Word: bbl
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...Russian prosecutors targeting Yukos to storms in the Gulf of Mexico, threats to oil production have sent the price of crude soaring. With growth in global demand at a 24-year high and supply overstretched, any hint of disruption becomes a market mover. Oil prices hit $46.65 per bbl. last week - the highest in the 21-year history of New York Mercantile Exchange futures - amid fears of political unrest in the wake of oil-rich Venezuela's recall referendum on President Hugo Chávez. The soaring price might not signal a return to the 1970s oil shocks...
...drilling and refining infrastructure. Even then, says Wardell, Saudi Arabia's extra capacity comes in the form of heavy crude - good for making diesel but not the in-demand light, sweet crude that refineries need for gasoline. And so most analysts now predict prices will hit $50 per bbl., a far cry from the less than $10 per bbl. that crude fetched back in 1986. Supply and demand are powerful in theory, but for the moment they're taking a backseat to fear. If Yukos dries up (the Russian titan produces 2% of world supply) or insurgents hit oil installations...
Will the price of gas ever come down? Crude-oil futures, spurred by worries that Russian oil giant Yukos will turn off the spigot, last week exceeded a record $43 per bbl. That's not a high in real terms--oil reached nearly $80 per bbl. in inflation-adjusted dollars after the 1979 Iranian revolution. But it's enough to cause concern that pump prices, already up 50¢ per gal. this year, won't drop much soon. Consumers should get a small break in the fall, analysts say, when demand will ease as the summer driving season ends. Paul Horsnell...
...Energy Minister, Rodriguez quickly made PDVSA more subservient to both the government and OPEC, which elected him secretary-general in 2001. PDVSA has also supplied Chavez ally Fidel Castro more than 54,000 bbl. a day on favorable finance terms. The politicized atmosphere at PDVSA--many workers say devotion to the Chavez revolution is a job requirement--helped provoke the 2002 strike. Says Ignacio Layrisse, who was afterward fired as production manager: "Ali Rodriguez may be a smart and capable man, but he's just a has-been lefty carrying out Chavez's plans to turn PDVSA into a mediocre...
...chance to prove once and for all that a lefty can run a major oil company as effectively as any capitalist CEO"more effectively," he insists. With giant new well projects at sites like Tomoporo and El Furrial, PDVSA hopes to increase daily output to more than 5 million bbl. by 2009, which Rodriguez now knows is critical to staying competitive. Some investors gripe that Chavez's 2001 hydrocarbons law makes it too difficult to participate in the lucrative quality-crude projects. But others praise Rodriguez (and more radical leftists berate him) for reserving more than a quarter...