Grenada becomes the first eastern Caribbean island to establish a wind farm.
ST GEORGE’S, Grenada, Thursday, September 20, 2012
Oil prices fell on Wednesday for the third day in a row as traders realised that a recent run-up to $100 may have been overdone.
Oil ended at $91.98 on Wednesday, dropping $3.31, or 3.5 per cent. That was its lowest close since August 3. Oil has fallen 7 per cent this week.
Several things have been pushing prices down. Analysts said traders are taking profits after oil got above $100 per barrel on Friday for the first time since May. And there have more signs this week that the global economy is slowing down, which tends to push oil prices lower because people and businesses use less energy.
Also, crude inventories rose three times more than analysts had expected last week. Crude supplies grew by 8.5 million barrels to 367.6 million barrels. That’s 8.4 per cent higher than at the same time last year, according to the Energy Information Administration‘s weekly report.
Analysts expected a rise of 2.5 million barrels, according to Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.
There were also reports that Saudi Arabia is keeping production high to drive oil prices lower.
Oil’s decline came despite some news that might have pushed prices higher. The Bank of Japan said on Wednesday that it would buy more government bonds, which is intended to boost Japan’s economy. And ongoing tensions in the Middle East have tended to drive prices higher.
“Yet we continue to fall,” said Addison Armstrong, senior director for market research at Tradition Energy. “I think that has accelerated some profit-taking. After all, crude did have a pretty good run from $86 up to $100.”
Brent crude traded on the ICE Futures exchange in London fell $3.84, or 3.4 per cent, to $108.19 per barrel.
Traders were also keeping their eyes on oil supplies as US Gulf Coast refineries returned to production after shutting down due to Hurricane Isaac.
“We’re getting back a few more refineries post (Hurricane Isaac), but on the flip side a few refineries had some restart issues and a few are headed into maintenance,” said Carl Larry of Oil Outlooks and Opinions in a newsletter.
Regular gasolene at the pump fell a half a penny to an average of $3.854 per gallon.
– AP
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20120920/business/business1.html
Oil declined to a two-week low as Saudi Arabia was said to be taking action to lower prices and increasing concern that an economic slowdown will curb demand.
Oil fell for a second day as a Persian Gulf official said Saudi Arabia is pumping about 10 million barrels a day and will produce more if customers demand it.
Prices tumbled 2.4 percent yesterday, at one point dropping 3 dollars in less than a minute on a surge in volume.
At the end of today the price was down 1 dollar 33 cents or 1.4 percent, to 95 dollars 29 cents a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest settlement since August 30.
The two-day decline was 3.7 percent.
Prices are down 3.6 percent this year.
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MONTEGO BAY, St James
KINGSTON, Jamaica
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Oil plunged suddenly Monday afternoon, dropping more than US$4 per barrel at one point in a dramatic end to an otherwise quiet trading day in New York.
Benchmark crude fell $2.38, or 2.4 per cent, to finish at $96.62 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That’s the biggest percentage decline since July 23. Oil plunged below $95 per barrel during the sell-off.
Traders were unsure of the cause of Monday’s price drop. Some questioned whether an errant trade or another rumour about a release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was to blame.
The White House has been considering tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to stem the rising cost of crude and gasolene. A little over a week ago, Reuters reported the Obama administration was considering a release much larger than the 30 million barrels from last year.
Oil rose 2.7 per cent last week after getting a boost from the US Federal Reserve‘s latest plan to boost the US economy. It held to slight gains above $99 for most of Monday.
Brent crude, which is used to price international varieties of oil, fell sharply as well. Brent lost $2.91, or 2.9 per cent, to $113.77 on the ICE Futures Exchange in London.
– AP
Read More:http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20120918/business/business3.html
A Nissan Leaf electric car being charged. – Contributed
SEATTLE (AP):
If you believe Bob Lutz, one of the auto industry’s best-known executives, come mid-century we’ll all be driving around in lightweight electric cars that can go hundreds of miles between charges.
Electric-car technology is improving rapidly, he said, while internal-combustion engines are as good as they’re ever going to get.
Lutz, developer of the Chevy Volt, was at Seattle Centre, USA, on Friday for a conference called ‘Beyond Oil’ – an event that showcases green and high-tech transportation advances. Sponsored by local think-tank Cascadia Centre, the city of Seattle, VIA Motors and others, the conference drew transportation execs, state officials and electric-car enthusiasts.
They showed off or peered inside an assortment of energy-efficient vehicles on display – everything from plug-in Nissan Leafs to an aerodynamic Viking X car built by students at Western Washington University and something called a Firefly, for use by parking enforcers and security patrols.
For now, electric cars remain a niche market, with price being a huge factor – typically US$35,000 to US$40,000 for a basic passenger car.
Lutz guessed that unless electric cars can be priced as cheaply as gasolene-powered cars, only about five per cent of the public will pay extra for green cars. For now, he said, the most cost-effective use for electric motors is in trucks and delivery fleets that burn lots of gas.
He’s a board member at VIA Motors, which showed off a white van brought from Utah. Like a Volt, it runs all-electric during a normal workday, with gasolene as backup power for trips longer than 40 miles.
VIA plans to deliver 2,000 of the vehicles to government and business fleets around the country next year.
More mainstream
Still, plug-in cars have become more mainstream since 2006, when scientists and amateur mechanics at the Beyond Oil conference here spent time explaining how to retrofit a hybrid Prius so it could be plugged into a regular household power socket. Since then, Nissan, Chevrolet, Toyota, Ford and Mitsubishi have all developed plug-in models.
The next big advance? The experts say it will be automobile bodies made of lightweight carbon fibre that will help cars run on less energy, much like the Boeing Dreamliner.
That, in turn, will enable cars to be propelled by smaller batteries and powertrains, according to Amory Lovins, chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, which does research into efficient technologies.
A carbon-built auto industry is already getting under way, Lovins said, noting that carbon fiber made in Moses Lake is being sent to BMW in Germany, and a company called Fiberforge is negotiating with US automakers about how to build carbon-fibre vehicles.
Read More:http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20120916/auto/auto5.html
Petroleum Company of Jamaica (Petcom) has entered into a dealership arrangement with the family of the late Lloyd ‘LG’ Brown to operate a service station at the intersection of Dunrobin and Constant Spring roads in St Andrew.
It’s part of the state-owned gasoline retailer’s strategy to procure a greater share of the overall petroleum retail market of which it now controls only 12 per cent. Petcom increases its service station chain to 29 with the deal.
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Acquisition of the former LG Service Station puts Petcom in a position to profit at one of the major intersections in St Andrew (Photo: Naphtali Junior) |
“Petcom is currently on a drive to expand our service station network and therefore we have been actively looking for strategic locations, particularly in the Corporate Area,” said the company’s general manager, Courtney Lawes.
“Our new location, Petcom Dunrobin, is not only a popular service station but it has the additional advantage of being situated in a high-traffic area,” said Lawes.
Government figures show that three major multinational oil companies