Daniel Cameron, Argentina’s Energy Secretary, is proposing to raise the price of Argentine oil exports to $63 per barrel. Currently Argentina sells their oil at $42 per barrel.
Decades ago the Argentine government froze their export oil prices. Now oil production is way down, because it’s not worth it to the Argentine oil companies.
To make the economic situation worse, Argentina imports most of its refined fuel, and that’s been going up, in price as well as volume. Cameron wants to increase their export oil prices to offset the growing demand and cost of imported fuel, and to build up reserve funds in Argentina’s Central Bank.
The Australian airline Quantas, will be using a mix of kerosene based jet fuel, and used cooking oil.
Two of their airliners will be using the mixed fuel. It’s being supplied by a Dutch company called SkyNRG.
Don’t be too concerned, the turbine (jet engine) is a glorified diesel engine. In 1893 Rudolph Diesel designed the diesel engine specifically to run on peanut, or vegetable oil. He succeed, however he was sued by Rockefeller’s Standard Oil.
Today’s diesel fuel is actually Petrodiesel, meaning fuel for diesel engines made from petroleum, not plant oils.
So, turbines and piston diesel engines should run fine on cooking oil, unless they were specifically made to run on Petrodiesel only (and don’t forget the bogus U.S. EPA rules that force you to use Petrodiesel in your diesel powered vehicle).
Virgin Airways Australia is also about to run their airliners on plant based fuels. The fuel will be based on a type of Eucalyptus, called a Mallee tree in Western Australia.
China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) will increase oil production and natural gas extraction. This is partly because their profits dropped by 23% in their fourth business quarter.
The drop in profits came as corporate officials tried to shift from producing fuel, to buying fuel from other refiners. Officials said Sinopec refining operations were actually costing more than refiners in other countries.
Sinopec is also exploring possible shale oil in western China, which could rival shale oil production in the United States.