Brazil subsalt output to see early peak – minister SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazil’s subsalt oil production could shoot up in 2013 and 2014 before leveling off to match production in other off- and onshore areas, Planning Minister Paulo Bernardo said on Thursday. Output from the offshore subsalt region will grow slowly in the next two years and jump significantly during 2013 and 2014, said Bernardo, who spoke in an interview with the state television channel. He did not provide estimates or give the source of his projections. “Maybe in 2015 output at the subsalt region will be as significant as production at our current sources of crude,” he added. Bernardo’s estimates sharply contrast with estimates by state-controlled oil company Petrobras, which estimates subsalt production could match that of other regions by 2020. EIA: Energy earnings bounce back in 4Q, but still down Independent energy companies reported net income of $2.2 billion in 4Q 2009, a rebound from losses in 4Q 2008 but still below averages for the same period over the past five years, the US Energy Information Administration said. Canadian energy profits seen rising 66 percent in 2010 CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – Profit in Canada’s oil industry may climb by two-thirds this year as rebounding crude prices and rising output overshadow the impact of higher operating costs, the Conference Board of Canada said on Thursday. Betting the farm on oil In the past decade, oil and other commodity price inflation have shattered records. Oil price inflation averaged 43% per year and commodity price inflation averaged 28% during 2002-2008, dwarfing commodity price inflation of the 1970-1981 period, a record for modern times with oil prices rising at 26% a year and commodity price inflation at 10% a year. Why has the period 2002-2008 been so inflationary for commodities? Central banks, notably the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank (ECB), have categorically denied any link between their monetary policies and oil and commodity price inflation during this period. Instead, they have blamed it on rapidly growing Chinese and Indian demand for oil and other commodities and on constrained supplies on the part of producers. Academics and the media have generally supported this view. The impact of expansionary monetary policy by the Fed during 2002-2005 and the impact of widening US fiscal deficits on oil and commodity markets have been simply ignored. Why 70 Miles Per Hour Is the New 55 If gas prices spike again this summer, as some predict, the idea of dropping speed limits again may get a new hearing. But Virginia’s decision and the powerful cars consumers are buying suggest otherwise. Renewable energy technology threatened by rare earth metal shortage A U.S. House of Representatives Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee heard testimony March 16 that the U.S. faces a potentially serious shortage of rare earth metals, without which next-generation renewable energy technology for wind turbines, hybrid vehicles, cell phones and national defense technologies don’t work. Report says China is squeezing U.S. firms out of its massive wind-power market WASHINGTON – U.S. companies are getting squeezed out of the big Chinese wind-power market even as Dallas investors are bringing Chinese firms here via a big wind farm in Texas, according to a new industry report. “They’ve used every measure you could possibly think of to enhance production of renewable energy equipment in China,” said report author Alan Wolff of the trade law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP. First parasitic nematodes reported in biofuel crops Researchers at the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) at the University of Illinois have discovered widespread occurrence of plant-parasitic nematodes in the first reported nematode survey of Miscanthus and switchgrass plants used for biofuels. Timminco suspends solar-grade silicon production (Reuters) – Shares of Timminco Ltd dropped 13.3 percent on Wednesday after the company said it was suspending solar-grade silicon production and would not resume operations until customer demand recovered. Timminco said after markets closed on Tuesday that it expects gloomy solar energy market conditions to continue hurting demand for its products and financial results in the foreseeable future. China’s hunger for oil hard for US to digest It is no secret that some OPEC nations have been pumping crude above their quotas. What is more mysterious in an oversupplied oil market is where in the world those unsanctioned barrels have ended up. In the case of Iran’s estimated 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) of excess output, the answer could lie, at least partly, in China. The world’s third-biggest energy consumer has been stockpiling crude for the past 18 months in response to a government programme to establish strategic petroleum reserves equal to 90 days of consumption

Original Source of Drumbeat: March 18, 2010