For June 12's CEO Morning Report, please click here.

Oil news yesterday ping-ponged from gas prices inexorably following higher crude futures and rising global demand to oil prices falling on the strengthening dollar and lowered demand forecasts. The latter report calmed earlier market reaction to word from the International Energy Agency that China's consumption could rise 5.5% on post-earthquake construction alone.

Is this news light and sweet or pitch-black crude?

One school of thought says neither OPEC nor Big Oil can produce the extra tens of millions of barrels of oil required to fill the global demand-supply ‘gap’ by the target year of 2030: only if ‘demand is destroyed’ by an international macroeconomic meltdown can oil prices fall.

Time to ready those walking legs, that horse, that bicycle--or that Road Warrior home arsenal, for a hellish, petroleum-less Mad Max future?

There is yet hope bubbling up from this viscous muck, according to a special report in the latest edition of Capital Thinking, the semi-annual custom publication of Washington, DC-based powerhouse law firm Patton Boggs.

In Fossil Fuels: Still Alive and Kicking, the authors discuss the huge natural gas reservoirs of the Barnett Shale in North Texas and the Colorado Plateau, both as promising as they are problematic--and pivotal in ushering in new technologies that may yet save the day.

New Pieces in the Energy Puzzle discusses the need for transmission infrastructure upgrades and an energy policy that promotes a wide range of fuel sources; The Next “Alternative” Energy nuclear energy; and in Striking It Rich, Al Zapanta, president of the U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce and CEO of PAZ Energy LLC--the nation's largest minority-owned natural gas player--talks about his role in the Barnett Shale project.

Check the pull-out global energy map, too--it's a rush.

Jeff Heilman

6/11/08