Energy Roundup: Iran Versus Total, Global Water Supply Squeezed, and More

Iran pushing Total out of South Pars project — Iran, calling Total a procrastinator influenced by U.S. pressure, says it will push out the French energy giant and take on a new unnamed partner to work on the current phase of its South Pars gas fields. The decision to take Total off the project could slow Iran’s goal to develop its liquid natural gas industry in eight to 10 years. The South Pars gas field project is expected to produce 751 million cubic meters of natural gas a day when completed in 2014. Iran will need Western technology to liquefy the gas from the field so it can be exported and sold abroad. [Source: International Herald Tribune]

Global water supplies squeezed by surging population, climate change — A U.N. report, to be released Thursday, warns that mismanagement of water compounded by population growth, climate change, poor irrigation practices and waste are threatening the world’s water supplies. The greatest pressure is being placed on water supplies in developing countries, the report says. [Source: Grist, United Nations]

Conoco tries to quell investor fears on capital spending cuts — ConocoPhillips, which cut its capital expenditure budget 18 percent to $12.5 billion, told investors Wednesday its spending this year will adequately fund projects. Overtures from Conoco CEO Jim Mulva comes on the heels of an abysmal fourth quarter, a $34 billion writedown on the reduction in asset values and layoffs of 1,300 workers. [Source: Financial Times]

Sun Microsystems, Samsung partner on green data storage — Sun Microsystems — along with help from Samsung– has designed a solid state drive for servers in an effort to promote replacing hard drives with flash memory to reduce energy consumption, all the while touting its commitment to energy efficiency. The 24-gigabyte Open Flash Module uses two watts of power compared with a traditional spinning drive’s eight to 16 watt consumption. Sun plans to freely license the design. [Source: Greentech Media]

Canadian oil sands hardest hit in spending cuts — An analyst with the International Energy Agency said the global recession has caused major cuts in spending — some two million barrels per day of planned oil production capacity — and has the potential to create a supply crunch once demand for crude returns. More than $110 billion of planned investment has been scrapped or delayed in recent months and the majority of the cuts are occurring in the Canadian oil sands, analyst Amos Bromhead said. [Source: Platts]