With a sign in the background verifying the high price of gasoline, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin called for curbing excessive speculation in the oil market, which he said is responsible for the continuing escalation of prices at the pump.

He said it’s not just supply and demand that is governing the rapid rise in gasoline and diesel prices. Prices have come down somewhat from the record $4.50 a gallon, but they are still very high, he said as the Casey’s store in the background displayed a price of $3.799 for unleaded and $3.949 for unleaded plus. Read more » »

Oil rose earlier today after a Turkish section of a BP Plc- led pipeline for Azeri crude was shut by an explosion.

The cause of the blast and the timing of the resumption of flows were unclear, a spokesman at the Ankara-based Energy Ministry said. BP and its partners shipped almost 1 million barrels a day through the Azerbaijan-Turkey link in May.

“We got a little bit of a boost from that Turkish pipeline story, though it looks like the market has digested that it wasn’t sabotage and BP is going to route supplies around it,” said Gene McGillian, an analyst at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut.
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British Columbia sold $610 million in oil and gas rights in July, a record for any month that also helped the province surpass the previous annual record in just four months.

The province said Thursday its year-to-date total for the 2008-09 financial year has now hit a record $1.3 billion. That is for the April-July period and surpasses the $1.2 billion in sales reached for the full year ended March 31, 20008.
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These are boom times for mining companies but the big profits are being eaten into not only by spiraling energy costs but suddenly rising prices for the explosives used to blast into the rocks.

It’s all because of the high price of natural gas, which when converted into ammonia is used to produce ammonium nitrate, a key ingredient in fertilizers and explosives. Natural gas prices are up 75 percent so far this year and ammonia prices have doubled since last summer.

The price rises have added to explosives companies’ profits but for miners it is an added cost, along with higher diesel, energy and labor expenses, narrowing their margins at a time when metals and coal are in big demand.
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Saudi Arabia — the world’s top crude exporter — called the gathering Sunday to send a message that it, too, is concerned by high oil prices inflicting economic pain worldwide.

Instead, the meeting highlighted the sharp disagreement between producers like Saudi Arabia and consuming countries like Britain and the United States over the core factors driving steep price hikes. Oil closed near $135 a barrel on Friday — almost double the price a year ago.
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In its annual forecast of Canada’s crude oil production through 2020, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said it expects the country will produce 4.5 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) in 12 years, double current output, with U.S. refiners taking the lion’s share of the supply increase.

And while the group called for 2015 production from the oil sands of 3.4 million bpd last year, its updated study calls for output from the region to be just 2.8 million bpd as development takes place at a more measured pace.
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In its weekly inventory report, the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration said crude oil supplies fell 1.2 million barrels last week, less than the 2 million barrel decline expected by analysts surveyed by energy research firm Platts.

The report also said demand for gasoline is down 1.8 percent, on average, over the last four weeks compared to last year. But gasoline supplies fell 1.2 million barrels, where analysts were expecting an increase of nearly 1 million barrels.
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Congressional Democrats were quick to reject the push for lifting the drilling moratorium, saying oil companies already have 68 million acres offshore waters under lease that are not being developed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Bush’s proposals “another page from (an)… energy policy that was literally written by the oil industry — give away more public resources.”

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, rejected lifting the drilling moratorium that has been supported by a succession of presidents for nearly two decades.
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OPEC on Friday cut its 2008 estimate of growth in world oil demand, as high prices and slower economic growth brake demand in major industrialized countries and the United States in particular.

Global oil demand was now projected to grow by 1.28 percent in 2008, compared with the previous estimate of 1.35 percent, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting countries said in its June monthly report.
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Now, all coutry confuse about oil price, very higher oil price in every trade and market. Fluctuation oil price on market will effect to every economic and industry sector. Bellow the analysist from the head of BP, about mining exploration investment and trade-market condition.

The world is not running out of oil and can continue to produce hydrocarbons for the next 40 years provided restrictions on where companies can operate are lifted, the head of BP said yesterday.

The Arctic and closed areas off the coast of America should be considered for exploration if rising global energy demand is to be met in future, said chief executive Tony Hayward at the launch of his company’s annual statistical review of world energy in London.
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