Energy Intelligence Briefing articles from March 2003

Energy Intelligence Briefing archives from March 2003

Arab summit inconclusive on regime change in Iraq. (Eye On Iraq).
March 2, 2003... SHARM EL-SHEIKH -- The most important outcome of the Arab summit meeting in Egypt over the weekend was what Arab leaders wished but did not adopt as a resolution: a request to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to step down and leave Iraq to save...

Iraqi coup no simple solution, warns new UK report. (Eye On Iraq).
March 2, 2003... US talk of a coup d'etat replacing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein may seem like a favored option for Washington to avoid a protracted war in Iraq, or even any conflict at all. But such a development would also present the US with policy...

Saudi Aramco playing key role in today's oil market. (Eye on Iraq).
March 3, 2003... Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil producer, is currently playing as critical a role in stabilizing near-term oil markets as it has for many years. Saudi crude is stepping into the breech left by Venezuela's strike, while meeting demand to...

Russian export bottleneck standoff comes to a head.(conflict between pipeline operator Transneft, oil companies)(Illustration)
March 3, 2003... The simmering conflict between national pipeline operator Transneft and Russia's oil generals is coming to a head. As the backlog of export volumes continues to mount, oil companies are piling on the pressure to clear out the pipeline...

Winter boosts oil demand, but supply charges ahead.
March 4, 2003... Global oil demand posted another strong month in February, preliminary indications from Energy Intelligence's Oil Market Intelligence show. At an estimated 79.2 million barrels per day, total demand outpaced a year earlier by 2.8% in February,...

Americas by far the largest buyer of Iraqi crude oil. (Eye on Iraq).
March 4, 2003... Some two-thirds of all official Iraqi crude oil exports in February was bound for the Americas, while roughly one-third went to Europe and Asian sales dropped to a trickle, an analysis of Iraqi export data shows. The volume of Iraqi crude...

West African crude flows west into uncertain market.
March 4, 2003... After grim trading conditions in March, sellers of West African crude are hoping that April will bring better conditions. Although improving, the outlook is not entirely buoyant. Nervous sellers cleared roughly 8 million barrels of Angolan...

US woos reticent candidate to lead post-war Iraq. (Eye On Iraq).(the U.S. government wants to find a leader to be put in place of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein)
March 6, 2003... DOHA -- The US government is searching for an Iraqi to play a role similar to that of Afghani Premier Hamed Karzai once Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is deposed. Western diplomats say that Adnan Pachachi is the best man for the job. But the...

Doha conference exposes rifts among Islamic states. (Eye On Iraq).(summit meetings show that Arab states lack the unity to prevent a U.S.-led war against Iraq)
March 7, 2003... DOHA -- Three summit meetings over the past week have conclusively proved that Arab states lack the unity, let alone the leverage, to prevent a US-led war against Iraq, as substantive discussions have gone on behind the scenes while squabbles...

Jordan preparing for war, hoarding smuggled Iraqi oil. (Eye on Iraq).
March 10, 2003... AMMAN -- Unlike in the 1990 crisis following Iraq's occupation of Kuwait, Jordan, which shares its eastern border with Iraq, has kept a low profile recently. Although it increased the import of crude oil and products from Iraq in preparation of...

Opec seeks to soothe prices without sopping to US. (Eye On Iraq).
March 10, 2003... With a war in the world's most prolific oil region possibly only days away, Opec ministers find themselves struggling to find the words to ease consumers' supply fears, while avoiding the appearance of aiding the US war effort against a fellow...

Scrub politics out of Iraqi oil sector says ex-minister. (Eye on Iraq).
March 11, 2003... AMMAN -- Any interference by a US occupying force in Iraq's oil sector management would antagonize Iraqis, dissuade foreign companies from investing there, and lend support to those who accuse Washington of launching a war for the sake of oil,...

Careful communique thinly covers opec quandary.
March 11, 2003... Meeting for possibly the last time before a military strike in Iraq, Opec ministers on Tuesday put up their hands in their battle to cool off a red-hot rally that producers blame more on speculation and war jitters than on a lack of oil...

US vows to follow law as occupier of Iraqi oil fields. (Eye on Iraq).
March 12, 2003... WASHINGTON -- The US government vows to follow international law scrupulously following a war with Iraq, and this applies to the handling of Iraq's oil sector. But the global decrees providing legal guidance contain gray areas that could leave...

Lukman: Opec unable to calm market, mideast volatility. (Eye on Iraq).
March 12, 2003... VIENNA -- The Opec ministerial meeting concluded Tuesday in a mood of frustration and resignation as the energy leaders of some of the world's largest oil producers were powerless to bring stratospheric oil prices, recently near $40 per barrel,...

Airlines occupy front lines of fallout from Iraq war. (Eye on Iraq).
March 12, 2003... NEW YORK -- Like a pawn on the geopolitical chessboard, the global airline industry is on the front lines of any fallout from a war in Iraq. The world's carriers are already absorbing a financial blow from the current oil price run-up in the...

North Sea adds to supply worry: April loadings down.(April loadings for principal crude oil systems in North Sea )
March 17, 2003... April loadings for the eight principal crude oil systems in the North Sea will be down 179,000 barrels per day compared with March, with most of the daily drop again occurring in the Norwegian sector, adding to uncertainty over supply now the...

US readies for war, but no release of oil stocks yet. (Eye on Iraq).
March 17, 2003... Though a US-led attack on Iraq neared zero hour on Monday as US President Bush killed any hopes of a diplomatic end to the standoff, oil prices fell to their lowest levels in five weeks as traders took a bet that a war would be short with no...

Oil worker killings in Yemen heighten gulf tension. (Eye on Iraq).
March 18, 2003... DUBAI -- The fatal shooting of three oil workers--US, Canadian, and Yemeni--by a lone gunmen in Yemen today has heightened fears that a US-led war against Iraq, which now looks to be a near-certainty, will trigger a series of anti-Western...

US largest buyer of Iraqi crude, smuggling continues. (Eye on Iraq).
March 18, 2003... While Iraq's regional oil smuggling continues unabated, the country is cramming out its official crude oil exports--those exports under United Nations supervision--in the days before the likely start of a war. Last week, which may well have...

Output assured ahead of war but tankers hold key.(the Middle East's oil producers believe that production will not be disrupted by an attack on Iraq)
March 19, 2003... With US and British troops in the Mideast Gulf poised for a full-scale attack on Iraq, the region's other oil producers remain confident that disruptions to their oil exports will be minimal to non-existent when war does get underway. In the...

Neither air strikes nor well fires spark saturated market. (Eye on Iraq).(the petroleum industry is not being hurt by the war in Iraq)(Industry Overview)
March 20, 2003... The global oil market, which has been holding its breath for months, finally exhaled this week as the uncertainty of waiting for war dissolved with the US attack on Iraq late Wednesday night. The price of light, sweet crude futures in the US...

Global reliance on Mideast Gulf oil.(a discussion of the world's dependence on oil from the Middle East)(Illustration)
March 20, 2003... The conflict in Iraq brings into sharp focus the dependence of the world on oil supplies from the Middle East. The following statistical profile provides a quick, concise view of the importance of these petroleum resources to the world and the...

War-driven oil price collapse leaves new uncertainties. (Eye on Iraq).(oil prices are down by nearly $10/barrel)
March 21, 2003... The US-led war against Iraq appears to be progressing rapidly on its second day, fulfilling the prophecies of oil traders that bet on a swift, successful conflict by selling crude oil down by almost $10 per barrel in the last eight trading...

Politics shut big volume of Nigerian crude, no LNG.
March 24, 2003... The western Niger Delta was quieter, but still tense on Monday, after a week of clashes between youths from Nigeria's Ijaw and Itsekiri communities and Nigeria's military. The conflict has cost the lives of several contract workers and security...

Iraq still exporting--a bit--amid tough fighting. (Eye on Iraq).
March 24, 2003... Five days of war have left Iraq's oil facilities largely unscathed. Although fighting reportedly continues around the southern oil fields, the major fields and terminals look to have fallen into US and UK hands with minimal damage. What's more,...

Kuwait increases output despite war, KPC boss says. (Eye on Iraq).(Kuwait's sustainable production capacity is increased to 2.4 million barrels per day)
March 25, 2003... Kuwait has bumped up its sustainable production capacity, including its half-share in the Neutral Zone, to 2.4 million barrels per day in the last two weeks, with surge production in recent days edging even higher to 2.5 million b/d, Chief...

US Army assigns US firms to repair Iraqi oil industry. (Eye on Iraq).(The Department of Defense hires Halliburton and its Army Corps of Engineers)
March 25, 2003... The US is still in the thick of war, yet the same companies that extinguished many of the blazing oil wells in Kuwait more than a decade ago are officially on the job again to put out the oil well fires and repair related damage in Iraq. The...

Divided UN to bridge rift on Iraqi humanitarian aid. (Eye on Iraq).
March 26, 2003... The United Nations Security Council is trying on Wednesday to bridge deep rifts between members on who should be in charge of providing humanitarian aid to Iraq, with states including France, Russia, and Syria objecting to the US and UK taking...

How far will Turks, Kurds go in oil-rich Iraq? (Eye On Iraq).(northern Iraq could have problems as groups lay claim to the oil-rich regions)
March 27, 2003... As US and UK forces fight their way up through southern and central Iraq, a messy situation could be developing in the oil-rich north, where a number of players are staking out claims. Kirkuk, the regional capital, is claimed by some 5 million...

US, UK grip Southern Iraqi fields, but no quick start. (Eye on Iraq).(to the war)
March 27, 2003... US and British troops on Thursday are consolidating their control over oil facilities and export terminals in southern Iraq. A British military official said Thursday that oil exports from the Mideast Gulf terminal of Mina al-Bakr, now under US...

UN in charge of humanitarian aid in Iraq--for now. (Eye on Iraq).
March 28, 2003... In a unanimous vote on Friday, the United Nations Security Council put the organization's Secretary General Kofi Annan in place as the head of all emergency aid to Iraq for the next 45 days to avert a humanitarian disaster in the wake of the...

Moscow pulling out all stops to boost crude exports.
March 31, 2003... Russia is ramping up crude shipments to nearly every pipeline destination possible in its second-quarter export schedule. Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko's governmental commission on access to export pipelines has penciled in crude...

Former Shell official eyed to oversee Iraqi upstream. (Eye on Iraq).(Former Shell Oil Co. chief executive, Phillip J. Carroll, is among the Bush administration's leading contenders to help oversee and rebuild Iraq's postwar oil industry)
March 31, 2003... Former Shell Oil Co. chief executive, Phillip J. Carroll, is among the Bush administration's leading contenders to help oversee and rebuild Iraq's postwar oil industry, according to industry and former government sources. The Defense Department...

Syria cuts exports as Iraq's crude smuggling slows. (Eye on Iraq).
March 31, 2003... Iraq's crude oil smuggling to Syria, which has been ongoing for well over two years at some 200,000 barrels per day, is coming to an end as the US military closes down wells in Iraq's southern Rumaila fields that feed the pipeline to Syria....