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Exxon Unit in Canada Seeks Deep Arctic Well

Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Canadian subsidiary is considering plans for what would be the deepest offshore well ever drilled in the Arctic, increasing some environmentalists’ concerns about how the company would respond to a blowout. Imperial Oil Ltd. submitted a project description last September to Canadian regulators for a proposed exploratory well so deep that it would likely take two to four years to complete. The well could extend about 6 miles beneath the floor of the Beaufort Sea, according to a study commissioned by the Pew Charitable Trusts, an environmental watchdog. Imperial’s filing didn’t specify a well depth, but the unpublished Pew study, prepared by a third-party engineering consultant, calculated it as roughly 34,000 feet. "These wells may be drilled over 6 miles deep, and will need complex well casing, cementing and drilling plans to address the technical challenges of drilling deep high pressure wells," the report said. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Front-Runner in Ukraine Election May Be Shifting Putin’s Stance

On a Sunday in December when the Ukrainian uprising seemed about to tip into wide-scale violence, Petro Poroshenko, a pro-Western billionaire, thrust himself between antigovernment protesters and riot police officers clashing outside the presidential headquarters, climbed on a bulldozer that was threatening to plow through the crowd and grabbed an orange plastic megaphone. “Friends, calm down,” he shouted, as pro-government thugs brought in to antagonize the demonstrators cursed him and hurled anti-Semitic slurs, though he is a member of the Ukrainian Orthodox faith, not Jewish. As chaos swirled, Mr. Poroshenko, 48, stood his ground, helping keep injuries to a minimum, but also cementing his status as a leader of the pro-European opposition and defying the stereotype of the superrich above it all. Now, with less than a week to go until a presidential election here, Mr. Poroshenko is once again at the center of a fracas […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Putin Orders Russian Troops Near Ukraine Back to Base

President ordered Russian troops near the Ukrainian border back to base, the state-run RIA news service reported, signaling a possible easing of tensions six days before Ukraine’s presidential election. Putin ordered forces in the Rostov, Belgorod and Bryansk regions to return to their bases after completing exercises, RIA said today, citing the presidential press service. Putin, who discussed the situation in Ukraine with his Security Council today, welcomed contacts last week between the government in Kiev and supporters of greater powers for the country’s regions, including the Russian-speaking east, RIA reported. The comments come as Ukrainian forces continued skirmishes with insurgents in the east after pro-Russian separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions said they planned their own elections later this year. Putin, whom the Ukrainian government accuses of fomenting unrest in the east and who annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March, promised a withdrawal of Russian forces from […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Esa's Cryosat mission sees Antarctic ice losses double

Antarctica is now losing about 160 billion tonnes of ice a year to the ocean – twice as much as when the continent was last surveyed. The new assessment comes from Europe’s Cryosat satellite, which has a radar instrument specifically designed to measure the shape of the ice sheet. The melt loss from the White Continent is sufficient to push up global sea levels by around 0.43mm per year. Scientists report the data in the journal Geophysical Research Letters . The new study incorporates three years of measurements from 2010 to 2013, and updates a synthesis of observations made by other satellites over the period 2005 to 2010. Cryosat has been using its altimeter to trace changes in the height of the ice sheet – as it gains mass through snowfall, and loses mass through melting. The study authors divide the continent into three sectors – the West Antarctic, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Esa’s Cryosat mission sees Antarctic ice losses double

Antarctica is now losing about 160 billion tonnes of ice a year to the ocean – twice as much as when the continent was last surveyed. The new assessment comes from Europe’s Cryosat satellite, which has a radar instrument specifically designed to measure the shape of the ice sheet. The melt loss from the White Continent is sufficient to push up global sea levels by around 0.43mm per year. Scientists report the data in the journal Geophysical Research Letters . The new study incorporates three years of measurements from 2010 to 2013, and updates a synthesis of observations made by other satellites over the period 2005 to 2010. Cryosat has been using its altimeter to trace changes in the height of the ice sheet – as it gains mass through snowfall, and loses mass through melting. The study authors divide the continent into three sectors – the West Antarctic, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Greenland glacial melt is growing factor in rising sea levels

Coupled with report of ‘unstoppable’ glacial melt in Antarctica, experts say oceans rising faster than once predicted Greenland’s glaciers are far more vulnerable to climate change-induced warming oceans than previously thought, a report released Sunday by UC- Irvine and NASA glaciologists said. The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, reveals previously uncharted deep valleys stretching for dozens of miles under the Greenland Ice Sheet — showing that there are no natural barriers to stop the melting. The findings echo a report released last week showing that glacial melting in West Antarctica is now “unstoppable” due to topographical conditions that, similarly, will not slow the glaciers’ retreat. Bedrock canyons in Greenland sit well below sea level, which means that warming ocean waters will erode the ice much further than had been previously assumed. This could mean the melting will have a much more significant effect on global sea level […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Arctic temperatures at 44,000-year high because of greenhouse gases

The average summer temperature in the eastern Canadian Arctic is higher than in any previous century in the past 44,000 years — and perhaps the highest in 120,000 years — reflecting what scientists call an unprecedented warming of the region due to climate change, according to a new study by the University of Colorado, Boulder. "This study really says the warming we are seeing is outside any kind of known natural variability, and it has to be due to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," Gifford Miller, a study leader, said in a joint statement from the school and the publisher of the journal Geophysical Researcher Letters , which published the findings this week. The study, according to the statement, presents the first direct evidence that the present warmth in the Canadian Arctic exceeds the peak warmth there when Earth’s last glacial period ended, about 11,700 years ago. In […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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A Peek At The Peak Oil Catastrophe

Generals and others have talked about the dangers of conflicts and/or wars being generated as resources are depleted ( Natural Resource Depletion and the Changing Geopolitical Landscape ). A conflict between Vietnam and China is an example of the tensions that can arise – in this case oil is the resource ( China Blames Vietnam ). But as the TIME cover shows, using the oil resources is just as dangerous, or more so, than running out of oil is –in other words it is a catch-22, a conundrum, or a no-win situation any way we choose to look at this situation that is only getting worse. Britain and France over in Europe are facing the problem of depletion: In just over five years Britain will have run out of oil, coal and gas, researchers have warned . A report by the Global Sustainability Institute said shortages would increase dependency […]

Posted On : Published By : ASPO-USA
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Peak Oil Update

Time for another roundup of some of the better peak oil stories from the last few months: Former BP geologist: Peak oil is here and it will ‘break economies’ (Raw Story) US Army colonel: world is sleepwalking to a global energy crisis (The Guardian) Peak oil theory, as originally conceived by Hubbert and his followers, was largely governed by natural forces.  As we have seen, however, these can be overpowered by the application of increasingly sophisticated technology.  Reservoirs of energy once considered inaccessible can be brought into production, and others once deemed exhausted can be returned to production; rather than being finite, the world’s petroleum base now appears virtually inexhaustible. Does this mean that global oil output will continue rising, year after year, without ever reaching a peak?  That appears unlikely.  What seems far more probable is that we will see a slow tapering of output over the next […]

Posted On : Published By : ASPO-USA
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Crude oil futures settle higher on boost from increased geopolitical risk

Crude oil futures settled higher Friday, supported by ongoing geopolitical strife in Ukraine and concerns over the potential delay to production of Libyan oil. NYMEX June crude settled 52 cents higher at $102.02/barrel; ICE July Brent settled 66 cents higher at $109.75/b. The front-month Brent-WTI spread settled at $8.17/b, down from $8.94/b on Thursday. In products, NYMEX June ULSD settled at $2.9536/gal, up 30 points; NYMEX June RBOB ended 93 points higher at $2.9735/gal. "Ongoing concerns with Ukraine and ideas that there are troubles with the presidential election triggered geopolitical risk," said Gene McGillian, analyst at Tradition Energy. Matt Smith, commodity analyst at Schneider Electric, said the crude complex showed modest buying interest as geopolitical tension in Ukraine left market participants loathe to sell lower. The United Nations warned Friday of an "alarming deterioration" of human rights in eastern Ukraine, where an armed insurgency by pro-Russian separatists is threatening […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple