Energy shortage

• South Korea handing out US$10.2B to its lowest income citizens. The package will benefit 13.8 million people, which includes tax rebates for 78 percent of the country’s workers who earn less than US$37k a year. Govt will also pay for 50% of the increase in oil costs for bus drivers, truckers, farmers, fishermen
• “Every head of government across the world is dealing with this challenge now and it goes to global oil supply, in large part, the role of OPEC. OPEC needs to open the production lines to a greater extent. The G-8 provides an opportunity to apply the blowtorch to OPEC – and it’s time that happened”, Australian PM Kevin Rudd
• “Let’s not kid ourselves. There is one big gorilla in this market on the demand side, and it’s the US. We use three times as much oil as China with one-quarter of the population”, Severin Borenstein, a business and public policy professor at UC-Berkeley, who also directs the university’s Energy Institute
• “It’s a shock, but if you look at the rate of oil production globally, it has been 85 million barrels a day for three years in a row. We know demand is increasing because a lot of nations are still subsidizing oil, which ought to stop”, US Energy Sec, Sam Bodman.
  “Oil prices are surging not because of supply shortage, but because of massive liquidity” Mr Toshinori Ito, sr analyst at UBS Securities, Japan referring to the influx of financial funds into markets, helped by low interest rates.
• In Alabama, city officials have implemented a four-day week for 2,400 municipal workers and later for some 1,000 cops and firemen. This translates to about savings of USD1M. Minnesota to follow suit and save 1% of their budget from transportation cost – imagine that happening in Malaysia…. Not a chance!
• Airlines in India made combined loss of USD938M last fiscal year to Mar 08, urges for consolidation
• Japan’s PM’s house is the first fuel cell-powered home way back in 2005, residents urged to install at their homes
• Iranian drivers of luxury cars can no longer purchase subsidized fuel (currently priced at RM 0.36 per L).
• Price for oil by-products has increased. People should start minimizing usage of take-away Styrofoam and plastic bags and hawkers are urged not to force consumers to absorb the price increase – Better solution, don’t eat out.

taken from Straits Times, 9th June 08.