[Peakoil] Segways Down Under website

[Keith Thomas]

Aren't Segways a side issue, just as are electric cars? If people can  
walk and those who want them can ride bicycles, why would any able  
bodied person need a Segway? Just a toy for rich westerners who have  
run out of ways to spend their money.

Peak oil is not really just about the reduction in availability of  
cheap oil/cheap energy. It’s about how society reacts, legally and  
illegally, individually and jointly to that reduction. Capitalism  
collapses and the storm troopers fill the void. How can it be otherwise  
in a time of major social change? See below for more about what peak  
oil is really about.
--------------------------------------------
Keith Thomas
www.evfit.com
--------------------------------------------

Peak oil is not really just about the reduction in availability of  
cheap oil/cheap energy. It’s about how society reacts, legally and  
illegally to that reduction. Capitalism collapses and the Storm  
Troopers fill the void. How can it be otherwise?

Mexico's drug cartels siphon liquid gold

  Bold theft of $1 billion in oil, resold in U.S., has dealt a major  
blow to
  the treasury

  By Steve Fainaru and William Booth
Washington Post foreign service
  Sunday, December 13, 2009

  MALTRATA, MEXICO -- Drug traffickers employing high-tech drills, miles  
of
  rubber hose and a fleet of stolen tanker trucks have siphoned more  
than $1
  billion worth of oil from Mexico's pipelines over the past two years,  
in a
  vast and audacious conspiracy that is bleeding the national treasury,
  according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials and the  
state-run
  oil company.

  Using sophisticated smuggling networks, the traffickers have  
transported a
  portion of the pilfered petroleum across the border to sell to U.S.
  companies, some of which knew that it was stolen, according to court
  documents and interviews with American officials involved in an  
expanding
  investigation of oil services firms in Texas.

  The widespread theft of Mexico's most vital national resource by  
criminal
  organizations represents a costly new front in President Felipe  
Calderón's
  war against the drug cartels, and it shows how the traffickers are  
rapidly
  evolving from traditional narcotics smuggling to activities as diverse  
as
  oil theft, transport and sales.

  Oil theft has been a persistent problem for the state-run Petroleos
  Mexicanos, or Pemex, but the robbery increased sharply after Calderón
  launched his war against the cartels shortly after taking office in  
December
  2006. The drug war has claimed more than 16,000 lives and has led the
  cartels, which rely on drug trafficking for most of their revenue, to  
branch
  out into other illegal activities.

  Authorities said they have traced much of the oil rustling to the  
Zetas, a
  criminal organization founded by former military commandos. Although  
the
  Zetas initially served as a protection arm of the powerful Gulf  
cartel, they
  now call their own shots and dominate criminal enterprise in the  
oil-rich
  states of Veracruz and Tamaulipas.

  "The Zetas are a parallel government," said Eduardo Mendoza Arellano, a
  federal lawmaker who heads a national committee on energy. "They  
practically
  own vast stretches of the pipelines, from the highway to the very door  
of
  the oil companies."

  The Zetas earn millions of dollars by "taxing" the oil pipelines --
  organizing the theft themselves or taking a cut from anyone who does  
the
  stealing, according to Mexican authorities. The U.S. Treasury  
Department
  this summer designated two Zeta commanders as narcotics "kingpins,"  
which
  allows authorities to seize assets.

  The Zetas often work with former Pemex employees, according to Ramón
  Pequeño García, chief of anti-drug operations at Mexico's Public  
Security
  Ministry. The former employees "are highly skilled people who have the
  technical knowledge to extract oil from the pipelines. They are now  
under
the control of the Zetas," Pequeño said.

  Across the border

  This year, executives of four Texas companies pleaded guilty to felony
  charges of conspiring to receive and sell millions of dollars worth of
  stolen petroleum condensate. U.S. law enforcement officials said in
  interviews that they have no evidence showing that the men were  
connected to
  drug traffickers.

  During his September arraignment in Houston, Arnoldo Maldonado,  
president of Y Gas & Oil, pleaded guilty to receiving about $327,000 to  
coordinate at
  least three deliveries of tankers filled with stolen condensate to  
another
  Texas company, Continental Fuels, according to a court transcript of  
the
  hearing.

  Asked by U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr. how the condensate had  
been
  stolen from Pemex, Maldonado replied: "I have no idea on that, sir."

  Donald Schroeder, a former president of Houston-based Trammo Petroleum,
  pleaded guilty in May to buying $2 million worth of stolen Mexican
  condensate, according to a transcript of the hearing. Schroeder  
re-sold the
  condensate to another company, BASF, for a $150,000 profit,  
prosecutors told
  the court.

  A spokesman for BASF, which has not been implicated in the case, said  
the
  company was unaware that the material was stolen and is cooperating  
with the investigation.

  In August, U.S. authorities presented the Mexican government with an
  oversize check for $2.4 million as a repayment.

  A sophisticated operation

  Pemex reported losing $715 million worth of oil to theft last year. The
  company said it discovered 396 clandestine taps. This year, Pemex  
projects
  it will lose at least $350 million to oil pilfering. Nearly half of the
  thefts occur in the rugged hills around Veracruz, a largely rural state
  situated in a region with 2,136 miles of pipeline running from the  
Gulf of
  Mexico to refineries in other parts of the country.

  To steal the oil, Mexican authorities said, thieves sometimes use safe
  houses from where they build extensive tunnel networks leading to the
  pipelines. They fabricate powerful drills that enable them to puncture  
the
  highly pressurized steel pipes and extract the oil without causing  
spills or
  suspicious drops in pressure. Pemex officials said they have found
  clandestine taps with as many as five spigots.

  In Maltrata, in central Veracruz, Pemex officials showed a reporter a
  four-foot-deep, six-foot-wide trench ringed by yellow police tape that  
they
  said had been dug by thieves to reach an underground pipeline in a  
clearing
  near a federal highway last month.

  After perforating the exposed two-foot pipeline using a hand-tooled  
drill
  and connecting valves to regulate the pressure, the officials said, the
  traffickers ran a 300-yard hose through the brush to a tanker and  
filled it
  with about 200 barrels of crude oil.

  "They are very sophisticated -- in some cases, it's three kilometers  
from
  the pipeline to the tanker where they deposit the oil," said Mauro  
Cáceres,
  who oversees the pipeline network in the region. "It is just constant.  
They
  take, and they take, and they take, and they take."

  Pemex lost 140,141 barrels of oil to theft last month in the Veracruz  
region
  alone, the company reported. At $75 a barrel, the current market price  
for
  Mexican oil, the loss comes to $10 million. The company reports that  
oil
  rustlers are stealing from the pipelines in all 31 Mexican states.
  Defending the pipelines

  "When they steal this oil, it's not just a regular crime," said  
Mendoza, the
  federal deputy. "It becomes a crime against society, because the  
people who
  steal this oil the next day are using it to kidnap us. Tomorrow, with  
that
  oil money, they are shipping drugs."

  The theft is both a symbolic and financial blow to the Mexican  
government.
  Taxes paid by Pemex account for 40 percent of the federal budget. Pemex
  still owns and operates almost every gas station in Mexico. Juan José
  Suárez, Pemex's chief executive officer, said in an interview at the
  company's headquarters in Mexico City that the oil theft is a crime  
against
  all Mexican citizens: "This is not taking from Pemex; it's taking from  
the
  owners of Pemex. This is the net worth of everybody."

  Mexico has launched an all-out campaign to defend the pipelines,  
drawing in
  the army, the attorney general's office, the Interior Ministry and the
  customs service. During the past two years, the government has  
conducted
  helicopter overflights, installed electronic detection devices inside  
the
  pipelines and beefed up Pemex's private security force.

  Suárez estimates that Pemex will spend hundreds of millions of dollars  
over
  the next three years defending its pipelines. With the company's  
maintenance
  staff overwhelmed, Pemex assembled 20-man teams this year to repair  
breaches caused by theft.

  "The teams are working day and night," Cáceres said.

  Pemex sent out a call for help to the federal government in 2007. In  
June
  that year, Mexican customs officials informed U.S. Immigration and  
Customs
  Enforcement (ICE) that they had discovered dozens of Mexican companies  
that
  appeared to be conspiring with U.S. firms to export stolen petroleum
  products across the border.

  Working closely with the Mexican customs service, ICE investigators  
said,
  they soon uncovered a network of Mexican and American companies that  
shipped stolen oil to the United States in tankers, stored it in  
aboveground
  containers in Texas and then shipped it in barges to end users in the  
United
  States.

  With oil prices then at record highs, the scheme allowed U.S.  
companies to
  buy petroleum products at below-market value. The scam involved  
hundreds of
  people, according to Jerry Robinette, special agent in charge of the  
ICE
  office of investigations in San Antonio, which is overseeing the probe.

  "The folks that made the most amount of money are the people who are  
going
  to harm us the most, and that was the organized crime in Mexico,"  
Robinette
  said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/12/ 
AR2009121202888.html
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