gasoline shortage

Global: Jeremy Leggett - Another crunch is coming – but will the world act?

The first report concluded that peak oil is a grave risk for the global economy. Specifically, what concerns us is the threat in the premature peak in global oil production caused by either or both of a collective overestimation of reserves by the global oil industry, and an inability to deliver enough flow capacity because of underinvestment. The second report will examine, among other things, the impact of the recession on the global prices.

My own view of the state of play is that the recession might have bought us a little time, but has deepened the crisis beyond. The central problem is that the underinvestment in the oil industry today will play out as a tighter crunch in the middle of the next decade. It takes an average of six and a half years from finding an oil field to bringing it onstream and, in the rare case of giant fields, often more than 10 years. Why haven't more people in government, and the oil industry itself, seen this particular crisis coming? Why aren't they acting proactively to soften the blow?

Canada (Alberta): Pumps run dry across Calgary

Oil, oil everywhere, but not a drop of fuel for your tank.

As the long weekend stretched out to Sunday, more and more Calgarians were left running on fumes as a fuel shortage across southern Alberta has shut down dozens of gas stations on one of the busiest driving weekends of the year.

Dan Ruiter, a manager at Highland Moving and Storage, had driven up to his seventh Petro-Canada location of the day by midday Sunday, and again faced the familiar sight of pumps wrapped tautly in yellow caution tape.

"Our moving company relies on gas cards from Petro-Canada, and it seems that nowhere that we're looking for gas has any," he said at the Petro-Canada on 32nd Avenue N. E.

India: `Industries will suffer due to load shedding '

KRRS working president Kodinahalli Chandrashekhar urged the government to provide sufficient power to the rural mass without any
discrimination between urban and rural masses, in Davanagere on Monday.

Chandrashekhar blamed the BJP-led government for its utter failure in providing sufficient power, especially to the farmers, referring to its recent decision of load shedding for 14 hours. Chandrashekhar said that it is a great injustice and inequality meted to the rural mass.

India: Minister warns of power crisis

State power minister Mrinal Banerjee has warned of a power crisis from next month if the current coal shortage persists.

With Union minister of state for coal, Santosh Bagrodia, shying away from a firm assurance on either allocating new coal blocks to state power utilities out of turn or providing temporary linkage to tide over the shortage and suggesting instead that the state utilities import more coal, the spectre of loadsheddings loom large this summer despite a healthy addition in power generation capacity.

Indonesia: Gas stations dry up due to supply reroute

A number of gas stations in Jakarta reported they were out of Premium gasoline Tuesday despite the state-owned oil company claiming supply to the city would not be threatened by the massive explosion at one of its Premium gas tanks at its Plumpang depot in North Jakarta on Sunday.

Many stations, including Kebon Jeruk and Kemandoran stations — which are supplied by Plumpang — displayed signs reading “Out of Premium”.

Iraq: Water plant opened in Iraq's Sadr city amid electricity shortage

Iraqis still have electricity for only a few hours a day, and much of the country has inadequate clean water and sewage services.

Macedonia: Dispute between Macedonian government and EVN worsens

Macedonian households have been suffering frequent cutoffs of electricity. Service took an especially dramatic turn for the worse after October 1st 2008, with increasingly common outages lasting anywhere from a few hours to a day or two. The last straw for many Macedonians was widespread blackouts over the New Year's holidays.

EVN is either intentionally denying service or failing to invest enough in the power grid, Gruevski said. He also faulted the monopoly for failing to connect sports arenas -- a construction priority for the government -- to electrical service.