Oil demand during 2010 rose to 87.9 million b/d, up 3.4% from 2009, driven by developing countries' population and per capita income growth and by government subsidies to oil product prices, Eni SPA said in the tenth edition of its World Oil and Gas Review.

Norway’s Statoil has threatened to sell its North Sea natural gas to other markets if the UK’s Energy Sec. Chris Huhne prevails in his efforts to expand the country’s use of renewable energy and curb the growth of fossil fuel power plants.

Wessex Exploration PLC and Tower Resources PLC have signed an assurance agreement with the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic for a production sharing contract for the Imlili block in the Atlantic off Western Sahara.

Damage claims from the 2010 Macondo well incident and crude oil spill and the federal government’s overall government spill response framework pose evolving, uncertain risks to the government and its Oil Spill Response Fund, the US Government Accountability Office said in an Oct. 24 report.

The US Coast Guard has tried to address offshore oil and gas operations’ security issues, but could improve its process for managing security inspections, the US Government Accountability Office said in an Oct. 28 report.

Crude oil prices pulled back slightly Oct. 28 as investors began questioning details of the European Union’s debt crisis agreement that had triggered a 3% jump in the front-month crude futures contract the previous session on the New York market.

Chevron Corp. is drilling its first well in Alberta’s Duvernay formation during the third quarter, Chevron Chief Financial Officer Patricia Yarrington told analysts during an earnings conference call on Oct. 28.

Greece and the European Commission aim to complete an agreement this week to open up 40 per cent of the lignite fired capacity of Greek utility Public Power Corp (PPC) to competitors, said energy minister George Papaconstantinou.

Units of Public Power – which had installed capacity of 12.9 GW in 2009 and an 84 per cent share of the national market – will be sold, said a transcript of Papaconstantinou’s comments emailed by the ministry, according to Bloomberg.

The European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund said on 20 October that Greece should speed up measures giving access to PPC’s capacity before the company is sold to investors next year.

The sale could involve cutting the state’s stake in PPC and in state-controlled power transmission and distribution operators to create a smaller PPC with fewer units and assets, said Papaconstantinou.

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Researchers have developed a traffic simulator that takes into account real parking policies, the habits of urban drivers, and the movements of traffic inspectors to identify strategies for improvement and test the impact of parking policy changes before they're implemented.