Category:

Kashagan Giant Oil Field Won't Restart Output Before Next Year

Oil production at Kazakhstan’s huge Kashagan field, halted since mid-October because of a dangerous gas leak, won’t resume before next year, according to people familiar with the matter, casting a cloud over one of the world’s biggest energy projects. Equipment needed to inspect a leaking pipeline connecting the field in the Caspian Sea to an onshore processing unit won’t arrive on site before mid-November, the people said. The inspection will determine how much of the pipeline must be replaced, and once it is completed a preliminary report on how to conduct repair work won’t be submitted to Kashagan operators before late December, they said. NCOC, the consortium of oil companies operating the field, said it was too early to say when production—which exceeded 75,000 barrels a day at the time of the shutdown—might restart. “No prediction can be made,” a NCOC spokesman said. The stoppage at Kashagan after barely […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Kashagan Giant Oil Field Won’t Restart Output Before Next Year

Oil production at Kazakhstan’s huge Kashagan field, halted since mid-October because of a dangerous gas leak, won’t resume before next year, according to people familiar with the matter, casting a cloud over one of the world’s biggest energy projects. Equipment needed to inspect a leaking pipeline connecting the field in the Caspian Sea to an onshore processing unit won’t arrive on site before mid-November, the people said. The inspection will determine how much of the pipeline must be replaced, and once it is completed a preliminary report on how to conduct repair work won’t be submitted to Kashagan operators before late December, they said. NCOC, the consortium of oil companies operating the field, said it was too early to say when production—which exceeded 75,000 barrels a day at the time of the shutdown—might restart. “No prediction can be made,” a NCOC spokesman said. The stoppage at Kashagan after barely […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

China opens key meeting to set reform agenda

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese leaders began a four-day secret meeting on Saturday to set a reform agenda for the next decade as they try to push more sustainable growth after three decades of breakneck expansion, amid signs of continuing debate on how to implement the reforms. President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang must unleash new growth drivers as the world’s second-largest economy loses steam, burdened by industrial overcapacity, piles of debt and soaring house prices. The meeting – held under tight security at a Soviet-era hotel in western Beijing – will show just how committed the new leadership is to reform after formally taking power in March. Economic reforms will dominate the meeting of the 205-member Central Committee of China’s ruling Communist Party. Little if any news will be released during the event, but official news agency Xinhua traditionally issues a dispatch on the last day. Xinhua confirmed […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Baker Hughes: US drilling rig count jumps to 1,754

The US drilling rig count gained 12 units to reach 1,754 rigs working during the week ended Nov. 8, Baker Hughes Inc. reported. A 13-unit rise in land-based rigs to 1,679 was nicked by a 1-unit loss in rigs drilling offshore to 58. Rigs drilling in inland waters were unchanged from a week ago at 17. Oil rigs picked up 7 units to 1,383 while gas rigs tallied 5 units to 365. Unchanged from a week ago were rigs considered unclassified at 6. Horizontal drilling rigs added 10 units to reach a total of 1,114. Directional drilling rigs, on the other hand, gave up 7 units to 223. In Canada, a 16-unit drop compared with a week ago brought its total to 378 rigs working. Oil rigs relinquished 12 units to 221 while gas rigs lost 4 units to 157. Canada has 8 more rigs working compared with this […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

OPEC Expects North American Shale Oil Output to Jump

LONDON—Two years after dismissing North America’s shale-oil boom as “marginal,” OPEC changed its tune Thursday, acknowledging new extraction technology could sharply cut the need for the group’s own oil. In its annual World Oil Outlook, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said new oil supply from Canada and the U.S. would reach 4.9 million barrels a day within five years. That is more than double last year’s forecast of 1.7 million barrels a day by 2018. As a result, global needs for the group’s own crude will be one million barrels a day less by 2018, OPEC said. OPEC, which groups some of the world’s biggest producers, has been slow to recognize the scale of North America’s oil boom. In the same report in 2011, it said “shale oil should not be viewed as anything more than a source of marginal additions” to global supply. Yet this year […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Colorado vote against fracking to trigger more opposition?

BOULDER, Colo., Nov. 8 (UPI) — Voters in three Colorado cities approved anti-fracking initiatives by wide margins this week, which could have an impact on the controversial drilling process that has propelled the nation’s oil and gas boom. The votes Tuesday in Boulder, Fort Collins and Lafayette are particularly significant, notes a report in The New York Times, as Colorado has long been a major oil and gas producer. Furthermore, fracking — or hydraulic fracturing — has enjoyed bipartisan political support, including from its governor, John W. Hickenlooper, a former geologist. Colorado produced 49.3 million barrels of oil in 2012, a 26 percent increase from the 39.2 million barrels produced statewide in 2011, figures from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission show. Fracking involves pumping water, sand and chemicals deep underground into horizontal gas wells at high pressure to crack open hydrocarbon-rich shale and extract natural gas. The […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

U.S. Average Pump Price Falls to Lowest Level Since 2011

Americans are paying the least to fill their cars in almost two years as refiners process the most crude in a decade, offering some relief to nervous consumers. The national average retail price sank 1.1 cents to $3.211 a gallon, the lowest since Dec. 20, 2011, AAA, the nation’s largest motoring club, said on its website today. Pump prices are approaching the lowest level since February 2011, just before unrest in the Middle East pushed U.S. crude oil above $100 a barrel and gasoline near $4 a gallon. “We’re probably just a few days away from seeing the cheapest gas prices since February 2011,” Michael Green , a AAA spokesman in Washington , said by telephone. “Our official estimate would still be that we’re going to drop to $3.10 a gallon by the end of the year. At the rate we’re going, it wouldn’t be surprising if we even […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Train carrying crude oil derails, explodes in Alabama

(Reuters) – A 90-car train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in a rural area of western Alabama early on Friday, leaving 11 cars burning and potentially bolstering the push for tougher regulation of a boom in moving oil by rail. No injuries have been reported, but 20 of the train’s cars derailed and 11 were still on fire, the train owner, Genesee & Wyoming, said in a statement. Those cars, which threw flames 300 feet into the night sky, are being left to burn down, which could take up to 24 hours. A local official said the crude oil had originated in North Dakota, home of the booming Bakken shale patch. If so, it may have been carrying the same type of light crude oil that was on a Canadian train that derailed in the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic this summer, killing 47 people. That accident fueled a […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Peak Oil: Using Energy To Get Energy

General Ideas For parallelism with the language of finance, net energy should refer to energy produced minus energy invested, whereas EROI should refer to energy produced divided by energy invested…. The relationship between ROI and EROI is actually very simple and logical. The more energy you have to invest to produce a fuel, the lower your EROI will be. The energy you invest has a cost. Therefore, the profit on the same barrel of oil will be higher when it’s produced from a high EROI source than when produced from a low EROI source. [1] The optimists believe that our energy problems have been largely solved. I wouldn’t bet on that. The real issue with oil isn’t how much we have or even whether we can continue to increase  production. That’s what peak oil had come to represent and why, in retrospect, it was a misleading term. Rather, what […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple