The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said its fighters struck the Shell Forcados platform in the Delta state at about 0230 GMT.

There was no immediate independent confirmation but Shell said it shut in some oil production at its western operations in the Delta while it investigated reports of attacks.

U.S. crude for August delivery rose to a high of $70.06 per barrel, up 90 cents, before slipping back slightly to $69.75 by 1230 GMT.

London Brent crude was up 60 cents at $69.52.

“The Nigerian supply disruptions brought in some buying,” said Christopher Bellew, broker at Bache Commodities in London.

On Friday, four militant Nigerian factions said they would accept in principle an amnesty offer from President Umaru Yar’Adua, raising hopes Africa’s top oil producer would halt a battle with rebels.

Pipeline bombings, attacks on oil and gas installations and kidnapping of industry workers over the past three years have prevented Nigeria from pumping much above two-thirds of its installed oil output capacity of 3 million barrels per day.

The loss of output have been a supportive factor at a time when global recession has bitten deep into oil demand.

DEMAND FORECAST CUT

The IEA, adviser to 28 industrialised countries, has cut sharply its medium-term forecast for oil demand, saying there was a chance of an extended contraction, but added the threat of a supply crunch had only receded, not gone away.

Based on a higher economic growth scenario, the IEA predicted on Monday product demand would grow by 0.6 percent, or 540,000 bpd on average, between 2008 and 2014, taking demand from 85.8 million bpd to 89 million bpd.

The IEA’s previous medium-term forecast, issued in December, had forecast growth of a million bpd a year from 2008 to 2013.

Algerian Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil said on Monday oil demand was still weak due to the weakness of the U.S. and European economies and world oil stocks remained high.

Khelil said an increase in OPEC oil production was hard to envisage, despite rising crude prices.

European stock markets crept higher on Monday with financial and energy companies responding to an improving economic outlook for the euro zone.

Dealers said macro-economic data would continue to have a major impact on sentiment in the oil market.

U.S. consumer confidence data on Tuesday leads a heavy calendar of economic data this week, including China’s Purchasing Managers Index on Wednesday and a U.S. jobs report and manufacturing data on Thursday.

The U.S. data will help determine whether an oil market rally, which has lifted prices more than 50 percent this year on hopes of economic recovery, has any legs.

In the first big number for the week, industrial output from the world’

LONDON, June 29 (Reuters)

But that’s just me. Why are the cocaine-sniffing, marijuana-toking, sex-trolling and “gift”-taking members of the Bush administration’s MMS important to you? Well, among a number of energy related tasks, one thing the MMS does is report on staffing levels on oilrigs in the Gulf of Mexico… or “gee-oh-em” in oilrig talk.

As you might imagine, these staffing levels are actually an important part of the information that’s used by big oil and natural gas investors. Imagine if this data could be bent by outside sources who buy an MMS staffer with some coke, pot, prostitutes or tickets to an NFL game.

And, because the MMS is so corrupt, what are we now supposed to make of its Sept. 7 report on GOM oil rig and platform staffing levels?

The MMS claims that companies have evacuated workers from 452 production platforms (63.0%) and 81 rigs (66.9%). It also claims that 95.9% of the GOM’s oil production and 73.1% of its natural gas production were shut-in as a precautionary measure as Hurricane Ike approached the central and western gulf.

Can we believe the MMS when it reports that Shell Oil began evacuations from its offshore GOM facility last Sunday? And that on Wednesday, the oil and gas super-major decided on “a full evacuation.”

The MMS also reported that Ike forced Anadarko to evacuate all 600 workers from its facilities. It also said that Anadarko shut-in all of its GOM production on Thursday.

That included Anadarko’s Independence Hub. This is the Gulf’s largest natural gas processing facility. In fact, at 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, the Independence Hub accounts for 10% of all the natural gas produced in the GOM.

So you can see how the MMS reports could influence markets… and why the number of MMS employees who were so easily corrupted for penny-ante payoffs is so disturbing.

After all, where do you think energy prices are headed when the MMS reports that giants such as ExxonMobil (XOM) and ConocoPhillips (COP) are shutting down GOM facilities, such as Conoco’s Magnolia platform?

Wouldn’t it be great to have someone in your pocket who could influence the markets in the direction you wanted by issuing a small press release with a big headline?

You bet it would.

Also, you have to wonder what it is about the energy industry and corruption. Could it be that prices are easier to influence than we regular Joes might imagine?

Because, there’s a delicious irony that the MMS’s venal shenanigans begin to come to light during the very same week that a federal court okays a $7.2 billion payout to Enron investors.

You have to think the current crowd on Pennsylvania Avenue – the one that manages the MMS and invited the Enron boys to help set national energy policy – has got to be more than ready to get out of Dodge. Of course, the current crew still needs to get “the hero” Scooter Libby his pardon. But, you can bet that this administration’s bags are packed. And it’s ready to go because, as the Reaganites and Clintonites would tell you, this ain’t a monarchy.

Eight years is a long time to keep the lid on all the bad stuff you’ve done or allowed to happen on your watch.

So, when I look back at the past eight years… no make that the past 16 years… no, the past 20 years… no, make that the past 28 years… I realize that MMS can only mean one thing.

“Make mine scotch… a double, please.”

GLOBAL HUNT FINALLY INTENSIFIES

Back in 2005, the CIA disbanded the unit dedicated to hunting Osama bin Laden.

Today, seven years after 9/11, the man suspected of being the largest mass murderer in American history remains at large.

Even more interestingly, word out of Washington is that the hunt for al Qaeda’s leader is once again priority.

But, as Peter Bergen, CNN’s national security analyst reports, while it’s a near certainty that bin Laden is living in Pakistan:

“American intelligence agencies have nothing of any substance on bin Laden. Given the hundreds of billions of dollars that the ‘war on terror’ has consumed the failure to capture or kill al Qaeda’s leader has been one of its signal failures.

“That said, it is worth bearing in mind that finding any one individual can be hard. Think of Mohamed Aideed, the anti-American Somali warlord who was known to be in Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia in 1993, yet some 20,000 US soldiers deployed there were not able to find him. Think also of Radovan Karadzic, the alleged Bosnian Serb war criminal arrested in July in Belgrade who it took more than a decade to track down after the end of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, and he was hiding in a relatively small country in Europe, not the badlands of the Afghan-Pakistan border.

“And given the fact that bin Laden is not making obvious errors such as talking on phones the signals of which can be intercepted and the fact that no one in his immediate circle will rat him out for the long-advertised cash rewards for his head it is likely that al Qaeda’s leader could evade detection for years or even decades.”

You have to figure President Bush still rates catching bin Laden as a top personal priority.

Bergen suggests that it’s one reason there have been so many recent missile attacks on suspected al Qaeda and Taliban strongholds within Pakistan’s border.

The idea is not to kill bin Laden, who must be well hidden, but to kill so many of his associates… their wives and children… to cause sudden uncertainty and increased communications between terrorists.

That extra communications traffic will make it easier for intelligence agencies to monitor. It could lead to more top al Qaeda leaders, and even bin Laden.

This is a real departure in US policy. It’s the first real push to capture – more likely kill – bin Laden since he, somehow, evaded US troops and spooks at the battle of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan in mid- December 2001.

Stay tuned for an October surprise.

Source: Corruption In The Oil Patch

Such showdowns between lawmakers and oil titans have become a familiar routine on Capitol Hill. But with gas prices nearing $4 a gallon, and lawmakers headed home for a weeklong Memorial Day recess where they expect to get an earful from angry constituents, there is added urgency for Congress to appear active.

But while momentum is building for several measures, including a bill that would allow the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to be sued in American courts under antitrust laws, there is little sign that any of the proposals would do much, if anything, to lower prices quickly.

The hearing on oil profits came as Capitol Hill struggled to be seen to be ‘doing something’ about the 15-day run of record gas prices.

This week, the House voted in the so-called “Nopec bill”, which targets the OPEC oil cartel as a monopoly in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Senate Democrats are also targeting windfall profits by oil companies and speculators in the oil futures market that they blame for high oil prices.

The oil company execs hit back at yesterday, however, pointing out that the fundamental laws of economics — such as supply and demand — was responsible for high oil profits.

“As repetitive and uninteresting as it may sound, the fundamental laws of supply and demand are at work,” said John Hofmeister, the president of Shell Oil. “Oil exporting nations, as has been said, are managing their natural resource development and production to supply their local and global markets in their own self-interest.”

Commodities investing expert Doug Casey at CaseyResearch.com points out that in its weekly inventory report, “the Energy Information Administration said that crude stocks were down 5.4 million barrels for the week ended May 16. Analysts had been expecting a rise of about 900,000 barrels.”

Keith Fitz-Gerald of Money Morning says the US can’t refine or drill its way out of the oil crisis, either.

“For one thing, refiners are the ultimate middlemen and they’re pinched at these prices. They simply can’t make money as they try to refine an increasingly expensive product and sell it to users who are chaffing at $4 a gallon. That’s why stocks like Western Refining Inc. (WNR), Tesoro Corp. (TSO), and Valero Energy Corp. (VLO), for example, have fallen by nearly 30-40% in recent months. Their margins get worse with each up-tick in oil prices from here on out now that we’ve reached a point where high prices are beginning to dampen demand.”For another, drilling and refining our way out of this assumes we have oil to begin with… we don’t. And even if we turn the Alaskan Tundra into Swiss cheese, the demand reduction we’re seeing here in the United States is being dramatically offset by developing countries that are guzzling gasoline at unprecedented rates.

Read on here to find out why Keith says oil prices will reach $225 a barrel and how a simple three-step plan can bring down oil prices, without the kind of political showboating seen Washington yesterday.