I guess many of you will be waking up to this news. Besides the sky-rocketing prices of oil, what do you make of the security angle? Various peak oil people have commented on the fact that, regardless of what Herculean efforts we might make to soften our landing at the bottom of the peak oil slope, we still have to be able to protect our resources.
It's all the more ironic that the U.S. military is the single largest consumer of petroleum products in the world. The attack this morning reminded me of the October 2000 attack in Yemen on the USS Cole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing
Attacks in Middle East, Nigeria send oil to record $117.40Monday April 21, 7:21 am ET
By Pablo Gorondi, Associated Press Writer
Oil spikes to record $117.40 after Mideast attack on Japanese tanker and Nigerian pipelines
Oil prices spiked to a record $117.40 a barrel after a Japanese oil tanker was hit by a rocket near Yemen and militants in Nigeria claimed two attacks on pipelines.
The 150,000-ton tanker Takayama was attacked about 270 miles off the east coast Yemen coast in the Gulf of Aden while it was heading for Saudi Arabia, its Japanese operator, Nippon Yusen K.K., said in a statement.
None of the ship's 23 crew members was injured. Hundreds of gallons of fuel leaked before a 1-inch hole in the tanker's stern was repaired, the company said.
Kyodo News agency reported that the Japanese tanker was fired on by a rocket launcher from a small boat.
Light, sweet crude for May delivery reached $117.40 a barrel but fell back to $116.88 by midday in Europe, up 19 cents from Friday's closing price.
The full article is here:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080421/oil_prices.html
The oil wars are just beginning. 