The agreement takes the place of a former deal that Rosneft had with British Petroleum, where the two companies had solely traded stock. The new agreement will give Rosneft unspecified control of certain Exxon assets such as off shore oil sites in the Gulf of Mexico and on shore sites in Texas.

The two companies also plan to build an Arctic Research and Design Center for Offshore Developments in St. Petersburg. Exxon and Rosneft will use the facilities to conduct research and develop new drilling and production technologies.

In the oil world, the agreement is a huge accomplishment for Exxon, as a majority of similar sites such as Alaskan fields remain under environmental protection.

Source: ExxonMobil News Release

Ever since we heard that talk it has seemed gas prices have done nothing but the opposite. The average gas price nationwide this week was $3.79 a gallon. Down from $3.96 just two weeks ago.

So why have so many “experts” been wrong the past month or two? Well, the determining factor is what crude oil can bring to the open market, and simply, the “experts” have been wrong. Except one. Joseph Petrowski, Chief Executive of Cumberland Farms Gulf Oil Group, suspected when a barrell of oil was $112, about two months ago, that prices would fall to $100 by Memorial Day while other experts said they would be at $130 or $140. Prices today sit at $100.68.

Joseph Petrowski predicts prices of fuel will continue to fall. He predicts prices will fall to $3.50 a gallon by July 4th. Let us all keep our fingers crossed and hope he is right for the sake of all of us.

According to Associated Press, Grand Isle just off the coast of Louisiana was slimed with the goo from the oil gusher but was reopened for the Memorial Day weekend.

BP is now attempting to contain the the oil leak rather than stop it thus letting experts predict that it might be august until the real end comes by.

Another issue is the hurrican season that starts this tuesday and might cause major problems for the repair work.

There was another news from the middle east that an Abu Dhabi Oil Company offered it’s help to the US for stopping the oil leak which so far has not been accepted. Oil Companies in the middle east are well known for stopping such a major leak in the early 1990s and ordinary citizens are wondering why we have not accepted any help since 40+ days have passed by.

Let’s hope that this madness is curtailed sooner rather than later!

“We will spare no resource to clean up whatever damage is caused,” Obama said after a briefing with state, local and federal officials in Louisiana.

Obama met with the commandant of the Coast Guard, Adm. Thad Allen; EPA administrator Lisa Jackson; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal; and the presidents of several parish governments after arriving, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. The president’s briefing included an update on the procedures being attempted to cap the well and the economic and environmental impact of the spill, Gibbs said.

After landing in New Orleans, Louisiana, on Sunday, Obama joined Jindal on a two-hour drive to Venice, a staging ground for efforts to fight the growing slick.

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Allen warned that the leaking oil from a rig explosion could continue for weeks with dire consequences.

“It potentially is catastrophic,” Salazar said. “I think we have to prepare for the worst.”

That would mean oil damaging sensitive coastal wetlands and industries, including a vital fishing sector that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Obama initially planned to fly over the affected area by helicopter, but weather conditions prevented the flight. Before his trip, Cabinet officials warned he would find a dire situation.

Salazar blamed the explosion that caused the spill on a failure in rig technology intended to prevent so-called blowouts.

“There is no doubt at all here that what has happened is the blowout prevention mechanism at the bottom of the well … is defective,” Salazar said. “While there have been blowouts in the past, we have never seen anything that has been quite of this magnitude.”

The well is owned by oil company BP. Lamar McKay, president of BP America, told ABC’s “This Week” that the company doesn’t know why the blowout preventer failed.

All three officials interviewed by CNN repeatedly emphasized that BP is legally responsible for spill and clean-up efforts. they avoided direct criticism of the company, but said BP must do more to try to cap the gushing well.

Allen called the spill “one of the most complex things we’ve ever dealt with,” and said it was impossible so far to predict how much oil will eventually leak.

“If we lost a total well head, it could be 100,000 barrels or more a day,” he said.

BP said two Louisiana communities, Venice and Port Fourchon, will likely be the first places hit by the oil slick. Nearly 1 million feet of booms have been deployed in an effort to protect precious estuaries and wildlife, even as thousands of barrels of crude oil continued gushing into the water. Drilling new wells to stop the flow would take a month or two, and it was unclear if the leak could be contained or slowed before then.

McKay said the company is building a containment system to prevent the leaking oil from spreading, but it may take another six to eight days to deploy it. Meanwhile, the company is working to battle the slick offshore and to clean up any oil that reaches the coast.

“We’re still working hard, still working hard on the blowout preventer and see if we can actuate this piece of evidently failed equipment,” he said. But he compared that to “doing open-heart surgery at 5,000 feet in the dark with robot-controlled submarines.”

Sen. Mary Landrieu and Rep. Charlie Melancon, both of Louisiana, said they want the government to put more pressure on BP to find a solution.

“Our government needs to get somewhere between ‘drill, baby, drill’ and ‘spill, baby, spill,’ ” Melancon said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Landrieu told the same program that the government should force BP to immediately start drilling remedial wells at the site “and hope that one can fix this.”

The slick has already taken a toll on life along the Gulf Coast, bringing fishing and tourism to a halt in many places and threatening to cripple those industries for weeks to come.

“I’m pretty much on pause right now. … It’s just a big waiting game,” said David Boola, a fisherman who operates boat trips for tourists out of Venice.
Allen noted BP was deploying its top technology such as the remote operation vehicles, which the government doesn’t have.

At the same time, Napolitano and Salazar said the Obama administration had reacted quickly to what they called an escalating situation.

Napolitano noted the incident was first an explosion and fire, with a search-and-rescue effort for missing rig workers. It then worsened when the rig sank two days later, followed by the increasing oil leak, she said.

While BP was the first responder, the Coast Guard reacted right away to the situation and deployed 70 vessels and 1 million feet of boom for possible service, Napolitano said.

Salazar noted that the Obama administration has ordered inspections of “blowout preventers” on other Gulf rigs. The government’s job was to “keep the boot on the neck” of BP to ensure it meets its obligations in stopping the spill, dealing with the oil slick and paying for all costs and damages.

Also on the CNN program Sunday, Florida’s Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio called the oil slick a “crisis” but withheld judgment on the administration’s response. According to Rubio, it appeared that much of the early information provided to the federal government by BP had been “either inaccurate or shortcoming.”

In recent days, Rubio said, “We’ve seen the administration move aggressively, and I hope aggressively enough.”

BP partnered with government officials to hold town hall meetings throughout the region Saturday to respond to concerns about the spill’s consequences. But Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal suggested the response to the oil slick has so far been inadequate.

“We continue to be concerned with BP’s ability to respond to this incident,” he said.

Environmentalist Richard Charter of the Defenders of Wildlife organization said the oil leak could cause damage that would last decades.

“This event is a self-feeding fire,” Charter said. “It is so big and expanding so fast that it’s pretty much beyond human response that can be effective.

“You’re looking at a long-term poisoning of the area,” he said. “Ultimately, this will have a multidecade impact.”

The oil spill started April 20, after an explosion on the BP contractor Transocean Ltd.’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform. Eleven oil-rig workers remain missing and are presumed dead.

The rig sank April 22 about 50 miles off the southeast coast of Louisiana, and the untapped wellhead is gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico. About 1.6 million gallons of oil have spilled since the explosion, the Coast Guard said Saturday.

Image Courtesy: National Geographic

The goal of the project is to demonstrate that jatropha can produce significant quantities of oil for conversion to biodiesel and to develop new varieties of the plant that have high yields, can withstand frost, and grow in temperate climates such as the United States. The drought-resistant, non-edible plant can be grown commercially with minimal care on marginal land.

“Discovering new sources for biodiesel production is an important part of DOE research and development efforts,” said Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. “The expertise of this team can help speed the pace for the development of jatropha as a biofuel crop.”

Two jatropha farms will be established in India: a 16-hectare (39.5 acre) plot in Bhavngar and a 38 hectare (93.9 acre) plot in Kalol, near GM’s India Car Manufacturing plant. An existing 30 hectare (74.1 acre) jatropha farm in Bhavnagar also will be managed under this project.

Lab-optimized strains of jatropha, produced through selective and marker-assisted breeding, will be cultivated at these farms. The joint DOE-GM funding will enable the Central Salt & Marine Chemicals Research Institute (CSMCRI)—an India-based research facility falling under Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India —to manage all of the 84 hectares (840,000 m2). A complete lifecycle analysis will be conducted to evaluate the environmental impacts, starting with fertilizer production from raw materials and ending with the harvesting of jatropha fruits.

“In the long term, if jatropha is commercially viable, it will reduce dependence on petroleum as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote economic growth,” said Mike Robinson, GM Vice President of Environment, Energy and Safety Policy. “It would also boost GM India growth plans with biodiesel-capable products and reiterate GM India’s commitment to green technology and alternate fuel solutions to reduce dependence on fossil fuel.”

GM has invested in next-generation ethanol startups Coskata Inc. and Mascoma Corp. Coskata recently announced plans to join a consortium, in conjunction with GM’s Holden division, to study the construction of a bio-ethanol plant in Australia. In addition to cellulosic ethanol, DOE and GM recognize the need to provide bio-based diesel alternative fuels that can replace fossil diesel. A significant portion of the global transportation fuel market in places such as India and Europe relies on diesel and cannot benefit from cellulosic ethanol technologies. For these markets, jatropha-based biodiesel has great potential as an alternative fuel, especially in regions where national security concerns are heightened by reliance on imported oil.

In addition to India, other nations including China, the Philippines, several African countries, and the United States are conducting research programs in jatropha cultivation and oil extraction on eroded farmland and marginal land.

The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline rose 0.9 cent Friday to $2.290 a gallon, reported motorist group AAA. Friday’s increase marks the 17th straight day of gains, during which time prices have surged 24.2 cents.

Gas prices have generally been on an upward trajectory since early December, when the national average hovered above $1.60 a gallon. But prices are still well below last year’s all-time high of $4.114 a gallon.

The pain at the pump was felt across the country, with drivers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia paying regular unleaded gas prices of $2 a gallon or more.

Prices were highest in Alaska, where a gallon averages $2.646. Arizona had the lowest average, with drivers in the state paying about $2.046 a gallon.

Analysts say the recent increase is due primarily to a rebound in the price of crude oil, which is the main ingredient in gasoline. Additionally, gas prices typically rise at this time of year as refiners and retailers gear up for the summer driving season.

Despite the recent uptick, some 27 million people are planning to travel by car this Memorial Day, according to AAA. That’s 2.6% higher than a year earlier, when gas prices were hovering around $3.90 a gallon.

A total of 32.4 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles from home to mark the holiday weekend, AAA said. That’s an increase of 1.5% from last year, when soaring gas prices cut the number to 31.9 million.

The European Commission wants all carmakers to reduce average emissions to 120 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre (0.6 miles) by 2012.

Under EU plans, they will be expected to make engines that emit no more than 130 grams while 10 grammes per kilometre are intended to be eliminated mainly through the use of cleaner fuels.

The average car emission last year stood at 158 grams, according to the study which comes less than a week before European lawmakers reconvene on September 1 and begin considering the proposals.

The Friends of the Earth environmental group believes that the planned EU measures do not go far enough to address the problem of global warming and that amendments put forward would make the new rules “even more ineffective.”

The new study, by the European Federation for Transport and Environment showed that, on average, carmakers were last year 17 percent behind the target, a change of just two percentage points over the previous year and thus far off the necessary CO2 reduction rate.

German automaker BMW made the best emission improvements with CO2 grams per kilometre down by 7.3 percent last year, according to the study by the independent European group which campaigns for cleaner modes of transport.

However smaller cars made by French rivals Peugeot-Citroen and Renault, and Italy's Fiat were still nearer to the 2012 target, though making slower progress.

According to the report, France's Peugeot-Citroen and Renault and Italy's Fiat are the best-placed to meet the proposed goals for 2012 with Japan's Toyota and Honda placed fourth and fifth in the low emissions table.

However Nissan, Mazda and Suzuki were three of the four worst-performing brands along with Daimler.

German cars are among the most powerful models produced in Europe and auto manufacturers there have argued they would be penalised more than competitors in countries like France and Italy that produce a larger number of small vehicles.

Under a Franco-German proposal, the auto industry would have until 2015 to reach the targets for models that are already in production, compared with 2012 across the board in the EU Commission's plan.

That plan also stipulates that they could obtain a slight additional margin above 130 grammes if they introduced certified “eco-innovations” elsewhere in the vehicle such as more environmentally friendly tyres or seven-speed transmissions that would boost fuel economy.

Transport and Environment director Jos Dings criticised the German approach. “German carmakers want CO2 targets to only apply to the cleanest cars in the early years. It's the equivalent of demanding that a smoking ban should only apply to non-smokers.”

The 2p rise was due to take effect in October but has now been postponed amid soaring world oil prices which hit peaks above 147 dollars last week.

“The global credit crunch and sharp rises in world oil prices have pushed up prices at the pumps,” Darling said, announcing the move in a parliamentary written answer.

“Today's decision will help motorists and businesses get through what is a difficult time for everyone.”

Truckers have this year held several protests over high fuel prices, which they say threaten to put them out of business, bringing gridlock to London.

Motorists' group the Automobile Association says the average price of diesel in Britain is 133 pence per litre — the most expensive out of 24 European Union countries monitored. Tax accounts for over 50 percent of that price.

AA president Edmund King welcomed Darling's announcement, saying: “”We are delighted that the Chancellor has seen common sense.

“The prospect of extra, government-inflicted pain was not something that road users were looking forward to.”

Darling had already pushed back the 2p fuel duty rise from April to October.

The move is the latest about-face by Darling.

One of the most embarrassing U-turns came in May, when Darling announced a near three billion pound handout to poorer families hit by the abolition of the 10p starter tax band.

Out of 155 countries surveyed, U.S. gas prices were the 45th cheapest, according to a recent study from AIRINC, a research firm that tracks cost of living data.

The difference is staggering. As of late March, U.S. gas prices averaged $3.45 a gallon. That compares to over $8 a gallon across much of Europe, $12.03 in Aruba and $18.42 in Sierra Leone.

The U.S. has always fought to keep gas prices low, and the current debate among presidential candidates on how to keep them that way has been fierce.

But those cheap gas prices – which Americans have gotten used to – mean they feel price spikes like the ones we're experiencing now more acutely than citizens from other nations which have had historically more expensive fuel.

Cheap gas prices have also lulled Americans into a cycle of buying bigger cars and bigger houses further away from their work – leaving them more exposed to rising prices, some experts say.

Price comparisons are not all created equal. Comparing gas prices across nations is always difficult. For starters, the AIRINC numbers don't take into account different salaries in different countries, or the different exchange rates. The dollar has lost considerable ground to the euro recently. Because oil is priced in dollars, rising oil prices aren't as hard on people paying with currencies which are stronger than the dollar, as they can essentially buy more oil with their money as the dollar falls in value.

And then there's the varying distances people drive, the public transportation options available, and the different services people get in exchange for high gas prices. For example, Europe's stronger social safety net, including cheaper health care and higher education, is paid for partly through gas taxes.

Gas price: It's all about government policy. Gasoline costs roughly the same to make no matter where in the world it's produced, according to John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute. The difference in retail costs, he said, is that some governments subsidize gas while others tax it heavily.

In many oil producing nations gas is absurdly cheap. In Venezuela it's 12 cents a gallon. In Saudi Arabia it's 45.

The governments there forego the money from selling that oil on the open market – instead using the money to make their people happy and encourage their nations' development.

Subsidies, many analysts say, are encouraging rampant demand in these countries, pushing up the price of oil worldwide.

In the U.S., the federal tax on gas is about 18 cents a gallon, pretty low by international standards.

But those relatively low gas taxes make it hard now for Americans to deal with gas prices that have risen from around $1 to over $3 a gallon in the last seven years.

“Everybody pays more, but the U.S. pays more in absolute terms,” said Lee Shipper, a visiting scholar at the University of California Berkeley's Transportation Center. If you're already paying $4 in taxes, said Schipper, then an extra $2 a gallon isn't that big of a deal.

Revenues from Europe's high gas taxes are used to fund a variety of things. One thing they have built is better public transportation, said Peter Tertzakian, chief energy economist at ARC Financial, a Calgary-based private equity firm.

They gave people an alternative to driving, something we don't have in North America,” said Tertzakian.

Low fuel taxes and prices sprung out of a national love for mobility going back generations, said Robert Lang, director of the urban planning think tank Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech.

In fact, the U.S. could not have had the western expansion it did without the cheap mobility railroads and horse carriages afforded long before it became an auto-obsessed culture, said Lang.

“You couldn't have Manifest Destiny unless you could move,” he said.

The automobile, and its promise of personal mobility, only deepened the nation's love affair with travel.

“Nobody sang 'She'll have fun fun fun until her daddy takes the tokens away,'” said Lang. 'It's totally romanticized.”

Gas consumption Europe vs. U.S. There is some evidence Europe's high gas taxes have capped its oil consumption.

Oil use in the United Kingdom has basically stayed flat from 1980 to now, while in France it's dropped 17%, according to figures from the Energy Information Administration.

In the U.S., meanwhile, oil use is up 21% over the same period, although the country has added more people and seen its economy grow slightly faster.

Americans have taken advantage of cheap gas prices to do other things – like buy bigger cars and bigger houses further away from city centers, said Schipper.

On a per capita basis, Americans use three times more oil than Europeans, he said. That means Americans are more exposed to rising gas prices than their counterparts across the Atlantic.

“Five-thousand square feet in the suburbs, that's much rarer in Europe,” said Schipper, referring to big homes. “We dug our hole.” 

Margo Oge, director of the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, said Monday at the SAE International 2008 World Congress in Detroit that's the level of fuel economy needed to meet a widely backed scientific-community proposal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 80 percent by 2050 from 2000 levels.

Congress has mandated automobiles and light trucks average an industry fleet-wide average of 35 mpg by 2020, a 40 percent increase over current requirements.

To meet the low end of the 2050 proposal, automakers would have to average 75 mpg in the 2030s, Oge.

“There are a lot of strategies you need to consider — both engines and fuels,” she said in an interview. Automakers “need to be thinking of those investments for the long term basis,” beyond the energy bill, Oge said.

She noted the “political, economic and regulatory landscape in the United States and globally has changed dramatically over the past year. The reality is the pace of change will not be letting up anytime soon.”

Oil use may rise to 120 million barrels a day by 2030, up from the current worldwide average of 85 million barrels a day, as oil demand in China and India is expected to at least double. The transportation sector accounts for two thirds of U.S. oil use and one third of greenhouse gas emissions.

General Motors Corp's director of powertrain systems research J. Gary Smyth said that the world's auto fleet could reach 1 billion vehicles by 2030, up from 820 million today.

Oge said the auto industry should be able to meet the 35 mpg standard by 2018 with the same size fleet, with cost-effective technology improvements, based on an internal EPA study.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is expected to release its proposal for 2010-2015 fuel economy increases as soon as next week, after the White House completes its review of the proposal. Oge confirmed the EPA has sent “a number of comments to NHTSA (on the fuel economy proposal).

“This is typical,” Oge said. “They are constructive comments.”

EPA is studying the effect of different types of renewable fuels in light of the congressional mandate to hike the number of gallons of biofuels and renewables to 36 billion gallons annually by 2022 — more than five times the current levels. By 2013, all gasoline will be blended with 10 percent ethanol, Oge said.

Congress ordered that 16 billion gallons of the renewable fuels standard come from cellulosic ethanol — a technology that is still under development and essentially producing almost no fuel yet. GM announced earlier this year it had purchased a small equity stake in a cellulosic start-up firm, Coskata Inc., which vows to produce at least 100 million gallons of $1-a-gallon cellulosic ethanol by 2011.

EPA is looking the impact of different types of renewable fuels as well as the impact on the food supply of using so many crops — especially corn — to produce fuel. The lifecycle analysis of different fuels will look at direct and indirect greenhouse gas footprint of different biofuels, Oge said.