Tired of Being Isolated and Ignored, Continent Isn't Bloody Moving

Sydney, 800 miles S. of Nova Scotia (SatireWire.com) — After what witnesses described as an all night blinder during which it kept droning on about how it was always being bloody ignored by the whole bloody world and would bloody well stand to do something about it, Australia this morning woke up to find itself in the middle of the North Atlantic.

"Good Lord, that was a booze up," said a bleary-eyed Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, speaking from his residence at Kirribilli House, approximately 600 nautical miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

According to Australians and residents of several countries destroyed or lewdly insulted during the continent's nearly 7,000-mile saltwater stagger, the binge began just after noon yesterday at a pub in Brisbane, where several patrons were discussing Australia Day and the nation's general lack of respect from abroad.

"It started off same as always; coupla fossils saying how our Banjo Patterson was a better poet than Walt Whitman, how Con the Fruiterer is funnier than Seinfeld, only they're Aussies so no one knows about 'em," recalled witness Kevin Porter. "Then this bloke Martin pipes up and says Australia's main problem is that it's stuck in Australia, and everybody says 'Too right!'"

"Well, it made sense at the time," Porter added.

By 2 a.m., powered by national pride and alcohol, the 3-million-square-mile land mass was barging eastward through the Coral Sea and crossing into the central Pacific, leaving a trail of beer cans and Chinese take-away in its wake.

When dawn broke over the Northern Hemisphere, the continent suddenly found itself, not only upside down, but smack in the middle of the Atlantic, and according to most of its 19 million inhabitants, that's the way it's going to stay.

"We sent troops to Afghanistan. You never hear about it. We have huge government scandals. You never hear about it. It's all 'America did this,' and 'Europe says that,'" exclaimed Perth resident Paul Watson. "Well, we're right in the thick of things now, so let's just see if you can you ignore us."

Officials on both sides of the Atlantic conceded that would be difficult. "They broke Florida," said U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. "And most of Latin America is missing."

Meanwhile, victims of what's already been dubbed the "Australian Crawl" are still shaking off the event.

"Australia bumped into us at about midnight local time," said Hawaii governor Ben Cayetano. "They were very friendly — they always seem friendly — but they refused to go around unless we answered their questions. But the questions were impossible. 'Who is Ian Thorpe? Do you have any Tim Tams? What day is Australia Day?'"

"Fortunately, somebody here had an Unimportant World Dates calendar and we aced the last one," Cayetano added.

Panama, however, was not so lucky.

"Australia came through here screaming curses at us to let them through," said Ernesto Carnal, who guards the locks at the entrance to the Panama Canal. "We said they would not fit, so they demanded to speak with a manager. When I go to find Mr. Caballos, they sneak the whole continent through."

When Caballos shouted to the fleeing country that it had not paid, Australia "accidentally" backed up and took out every nation in the region, as well as the northern third of Venezuela. They then made up a cheery song about it.

By late morning today, however, not everyone in Australia was quite so blithe. "We've still got part of Jamaica stuck to Queensland," said Australian army commander Lt. Gen. Peter Cosgrove. "I think we might have declared war on it. I don't bloody remember. Maybe it's time to go home."

Cosgrove, however, is not in the majority, and at press time, U.S., African, and European leaders were still desperately trying to negotiate for Australia's withdrawal. But the independent-minded Aussies were not making it easy. In a two-hour meeting at midday, Australian representatives listed their demands: immediate inclusion in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a permanent CNN presence in all 6 Australian states, a worldwide ban on hiring Paul Hogan, a primetime U.S. television contract for Australian Rules Football, and a 4,500-mile-long bridge between Sydney and Los Angeles.

U.S. negotiators immediately walked out, calling the Australian Rules Football request "absurd."

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Friday, June 13, 2003 By: Jose Gregorio Pineda & Jose Gabriel Angarita

VenAmCham's Jose Gregorio Pineda (chief economist) and Jose Gabriel Angarita (economist) write:  On Thursday June 12 the National Assembly's Finance Committee authorized the 4.8 trillion bolivar public borrowing for which Finance Minister Tobias Nobrega asked for authorization on May 26. But before the Assembly took action the government made use of Article 80 of the Organic Financial Administration Act, according to which borrowing authorization requests are automatically approved due to "administrative silence" if no decision has been made within 10 days of submission.

The public borrowing policy pursued in the last several months comes as no surprise; it had been expected since the beginning of the year that the National Treasury would need to make major fiscal adjustments to meet its obligations in 2003, especially in view of the economic contraction's effects on non-oil revenue collections.

The rapid growth of Venezuelan public debt in recent years, the high cost at which money has been borrowed, and the debt's high concentration, can all undermine the maintenance of long-term financial solvency. The most important fiscal problem at this time is an issue of liquidity or flow of funds, but the way this liquidity problem has been addressed may lead to a solvency problem in the future, given the large and rapid growth of government debt's share of GDP. Consequently, the main risk facing public finance is that the only viable way to resolve a future solvency problem is to liquidate those liabilities through high inflation.

The Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) board has expressed its deep concern that the rapid growth of national debt could have an impact on fiscal sustainability and the absorption capacity of the domestic market ... and especially that of the banks ... because the recession forecast in the months to come will result in an even smaller demand for credit, leaving the banks with no other profitable option than purchase of high-yielding public securities.

All this could generate a situation of high risk in which the financial system's health would be tied to the evolution of internal public debt.

Monday, Jun. 16, 2003. Page 6 The Moscow Times, Reuters

Gazprom said last week it would set up a world-scale oil trading branch whose first task would be to take over part of Iran's gas condensate operations from French Total.

Gazprom, the world's largest gas producer, said in a statement that its main export arm, Gazexport, would set up an office in Iran to market the gas condensate that Gazprom is getting from its production-sharing agreement with the state.

Gazprom, Total and Malaysian Petronas signed an agreement in 1997 to develop phases two and three of Iran's South Pars offshore Persian Gulf field, one of the biggest in the world with reserves of above 12 trillion cubic meters.

The field also contains around 600 million metric tons of gas condensate that will be sold on international markets to compensate international firms for their investments in the field.

Gazprom, which supplies Europe with one-fourth of its gas needs, had initially wanted Total, which is leading phases two and three with 40 percent, to market its share of gas condensate exports, but said Wednesday it now wanted to expand into the trading business itself.

"Entering the global oil liquid market will allow Gazprom to gain experience in international trading and create opportunities to boost these activities based on our projects to produce liquids in Russia, Iran, Vietnam, Pakistan, Algeria and Venezuela," the statement said.

Gazprom produces around 200,000 barrels per day of oil and gas condensate in Russia on top of its giant gas production of about 530 billion cubic meters a year.

Gazexport has recently hired several traders from Nafta Moskva, the biggest Russian oil trader in the mid-1990s, whose operation has shrunk virtually to zero over the last few years as domestic oil majors have squeezed out independent trading firms.

Market analysts have praised Gazprom's decision to consolidate oil trading under the branch of Gazexport, saying it could help the company boost revenues to service its huge debt and invest billions of dollars to maintain gas output.

 Spot sales of Russian gas to Europe are increasing in a trend that will boost the continent's trading market, an expert on Russian gas said last week.

Most Russian gas sales to Europe are still on long term contracts and only around 1.2 billion cubic meters of the total 130 bcm were sold in short-term deals.

But spot sales to countries such as Britain and Belgium were rising, said Jonathan Stern, director of natural gas research at Britain's Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

"The role for short term trading [of Russian gas] is still small but increasing and it will add to the potential of the trading market in Europe," he said on the sidelines of an energy trading conference in Berlin.

Spot gas trading in Europe is gathering pace as the European Union opens up its energy markets to full competition.

Gazprom said in November it that planned to boost spot sales to Britain and Belgium.

The announcement came after the company booked extra capacity in the Interconnector pipeline linking Britain with Zeebrugge in Belgium, mainland Europe's main gas trading hub.

Gazprom owns a 10 percent share in the Interconnector and has trading offices in London.

COMFORTABLE SUPPLIES: Despite apparent sabotage of an Iraqi oil pipeline and chaos in Venezuela and Nigeria, big oil-consumers seem to have plenty of gas

Taipei Times-REUTERS Sunday, Jun 15, 2003,Page 10

A US Army truck passes by a burning oil pipeline in Iraq's northern oilfield in Makoul, Friday, after what residents said were twin bomb attacks aimed at sabotaging deliveries which the US-led coalition is poised to resume. The pipeline is 18km from the key refinery town of Baiji.

Oil prices fell nearly 4 percent on Friday after the International Energy Agency said big consuming countries were more comfortably supplied than it previously thought.

US light crude tumbled US$1.18 to US$30.33 a barrel, extending Thursday's sharp losses and pulling prices back from recent 12-week highs above US$32. London August Brent crude fell US$0.87 to US$26.35 a barrel.

Prices fell as the Paris-based IEA, energy adviser to 26 industrialized nations, said its previous estimate of oil stock levels was 79 million barrels too low.

The agency's revised estimate put oil stocks in the industrialized world for the end of April at 2.439 billion barrels,

"Stocks are still below normal and can absorb some surplus in the third quarter, but I think we have entered a stage when more supply is coming on the market and will impact prices," said Geoff Pyne, oil market consultant to Sempra Energy Trading.

The IEA said the revision did not change its view that global markets were tight. Stocks are still 157 million barrels, or 6.5 percent, below last year.

"The market is obviously better supplied than we thought as little as two weeks ago, but stocks are still low and fundamentals are still tight, so we need to build more stocks," said Klaus Rehaag, editor of the IEA monthly oil market report.

"The increase in crude stocks may, however, signal some relief for an otherwise tighter heating oil situation later this year," he added

Oil stocks have been drawn down this year by a harsh northern winter and supply disruptions from a strike in Venezuela, ethnic strife in Nigeria and the war in Iraq.

Iraq on Thursday sold its first oil since the US-led invasion nearly three months ago, but looting and sabotage at oil facilities are expected to keep Iraq's exports well below prewar levels for several months.

The delays in Iraq's postwar export resumption enabled the OPEC producer cartel to postpone fresh supply cuts at Wednesday's meeting in Qatar.

OPEC, which controls about half the world's oil exports, decided to meet again in just seven weeks, on July 31, in case the return of Iraqi shipments undermines high prices.

OPEC sets a US$22 to US$28 target range for its basket of seven grades of crude oil. The basket was last valued at US$27.48.

The Gregorian 06/15/03 ROBERT LANDAUER

Energy controversies are about to gush across the foreign- and domestic-policy landscape like uncapped oil wells.

Directly affecting Oregon, Washington and other coastal states, the Senate on June 11 defeated an energy bill amendment that would have retained protections against invasive oil and natural gas explorations on the Outer Continental Shelf. If the action is not corrected, sensitive coastal environments, including marine sanctuaries, now excluded from preleasing and leasing activities would be added to the "inventory" area.

A five-year planning process already shows reserves at hand. So, the move to allow invasive surveys is a threatening precedent to allow drilling for actual exploration and extraction.

Many states whose economies depend heavily on fisheries, shipping and tourism don't want to bear risks of even one spill or accident. All senators from Oregon, Washington and California voted last week to keep protections that have been in place since 1982.

They lost this round, but their united stand offers hope. When a House appropriations subcommittee voted in 1995 to reinstate offshore oil leasing programs, Northwest senators and representatives of both parties rallied to reverse the threat to their region's coast. In that instance, they presented a convincing argument that even if every drop of oil off the coasts of Oregon and Washington was tapped, U.S. consumers would exhaust the resource in about eight days. Nothing has changed to make such a skimpy prize worth the risk of poisoning Northwest waters and shorelines with oil spills.

The 44 senators who voted to preserve coastal protections still can be a bipartisan coalition strong enough to win the fight. With more than 300 energy bill amendments yet to be acted on, they have time and maneuvering room in the Senate.

The fight could be carried to another ring. The House stripped a similar provision from its comprehensive energy legislation. So, a showdown could be orchestrated during conference if the Senate energy bill passes.

Also, a public outcry could be decisive. Loud opposition might make President Bush conclude, as his father did in 1990, that the political price of backing the oil industry is too costly.

A n energy bill vote last week showed how much senators hate to get on the wrong side of public opinion. President Bush and his allies have been preoccupied with energy production; conservation has been a low priority. So a bill requiring the president to produce a policy that would cut U.S. energy consumption 1 million barrels a day by 2013 was considered a dicey affair.

The vote: 99-1, a landslide win.

How come? When it was clear the issue would pass, senators stampeded to get on the side that wouldn't require public explanations, apologies or election campaign defenses.

A caution: This is modest progress. The United States consumes about 20 million barrels of petroleum products a day now and is expected to require 24 million barrels daily in 2013 -- even if we conserve an extra million barrels a day. And we'll likely rely on imports for about 63 percent of what we use, up from 55 percent now.

So, with 3 percent of global proven oil reserves, the United States is a petro-glutton. Its security and economic stability rely on energy from increasingly unstable regions like the Middle East (Arab oil accounted for 28 percent of U.S. petro-imports in 2002), Venezuela and Nigeria.

All of which adds to heated worry around the world whether the Bush team really means to reconstitute Iraq's oil industry (11 percent of proven global reserves, second to Saudi Arabia) as an independent player or remake it as a pawn of U.S. companies.

The survival of foreign governments and the shape of pro- and anti-U.S. alliances surely depend on the answer. Power applied recklessly would rebound dangerously and destructively. Reach Robert Landauer, editorial columnist, at 503-221-8157, or 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201 or robertlandauer@news.oregonian.com