Indonesia: oil palm saplings are still replacing peatlands and rainforest Cooking oil, chocolate, soap, washing powder, cosmetics and biofuels are just a few of the hundreds of products reliant on one key ingredient - palm oil. Demand for this versatile oil is rising rapidly. Today 80 per cent of world production comes from plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia. Palm oil is the leading cause of de...

An interesting piece about how the oil slick disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Something is getting attention: there is not as much of an oil spill as some might suppose. Apparently, in warm water like this, and due to certain acquatic organisms, the oil is gradually absorbed. It is, in a manner of speaking, gobbled up. (Belch). That got me thinking that yes, oil slicks caused by human error are obv...

BP was considered an enlightened oil company in Washington before an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed 11 men and sent thousands of barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

Asked about the stability of oil prices, and if the Prime Minister would be making any representations to the oil producers to get the price down, the PMS replied that what the Prime Minister had been saying to the oil producing nations whilst he had been in the region, was that it was in nobody s interest to have the volatility in oil prices that we had seen in recent years, particularly when we ...

Oil prices surged to their highest level this year after Saudi Arabia's oil minister said the global economy had strengthened enough to cope with oil at $80 a barrel

It's hard to believe that oil, now trading below US$40 a barrel, hit $145 six months ago. Here's a graph that shows the price of oil for the past twenty-odd years: Those prices are in nominal dollars, so there's some inflation adjustment necessary, but the point is pretty clear: $40 oil would have been considered high until the past three years. Even during the first Gulf War, oil o...

In the 85 days of the leak, the worst oil disaster in history, nearly 184m gallons of crude oil is estimated to have gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, the ninth largest body of water in the world. OK. The oil that gushed also added to natural oil and gas leaks into Gulf waters.

The public must have better information on oil incidents in UK waters, the Scottish government says in the wake of the North Sea oil spill.

I am surprised by how volatile the oil price is and you can't just say peak oil 'there you go' I am assuming that producing companies will invest in oil pushing up supply (yes I know at some point this may not work...but there is a lot of very dirty in the world still ready to come out and compleatly fuck up the atmosphere).....and economic recession will depress demand for the bla...

I awoke this morning to be reminded by the Today programme that 100 years ago a British explorer first struck oil in Iran, and began the dash to the Gulf to set up an oil industry. My sources tell me that the first oil was found at Masjid-i-Suleiman on May 26th 2008 by George