnes de contaminants atmosphériques en grande partie cancérigènes et entre 1 et 1,7 million de tonnes de méthane, ce qui équivaut à des émissions de 19 à 33 millions de tonnes de CO2.

Ces nouvelles normes fédérales étasuniennes, qui ciblent autant l'industrie des gaz de schiste que l'industrie pétrolière, touchent des domaines de l'activité industrielle qui n'avaient jamais fait l'objet d'une approche réglementaire aux États-Unis et au Canada.

En plus de vouloir restreindre de façon radicale les émissions fugitives de ces deux industries, l'EPA leur impose des obligations de rapport annuel, voire dans les 24 heures qui vont précéder toute opération de fracturation hydraulique afin de permettre la présence d'inspecteurs sur les lieux. 

L'EPA a été obligée de promulguer ces normes à la suite d'une ordonnance d'un tribunal du District de Columbia après une poursuite intentée par deux groupes environnementaux. Obligée de procéder tous les huit ans à une révision des normes de rejet dans l'atmosphère, l'EPA a tenu des audiences qui lui ont valu 156 000 commentaires écrits. 

Brûler puis récupérer 

En vertu des nouvelles normes, les deux secteurs industriels devront installer des torchères pour brûler les émissions fugitives à la tête de leurs puits, en particulier lors du refoulement d'eaux et de gaz divers qui fait suite aux opérations de fracturation hydraulique. Les torchères seront aussi requises sur les équipements de stockage dans la mesure où les règlements locaux ne les interdisent pas. 

Il s'agira d'une mesure temporaire, mais qui aura un énorme impact sur la qualité de l'air aux États-Unis. En effet, le méthane qui fuit des puits récemment fracturés ou des équipements de stockage de pétrole ou de gaz en fait la première source d'émissions fugitives de méthane aux États-Unis. Or, le méthane est un gaz à effet de serre au moins 20 fois plus puissant que le CO2. Mais en le brûlant, on fait passer de 20 à 1 sa capacité d'emprisonner la chaleur solaire dans l'atmosphère terrestre. 

Après 2015, les opérateurs des puits de pétrole ou de gaz de schiste devront installer des équipements qui vont récupérer à 95 % ce méthane pour l'introduire dans les oléoducs afin de ne pas gaspiller cette ressource, limitée par définition. La récupération et la vente de ce méthane ainsi que les cobénéfices en problèmes de santé «évités» en raison de la réduction à 95 % des émissions toxiques des puits va générer, en tenant compte des coûts, un bénéfice net de 440 millions par année pour la société étasunienne. 

Les États-Unis comptent présentement 1,1 million de puits de pétrole et de gaz naturel ou de schiste. Chaque année, on y creuse 11 400 nouveaux puits, principalement en raison de la croissance de l'industrie des gaz de schiste. Et on «refracture» environ 1400 anciens puits afin de prolonger leur vie utile. Le gaz ainsi récupéré voyage à travers ce pays dans un réseau d'oléoducs d'une longueur totale de 2,4 millions de kilomètres qui est aussi à l'origine de fuites qui devront être limitées. 

Réactions 

Alors que le Canada, qui dit aligner maintenant ses normes environnementales sur celles des États-Unis, était muet hier sur cette question, tout comme l'industrie nord-américaine des gaz de schiste et du pétrole, l'Association pulmonaire américaine (ALA) félicitait chaudement l'EPA pour cette avancée normative qui cible la production, le raffinage, le transport et l'entreposage du pétrole et du gaz. 

L'exploration et l'exploitation de ces gisements rejoignent de plus en plus les milieux habités, notait l'ALA, une croissance «qui aurait exposé de plus en plus de citoyens à des toxiques puissants, n'eût été la promulgation de nouvelles normes efficaces et radicales». 

«Nous avons été mis devant des faits irréfutables qui démontrent l'existence de menaces sérieuses à la santé humaine à cause des contaminants atmosphériques émis au cours des opérations d'extraction et de transport du pétrole et du gaz, dont le dioxyde de soufre (SO2), les oxydes d'azote (NO) et les COV, ce qui englobe notamment les benzènes et de la formaldéhyde, tout comme les émissions croissantes d'ozone troposphérique (au niveau du sol) et les matières particulaires», a expliqué le président de l'ALA, Al Rizzo. 

Selon ce dernier, «ces contaminants peuvent aggraver les cas d'asthme, causer des attaques cardiaques et endommager les systèmes respiratoires circulatoires et nerveux ainsi que d'autres systèmes critiques et essentiels du corps humain. Les gens les plus à risques devant ces polluants toxiques, soit ceux qui vont profiter le plus des nouvelles normes, sont les nouveau-nés, les enfants et les adolescents. Chez les adultes, ce seront les femmes enceintes, les gens atteints d'asthme et d'autres problèmes pulmonaires, les personnes affectées par des faiblesses cardiaques, les diabétiques, les gens à bas revenus et les adultes qui travaillent ou font de l'exercice à l'extérieur.» 

Les analyses des bénéfices, réalisées par l'EPA sur sa propre réforme, vont dans le même sens.

• smog,
• pétrole,
• gaz à effet de serre (GES),
• États-Unis (Pays),
• gaz de schiste

Pas de gaz de schiste à n'importe quel prix pour Sarkozy

ENVIRONNEMENT - En visite dans le Gard, le président de la République a confirmé l'abrogation de trois permis de recherche de gaz de schiste, et a confirmé qu'une exploitation de cette ressource ne se fera que si des techniques respectueuses de l'environnement sont démontrées...

Courage et sang-froig: Nicolas Sarkozy a déclaré mardi s'inspirer des valeurs cévenoles dans son action, confirmant au passage l'abrogation de permis d'exploration de gaz de schiste qui ont beaucoup inquiété cette région sauvage.

En visite dans le Gard pour marquer le classement des Causses et des Cévennes au patrimoine mondial de l'Unesco, le chef de l'Etat a tenu à célébrer l'héritage de la «liberté de conscience» pour laquelle se sont battus les Camisards au début du XVIIIe siècle dans ce haut-lieu du protestantisme. 

«Je voudrais vous dire que je m'inspire beaucoup de ces valeurs cévenoles face à la crise que le monde connaît: résistance, courage, sang-froid», a-t-il dit lors d'un discours prononcé à Alès. Il a confirmé l'abrogation, annoncée la veille par la ministre de l'Ecologie Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, «des trois permis d'exploration de gaz de schiste qui concernaient votre région».

Evoquant la loi votée en juillet qui interdit la technique, jugée polluante, de fracturation hydraulique pour l'exploration et l'exploitation de ces gaz et huiles de schiste, il a demandé à la ministre, qui l'accompagnait, de s'assurer que les autres permis accordés «soient strictement limités aux activités conventionnelles». 
Liberté de conscience

«L'exploitation des ressources en hydrocarbures contenues dans notre sous-sol est un enjeu stratégique pour notre pays, mais pas à n'importe quel prix», a-t-il déclaré: «Cela ne se fera pas tant qu'il n'aura pas été démontré que les techniques utilisées (...) sont respectueuses de l'environnement, de la complexité des sols et des réseaux hydrologiques». «Ça ne se fera pas aux prix d'une fragmentation des terres qui massacrerait ce paysage presque spirituel que l'Unesco a justement choisi de classer au patrimoine mondial de l'humanité». Les trois permis abrogés, qui avaient suscité des manifestations hostiles dans la région, avaient été accordés au groupe américain Schuepbach en Ardèche et dans l'Aveyron, et à Total à Montélimar.

Nicolas Sarkozy avait entamé sa visite par le musée du village de Mialet, près d'Alès, qui retrace l'histoire du protestantisme et de la révolte des Camisards dans les Cévennes, où le pouvoir royal a tenté d'éradiquer la «religion prétendue réformée». A la sortie, il s'est déclaré «très ému» de venir dans un tel «lieu de mémoire, un lieu sacré pour les protestants, qui a un message qui va bien au-delà de la seule communauté protestante». «Le don des protestants à la France, c'est la liberté de conscience», a-t-il ajouté. 

Le président de la République, qui a à plusieurs reprises dans le passe célébré l' «héritage chrétien de la France», s'adressait à une communauté qui a environ deux millions d'adeptes dans l'Hexagone. Jeudi, ce sera au tour des 600.000 Arméniens de France d'être l'objet de ses attentions à l'occasion d'une visite d'Etat en Arménie, où il emmène avec lui le plus célèbre des membres de cette communauté, le chanteur Charles Aznavour.
Reuters