Shell diverting LNG to Japan to help offset energy supply drop; lifts oil output targets

AMSTERDAM - Royal Dutch Shell PLC said Tuesday it plans to divert liquefied natural gas and fuel oil to Japan to help replace energy sources damaged in last week's earthquake and tsunami.

Shell, Europe's largest publicly listed oil company, also said it planned to boost its oil production to 3.7 million barrels per day by 2014, with CEO Peter Voser vowing that a "wave of new production" will continue.

Voser said Shell's refining assets in Japan were not damaged in Friday's disaster but it was too early to say how much assistance the government wants and Shell can give. Major LNG companies need to cooperate on rerouting planned shipments and it is not clear how much capacity in Japan can be used to generate electricity from LNG.

The country may in the meantime use fuel oil or crude oil power plants that are only slightly damaged. Voser said LNG diversions could lead to price increases in Europe in the short term.

Shell is not planning for scenarios in which global demand or prices for oil and gas decline on a long-term basis. Growing populations, improving living standards and a lag in investment mean that energy prices are still headed up, Voser said.

Shell's new output target compared with production in 2010 of just 3.34 million barrels of oil and equivalents, which was up from 3.14 million in 2009 thanks to heavy investments in places such as Russia's Sakhalin Island and offshore Qatar, both LNG projects.

Voser said Shell had made mistakes around the turn of the century, when it was pumping more than 4 million barrels of oil per day, not so much because of the major accounting scandal it suffered - in which managers were caught overestimating proven reserves - but instead because executives at the time hadn't spent enough on new capacity.

He warned an oil company can cut costs too far and enter a shrinking phase with limited investment and financing options. That won't happen on his watch, he told reporters during an exposition on the company's strategic plans for the coming year and beyond.

"We're 'back' now, and I can tell you we are not going back to where we were 10 years ago," he said.

Shell's annual report released Tuesday said the company added more to proved reserves than it pumped in 2010, and now has more than 14 billion barrels of proved reserves - enough for an estimated 11 years of operations.

Voser said the company plans $100 billion in capital spending in 2011-2014 to continue growing.

The company cited a list of 20 projects under construction and another 30 under consideration that will take it through 2020.

Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry gave a quick breakdown of some planned investments, including $5 billion into heavy oil projects in places like Canada and Oman, $12 billion in "tight" gas and oil exploration in the U.S. and Brazil, and $20 billion each into deep water development projects and integrated gas facilities.

The company is planning for oil prices of $60-$80 - well below current rates - and said the company would be able to support investment plans of $25-$27 billion per year and still maintain $10 billion in annual dividend payouts with oil at $50 per barrel.

In February Shell reported full year 2010 net profit of $20.1 billion, up from $12.5 billion in 2009, as production rose, inventory values increased, and refining operations improved.

Voser said the company plans to cut $1 billion in costs from its "downstream," or refining and chemicals operations this year, though employment will remain about flat companywide at around 93,000, after 7,000 jobs were cut last year.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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International Energy Agency says Libyan oil exports halted, production down to a 'trickle'

CAIRO - Libya's oil exports have "ground to a halt" because of the fighting between rebels and pro-government forces, and it could be months before the country's crude resurfaces on world markets, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday.

The Paris-based group, whose members are mainly oil-consuming industrial nations such as the United States, also said that production from the North African nation appeared to have "slowed to a trickle" as the fighting and mounting unrest prompted an exodus of foreign oil workers and led international companies to halt their operations in the country.

The IEA said that while the rebellion against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi continues, "what is becoming clearer is the country's oil production and exports could be off the market for many months due to both war-inflicted damage on oil infrastructure and international sanctions."

The fighting in Libya, which has served as the stage for the most violent of the anti-regime protests sweeping the Middle East, drove oil prices as high as almost $107 per barrel last week on the New York Mercantile Exchange before they quickly cooled after the massive earthquake that ravaged Japan. The U.S. benchmark crude futures contract was around $99 per barrel in electronic trading on the Merc on Tuesday.

The assessment, presented in the IEA's latest month oil market report, reaffirms the belief of many in the market that Libya's vital oil industry was all-but-shuttered amid the fighting. The country sits atop Africa's largest proven reserves of conventional crude, and had produced about 1.6 million barrels per day. Most of its exports went to Europe.

At least three of the major ports in the east are no longer exporting, and an official with the Arabian Gulf Oil Co. in the east said Monday that they were not expecting another tanker until mid-April from the terminal in Tobruk, near the Egyptian border.

Other ports have been shut down, with the Ras Lanouf facility suffering a fire at a kerosene storage facility. Even if they are open, tankers have steered clear because of the shelling by pro-Gadhafi forces.

Similarly, analysts believe that what little production remains is likely to have been shut in, or will be shut down, given that the net outcome of shipping oil through pipelines during a military campaign could easily be a major explosion.

Gadhafi's forces have been pushing to recapture the eastern ports, which represent at least 65 percent of the country's export capacity. The country's oil minister has said output is down by about two-thirds of its normal level, but the fighting, communication cuts and other challenges have made it impossible to independently verify the figures put forward both by the government or the rebels.

Many analysts believe that they may try to restart the fields with what limited oil labor force available to the state-run National Oil Co., but that such a step would be essentially irrelevant given that there appear to be few willing buyers of Libyan oil because of the mounting international sanctions on the country.

"While approximately half the country's output was halted in the first few weeks of the rebellion, by 11 March it appeared that production had slowed to a trickle, not least because of the fighting," the IEA said. "Indeed, it is understood that most oil field operations have been shut-in or sharply curtailed, with transport routes choked off."

Other members of the 12-nation Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries - most notably Saudi Arabia - have ramped up production to offset the loss of Libyan oil. Several minister have said there are informal discussions about whether there was a need to meet ahead of their June gathering to determine whether their output quotas needed to be revised to cool surging prices.

The IEA said OPEC crude oil output was down slightly less than 100,000 barrels per day in February, with increases from other members of the producer bloc largely offsetting the drop in Libya's production.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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'Risk/reward equation' used in building gulf well, BP worker testifies

A BP drilling engineer involved in the planning of the Macondo well declined to testify before a federal investigative panel Friday, invoking through his lawyer his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Mark Hafle, who was involved in some of the most heavily scrutinized decisions about the well, became the third BP employee to invoke his constitutional right not to answer questions from the panel. Hafle had testified in an earlier round of hearings.

As Friday's hearing proceeded, another BP employee who wrote one of the most widely derided e-mails to surface in investigations of the Deepwater Horizon disaster testified under oath and gave a more benign explanation of the document.

In an e-mail four days before the April 20 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, drilling engineer Brett Cocales addressed one of the most controversial decisions in the construction of the Macondo well, saying in part, "who cares, it's done, end of story, will probably be fine."

In the e-mail, he went on to defend the decision based on "the risk/reward equation."

Congressional investigators have cited the decision as evidence that BP might have cut corners to save time and money. Testifying before a separate federal investigative panel in Houston on Friday, Cocales said, "Those are my words."

But he said they had nothing to do with financial considerations.

Cocales said he was weighing engineering risks associated with alternative approaches, and he thought less risk was associated with the course BP took.

At the time, he said, he thought the "worst-case scenario" was that BP would have to do remediation work on the well, not that safety would be jeopardized, he testified Friday.

But he acknowledged that there "was still a risk of channeling" - a term that refers to gaps in the cement lining between the steel well pipe and the rock formation that could give gas a path to escape.

At issue was the number of devices called centralizers installed to center the pipe in the well. Halliburton, a contractor to BP, recommended 21 but BP used six. In a report to BP two days before the explosion, Halliburton warned that with as many as seven centralizers the well could have a "SEVERE" gas flow problem.

Cocales on Friday became the fourth BP employee to testify that, before the blowout, he did not read that warning.

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Administration reverses offshore drilling policy in eastern gulf, Atlantic

The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it will not allow offshore oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico or off the Atlantic coast through 2017, reversing two key policy changes the president embraced in late March.

The revised Interior Department drilling plan, which took industry officials and many environmentalists by surprise, will also delay the next two lease sales in the central and western Gulf of Mexico. It marks a sharp political shift by the White House - yanking concessions to conservatives and oil companies - in the wake of the massive BP oil spill and the collapse of comprehensive climate legislation.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters that the decision to remove large swaths from the 2012-17 offshore lease plan was "based on our nation's experience with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill." Instead of opening up new areas to oil and gas exploration, Salazar said, the United States should "focus and expand our critical resources on areas that are currently active."

Salazar said the department would also gather new environmental information about drilling off the coast of Alaska, potentially postponing activity there.

The move eliminates the prospect of any drilling taking place off the coast of Virginia for several years, although as recently as eight months ago state and federal officials had envisioned holding a lease sale there in 2011. On March 31, President Obama declared his administration would study the prospect of energy exploration off the Atlantic coast from Delaware to Florida, along with areas in the eastern gulf and in Alaska's Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R), who spoke to Salazar by phone Wednesday, called the new policy "an irresponsible and shortsighted decision."

"It demonstrates a complete lack of confidence in the entrepreneurial spirit of American industry and its ability to fix the problems experienced in the gulf spill, and no confidence in the ability of the U.S. government to better plan for and react to offshore emergencies," said McDonnell, who had made drilling off Virginia's coast one of his top priorities.

"The cost of today's decision will be seen in major lost job opportunities, surrendered economic growth and increased dependence on foreign sources of energy, from nations often hostile to American interests," he said.

Criticism was bipartisan. A spokesman for Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said that "while it is appropriate to take the time to incorporate lessons learned from the gulf disaster, Senator Warner sees no reason to delay this process for what realistically could be another seven years or more."

Offshore oil production from state and federal waters accounts for 9 percent of U.S. liquid fuel consumption and 32 percent of U.S. crude oil production. The Interior Department draws up five-year plans for lease sales to companies seeking to explore federal waters, which begin three miles from shore. If oil or gas is discovered, commercial production can begin some years later. The next five-year plan starts in 2012.

Interior said the lease sales scheduled for March and August 2011 in the central and western gulf would be postponed until the end of next year, if not later.

In addition, Interior will conduct a "supplemental" environmental analysis of Shell's plan to drill an exploratory well in the Beaufort Sea next summer. Officials said that Interior was "processing" Shell's permit request but that the new analysis will require another public comment period, ending Dec. 22. Shell has warned that delays could jeopardize its ability to prepare in time to drill next year.

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Oil spill report lays much blame on BP, who knew of Halliburton weaknesses

The chief counsel of the presidential oil spill commission has issued a final report laying considerable blame on BP for last year's disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. But he also points to flaws in Halliburton's work and errors by rig owner Transocean.

Fred H. Bartlit Jr., a prominent trial lawyer, said that for three years BP had been aware of problems with lab tests of Halliburton cement; that a reorganization of BP's engineering department resulted in delays; and that BP decided not to set a lockdown sleeve, an installation deep in the well, during its preparations for temporary abandonment in order to save 51/2 days and $2 million in costs.

He also said BP's well-site leader was not present, as he should have been, during a critical test known as a negative pressure test that indicated something was wrong.

Bartlit's report is the latest of a series from the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, which has already faulted a variety of factors, including decisions made by the well operator BP, rig owner Transocean, oil service provider Halliburton and federal regulators.

In a statement Thursday, BP did not dispute the report's specifics. The London-based oil giant said that it "has made every effort to understand the causes of the Deepwater Horizon accident to help prevent similar events from occurring in the future." BP said the presidential commission's findings - "particularly that the accident was the result of multiple causes, involving multiple parties - are largely consistent with those contained in the BP internal investigation report." It added that it is reorganizing its safety operations and reviewing its supervision of contractors.

Halliburton and Transocean did not issue comments.

Bartlit noted that in 2007, a consulting firm issued a quality-control report warning BP that Halliburton's lab technicians "do not have a lot of experience evaluating data" and that BP needed to improve communication with Halliburton "to avoid unnecessary delays or errors in the slurry design testing."

A cementing expert at BP described the "typical Halliburton profile" as "operationally competent and just good enough technically to get by." And BP's engineers said that the Halliburton engineer assigned to the doomed Macondo well was "not cutting it" and that he often waited too long to conduct critical tests. But, Bartlit added, the BP engineers neither reviewed his work at Macondo carefully nor checked to see that he conducted testing in a timely manner - even though they knew that their last-minute changes to the cement design test could cause problems and that using nitrogen-foamed cement could pose "significant stability challenges."

Bartlit also said the blowout preventer was not to blame for the explosion on the drilling rig, the Deepwater Horizon, that killed 11 workers April 20. The report says that by the time the rig crew tried to close the blowout preventer on the sea floor, deadly gas had already slipped into the riser pipe leading to the rig.

Although the route that gas took through the well when it blew out has been a matter of uncertainty, Bartlit's report says physical evidence taken from the well shows that oil and natural gas "almost certainly" came to the surface through a piece of equipment called the "shoe track" and up the production pipe. The report says cement in the shoe track should have blocked that flow, which it says further calls into question the quality of the cement job done by Halliburton.

Bartlit also faults Transocean, whose rig workers missed several signs of trouble in the well. Earlier alarm might have prompted them to close the blowout preventer earlier, avoiding catastrophe.

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As gulf cleanup continues, BP will also struggle to clean up its brand

HOUSTON -- The protesters have stopped coming here to wave angry signs in front of BP's large office campus. The boycotts of BP gas stations are tapering off, too -- both signs that the energy company's plug of the spewing Gulf of Mexico oil well is quieting its loudest critics.

The shouting may be over, but rebuilding the company's badly tarnished brand will prove a much harder task -- one that advertising and oil industry experts say could be nearly as daunting as stopping the oil that gushed into the gulf for more than three months.

"It's probably the most notorious branding crisis in memory," said Tom Zara, director of corporate branding at Interbrand.

After the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in April, BP went on the air with television ads and bought a series of full-page ads in The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and other papers to position itself as an imperfect but responsible corporation committed to the cleanup of the gulf. The company has spent $55.8 million on television and print advertising so far this year, according to the Nielsen Co., which tracks ad spending. (The total for all of last year was $80 million.)

But as one of Washington's top corporate lobbying forces, BP took flak for paying lobbyists, so the company cut back that spending to only $3.3 million so far this year, compared with $8.2 million in the first six months of 2009.

BP has been bouncing back already in the place where its brand meets consumers -- at its gas stations. After the spill, sales dropped off 40 to 50 percent at some stations on the Gulf Coast, but in most cases business declines have leveled off to about 10 percent on the gulf and less than 5 percent in other parts of the country, said John Kleine, executive director of the BP Amoco Marketers Association, which represents the station owners.

Kleine, who calls the station owners "investors" in BP's brand (their only link with the company is contracts to buy gasoline), said they began facing angry protests after the spill and turned to BP for help. The company gave them signs and took out print and radio advertisements emphasizing that the stations were locally owned and operated. At some stations BP helped the owners do customer appreciation campaigns with free car washes and cups of coffee. Corporate staffers flew in to stand in driveways and listen to customers' concerns, Kleine said.

"Where the owner is known in the community, there is a less significant impact," Kleine said. "I think BP has to recognize that the local face is really a value to their brand even more so than anybody thought."

Company's evolution

BP, which began selling gasoline in Britain in the 1920s, has long been a company that cared a lot about its name -- and changed it several times. After it bought Amoco in 1998, the company British Petroleum to become BP Amoco, then two years later shortened it to BP, to signify that it was more than a petroleum company and emphasize its investments in alternative energy.

The company dropped the shield and torch that had represented British Petroleum and Amoco and adopted a logo called the Helios, which looks like a sunflower bursting with petals. BP says the design is named after the Greek sun god and represents "dynamic energy in all its forms."

The company's Web site declares that its brand can be summed up in two words: "beyond petroleum." Its executives have preached the importance of "social responsibility on a global scale" at major business conferences.

As British Petroleum, it won the support of some environmental groups in 1997 when it announced that it agreed with scientists that global warming stems from an excess of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released through the burning of fossil fuels. It pledged to greatly increase its investment in solar power. Still, other environmentalists, including Greenpeace, called such investments a relatively insignificant part of the company's portfolio. In 2000, more than 10,000 students from seven Ivy League schools signed a pledge refusing to accept jobs at BP Amoco because the company had pursued permission to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

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Rising fuel prices putting everyone in a bind

NEW YORK - High fuel prices are putting the squeeze on drivers just as they are starting to feel better about the economy. They also are forcing tough choices on small-business owners, who are loath to charge more for fear of losing cost-conscious customers.

Gasoline prices rose 4 percent last week to a national average of $3.29 per gallon. That's the highest level to date for this time of year, when prices are typically low. And with unrest in the Middle East and North Africa pushing the cost of crude oil into the $100-a-barrel range, analysts say pump prices probably are headed higher.

Bryon Gongaware, an owner of the Floral Trunk and Gifts in White Bear Lake, Minn., didn't raise his $7 flower delivery charge when gas prices spiked in 2008, and he doesn't plan to do so this time, either.

"I don't think the economy is solid enough that you can be careless about raising prices," he said.

That means the extra costs that come from driving the store's delivery van 70,000 miles a year come from only one place: "Right out of the bottom line," he said.

For drivers such as Robert Wagner, 51, a high school teacher from Thornton, Colo., the higher fuel prices mean cutting back on movies and dinners out for him, his wife and their two children. "We're very, very frugal right now," he said as he trickled enough $3.09-per-gallon gasoline into his Chevrolet Suburban to get him to his next pay day.

Analysts and economists worry that by lowering profits for businesses and reducing disposable income for drivers, high gasoline prices could slow the recovering economy.

For a year, analysts estimate, oil at $100 a barrel would reduce U.S. economic growth by 0.2 or 0.3 of a percentage point. Rather than grow an estimated 3.7 percent this year, the economy would expand 3.4 percent or 3.5 percent. That probably would mean less hiring and higher unemployment.

Americans are less prepared to absorb the increase in gasoline prices than the last time they rose to this level, in 2008, because the unemployment rate is higher and real estate values are lower, said David Portalatin, an analyst for market research firm NPD Group.

It has been four months since gasoline was more than $3 per gallon. During that time, drivers have spent $14 billion more on gasoline than they did a year ago, Portalatin said.

Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago, said this year's cut in payroll taxes offers consumers a buffer against higher fuel prices. Still, she expects all but the wealthiest Americans to cut back on discretionary spending. And the longer prices stay high, the more damage they do.

Gasoline prices rose throughout last fall as the developing nations of Asia and the recovering economies of the West began using more oil.

In recent weeks, upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa stoked fears that oil supplies would be disrupted, and oil prices exceeded $100 per barrel for only the second time in history.

Much of the most dramatic unrest took place in countries that are not big producers of oil. But when Libya plunged into chaos, there were disruptions in shipments of its high-quality crude, which is well-suited to making gasoline. That sent refiners scrambling to find other sources of high-quality oil. Gasoline prices rose further.

Gasoline prices typically fall in the winter and rise in the spring as refiners switch to more expensive summer blends of gasoline. Since 2000, prices in May have been 52 cents per gallon on average higher than in February, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, believes that the normal seasonal rise in prices has been pulled ahead by events in the Middle East, but he still expects prices to rise further. He predicts prices will reach $3.50 to $3.75 per gallon, barring more chaos in the Middle East.

"When we get over $3.75 we are looking at very serious consequences for the economy," he says.

For every 25-cent increase in the price of gasoline, the nation spends an extra $3 billion filling up its cars and trucks, Kloza says.

For Jay Ricker, who owns 51 convenience stores in Indiana that sell gasoline under BP and Marathon brands, that's less money for the "affordable luxuries" he offers - cappuccinos and candy bars that people enjoy, but can do without. "I hate these high prices," he says. "People don't want to come in and buy something I make money off." Drivers often get angry when gasoline prices spike for reasons that aren't apparent, such as refinery problems or overseas demand for oil.

This time, though, the dramatic news reports from the Middle East are making customers more understanding, says Scott Hartman, CEO of Rutter's Farm Stores, which owns 56 convenience stores and gas stations near Harrisburg, York and Lancaster, Pa.

"Whenever you see chaos in the Middle East, people expect higher prices, and this has been more widespread than most of us have seen in our lifetimes," he says. "It's quite clear our customers know what's going on." That doesn't mean they like it.

When asked about fuel prices at a RaceTrac service station in Dallas, Shaun DuFresne tapped the screen on the pump, showing he had just spent $90.14 for diesel - at $3.50 a gallon - to fill his 2006 Ford F-250 pickup truck. Then he said something unprintable.

- Associated Press

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Extensive corrosion threatens BP pipelines in Alaska, risking explosions, spills

The extensive pipeline system that moves oil, gas and waste throughout BP's operations in Alaska is plagued by severe corrosion, according to an internal maintenance report generated four weeks ago.

The document, obtained by the journalism group ProPublica, shows that as of Oct. 1, at least 148 BP pipelines on Alaska's North Slope received an "F-rank'' from the company. According to BP oil workers, that means inspections have determined that more than 80 percent of the pipe wall is corroded and could rupture. Most of those lines carry toxic or flammable substances. Many of the metal walls of the F-ranked pipes are worn to within a few thousandths of an inch of bursting, according to the document, risking an explosion or spills.

BP oil workers also say that the company's fire and gas warning systems are unreliable, that the giant turbines that pump oil and gas through the system are aging and that some oil and waste holding tanks are verging on collapse.

In an e-mail, BP Alaska spokesman Steve Rinehart said the company has "an aggressive and comprehensive pipeline inspection and maintenance program," which includes pouring millions of dollars into the system and regularly testing for safety, reliability and corrosion. He said that although an F-rank is serious, it does not necessarily mean there is a current safety risk.

Rinehart added that the company will immediately reduce the operating pressure in worrisome lines until it completes repairs. "We will not operate equipment or facilities that we believe are unsafe," he said.

Rinehart did not respond to questions about what portion of its extensive pipeline system was affected or whether 148 F-ranks were more or less than normal, except to say that the company has more than 1,600 miles of pipelines and does more than 100,000 inspections a year.

In 2006, two spills from corroded pipes in Alaska placed the company's maintenance problems in the national spotlight. At the time, BP temporarily shut down all transmission of oil from the North Slope to the continental United States, cutting off about 8 percent of the nation's oil supply, while it examined its pipeline system.

Photos taken by employees in the Prudhoe Bay drilling field this summer, and viewed by ProPublica, show sagging and rusted pipelines, some dipping in gentle U-shapes into pools of water and others sinking deeply into thawing permafrost. Marc Kovac, a BP mechanic and welder, said that some of the pipes have hundreds of patches on them and that BP's efforts to rehabilitate the lines were not funded well enough to keep up with their rate of decline.

"They're going to run this out as far as they can without leaving one dollar on the table when they leave," Kovac said.

BP Alaska's operating budget is private, so the picture of its maintenance program is incomplete. But documents obtained by ProPublica show that BP has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into maintenance and equipment upgrades on the North Slope since the 2006 spills. In 2007, BP's maintenance budget in Alaska was nearly $195 million, four times what it was in 2004, according to a company presentation. In 2009, $49 million was budgeted to replace and upgrade systems that detect fires and gas leaks alone.

Despite the investment, workers say that the capabilities of equipment of all types continue to be stretched and that maintenance plans set years ago remain incomplete.

BP employees told ProPublica that several of the 120 turbines used to compress gas and push it through the pipelines have been modified to run at higher stress levels and higher temperatures than they were originally designed to handle. They also said giant tanks that hold hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic fluids and waste are sagging under the load of corrosive sediment and could collapse.

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Academic scientists say oil from gulf spill is not going away quickly

Academic scientists are challenging the Obama administration's assertion that most of BP's oil in the Gulf of Mexico is either gone or rapidly disappearing -- with one group Thursday announcing the discovery of a 22-mile "plume" of oil that shows little sign of vanishing.

That plume was measured in late June and was described Thursday by scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. The biggest news was not the plume itself: For weeks, government and university scientists have said that oil from BP's damaged well is still underwater.

(Photos: The oil spill cleanup)

The news was what is happening -- or not happening -- to it.

The scientists said that when they studied it, they saw little evidence that the oil was being rapidly consumed by the gulf's petroleum-eating microbes. The plume was in a deep, cold region where microbes tend to work slowly.

"Our data would predict that the plume would still be there now," said Benjamin Van Mooy, a Woods Hole researcher.

(Gulf driller to light up cigar after job is done)

Their research came after a week in which other scientists had taken issue with the government's portrait of where all the oil went. On Thursday afternoon, Jane Lubchenco, the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's administrator, defended the government's work, saying it was done by the "best scientific minds" and reviewed by outsiders.

(Transocean accuses BP of withholding data)

"We remain confident in our assessment," she said.

The Woods Hole research, published in the peer-reviewed journal Science, provided one of the most detailed pictures yet of what this oil is doing under the surface.

The scientists said that, using a robot submarine that zigzagged across the deep gulf, they found a plume of oil droplets that was as tall as a 65-story building and more than a mile wide. The plume, whose droplets were so small that the water appeared clear, extended off to the southwest of the well, 3,600 feet deep.

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Crisis in Egypt spurs fears of impact on global economy

Political turbulence in Egypt is casting a pall on world financial markets, driving up the prices of crude oil and food and creating new risks for the shaky world economy in the months ahead.

Oil prices on Monday reached their highest levels since 2008, and investors sold off both stocks and bonds of many developing nations, particularly in the Middle East. Those shifts came despite few signs that the Egyptian turmoil is having much direct impact on the world economy. Egyptian economic output is about the same size as that of Alabama, and while the country controls a crucial shipping channel, the Suez Canal, that key connector between Europe and Asia has so far remained open.

But the turbulence on financial markets shows how political upheaval in one place - first Tunisia, now Egypt - can set off hard-to-predict reverberations around the world, possibly undermining the global economic recovery. In this case, investors are most concerned that other Muslim nations, particularly those with autocratic leadership and vast oil reserves, will soon see their ruling regimes threatened as well.

"What's going on in Egypt has again reminded us that the world economy is not out of the woods, and that things we do not anticipate can have a significant negative effect on global markets and risk sentiment," said Rachel Ziemba, a senior analyst with Roubini Global Economics.

The economists' and investors' fear is that political developments could disrupt oil exports from Saudi Arabia or other nations, even temporarily. The price of oil rose to $92.19 on Monday, its highest level since October 2008, and up from $85.64 on Thursday, as investors priced in the higher probability of an interruption in oil supplies.

"There's not a huge risk to oil supplies from Egypt directly, but that could change if dissent spreads to other oil-exporting nations," Ziemba said. "The big issue is that the economic grievances present in Egypt are there across the Middle East. Will they spark unrest in the same way? It's hard to predict."

An analysis by economic consulting firm IHS Global Insight shows that every $10.70 increase in the price of crude oil, if sustained, would add 25 cents to the price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States and lead to 270,000 fewer jobs being created over the course of a year.

If political turmoil spreads further, it could undermine the confidence of investors in developing economies, which have been playing an increasingly important role. In recent years, investors have come to view developing nations as a potential source of high returns and relatively low risk, leading to a flood of investment into both major economies like China as well as "frontier" markets like those in sub-Saharan Africa.

"Now you have Tunisia, and Egypt and everybody is going to be a bit jittery. People will think twice. Stability can be a real mirage, as we have seen," said Todd Moss, vice president at the Center for Global Development.

Developments in Egypt could still prove encouraging. A smooth transition to a new government could pave the way toward further economic reforms. So far, Egypt has been adopting these reforms fitfully.

But this outcome is by no means assured. Egypt's last revolution, half a century ago, produced the widespread nationalization of private property under former president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Until the country's direction becomes clear, investors and business executives may move to the sidelines.

Moody's on Monday downgraded the country's investment standing, which will make it more expensive for Egypt to borrow money. Its stock market remains closed after dropping 16 percent in a day, and its $30 billion in foreign reserves could be stretched if the central bank decides it is necessary to try to prop up the value of a falling Egyptian pound.

International organizations also were trying to monitor more urgent concerns, such as whether the country has adequate supplies of wheat and other staples in reserve in the event that the current political paralysis continues. Egypt is heavily dependent on imports for these crucial products.

The greatest threat posed by Egypt's troubles for the global economy - absent a spread of popular revolt to other nations in the Middle East or beyond - is the disruption of shipping through the Suez Canal. But analysts are optimistic the canal will remain open, regardless of the fate of Hosni Mubarak's regime.

The Egyptian military "is aware of the importance of ensuring the smooth operation of the Suez Canal, which is not only a vital source of Egypt's foreign currency receipts, but also ensures the supply/movement of crude oil," said Ashraf Laidi, chief market strategist of CMC Markets in London.

irwinn@washpost.com schneiderh@washpost.com

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Prices of crude oil and gasoline rise as violence in Libya upsets markets

Crude oil prices in New York broke through the $100-a-barrel threshold Thursday as violence in Libya continued to shake world financial markets and threatened to sidetrack the U.S. economic recovery.

But prices fell back later in the day, after a Saudi official said the kingdom would make up for any Libyan production lost as a result of upheaval there and the International Energy Agency said it was ready to release emergency stockpiles. President Obama also said the United States would be able to "ride out" the disruption in oil supplies.

After touching $103.41 a barrel, crude oil for April delivery ended up down slightly for the day, at $97.28 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In Europe, the price of Brent grade crude oil, another important benchmark, hit $119 a barrel before dropping back to $114.

But the triple-digit petroleum price weighed heavily on stock markets for much of the day and heightened fears that high fuel costs could be a drain on consumers. Thursday's closing price was still about 50 percent higher than the price nine months ago and the higest level since September 2008.

For U.S. consumers, higher oil prices most directly affect drivers and truckers, who devour the vast majority of U.S. petroleum products. U.S. pump prices for regular gasoline jumped 4 cents a gallon overnight, to $3.23, an eight-cent increase in the past week and 55 cents more than a year ago.

"Coming just before springtime, the timing of the latest crude oil price spike is foreboding. If crude prices were to stay around $100 per barrel, we could expect to see the price for a gallon of unleaded regular rise to about $3.40 in the not-too-distant future," said John B. Townsend II, AAA Mid-Atlantic's manager of public and government affairs. "Motorists across the country are already spending in excess of$1.2 billion a day on fuel purchases, and that's likely to increase in coming weeks."

But oil is a component in the price of a vast variety of goods, including air tickets and food. Higher prices hit big users such as Wal-Mart, petrochemical firms and the U.S. military.

At FedEx, which every month adjusts its fuel surcharge on customers, chief executive Fred Smith said that higher fuel prices would have "not an enormous effect" but that "what's of much greater concern is the effect on the economy overall." He said high fuel prices were like a "tax imposed on the American economy" that would hurt people's buying power.

Because most U.S. oil is imported, money from gasoline sales is largely flowing overseas, inflating the U.S. trade deficit.

Adam E. Sieminski, chief energy economist at Deutsche Bank, said every $5 increase in oil prices could shave two-tenths ofa percent off global economic growth. "If growth was supposed to be 4 percent and ends up being 3 percent, that would be a nasty surprise," he said.

The price of crude oil has surged since Libyans began a revolt against leader Moammar Gaddafi last week, although it has been climbing for most of the past year.

Goldman Sachs analysts warned in a report that Libya's unrest created "significant upside risk" and reduced the ability of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to respond to further supply disruptions.

Some analysts argued, however, that the spike in oil prices was an overreaction to the political upheaval in North Africa and the Middle East. Michael Kouri, an analyst with UBS Securities Canada, said it was "a dramatic reaction since current disruption to crude supply at present is minimal."

Libya produces about 1.5 million barrels a day, or nearly2 percent of the world's supplies. Some of that oil is still moving, companies said. Repsol, a Spanish oil company, said production in the Libyan fields in which it is a partner was running at 160,000 barrels a day, down from 360,000. Eni chief executive Paolo Scaroni said in Rome that Eni's net production was 120,000, down from 280,000 barrels. Analysts also said more than 350,000 barrels a day of production comes directly from offshore platforms.

Moreover, world stockpiles of crude oil are substantial. The Goldman report noted that spare production capacity and inventories could cover more than 100 days of consumption even if Libya halted all exports.

But a trader at one major U.S. refiner said traders were worried about unrest spreading to Algeria or some other major oil-exporting country.

"What we don't want is for another oil producer to get involved in this," Sieminski said.

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In its report on the gulf oil spill, BP spreads the blame

BP rolled out the results Wednesday of a four-month internal investigation into the causes of the April 20 blowout of its Macondo oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, spreading blame among its contractors and giving a glimpse of the defenses it might deploy in public and in court.

The much-anticipated report asserted that a "complex and interlinked series" of failures - of equipment, engineering and judgment - led to the surge of oil and gas that exploded on the deck of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, killing 11 people, sinking the rig and triggering the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The report was written by a team of 50 internal and external experts led by the company's head of safety and operations, Mark Bly, and the rollout Wednesday morning at a hotel in downtown Washington was labeled a "technical briefing."

But the document inevitably carries a heavy public relations element as well as legal and financial implications for BP. It arrives as the Justice Department is weighing whether to bring charges of criminal negligence against BP that could sharply increase the cost of the spill for the London-based oil giant and provide fodder for private lawsuits.

In addition, there is legislation in Congress that would effectively strip BP of the right to drill in the Gulf of Mexico. The company is haggling with the Obama administration over what pieces of collateral to offer while it is financing the $20 billion escrow fund that will be used to pay claims. And BP's main partner in the well, Anadarko Petroleum, has declared that it won't pay its share of the cleanup costs and claims because it views BP's well design and actions as reckless.

The BP report makes the case for "shared responsibility," saying that "no single factor" caused the blowout. It points to multiple failures by its contractors in maintenance, equipment and planning.

The investigation found fault with the recipe Halliburton used in its cement, with the flaps on a Weatherford International barrier device known as a float collar, and with the condition of hydraulic lines and batteries that might have sapped power from the blowout preventer made by Cameron International and operated by Transocean, making it impossible to clamp and cut through steel piping.

"Transocean was solely responsible for operation of the drilling rig and for operations safety," the report says in an appendix. "It was required to maintain well control equipment and use all reasonable means to control and prevent fire and blowouts."

The report also said Transocean and BP rig leaders jointly "reached the incorrect view" on well tests in the crucial hours before the explosion. And Bly said BP needs to reexamine the way it oversees work by its contractors.

BP's design not faulted

Yet the report absolves BP's widely criticized well design. It says the path that oil and gas followed as they escaped from the well meant that the well's casing and design - matters that could otherwise implicate BP - were not factors in the disaster. Instead, it says that if any one of eight failures of equipment or decision-making had not taken place, the blowout would not have happened.

The report not only offers new details and analysis of what went wrong, it also represents a bold declaration that BP is not going to assume more than what it considers its share of the blame for the accident. The report did not say how far up the BP corporate ladder the well problems went, and no employee was named or punished.

In a news release, BP chief executive Tony Hayward, who has barely spoken publicly since his disastrous congressional testimony in June, did not offer anything resembling a mea culpa.

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Reminder from Egypt: The age of oil isn't going away

The Age of Oil continues; we need to deal with it. The upheaval in Egypt reminds us of lessons that, despite decades of warnings, Americans have consistently sidestepped: The United States and the rest of the world will depend on oil for the indefinite future; global oil markets remain hostage to political crises that cannot be predicted or controlled; and we have not taken the prudent steps that would reduce - though not eliminate - our vulnerability to catastrophic oil interruptions.

Just what Egypt's crisis will do to oil markets is, as yet, unclear. Driven by cold weather and strong demand from developing countries, oil prices were already increasing before Egyptians took to the streets. After averaging about $2.80 a gallon for most of last year, U.S. gasoline prices pierced the $3 barrier in December. Prices rose further on the turmoil, but the gains could be short-lived. Egypt produces only about 700,000 barrels a day. That's not much compared with global demand of nearly 90 million barrels daily (mbd). If all of Egypt's production halted, it could be replaced because the world now has about 4 mbd of surplus capacity elsewhere.

A greater risk involves oil shipments. The Suez Canal and the SuMed pipeline (Suez-Mediterranean) together now move about 3 mbd between Asia and Europe. If these supplies were blocked, prices would almost certainly rise. But, again, accommodations would be made. Tankers would be rerouted; shipments via other pipelines would increase.

The real flash point would occur if a cascade of political turmoil cut production from major suppliers: Saudi Arabia (present output: 8.5 mbd), Kuwait (2.3 mbd), Iran (3.7 mbd), Iraq (2.4 mbd) or Algeria (1.3 mbd). This danger will remain no matter how the present crisis ends.

What can we do? Well, two things: decrease oil consumption, preferably by a stiffer gasoline tax; and increase production, preferably by less-hostile regulation. The Obama administration isn't doing either. Instead, it's touting a goal of 1 million electric hybrid vehicles by 2015. This is more public relations than policy. The goal is probably unrealistic; first-year sales of the Chevy Volt may reach 25,000. Even if the 1 million is attained, the oil savings would be tiny - perhaps 40,000 barrels a day, about two-tenths of 1 percent of U.S. consumption of 19 million barrels a day. There are already 240 million cars and light trucks using gasoline.

By contrast, lost production from restrictions on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico could total 200,000 barrels a day in 2012, by one government estimate. The administration overreacted to the Deepwater Horizon blowout. There hasn't been much encouragement of on-shore drilling, either, despite better prospects. In 2009, domestic oil production rose for the first time since 1991, in part because higher prices and new drilling techniques (hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling) made it profitable to extract once-inaccessible oil. Production in North Dakota's Bakken field has surged; there are guarded hopes for gains in Texas's Permian Basin.

A higher gasoline tax - gradually introduced to avoid wrecking the economic recovery - would dampen wild swings in fuel prices and push consumers to buy the more-fuel-efficient vehicles that the government is ordering auto companies to make. Americans have traditionally preferred bigger vehicles and, without the prod, might cling to old habits. There is a convergence here between energy and budget policy. An energy tax would help both. It would improve oil security and, with spending cuts, curb budget deficits. Neither the Obama administration nor congressional Republicans seem willing to grasp the possibilities.

None of this will achieve "energy independence," which has been a mirage since it was proposed in the 1970s. Our need for imported oil - now about half our consumption - is simply too great to be overcome by production increases or efficiencies. But we could temper that dependence and the cost of imports, which routinely exceeds $250 billion annually.

Barring unforeseen technological breakthroughs, oil isn't going gently into the night. That's confirmed by recent projections of future energy markets: from the International Energy Agency in Paris; from the U.S. Energy Information Administration; and from ExxonMobil. All make generous assumptions about gains from energy efficiencies, including vehicles, and expanded renewable supplies. All still conclude that oil will meet a quarter or more of global energy demand for decades. ExxonMobil projects that the number of light-duty vehicles worldwide will grow 50 percent, to 1.2 billion, by 2030. Most will use gasoline. Two-fifths of the increase will occur in China. Competition for global oil supplies will intensify. We cannot escape that reality, even if we ignore it.

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Overseer of BP fund gets his hands dirty

In June, President Obama tapped lawyer Kenneth R. Feinberg, 64, to oversee the $20 billion account funded by BP to compensate victims of the Gulf Coast oil spill, making him the nation's most famous mediator.

Every week, Feinberg leaves his Pennsylvania Avenue office, where the walls are adorned with dozens of pictures and news articles chronicling his work, to spend time with fishermen and others who make their living off the coastal waters.

In a recent interview with The Washington Post, the Brockton, Mass., native, who also oversaw the government's Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund, talked about the task ahead as he wraps up emergency claim payments and moves on to making final payments to victims. Excerpts follow:

Have you met one-on-one with people who were affected by the spill?

I've sat down personally with hundreds of people. I've had town hall meetings throughout the gulf with thousands of people. You can't do this from Washington. You have to go down there, and that's what I've been doing.

Why have the claims skyrocketed in the past two weeks?

People are getting paid. The payments are generous. People are saying, "Let's file a claim; we might get paid too." We don't know yet how many of them are legitimate.

What problems are you experiencing with processing emergency claims?

There are 25,000 claims with absolutely no documentation. Thousands of them say things like, "My neighbor got paid; pay me too." Or they say, "I fish off the gulf to eat. Send me grocery money." There are 50,000 of them with woefully inadequate documentation.

What was wrong with the BP claim centers? Why did they need to be replaced by your operation?

The BP claim centers served their purpose. It was an emergency bandage approach. Sometimes it went to the right people; sometime it went to the wrong people. I know of situations where they paid people who were in desperate straits. I've seen in many cases BP paid claimants and the payments appear to be fraudulent.

When it comes to final payments, you are counseling people to take the money. Some are suspicious of whether you are looking out for their best interests, since BP is paying your firm [Feinberg Rozen LLP] $850,000 a month to run the program. What do you say?

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Oil spill dumped 4.9 million barrels into Gulf of Mexico, latest measure shows

The blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico gushed 12 times faster than the government and BP estimated in the early weeks of the crisis and has spilled a whopping 4.9 million barrels, or 205.8 million gallons, according to a more detailed analysis announced late Monday.

BP's Macondo well spewed 62,000 barrels of oil a day initially, and as the reservoir gradually depleted itself, the flow eased to 53,000 barrels a day until the well was finally capped and sealed July 15, according to scientists in the Flow Rate Technical Group, supervised by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of Energy.

The new numbers once again have nudged upward the statistical scale of the disaster. If correct -- the government allows for a margin of error of 10 percent -- the flow rate would make this spill significantly larger than the Ixtoc I blowout of 1979, which polluted the southern Gulf of Mexico with 138 million gallons over the course of 10 months. That had been the largest unintentional oil spill in history, surpassed only by the intentional spills in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War.

The new flow rate figures came as engineers made final preparations for a "static kill" operation that might plug the well permanently even before a relief well intercepts Macondo at its base. BP announced late Monday that the procedure would be delayed, probably until Tuesday, because of a leak in the hydraulic control system on the well's new cap.

(Photos: Oil spills through history)

Macondo's flow rate has been a major source of controversy since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon. Early in the crisis, the Coast Guard and BP pegged the flow at 5,000 barrels a day, sticking with that figure even as outside scientists declared that it low-balled the actual rate. The flow rate team, assembled in May, tried to come up with a more solid figure. Scientists examining the surface slick as well as video taken by submersibles soon upped the estimate; by early June, the government declared the flow to be 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day.

Even the high end of that estimate did not quite do justice to Macondo when it was at full throttle in the early weeks of the crisis. The new figures reflect more data, including high-definition video, sonar measurements of the oil-gas ratio, and pressure readings in the new capping stack before, and then after, the sealing of the well July 15.

"We may never know the exact answer. But as we get more data, you're able to shrink the uncertainty," said Bill Lehr, senior scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a leader of one of the teams.

The new figures indicate that the roughly 800,000 barrels of oil that BP managed to capture with its various containment strategies -- a riser insertion tool, a "top hat," and flaring from a surface rig -- represented only about one-sixth of the crude that surged into the gulf over the course of nearly three months. In all, about 1.2 million barrels of oil have been accounted for, either burned, captured or skimmed off the ocean's surface. That's about a quarter of the new estimate for the total spill.

Where the other three-quarters has gone is unclear. Some has evaporated; some has been consumed by microbes; but scientists remain troubled by the possibility that large amounts of oil remain underwater in cloudlike plumes.

"This further confirms that a lot of the oil is still at sea. And we just don't know the implications of it," said Ron Kendall, director of the Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Texas Tech University. Kendall will testify before Congress on Wednesday about his fears that dispersant chemicals have helped much of this oil sink into deep-sea habitats.

For government lawyers preparing a case against BP, this number could help calculate the maximum civil penalty BP might face for the spill. If BP is not found to have acted with negligence, the penalty would be $1,100 per barrel. About 4.1 million barrels escaped into the gulf, according to the new estimate, so that fine would come to $4.5 billion. If BP is found to have acted with "gross negligence" in the lead-up to the spill, the maximum penalty would be $4,300 a barrel, which would work out to $17.6 billion.

"You've got to go in with a number," said David Uhlmann, a law professor at the University of Michigan and the former chief of the Justic Department's Environmental Crimes Section. "And I think these numbers strengthen the government's hand," compared with previous estimates that produced only a range.

In all, the 4.1 million barrels estimated to have polluted the gulf would be enough to fill the Pentagon to a depth of 18 feet or to fill 260 Olympic swimming pools. The entire Gulf of Mexico, by comparison, would fill 880 million Pentagons, or 973 billion Olympic pools.

John Amos at SkyTruth, an organization that uses satellite imagery to study environmental problems, said that this new figure showed how far off BP and the Coast Guard were in the crucial days at the beginning of the spill.

"When the next spill happens, being in the right order of magnitude with the spill estimate is going to be important," he said.

The well remains pressurized and dangerous, but BP and government officials hope that will change with the static kill attempt. The goal is to inject mud into the well and drive the oil back to the source rock.

First comes what BP calls an injectivity test. Mud will be pumped into the well from a surface ship at a gentle rate of one barrel a minute, then two barrels a minute, then three, as engineers monitor pressures and look for signs that the rogue oil is being forced back into the source rock 2 1/2 miles below the seafloor.

"We want to confirm that we can inject the oil that's in the well bore back into the reservoir," BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells told reporters Monday.

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As offshore drilling moratorium nears an end, questions about what's next

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is getting ready to take his finger off what he has called the "pause" button on deepwater oil drilling, with environmentalists and oil industry executives alike worried about what comes next.

Salazar received recommendations Thursday from Michael Bromwich, head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, based on information gathered at public forums and private meetings in the wake of the BP oil spill. Salazar could act on the BOEMRE report well before the drilling ban's expiration date, Nov. 30.

While many Gulf Coast lawmakers and residents have been badgering the Obama administration to lift the deepwater moratorium, key industry and administration officials are struggling with the larger questions: not when drilling will resume, but how and where.

"We're stuck between 'drill, baby, drill' and the 'BP drilling disaster,' and no one knows which argument will win," said Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club's lands protection program.

Separate from Bromwich's report, Salazar on Thursday announced the federal government was adopting two new regulations for offshore drilling, including a drilling safety rule and a workplace safety rule. Both would impose new requirements on operators in the gulf and elsewhere.

The drilling rule dictates specific procedures aimed at preventing a blowout, including cementing and casing practices and the appropriate use of drilling fluids. It also increases oversight of mechanisms--such as the blowout preventer--that would shut off the flow of oil and gas in an accident, and requires operators to secure independent and expert reviews of their well design, construction and flow intervention mechanisms.

The workplace safety rule forces offshore operators to have what an Interior Department statement describes as "clear programs in place to identify potential hazards when they drill, clear protocol for addressing those hazards, and strong procedures and risk-reduction strategies for all phases of activity, from well design and construction to operation, maintenance, and decommissioning."

Energy industry officials said they would review the regulations and offer comments as part of the rule-making process. The drilling safety rule will take effect immediately on publication. Erik Milito, upstream director for the American Petroleum Institute, said, "Getting a good offshore safety rule in place is critical to the nation's energy future. The gulf and other parts of the nation's offshore areas are vitally important to helping meet the nation's future energy needs. The rule will affect every offshore energy project for years to come. It has to be right."

In the report Bromwich submitted to Salazar Thursday, he proposed new rules for drilling, as well as contingency measures to bolster the industry's response to any future spills.

Oil and gas executives are steeling for a slower and more costly permitting process that could hinder drilling even after the moratorium is lifted. And they worry that they won't be able to develop new areas - from Alaska to the East Coast - that President Obama outlined when he unveiled his five-year leasing plan on March 31, a few weeks before the BP blowout.

Environmentalists, in contrast, are hoping that the congressional limits on offshore drilling that expired two years ago are reimposed, or at least that the pace of development is slowed.

And the administration faces difficult questions about whether - and under what circumstances - it will allow leasing in areas from Alaska to off the coast of Virginia before Obama's first term ends.

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Music Manager 1.0.91.1050

A better way to play your music Upload your personal music collection to listen anywhere, keep everything in sync,
and forget the hassle of cables and files

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