Promotion PC at Kuala Selangor

Desktop 

-Core i5 
- 320 GB 
- DDR3 4GB
- Mouse 
- Keyboard 
- Window 7 Home Premium 
- 20 inch LED 

RM 1500 only inclusive of GST
Free delivery within Kuala Selangor area 
Interest please contact Mr Tan 017-6470 810.  Limited unit available, grab fast !
Thanks. 

Apartment For Sell RM 350K (Seri Jati Setia Alam)

-10th Floor 

- 813 square feet 

- Good View 

Amenities 

- Swimming Pool 

- Gym Room 

- Playground 

- Multi-Purpose Hall 

- Maintenance RM 110/month

Selling Price RM 350K 

Interest Please contact Mr Tan 017-6470810

I will use the advantage of the knowledge I gain during my studies, interns and working as part-time QS to serve your company and I am responsible and will complete the given task at the time frame stipulated. 

Boom time for Crude Oil in the US

OPEC, the United States of America is here, and how. As the top oil producing nation for 2014, the U.S. has steadily left the world behind. Who said oil in the US was always under sempiternal stormy weather? Play a serenade.

According to the latest estimates, the U.S. is bypassing not only oil behemoth Saudi Arabia but also slapdash Russia. So, from positions No.1 and No.2 as leading oil producing nations, Saudi Arabia and Russia are effectively knocked off the pedestal.

U.S. crude oil production, including the liquids separated from Natural Gas, outperformed other countries with daily output exceeding eleven million barrels in the first quarter of this year. Indeed, this is the highest in the world, for all the countries, for the first quarter of the year. Well, the eleven million barrels is also the highest volume produced by the country in twenty four years. And, for good measure, it is expected that the U.S. will stay as the No. 1 Producer for the rest of 2014, as oil production is expected to increase in the second half too. The U.S., to look back at history, became the world's largest natural oil producer in 2010 itself. In June, according to the International Energy Agency, the country had become the biggest producer of oil and natural gas liquids.

As (almost) everyone in the U.S. knows, this has been achieved on the back of robust boom in the energy extraction from shale rocks. Speaking anything (or writing anything, for that matter), would still underestimate the role of Shale boom in these energy developments. In case the U.S. didn't have Shale to fall back on, and taking into account the political situations in some oil producing countries, oil prices would have been a tad beyond the reach of an ordinary citizen. A scenario unimaginable; the tone apocalyptic, so why say?

States such as Texas and North Dakota lead in the extraction of oil from shale formations. Using advanced techniques in hydraulic fracking, oil companies spit rocks using high-pressure liquid or use directional drilling technology to extract oil. The nation produced 8.4 million barrels a day of oil in April 2014, the highest monthly volume in more than two decades, of which Texas and North Dakota accounted for more than half the total. To split up, Texas produced more than one million barrels per day, doubling and tripling their production respectively in the past three years. The domestic output, added with the curbs on export of crude, is helping ease the price ofWest Texas Intermediate (WTI), the oil benchmark of the US. WTI futures will still maintain the current discount of $7 per barrel to Brent Crude Futures. Nevertheless, to put things in perspective (and not get too carried away), the US still imported about 7. 5 million barrels of crude a day in April, according to the Department of Energy.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), oil output in the US will increase to 13.1 million barrels a day in 2019 before leveling off. IEA predicts that the US would enjoy the top ranking as a producer till 2030 only due to resource depletion as oil is a non-renewable source of energy. Then, the Middle-East may re-emerge to dominate the oil scene again. But, those days are far off. For now though, on the energy field at least, things are as rosy as they look. In fact, a decision of a U.S. Commerce Department to allow overseas shipment of processed ultra-light oil (condensate) raises hopes of the nation lifting a four-decade long impractical ban on crude exports. Journeyed in the right direction, where it's headed now, North America will relive the build-up of crude supply. Should that happen, the U.S. will have daily exports of one million barrels of crude by the end of the year, according to a report.

Staying with the good news, annual investment in Oil and Gas is also seeing boom times with a record $200 billion, or about twenty percent of the total private fixed-structure spending. A first!

Global oil prices

However for the rest of the world, things are still as they are-pretty much. The production growth outside the US has been lower than anticipated, which has kept the global oil prices high.

Also, usually any unrest in any of the oil producing countries shakes up the speculators making the oil prices bit too tipsy. That the good news of U.S. oil production hasn't caused any ripple in the global market can be attributed largely to the Geo-political and unusual situations in countries like Iraq, Libya and Nigeria. In Iraq, militant group Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shaam (ISIS) has raised alarm bells regarding oil flows from the second-largest Producer of OPEC (after Saudi Arabia). Infrastructure woes including theft and sabotage have blighted oil industry in Nigeria whereas political unrest and protests in Libya have led to reduced oil production.

Yet, from the perspective of the U.S., with reduced dependence on oil imports, the nation can heave a sigh of relief on energy security. Perhaps gone are the days when a sniff or sneeze in Iran affected the gas prices at the pumps in the US. Well, with low energy prices, the US economy has a mighty reason to prosper.

Oil Price Drops on Oversupply B

In June of 2014 the Brent Crude Oil Price hit $115 per barrel and many oil market insiders were predicting higher prices. Other analyst however, called a peak, and their predictions proved to be correct. By the beginning of October 2014, the Index dropped to $95 and predictions of further falls down to $90 or even $80 hold sway. What changed?

Panic

Back in June, the world suddenly became aware of the Muslim fundamentalist group called IS. This band of revolutionaries threatened to disrupt Iraq's oil output, just as that country was beginning to open the taps and sell to the world. OPEC's estimates of world demand for oil showed that the loss of Iraq's output would produce a large shortfall in supply. When supply cannot meet demand, prices rise. However, that simplistic view ignored many other factors that were coming into play in the oil market. Speculators talked the market up and encouraged panic buying. That panic pricing lasted long enough for those insiders heavily stocked with oil futures to offload them on the general public.

Fracking

Hydraulic fracturing in the United States has redrawn the geo-political map and fundamentally altered the oil market. The United States was and still is the world's largest consumer of oil. Back in 2005, the US had to import 60 per cent of its supplies from abroad. That demand boosted the coffers of oil suppliers and made the control of major oil producing regions vital to US economic stability and so central to American foreign policy. By 2014, however, the USA only needs to import 30 per cent of its oil consumption. As fracking increases domestic production, the USA will switch from being a net importer to a net exporter of oil and that will change the world's political alliances forever.

Crisis

The insurgency in Iraq dominated the world's headlines through the summer and into the fall of 2014. News reporters gasped as IS seized control of larger and larger areas of the recently liberated oil producing country. These reports lit a fuse under the oil price, but those price rises were generated through selective blindness. Anyone reading the whole newspaper on their commute to the city would have realised that IS controls the central region of Iraq and eastern parts of Syria. All of Iraq's oil is in the Shia-populated southern Basra region of Iraq and the Kurdish region in the north of Iraq. IS has imposed a rule of terror across vast tracts of desert in the only region of Iraq that has little oil.

Need and Greed

Predictions of IS curtailing Iraqi oil sales overlooked a fundamental flaw in the organization and its leaders. IS needs money, and its leaders like luxuries. The declared "Caliph" (Muslim Pope) of the group drew ridicule across the world on his first appearance in video on Western news slots by sporting a $5,000 Omega watch. IS controlled a small oil field in Northern Syria, and, after taking over Mosul in Northern Iraq, got access to more. Far from shutting down production, IS cranked up sales by offering bargain basement prices. IS does not have access to international markets, however, and so their low sales price stolen oil cannot be counted as a factor behind the recent fall in the Brent Crude Index.

IS sells its oil in Turkey and smuggles it over the border. Turkey, NATO's second largest military power and ally of the United States, seems to frequently get away with flouting NATO's Middle Eastern strategy. The country was also found to be sanction busting during the embargo on Iran, but faced no punishments from the US. Opposition politicians within Turkey, however, are not so willing to turn a blind eye - Ali Ediboglu, of the Republican People's Party recently drew the world's attention to Turkey's back-door support of IS through oil purchases. IS oil sales now account for about 3.5 per cent of Turkey's oil supply, which is not a significant portion of the world market.

Oil Supply

The fall in oil prices have been predicted since the middle of 2013. Three significant factors were clearly visible a year ago and these movements were bound to lower prices because of greater supply of oil. The end of the US-led embargo on Iran automatically presaged a glut in oil supply. Iran took America's blows on the chin as it attempted to develop a nuclear deterrent. However, the financial embargo on that country left its economy in tatters. Iranian blustering folded and they shelved their nuclear program. Iran's extreme need for cashmeant that it would inevitably pump out as much oil as physically possible no matter how low their actions sent the oil price. Libya suffered a lot of damage to its oil infrastructure during the overthrow of Gadaffi three years ago. However, all that damage has been repaired and now Libya is back in business. Like Iran, Libya is desperate for cash and will sell as much oil as it can no matter how low the oil price goes. Fracking in the US is the third element that has increased oil supply. Although increases in US oil production were predicted, no one foresaw the great leap in production seen this year.

Oil Demand

Recessions reduce the demand for fuel and raw materials for industrial production; booms, increase demand. Since 2008, when the Western world collapsed into recession, growth in China has kept demand for oil at steady levels. As the developed world recovered around 2011, the extra demand placed upward pressure on the price of oil and gas. In 2011, a tsunami caused the Japanese nuclear power plant at Fukushima to go into meltdown. Japan closed down all its nuclear power plants and reopened its mothballed oil-, gas- and coal-fired power stations. This factor placed enormous pressure on the world's fuel supplies keeping prices for all three power sources buoyant. However, this demand suddenly evaporated in July 2014 when Japan reopened all its nuclear power plants. Prices of coal and gas were the first to plummet and only the panic over IS managed to stave off the fall in oil prices for a short period. By the beginning of September 2014, it became clear that industrial production in Japan, Germany, France and China had started to fall. The expansionary phase of the world's economic cycle is coming to an end and recession is on the horizon again. Demand for oil had a sudden fall with the reopening of Japan's nuclear program and there is no growth in the world to take up the slack. Demand for oil will not rise again until the economic cycle returns to growth – an event that is unlikely within the next four years.

Prospects

Increased production from Libya, the USA, Iran, and even Iraq means that oil supplies greatly increased through 2014. The Japanese nuclear program and the onset of worldwide recession mean that demand has plummeted. Thus, a fall in the oil price in unavoidable. The only event that will avert a fall in the oil price is a cut in production.

OPEC is a club of oil producers that was formed to control oil prices through varying supply. Its twelve members include Libya, Iran and Iraq, who are unlikely to volunteer to reduce their production. Algeria is another member and that country suffered destruction of its infrastructure at the same time as Libya. Algeria has also repaired its pipelines and come back to the market this year and they will not give up their only source of funds to repay all those repair costs. Nigeria and Venezuela need every cent they can get their hands on to fund expensive riot control in the face of their discontented starving populations. The United Arab Emirates are still paying their way out of the debt created by a collapsed property boom and so they are unlikely to vote for lowering production. Therefore, seven of the twelve members of OPEC are unlikely to vote for a cut in production. Of the remaining suppliers, Saudi Arabia is by far the largest producer. But the Saudis (who gave the world 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers) need to maintain production to lavishly pacify their islamists.

Peak Oil

One more factor is often cited to reason for higher oil prices and that is "peak oil." This theory proposes that all the oil in the world is running out and will not be able to supply the industrialized world for much longer. The increasing rarity of oil, makes in more precious. However, 2014 has seen several blows to the peak oil panic. Vast reserves have been discovered beneath the Eastern Mediterranean between Egypt and Greece, the South China Sea has yet to be fully explored and Brazil's estimates of off-shore reserves seem to rise monthly. Russia's threats to cut off gas supplies to Europe have removed all brakes on the development of fraking in Europe. The UK, Poland and Sweden are particularly keen to develop their resources. More oil has been discovered in the Arctic in territory belonging to Denmark and Russia and more shale oil lies beneath Russia than the US. New extraction methods and new discoveries mean that peak oil isn't going to happen any time soon.

Conclusion

The current oil price falls have been in the pipeline for a long time and they are set to continue. OPEC does not seem to be prepared to do anything and intends to debate whether to support a Brent Crude price of $90 at its next meeting in November 2014. The fact that this price level is not an urgent certainty for the club shows that it is unlikely to be defended. A fall to $80 seems likely over the next year. A rush to develop oil production in Europe could even see the oil price fall to $60 a barrel if Denmark is going to find a market for all its Arctic oil. If there is anyone in the world that would find such a price difficult to contemplate, it must be Russia. However, at the beginning of October 2014, Russia's central bank announced a $60 price would be its trigger to intervene in the economy. That shows that even the Russian's can see further price falls ahead and are planning for them.

Partial Lift of Crude Oil Export Ban-Background

The export ban on crude oil was put in place following the oil price shock of the 1970s. Arab governments held the Western world hostage by restricting their oil exports and hiking the world oil price. US legislators vowed to insulate their nation from future actions by Middle Eastern governments and put in place a series of measures to ensure a constant supply of oil to US refineries. The crude oil export ban was just one of the measures contained in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) of 1975. However, the measure skewed the oil trade within the USA greatly in favor of the refining industry who were allowed to import oil from abroad. Domestic oil producers were hampered by their inability to sell elsewhere and today this imbalance causes frequent distortions in the price of crude oil within the US compared to global markets.

Feast and Famine

Crude oil coming out of the ground (or ocean floor) is not a uniform product. Different areas of the world produce oil with different properties, namely API gravity and viscosity. Some oil can easily be readily refined into gasoline, others with high gravity are more suited to use by the chemicals industry and could not be counted towards the national need for fuel. However, the blanket ban on crude oil exports has resulted in a glut of high gravity oil (heavy crude oil) that US oil refiners find too costly to refine and producers are banned from selling on the open market. In order to get around this hurdle, petrochemists have thus formulated a technique to mix together different gravities of oil in specific proportions to still provide US motorists with the affordable gasoline they need: this technique is called blending.

Blending

Oil refiners are able to strike good prices for heavier crude because they can argue that this oil is harder to process into gasoline. However, they then blend that heavy crude with light crude to lighten up the gravity of the mix and so don't have to go to greater expense to process heavy crude into gasoline. Refiners don't need that much ultra light crude to make the heavy crude workable -- it is not a straight 50:50 split. Petrochemists analyze the gravity of oil produced from a particular location and calculate the proportion of oil from other locations that needs to be added in order to lower the oil's gravity and run it through their refineries at an average gravity. These factors mean there is a differential for different gravities of oil and that, together with transport costs means that there is no set price for any oil deal that takes place in the world today. The US is accumulating a surplus in this ultra light crude.

Condensate

US oil producers have driven forward technologies that enable oil and gas to be extracted from rock formations such as shale. The fracking process is particularly suited to extracting a form of oil called condensate. This is actually a gas that condenses into oil and it produces that precious ultra light oil which oil refiners need to blend with heavy crude oil. Here is the interesting part: the fracking process has been so efficient at producing condensate that it now manages to extract more of it than the US oil refiners can handle. Producers have found new markets for this condensate in the chemicals industry, resulting in a boom in job creation in the USA. However, condensate production even exceeds the demands of this rapidly growing market.

Supply and demand

The USA still does not produce enough oil to meet fuel demand within its borders and so it still needs to import crude and refined oil from abroad. A quick look at simple production and demand figures would tell anyone that the US is still a little ways from true energy independence. However, reading a breakdown of the types of oil produced and required shows that the USA now has an excess supply of ultra light crude coming from condensate. The simple laws of supply and demand mean that where there is excess supply, prices will fall.

Tricky definition

Two condensate producers in Texas managed to get approval for export of their products from the Commerce Department in June of this year. Pioneer Natural Resources and Enterprise Products Partners argued that a certain amount of processing takes place in order to get the extracted gas into crude oil form and as such, ultra light crude oil derived from condensate is not subject to the crude oil export ban. Truth be told, the gas converts to oil almost naturally as soon as it is taken out of the rock formation in which it was suspended. The producers argued that condensate is not a naturally occurring oil, it is a gas that gets converted into oil and that conversion process requires tanks at regulated pressure, pumps, coolers and stabilizers. Although there is little chemical processing, the physical processing of condensate into ultra light oil amounts to refining. The Commerce Department agreed.

Consequences

US oil refiners like the crude oil export ban. It frees them to roam the world looking for cheap oil while reserving them tame prices in their own backyard. Oil producers would like to be able to export any and all the oil they can produce if that would bring them a better price. In both camps, the case for exporting condensate is seen as the thin end of the wedge. If simply placing the gas in holding tanks with conditions that encourages the condensation process is defined as refining, then eventually, all oil production by fracking or modifying the rock formation's inner pressure could be defined as "in-situ refining". The oil refiners argue that this stretching of the definition of refining undermines the ethos of the export ban and will eventually destroy it.

Texas poker

The export of ultralight crude makes sense, commercially and the White House, Congress and the Senate can see the financial benefits for the country of allowing these condensate deals. However, the US government is controlled by politicians and decisions are not always made on what makes sense commercially. Some Congressmen and Senators have large oil producers within their constituencies and they know that the erosion of the crude export ban will bring jobs to their voters and get them re-elected. Other politicians have large oil refiners to please and dare not agree to any moves on the ban that could be seen as destroying jobs in the places they need to gather votes. Refiners want a glut of ultra light crude in their back yard because that will force the price lower and enable them to make bigger profits. They don't care if large storage facilities filled with the stuff is a loss of income for the nation. The export ban suits the refiners and they are enraged by any measures that undermines it.

Lies and statistics

Industry bodies and consultancies in both the producer and refiner camps calculate projections on the benefits and harm that the export ban causes in the US economy. An unfortunate consequence of expert opinion is that the expert giving it is usually paid by someone. The balance of economic opinion tends to show more benefits to the US by lifting the ban and that message seems to have gotten through to the White House. As Obama is currently jogging through his second term and he cannot run again, his interest in voter opinion is probably at its lowest. The remainder of the current president's term in office is the best window of opportunity the oil producers have of getting the export ban lifted. The export of condensate points the way to destroying the ban without alerting voters to its demise.

Partial Lift of Crude Oil Export Ban

Back in February 2014, oil-price.net posted an astonishing report on the US government's trade restrictions on its own oil industry. While other governments protect their home industries and give preference to their own national interests, by a convoluted path of logic, successive administrations in the US stymied the producers of crude oil in the USA. You can read that full report here: Oil Export Ban Hurts US Oil Industry. However, moves are now afoot to ease this restriction. By one method or another, the crude oil export ban may be undermined to the point that it is meaningless. This is one more battle in the war between US oil producers, who want the export ban lifted, and US oil refiners, who want to keep the ban. The battleground is the definition of what constitutes "crude" and "refined" oil.