Word: crude
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...multinational consortium contracted to exploit the Kashagan field in the northern Caspian Sea - the largest oil and natural-gas deposit to be discovered in the past 30 years. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Kashagan holds between 9 billion and 13 billion barrels of oil. Though crude is not expected to flow before 2008, Kashagan could produce more than 1 million barrels of oil a day by 2015, helping to make the country one of the top-five oil producers in the world. That could be a vital source for the West, especially if the political kinks...
...Sopranos comparison. If the show has taught anything, it's that beneath the garish veneer of suburban New Jersey family life steams a sewer of betrayal. But the comparison is actually unfair--to the Soprano clan. Bad as he is, Tony would never pull something as bumbling--and psychosexually crude--as what Charles Kushner, a real estate impresario and one of the Democratic Party's most generous political donors, is alleged to have done to his sister...
...most interesting act yet: a five-year, $37 billion PDVSA plan to revive and expand oil production while budgeting almost $2 billion a year for antipoverty initiatives ranging from potable-water to literacy projects. Making PDVSA (called Pedevesa) an oil firm cum development agency will be daunting, even with crude prices hovering near $40 a bbl. Venezuela's oil industry has been waylaid by political turmoil, including a reckless near shutdown by anti-Chavez managers and other employees at PDVSA in 2002 and 2003, intended to paralyze the industry and force Chavez's resignation. The stoppage, which Rodriguez calls "sabotage...
Americans should be watching too. Venezuela, which sits atop 78 billion bbl. of oil--and as much as 270 billion bbl. of extra-heavy crude--is the world's fifth largest oil exporter. It's also a founding member of the OPEC oil cartel (the 11-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries). In past decades, to please consumers in the U.S.--PDVSA's biggest market, which buys two-thirds of its exports--Venezuela often ignored OPEC's guidelines, stepping up production even when oil prices hit rock bottom in the late 1990s. But Chavez, a harsh critic...
...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 of the $37 billion plan--$10 billion--for foreign investment, mostly in extra-heavy crude, marginal oil fields and Venezuela's massive natural-gas reserves. As one foreign oil boss in Venezuela assures skeptics...