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Canada's Cenovus Energy Seeks to Cut Costs, Double Production in Less Than a Decade

Cenovus Energy Inc. aims to bring methods more common to the factory floor to Alberta’s oil sands in a bid to cut costs per barrel by up to half and double production in less than a decade. “What we want to do is take manufacturing techniques, where we use the same template over and over again, for [building] mostly the same surface facilities” for equipment needed to extract oil from deep underground, Chief Executive Brian Ferguson […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Canada’s Cenovus Energy Seeks to Cut Costs, Double Production in Less Than a Decade

Cenovus Energy Inc. aims to bring methods more common to the factory floor to Alberta’s oil sands in a bid to cut costs per barrel by up to half and double production in less than a decade. “What we want to do is take manufacturing techniques, where we use the same template over and over again, for [building] mostly the same surface facilities” for equipment needed to extract oil from deep underground, Chief Executive Brian Ferguson […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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JODI, Canada and the IEA’s Position On Peak Oil

The JODI data came out a few days ago. Below is JODI World Total C+C with EIA data used for countries not reporting to JODI. I use EIA data also for Venezuela and Iran because JODI uses data reported by these two countries which is political and inflated by about one million barrels per day by Iran and half a million barrels a day by Venezuela. The data is in kb/d with the last data point September 2013. Notice that JODI has a new world high in July just like the EIA had but down 976,000 barrels per day from July to to September. JODI has Non-OPEC at about 350,000 barrels below the peak in December 2012. I don’t put much stock in the JODI data but I do find it interesting look at occasionally. And since it is usually almost two months […]

Posted On : Published By : ASPO-USA
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Insight: No quick exit from West's economic malaise

Ending the Great Stagnation that is taxing Western policy makers may depend as much on the Chinese Communist Party as it does on the world’s leading central banks. Six years after the global financial crisis erupted, there is any number of explanations why Europe cannot shake off a Japan-style balance-sheet recession and why the United States is experiencing sub-par growth and high unemployment. Governments and households racked up too much debt to sustain living standards. Demographic tailwinds have turned into headwinds as baby boomers retire and the surge of women entering the workforce has run its course. Many banks are still ailing and are building up capital instead of lending freely. But two other factors cannot be overlooked. Firstly, there is an excess of global savings, which has lowered the natural real rate of interest that equalizes savings and investment. The result is a liquidity trap. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Insight: No quick exit from West’s economic malaise

Ending the Great Stagnation that is taxing Western policy makers may depend as much on the Chinese Communist Party as it does on the world’s leading central banks. Six years after the global financial crisis erupted, there is any number of explanations why Europe cannot shake off a Japan-style balance-sheet recession and why the United States is experiencing sub-par growth and high unemployment. Governments and households racked up too much debt to sustain living standards. Demographic tailwinds have turned into headwinds as baby boomers retire and the surge of women entering the workforce has run its course. Many banks are still ailing and are building up capital instead of lending freely. But two other factors cannot be overlooked. Firstly, there is an excess of global savings, which has lowered the natural real rate of interest that equalizes savings and investment. The result is a liquidity trap. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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WTI Set for Longest Monthly Slide in Almost Five Years

West Texas Intermediate crude headed for a third monthly decline, the longest losing streak in almost five years, amid rising OPEC exports and increased supplies in the U.S., the world’s biggest oil consumer. Futures were little changed in New York after falling 1.5 percent on Nov. 27, the most in two weeks. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which meets next week, will boost exports through mid-December by 3 percent as refineries resume after maintenance, according to tanker tracker Oil Movements. The U.S. pumped crude at the fastest rate in almost 25 years while inventories climbed to the highest since June, Energy Information Administration data released on Nov. 27 show. “The momentum is negative in WTI,” said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank A/S in Copenhagen. “U.S. production compared to just a year ago has continued to rise strongly. There still hasn’t been strong enough demand […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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OPEC Exports to Increase on Refinery Demand, Oil Movements Says

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will bolster crude shipments through to mid-December, driven by Iraq and as refiners come out of maintenance, according to tanker tracker Oil Movements. OPEC, which supplies about 40 percent of the world’s oil, will raise sailings by 700,000 barrels a day, or 3 percent, to 24.05 million barrels in the four weeks to Dec. 14, the researcher said today in a report. That compares with 23.35 million in the period to Nov. 16. The figures exclude two of OPEC’s 12 members, Angola and Ecuador . “The main driver is the increase in capacity as refineries come out of maintenance both east and west of Suez,” Roy Mason , the company’s founder, said by phone from Halifax, England . The increase will come mostly from Iraq, while the “Saudis are lagging behind,” Mason said. This time last year, Saudi Arabia reduced exports “sharply” in […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Venezuela Says OPEC Must Accommodate Iran Supply, Maintain Output Cap

Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will have to accommodate any additional oil supply into the market in light of the recent easing of economic sanctions on Iran without changes to the cartel’s overall production ceiling, Venezuela Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said Thursday. Mr. Ramirez said how Iranian crude is absorbed into the market will feature highly in discussions next week when OPEC members gather. Venezuela will push to maintain the group’s 30-million-barrels-a-day quota, the minister said. The U.S. and five other world powers reached an agreement on Sunday in Geneva to relieve some penalties on Iran in exchange for moves to cap the Islamic government’s nuclear program. “If this permits Iran to reach its maximum oil production, perfect. Then its production quota is guaranteed in OPEC, which must be respected, and we are going to back that [Iran’s] normalization is respected,” Mr. Ramirez […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Iran Nuclear Deal Offers Aban Help to Cut Costs: Corporate India

Aban Offshore Ltd. (ABAN) , Asia’s third-most- indebted oil rig provider, will be able to obtain cheaper U.S. and European financing following the easing of some sanctions on Iran, the Indian company’s biggest market. The company will be able to cut its cost of debt by as much as 2.5 percentage points as the easing of sanctions allows Aban to borrow from European and U.S. banks, a route previously closed, according three analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. The driller had debt equivalent to 129.9 billion rupees ($2.1 billion) as of Sept. 30, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, eight times as much its market value. The relaxation of some restrictions on Iran by the U.S. and five other world powers will let companies with operations in the Islamic Republic get loans and insure their assets. Aban, which earns about 40 percent of its revenue from rigs leased to Iranian […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Iraq police find 18 bodies; bombings kill 4

Police found the corpses of 18 men shot near a Sunni town just north of Baghdad on Friday, Iraqi officials said, hours after they were abducted by gunmen wearing military uniforms. Elsewhere near the capital, two separate bomb attacks killed four. Such killings are reminiscent of Iraq’s worst days of sectarian warfare in 2006 and 2007, when both Shiite and Sunni Muslim death squads roamed the streets and took people from their homes. Police said the abducted men were killed with shots to the head. The bodies were found early Friday in farmland near the Sunni-dominated town of Mishahda, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Baghdad. Gunmen in four cars snatched the men, who included two army officers, from their houses late Thursday. Earlier this week, police found 13 bodies in areas around Baghdad. Later, in the afternoon, a bomb went off inside a sheep […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple