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The current: Expect pricier oil
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The government this week said oil prices should average about $77 a barrel this winter, 10 percent more than its estimates issued last month. Oil prices have jumped about $10 per barrel during that time.
The Energy Information Administration forecast assumes the world economy would continue to pull itself out of recession, and U.S. GDP would grow by 1.9 percent next year. It said oil prices should continue to climb to $81 a barrel by December 2010.
Oil has become a hot commodity this year as the dollar has weakened and money flows into crude contracts. Because oil is largely bought and sold in U.S. currency, it effectively becomes cheaper if the dollar falls. Investors holding stronger currencies like the euro can trade them in for dollars and buy more oil.
Gasoline, heating oil and diesel have all followed crude higher.
The EIA said it expects the national average gas prices to rise from $2.55 per gallon in October to $2.70 per gallon this month. Pump prices are estimated to rise to an average of $2.81 in 2010, with prices increasing to $3 a gallon during the summer driving season.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Focusing on energyFaegre and Benson sees the future and it points toward energy. The Minneapolis-based law firm, with 500 attorneys in six offices on three continents, this week announced it had created a practice group specializing in new energy, clean technology and climate, the so-called NECTC team.
The idea is to "anticipate and mitigate the legal risk associated with a rapidly changing regulatory environment and the 'new energy economy,'" the law firm said.
The team will include 50 attorneys and hopes to provide services to energy companies as well as businesses facing climate change legislation.
"Sooner or later, virtually all of our clients will be wrestling with one aspect or another of their energy needs," said partner James R. Spaanstra, who will head the team. "They will be developing, using, managing or responding to clean technology. They will be revising their business models around the pressures of climate change and sustainability -- aligning supply chains to deliver sustainable products."
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Lights out at U energy conference. Irony police notified.
Just as Lawrence Kazmerski, a top official at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, was about to give the keynote address at the University of Minnesota's annual E3 conference at the RiverCentre in St. Paul, the lights went out, bathing the audience in darkness and a deep sense of irony.
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