|
|
|
| ||||
|
Tuesday, 19 June 2012 |
|
|
|
Will Sri Lanka strike oil? Are there sufficient petroleum deposits in the territorial seas off our coast that can be extracted? These questions keep coming up, spurring debate on the benefits and hazards of a country suddenly discovering oil. Sri Lanka has been prospecting for offshore oil since the early 1970s. The early attempts, with Soviet technical assistance, are best remembered for the then government’s fabricated claims of striking oil in Pesalai close to Mannar. More recently, Norwegian and Indian expertise has been engaged in the quest but it has yet to produce economically significant results. Should we be banking future prosperity on oil at a time when the whole world is trying to reduce its dependence on it? The twin crises of high oil prices and global warming -- triggered largely by fossil fuel burning - have challenged humanity rethink business as usual. As world leaders gather in Rio de Janeiro this week to discuss the fate of our planet, we look at the controversial history and uncertain future of petroleum.
* As at May 2012, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has 12 countries that hold membership of this inter-governmental organization set up in 1960. These 12 members are drawn from six in the Middle East, four in Africa, and two in South America. A large Asian country, which joined OPEC in 1962, left the membership in 2009 because it ceased to be a net exporter of oil. This country could not fulfill the demand of its own country’s petroleum needs, as growth in demand outstripped output. It now imports supplies from producer countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. What is this country? * The five founding member countries of OPEC, created at the Baghdad Conference on September 1960, were Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. OPEC’s objective was, and still is, “to co-ordinate and unify petroleum policies among Member Countries, in order to secure fair and stable prices for petroleum producers; an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consuming nations; and a fair return on capital to those investing in the industry.” OPEC had its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, during the first five years 1960-65 and then moved it to another European city in September 1965 where it remains. Which city? * In 1977, The Economist magazine coined a new term to describe the decline of the manufacturing sector in the Netherlands after the discovery of a large natural gas field in 1959. It is now generically used to describe negative consequences arising from large increases in a country’s income. While primarily associated with a natural resource discovery, it can also result from any large increase in foreign currency, including foreign direct investment, foreign aid or a substantial increase in natural resource prices. What is this term? * “Ten years from now, twenty years from now, you will see: oil will bring us ruin...Oil is the Devil’s excrement!” The man who uttered these cautionary words in the 1970s was then oil minister of Venezuela, a co-founder of OPEC. He said so at a time when recently discovered oil was bringing Venezuela unprecedented wealth: his government’s 1973 revenues were larger than all previous years combined, raising hopes that ‘black gold’ would catapult Venezuela straight to First World status. It took his countrymen 25 years to see the wisdom of his words. Whose words were these? * Which small Asian economy was assessed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as “the most oil-dependent economy in the world.” In 2009, income from petroleum exports accounted for about 95% of total government revenue and almost 80% of gross national income (GNI) in this country. Having discovered oil deposits a decade ago and started oil and natural gas extraction in 2004, this country set up a Petroleum Fund in 2005, whose assets reached US$6.8 billion in late 2010 -- about 10 times its entire non-oil income. * “First rule of oil - addicts never tell the truth to their pushers. We are the addicts, the oil producers are the pushers - we have never had an honest conversation with the Saudis.” These are the words of a leading New York Times journalist and columnist who reports and comments on foreign affairs, environmental issues and energy. He has been concerned about America’s dependence on foreign oil, often writing about ways that green energy technologies that can reduce it. In 2006, he conducted a Discovery Channel documented titled ‘Addicted to Oil’ where he examined the geopolitical, economic and environmental consequences of petroleum use. Who is this journalist? * Biofuels are fuel sources that are derived from plants. It includes fuels derived from biomass conversion, as well as solid biomass, liquid fuels and biogas. A main type of biofuels is bio-ethanol, an alcohol made by fermenting crops such as corn or sugarcane. Non-food sources such as some trees and grasses can also be raw materials for bio-ethanol. The United States and Brazil lead the industrial production of ethanol fuel: in 2010, these two countries accounted for 88% of the world’s production. From what crop plant is most of Brazil’s ethanol derived?
* The Ondaatje Prize is an annual literary award given for a work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry which evokes the ‘spirit of a place,’ and which is written by someone who is a citizen of or who has been resident in the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. The prize is worth 10,000 British Pounds and bears the name of its benefactor, the Lankan-born Canadian entrepreneur Christopher Ondaatje. Which organisation administers this award? * The Ondaatje prize 2012 was awarded to a debut novel titled The Sly Company of People Who Care. It was written by a young Indian writer who spent a year in Guyana before writing his novel, in which a 26-year-old Indian journalist gives up his job to live in a country where he can “escape the deadness of life.” Judges declared that they had ‘seldom read a book with so much energy’ as this one. Who is the author? * Great Expectations by Charles Dickens has been translated into many language over the years since it was first published in serial form in 1860-61 in “All Year Around” (a British weekly literary magazine founded and owned by Charles Dickens). It was translated into Sinhala as Romage Wasanawa (meaning Roma’s Fortune). Who was the translator? * Pinhami (The Boy and the Little Elephant; 42 mins, 1980), is one of Lankan filmmaker Lester James Peries’ shorter feature films. Produced to mark the International Year of the Child (1979), and aimed at younger viewers, the film received the first prize at the Moscow International Children’s Film Festival and a special Pravda award. Who wrote the script of this film? * A British weekly news magazine was founded by the Scottish businessman and banker James Wilson in 1843 with the aim “to take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.” It is still in publication, and now has a circulation of over 1.6 million copies with a global outreach. What is its name? * Time is the world’s largest weekly news magazine, with a worldwide circulation 3.3 million copies. Time magazine was created in 1923 by two young men (both 25 years old) who had previously worked together as chairman and managing editor respectively of the Yale Daily News, who saw the need for a weekly news and current affairs magazine as means of educating a poorly informed American public. Two co-founders were very different personalities, but between them gave their publication a distinctive identity including a light-hearted writing style, known as Timestyle. The first issue of Time was published on March 3, 1923. Who were the co-founders, who transformed the reading habits of Americans? * In early June 2012, the social-networking and micro-blogging platform Twitter streamlined its bird image logo in an attempt to simplify the ‘universally recognizable symbol of Twitter.’ According to the company, the new look brings together the Twitter staff’s love of ornithology, the need to design within creative constraints and simple geometry. What is the name of Twitter’s iconic logo bird? * The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), also known as Rio+20, is being held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in mid June 2012. World leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, NGOs and other groups will come together to discuss and agree how we can reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection. Rio+20 is a joint endeavour of the entire UN System, and the organizing effort is headed by a Conference Secretary-General, a national of China who is a career diplomat with long years of experience in inter-governmental processes. What is his name? Last week’s answers1. An Inconvenient Truth |
|
