World's thirst for oil

A picture taken on June 24, 2010 shows a man walking near the spilled crude oil on the shores and in the waters of the Niger Delta swamps of Bodo, a village in the famous Nigerian oil-producing Ogoniland. A landmark UN report on oil pollution in Nigeria will be released on August 4, 2011 having already drawn controversy over blame for major spills in the native region of the late activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. The study of the effects of pollution in Ogoniland, part of the Niger Delta, the country's main oil-producing region, follows a two-year assessment by the United Nations Environment Programme.

Greenpeace activists climb ladders on the Leiv Eiriksson drilling rig operated by British oil explorer Cairn Energy, 180km (112 miles) off the Greenland coast, June 4, 2011. Days after Greenpeace activists were removed from the rig after suspending themselves from the Leiv Eiriksson, some 18 Greenpeace activists boarded the Leiv Eiriksson and were taken to meet the drill manager. REUTERS/Steve Morgan/Greenpeace/Handout (GREENLAND - Tags: ENERGY CIVIL UNREST ENVIRONMENT BUSINESS) NO SALES. NO ARCHIVES. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS. NO COMMERCIAL USE

An oil tank explodes in the port of Gibraltar on May 31, 2011. \"Independence of the Seas\" cruise ship which was nearby has pulled out to sea for safety. AFP PHOTO/ DOUGLAS CUMMING/GIBRALTAR PANORAMA PICTURE (Photo credit should read DOUGLAS CUMMING/GIBRALTAR PANORA/AFP/Getty Images)

Pedestrians run from the scene of a fire ravaging four fuel tankers on Lagos's Ibadan highway on May 11, 2011. Two people lost their lives following a collision between two tankers loaded with fuel that exploded spreading the fire to two additional tankers driving along on Lagos-Ibadan highway, a gateway leading to other parts of the country. The accident cut off traffic around Lagos.

An aerial view of an illegal oil refinery Ogoniland outside Port Harcourt in Nigeria's Delta region on March 24, 2011. Crude oil thieves -- known locally as \"bunkerers\" -- have been a fact of life for years in Africa's biggest oil and gas industry, puncturing pipelines and costing Nigeria and foreign oil firms millions of dollars in lost revenues each year.

Mammoet Co. workers move a reduced-size megaload, carried on 18-axles remotely controlled, into a new storage yard at the Port of Lewiston on May 9, 2011 in Lewiston, Idaho. Several dozen of the large modules of oil-processing equipment will be stored there, awaiting permits to be transported on U.S. Highway 95 through Moscow to the Kearl Oil Sands project in Alberta, Canada.

NATO oil tanker prepare to depart for Afghanistan, in Karachi, Pakistan on May 3, 2011. According to official figures, 80 percent of NATO supplies are transported to Afghanistan via Pakistan.

A laborer carries an empty oil container at a wholesale fuel market in Kolkata April 7, 2011. India's fuel price index climbed 13.13 percent in the year to March 26, government data on Thursday showed.

Natural gas storage tanks burn at the Cosmo oil refinery in Ichihara city, Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo March 11, 2011. A massive 8.9 magnitude quake hit northeast Japan causing many injuries, fires and a four-metre (13-ft) tsunami along parts of the country's coastline, NHK television and witnesses reported.

A Filipino vendor arranges bottles of gasoline and engine oil sold at a roadside stall in Quezon City, eastern Manila, Philippines on March 2, 2011. The Philippines is aiming to increase its current inventory of crude and other oil products as part of measures to manage the impact of the continuing political unrest in the Middle East and north Africa, according to the government's energy department. World oil prices are being affected as Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's grip on power in the OPEC-member nation has been challenged by violent protests calling for his resignation.

A picture taken on April 7, 2011 from a helicopter shows Russian LUKOIL ice-resistant fixed platform LSP-1, built at the Astrakhansky Korabel shipyard, intended to drill and operate wells and collect and pre-treat reservoir content at Korchagins oil field in the Russian sector of the Caspian Sea some 120 miles outside Astrakhan. The field's productivity of oil and gas condensate will peak at 2.3 million tonnes oil and 1.2 bcm gas per year.

Rebels pray in front of an anti-aircraft gun near a refinery in Ras Lanuf on March 8, 2011. Libyan government troops, tanks and warplanes attacked rebels on the western and eastern fronts on Tuesday, pressing their campaign to crush an insurrection against Muammar Gaddafi. In the east, a swathe of which is under rebel control, air strikes targetted rebel positions behind the frontline around the oil town of Ras Lanuf on the Mediterranean coast.

Protestors holds signs across the street from a working natural gas well drilling in Flower Mound, Texas on Monday, Nov. 29, 2010. Residents in suburban Texas and rural Pennsylvania are living with the nastiness and rancor erupting in communities nationwide over the volatile issue of hydraulic fracturing, a form of gas drilling.

Floor hands and engineers adjust a down hole motor used for directional drilling on a natural gas drilling platform on December 18, 2008 in the Barnett Shale in Fort Worth, Texas. Drilled in a commercial area adjacent to the Interstate-35W expressway, the 11,600 foot well is owned by Chesapeake Energy Corporation. It's the first of 10-13 wells expected to be drilled on the leased site. Urban wells are required to be 600 feet from the nearest homes, schools, churches, hospitals and parks. Multiple wells on a site require less distance. In Texas, state law gives owners of mineral rights the prerogative over owners of surface land. One of the largest natural gas fields in the US, the Barnett Shale formation, discovered in the early 1950's, covers 5,000 square miles underlying the Dallas-Fort Worth area and is proven to hold 2.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The Barnett Shale is known as a tight gas reservoir in hard shale rock and requires hydraulic fracturing technology to properly release the un

Louisiana coastal director Garret Graves diggs up oiled soil in a coastal marsh on April 19, 2011, at Middle Ground in southern Louisiana. A year after the BP oil spill coated Gulf coast beaches and marshes, BP claims that most of the oil has been removed. Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries says, however, that much of the coastal cleaning has been superficial, as the oil has seeped into the soil, killing marshes and further eroding the state's damaged Mississippi Delta ecosystem.

In this April 21, 2010 file image provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, fire boat response crews battle the blazing remnants of the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon.

A kayaker stops to photograph a gash, approximately 90-feet long, in the hull of the container ship Cosco Busan in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2007. The vessel struck the Bay Bridge on Wednesday spilling about 58,000 gallons of oil into the San Francisco Bay. Hundreds of people and a fleet of oil-skimming boats were at work Saturday trying to clean up San Francisco Bay's worst oil spill in nearly two decades, as rescue teams raced to save hundreds of seabirds. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

An unidentified man walks along oil pipelines belonging to Italian oil company Agip in Obrikom, Nigeria in this Monday, March 6, 2006 file photo. Angola is joining OPEC, African oil exploration is booming and China is investing. The stampede for African oil has continued, even as militant attacks in some countries and precarious governments in others make returns uncertain.

GULF, IRAN: An Iranian technician works at the Balal offshore oil platform in the Gulf waters, in the Gulf on the edge of Qatar's territorial waters, 16 May 2004. Iran's Vice President Mohammad Ali Aref officially inaugurated the Balal offshore oil field developed by French major Total together with BowValley of Canada and Italy's Agip. The Balal field is currently producing 40,000 barrels per day and was developed under a 310-million-dollar agreement signed in 1999. AFP PHOTO/Behrouz MEHRI (Photo credit should read BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images)

(FILES) Picture taken 04 September, 2006 in the Gulf of Mexico, near the shores of the state of Campeche, Mexico, of a Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) oil rig. Mexico on August 20th, 2007 put part of its Caribbean coast on red alert and shut down its offshore oil facilities as Hurricane Dean barreled toward the Yucatan Peninsula after killing at least six people and battering Jamaica. Projections had the hurricane making landfall about 150 kilometers (93 miles) south of Cancun at about 0700 GMT Tuesday. AFP PHOTO/Eunice ADORNO (Photo credit should read EUNICE ADORNO/AFP/Getty Images)

A general view shows oil tank cars trains at a railway station in PetroChina's Daqing oil field in China's northeastern Heilongjiang province November 5, 2007. Chinese oil majors will push back maintenance work and curb exports to guarantee diesel supplies after the country's worst fuel crunch in four years, the country's top economic planner said on Tuesday. Picture taken November 5, 2007. REUTERS/Stringer (CHINA) CHINA OUT

Oil field workers work at a well head in Sinopec's Jianghan oil field on the outskirts of Guanghua, central China's Hubei province November 5, 2007. Chinese oil majors will push back maintenance work and curb exports to guarantee diesel supplies after the country's worst fuel crunch in four years, the country's top economic planner said on Tuesday. Picture taken November 5, 2007. REUTERS/Stringer (CHINA) CHINA OUT

JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: A general view dated 01 June 2004 of an oil installation in Saudi Arabia's northeastern Gulf port of Jubail. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will increase oil output this month by 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) over its OPEC quota to help ease record prices, Oil Minister Obeid bin Saif al-Nassiri announced 02 June 2004. Nassiri spoke before departing for Beirut where the oil cartel holds a formal meeting tomorrow. Crude oil futures in New York surged 01 June to a record closing price of 42.33 dollars a barrel, as a deadly weekend attack in Saudi Arabia heightened fears about terrorist disruptions to energy supplies. AFP PHOTO/Bilal QABALAN (Photo credit should read BILAL QABALAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Oil refinery Complex Jose de Anzoategui, 200 miles East of Caracas, Venezuela. The complex, that makes refined crude from the heavy oil of the Orinoco Belt, is a joint venture between Venezuelan state owned PDVSA and the foreign companies Chevron, British Petrolum, Total and Statoil. On May 1, 2007 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez changed the stock holdings of the complex to make PDVSA, with 60 percent of the stocks, in control of the participating companies.

TO GO WITH STORY by Guillaume Lavallee, Canada-oil-environment A bucketwheel once used by Syncrude in the oil sand fields to move the sand to the extraction plant lies idle 12 June, 2007 in Fort McMurray Canada. The development of Canada's oil sands is laying waste to its great northern forest and western plains, say critics who point to skyrocketing greenhouse gas emissions, diverted rivers and razed backwoods. And the devastation can only get worse, they say, as energy companies pump billions of dollars into new projects to triple local oil production to some 3.0 million barrels per day within the next decade. AFP PHOTO/David BOILY =MORE PHOTOS IN IMAGE FORUM= (Photo credit should read DAVID BOILY/AFP/Getty Images)

The trans-Alaska oil pipeline on remote wind-scraped flatlands in Alaska's north coast near the Beaufort Sea is seen Monday, March 13, 2006. Lawmakers will question BP's top U.S. official at a potentially contentious hearing Wednesday, May 16, 2007 focused on whether the company neglected necessary pipeline maintenance before oil spills in Alaska last year. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

The Syncrude extraction facility in the northern Alberta oil sand fields is reflected in the pool of water being recycled for re-use in the extraction process 14 June 2007 in Fort McMurray, Canada. With world oil prices hovering at near nine-month highs and global energy firms flush with cash, analysts are predicting that control of Canada's booming oil sands sector could soon fall into foreign hands. Analysts said Canadian companies such as UTS Energy, Canadian Oil Sands, Opti Canada and Western Oil Sands with properties in northern Alberta are likely takeover targets. AFP PHOTO/David BOILY == WITH AFP STORY: CANADA-ENERGY-OIL-TAKEOVER BY GUILLAUME LAVALLEE == (Photo credit should read DAVID BOILY/AFP/Getty Images)

** FILE ** The Discoverer Deep Seas drillship sits on station off the coast of Louisiana as Chevron drills for oil in the Gulf of Mexico in this March 28, 2006 file photo. As budget planning gets under way for Gulf Coast states, the states are realizing how much spending freedom they have with royalties from an offshore drilling expansion . They can use the money to pave roads, erect bridges, lay water lines or finish just about any other public works projects they can link to the coast. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Bijaya, ALGERIA: A picture taken 13 September 2006 shows an oil tanker supplied with oil at the main oil port in Bijaya City some 210km east of Algiers. The 50 billion dollar 2005 oil revenue is considered Algeria's largest source of national income. AFP PHOTO / Fayez NURELDINE (Photo credit should read FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP/Getty Images)

Workers load a fish processing machine with Tilapia fishes at the ''Aquafinca Saint Peter Fish'', in the village El Borboton, 200 km North of Tegucigalpa, 23 July 2007. The company began 5 years ago processing Tilapia fish for the food industry, but now they started processing them to produce biodiesel, becoming the world leader in biodiesel from animal origin. AFP PHOTO / Elmer MARTINEZ (Photo credit should read ELMER MARTINEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

HOQUIAM, WA- AUGUST 15: Guests and members of the media in attedence as Imperium Renewables open the largest biodiesel production facility in the United States at the Port of Grays Harbor on August 15, 2007 in Hoquiam, Washington. The opening was presented as an opportunity to replace dependence on foreign oil imports with cleaner, renewable fuels while also providing benefits to the local community and agricultural industries. (Photo by Kevin P. Casey/Getty Images)

Mining trucks carry loads of oil laden sand after being loaded by huge shovels at the Albian Sands oils sands project in Ft. McMurray, Alberta, Canada, on August 5, 2005. An environmental group opposing the first commercial U.S. oil sands project is appealing to Utah water quality regulators to reconsider its decision to permit the plan. The Moab-based group Living Rivers has been fighting the project, claiming it could contaminate an underground aquifer.

Jul 01, 2007 - Lanzhou, Gansu, China - A labourer works at a branch factory of China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNPC) in Lanzhou. CNPC has become the first Chinese firm to control a Canadian oil sands project after winning exploration rights to the resources in Alberta. In 2005, China National Offshore Oil Corp agreed to acquire a 16.69 percent stake in Canada\'s MEG Energy Corp, for 150 million Canadian dollars. The later owns oil sand leases in 52 sections totalling 32,800 acres in Alberta. Sinopec, Asia\'s largest refiner, also agreed to pay 150 million Canadian dollars for a 40 percent stake in a joint venture producing synthetic crude from western Canada oil sands. The Shanghai newspaper cited officials with the China National Petroleum Corp as saying that oil sands, which are more expensive to process than light crude, are viable as long as crude prices are above 30 dollars per barrel. At an estimated 173 billion barrels, Canada\'s oil sands rank second behind Saudi Arabia in pet

Two Iraq oil workers walk through the Dura oil refinery outside Baghdad Saturday, Feb. 22, 2003. Iraq's oil reserves are the second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

** FILE ** In this undated photo provided by the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, caribou graze on a section of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The U.S. Senate on Wednesday, March 16, 2005, voted to open the Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling. (AP Photo/Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, File)