Category: Petroleum

NEW DELHI, Aug 5, 2007 (AFP) – The death toll from raging floods in India neared 1,100 Sunday as more people drowned in swollen rivers that have stranded millions in their homes, officials said.Every year the monsoon causes the river to flood in Assam, a remote state of 26 million people. Four people died overnight […]

MCCLEAN LAKE, Canada, July 24, 2007 (AFP) – Twenty years after the Chernobyl disaster poisoned the world’s taste for reactors, a French firm is sniffing out fresh uranium supplies in Canada.And the race for nuclear power is back on.After the deadly Chernobyl reactor explosion in Ukraine in 1986 and a lesser scare at the Three […]

July 16, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka will adjust fuel prices monthly on a transparent formula to cut losses in petroleum utilities, an official said, which is expected to reduce exchange rate pressure and avoid the build-up of macro-economic imbalances. Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) Chairman Ashantha de Mel says a cabinet sub-committee on energy had […]

July 16, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has announced fuel subsidies to the poor on state welfare and warned of more price hikes with the onset of a hurricane season that disrupts international offshore petroleum production. The government says they are willing to pay a fuel subsidy to three-wheeler tax owners if they install metres. […]

July 11, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka is seeking Indian support to develop bio-diesel plants in the island’s Puttalam region, north of the capital Colombo, a senior public estate management ministry official says. The bio-diesel project, which is to be launched in mid-July, will use the Jatropha plant (endaru), Merinus Fernando, advisor to the ministry […]

July 06, 2007 (LBO) – Opening up Sri Lanka’s electricity sector to foreign competition under international free trade rules that are being negotiated could be dangerous, a senior engineer has warned. Commitments Sri Lanka might make under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), a multinational agreement covering trade in services, could be irrevocable, […]

July 04, 2007 (LBO) — Sri Lanka’s state-run oil firm Ceylon Petroleum Corporation has asked the treasury to pick up a six billion rupee subsidy tab for selling fuel to the Ceylon Electricity Board at a steep discount, officials said Wednesday. The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), currently buys fuel at 55 rupees a litre from […]

July 2, 2007 (LBO) – Problems at Sri Lanka’s Kelanitissa thermal power station partly offset strong first quarter 2007 profit growth of AES Corporation of the US, the company has reported. AES Corporation revenues increased 11% to 3.1 billion dollars compared to 2.8 billion dollars for the first quarter of 2006, while net cash from […]

LONDON, June 28, 2007 (AFP) – Ten years after British energy markets were liberalised the customer is king and can put pressure on prices with a click of a computer mouse to change provider.Since Britain first prised open its gas and electricity markets to private households in 1998-1999, the market has settled down and prices […]

June 26, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lankan security forces found a powerful Claymore mine near an oil storage depot in the capital Tuesday, the defence ministry said.The 20-kilogram (32-pound) bomb was hidden inside the fuel tank of a vehicle belonging to a local official from the island’s Tamil Tiger-held northern district of Kilinochchi, the ministry […]