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Report: Canada Could Lose 185,000 Oil, Gas Jobs in 2015

Since late last year, oil and gas companies globally have fought to sustain the drop in oil prices … layoffs ensued and companies large and small were affected. And according to a new study released by the Petroleum Labour Market Information (PetroLMI) Division of Enform, a safety association for upstream oil and gas in Canada, there’s a prediction that 185,000 jobs will be lost in Canada this year due to the drop in oil prices. According to the study, in 2014, the oil and gas industry spent nearly $125 billion on exploration, development and production – which supported more than 720,000 direct and indirect jobs in Canada. About two-thirds of these jobs were concentrated in Alberta. The Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors (CAODC) recently forecasted that more than 25,000 Canadian drilling jobs would be lost due to weak oil prices, Reuters reported. CAODC president Mark Scholz said “potential […]

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Greek central bank warns of ‘painful course’ to euro exit

Greece, EU flags Greece’s central bank has warned for the first time that the country could be on a "painful course" towards default and exit from the eurozone. It comes as the Greek government and its international creditors blamed each other for failing to reach a deal over economic reforms. That failure is holding up the release €7.2bn in bailout funds. About €30bn was withdrawn from Greek bank deposits between October and April, the central bank added. The central bank also warned the country’s economic slowdown would accelerate without a deal. "Failure to reach an agreement would… mark the beginning of a painful course that would lead initially to a Greek default and ultimately to the country’s exit from the euro area and, most likely, from the European Union," the Bank of Greece said in a report. "Striking an agreement with our partners is a historical imperative that we […]

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Greek Central Bank Warns of ‘Uncontrollable Crisis’ if Bailout Talks Fail

ATHENS—Greece’s central bank warned Wednesday that failure to clinch a deal with international creditors on its future funding needs could lead the country into an “uncontrollable crisis,” describing the issue as being of historical significance for the nation. In its annual monetary report, the Bank of Greece , TELL -1.33 % the country’s central bank, said that based on evidence so far, it seems that a compromise has been reached on the main conditions attached to the lending agreement and that little ground remains to be covered. “Failure to reach an agreement would… mark the beginning of a painful course that would lead initially to a Greek default and ultimately to the country’s exit from the euro area and—most likely—from the European Union,” the report said. “A manageable debt crisis, as the one that we are currently addressing with the help of our partners, would snowball into an uncontrollable […]

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Wintershall gets gas from mini-rig

Wintershall starts production in North Sea using small-scale rig it says can extract reserves economically even from smaller fields. Photo courtesy of Wintershall. KASSEL, Germany, June 16 (UPI) — German energy company Wintershall said it started gas production in the Dutch waters of the North Sea using a platform designed for economic returns. The company said it was producing gas from an unmanned platform designated as L6-B, a small-scale facility built in nine months and towed to the location in June 2014. "The advantage of this new generation of platforms is that they can be deployed in particularly shallow waters and can economically produce even from very small natural gas fields," the company said in a statement. L6-B is positioned in a restricted military zone and Wintershall said it’s the first company permitted to work in the area. No reserve potential are expected production rates were offered. The start […]

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Peak Oil: Myth Or Coming Reality?

In 1956, a geoscientist named M. King Hubbert formulated a theory which suggested that U.S. oil production would eventually reach a point at which the rate of oil production would stop growing. After production hit that peak, it would enter terminal decline. The resulting production profile would resemble a bell curve and the point of maximum production would be identified as Peak Oil, a point of no return. The original peak oil curve Image Source: Cornell University Hubbert first predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in 1970 and then start declining rapidly. His prediction turned out to be partly true, as U.S. crude oil production peaked that same year, not to be eclipsed again until the shale boom began. Annual crude oil production (in thousands of barrels per year) for entire United States, with contributions from individual regions as indicated. “The end of the oil age is in […]

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How the Pope Got Religion on Climate Change

The Pontifical Academy of Sciences is the modern descendent of the Vatican’s first scientific advisory, which began in 1603 and included Galileo among its members. Since 1923, academy scientists have met in Casina Pio IV, a palace built in 1561 for Pope Pius IV. Photographer: Gabriella C. Marino/Creative Commons Several dozen of the world’s most prominent scientists sprang from their seats and left the Vatican hall where they were holding a conference on the environment in May 2014. They were bound for a meet-and-greet with Pope Francis at the modest Vatican hotel where he lives, the Domus Sanctae Marthae. Among the horde was Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Since 2004, he has also been a member of a 400-year-old collective, one that operates as the pope’s eyes and ears on the natural world: the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He had a message for […]

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Leak of Pope’s Encyclical on Climate Change Hints at Tensions in Vatican

Photo Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square on Saturday. The leak of his environmental encyclical has raised questions about whether those behind its publication had set out to embarrass him. Credit Alessandra Tarantino/Associated Press ROME — The unexpected leak of Pope Francis ’ much-anticipated environmental encyclical has meant the return of something that not long ago was fairly common around the Vatican but had become often dormant during the two-plus years of Francis’ mostly charmed papacy: intrigue. Who leaked it and why? Was this the work of frustrated conservatives in the Vatican , as some experts have speculated? Does it portend big fights at a pivotal October meeting in which church officials are expected to grapple with homosexuality and divorce? Or is it just a tempest in a teapot? “Somebody inside the Vatican leaked the document with the obvious intention of embarrassing the pope,” said Robert Mickens, a longtime […]

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Americans Are Again Getting More Worried About the Climate

The financial crisis made Americans less worried about climate change . The Democrats’ attempt to pass sweeping climate legislation in 2009 and 2010 probably reduced Americans’ anxiety level as well, as paradoxical as that may sound. But now Americans are getting more worried again. About 69 percent of adults say that global warming is either a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem, according to a new Pew Research Center poll , up from 63 percent in 2010. The level of concern has still not returned to that of a decade ago; in 2006, 79 percent of adults called global warming serious. It’s impossible to know exactly why concern about the climate fell — and why skepticism that global warming was real increased — starting around 2008. Both economics and politics probably play a role. The financial crisis and recession made Americans more worried about the immediate condition of the […]

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Pope’s Views on Climate Change Add Pressure to Catholic Candidates

Photo A coal-fired power plant near Bergheim, Germany. Pope Francis is expected to release a highly anticipated encyclical on the environment on Thursday. Credit Oliver Berg/European Pressphoto Agency WASHINGTON — As the steamy hurricane season descends on Miami, the city’s Roman Catholic archbishop, Thomas G. Wenski, is planning a summer of sermons, homilies and press events designed to highlight the threat that a warming planet, rising sea levels and more extreme storms pose to his community’s poorest and most vulnerable. His sermons and speeches are meant to amplify the message of Pope Francis ’ highly anticipated, highly controversial encyclical on the environment, which the Vatican is expected to unveil on Thursday. A papal encyclical, or teaching document, is among the strongest and most authoritative statements made by the Catholic Church. In a draft of the document leaked on Monday, Francis reiterated the established science that burning fossil fuels are […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple