Category:

It would seem premature to declare that Peak Oil is dead

From Dr John Howard Wilhelm. Sir, Your assertion that Peak Oil is dead and that US output of liquid petroleum has regained its previous peak reached in 1970 should not go unchallenged (“ Looking past the death of Peak Oil ”, Editorial, June 17). According to data from the US Energy Information Administration, US field production of crude oil in 1970 was 9.6m barrels a day. For 2013 it was 7.4m b/d. That is, in 2013 US crude oil production stood at 77 per cent of its annual 1970 peak. More IN Letters If one looks at the facts, the situation is far more fraught than implied by your analysis later in the piece. Earlier data from the Bakken oilfield indicated that annual production per well averaged 85,000 barrels a year initially with a decline rate of 40 per cent a year, which implies on a compounded basis 856 […]

Posted On : Published By : ASPO-USA
Category:

Oil Remains Elevated on Iraq Turmoil

Crude-oil futures were mixed in Asian trading hours Friday but remained elevated as the situation in Iraq continued to deteriorate. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in July traded at $106.58 a barrel at 0542 GMT, up $0.15 in the Globex electronic session. August Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange fell $0.02 to $115.04 a barrel. Islamist rebels took control of Iraq’s largest oil refinery on Thursday, according to workers at the refinery, although an Iraqi army spokesman said the Iraqi military was in control of the refinery. Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama Thursday ordered up to 300 members of U.S. special-operations forces to Iraq, but ruled out any immediate airstrikes against Sunni extremists. An overnight spike in Brent prices implies that the oil market has little confidence that Iraq can organize a quick and effective campaign to regain control of its […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

WTI Advances for Second Day, Narrowing Discount to Brent

Brent and West Texas Intermediate crudes capped a second weekly gain as the U.S. said it will send military advisers to Iraq to help repel militants in OPEC’s second-biggest oil producer. The European grade rose 1.2 percent this week while WTI advanced 0.3 percent. Brent reached a nine-month high yesterday as President Barack Obama said he’s sending as many as 300 troops to help the Iraq battle an insurgency and the U.S. may take more “targeted” action. Ukraine announced a week-long unilateral cease-fire in eastern regions bordering Russia. WTI settled at a nine-month high today as a U.S. pipeline reopened. “We’re building a geopolitical risk premium into the prices,” said Tim Evans, an energy analyst at Citi Futures Perspective in New York. “Prices are $10 to $15 a barrel higher than they would be if it weren’t for the situation in Iraq and trouble in Ukraine.” Brent for August […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Natural-Gas Prices Inch Down As Steady Weather Forecasts Stop Rally

Natural gas dropped for the fifth time in six sessions on cool weather forecasts and strong stockpile additions. Prices for the front-month July contract settled down 5.3 cents, or 1.2%, at $4.531 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Natural gas lost 4.4% for the week, its largest net and percentage decline since the week ending Feb. 28. Record production has started to rapidly refill stockpiles that had been drained to 11-year lows by high winter demand. Producers added 113 billion cubic feet of gas to storage last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said Thursday, 4 bcf more than Wall Street expectations. It was a record sixth-straight addition larger than 100 bcf and reduced the shortage to within 31% of the five-year average. "We’ve had so many consecutive large, outsized inventory (additions that) traders are simply less convinced that … […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Iran Nuclear Talks Produce Possible Framework for Deal

The Iranian and European Union flags stands in front of a poster of the Iran talks at the International Center in Vienna, where closed-door nuclear talks have been taking place this week. Associated Press VIENNA—With one month to go until a July 20 deadline, the odds of a high-stakes nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers appeared finely balanced, with senior diplomats saying this week’s talks had shown "progress" but warning that gaps may prove too wide to resolve. After five days of discussions in Vienna, top Iranian and U.S. officials demanded major concessions from the other side and there was no pretense of any sudden breakthrough. However, the negotiating teams departed Friday with a working document in hand—the first concrete advance in months. Diplomats said all sides appear committed to reach an accord and they left with plans to return July 2 for a mammoth negotiation session […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Toughest Issues Still Unresolved in Iran Nuclear Talks

Negotiations with Iran over its disputed nuclear program entered their brinkmanship phase on Friday, with the toughest issues still unresolved a month before the deadline for a final agreement. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, told reporters covering the talks in Vienna that the moment had come for the United States and its allies to take a “realistic approach” that recognizes Iran will produce significant amounts of nuclear fuel in coming years. The senior American negotiator, Wendy R. Sherman, the undersecretary of state for policy, said she doubted whether “Iran is really ready and willing to take all the steps necessary to assure the world” it has no desire or ability to produce a nuclear weapon. But the two sides showed some indications of progress: Both Mr. Zarif and Ms. Sherman headed home bearing what aides described as a first, tentative draft of a final agreement. The […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Iraq militants take Syria-border post in drive for caliphate

Sunni fighters seized a border post on the Iraq-Syria frontier, security sources said on Saturday, smashing a line drawn by colonial powers almost a century ago and potentially creating an Islamic Caliphate from the Mediterranean Sea to Iran. The militants, led by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), first moved into the nearby town of al-Qaim on Friday, pushing out security forces, the sources said. Once border guards heard that al-Qaim had fallen, they left their posts and militants moved in, the sources said. Sameer al-Shwiali, media adviser to the commander of Iraq’s anti-terrorist squad, told Reuters that the Iraqi army was still in control of al-Qaim. Al-Qaim and its neighbouring Syrian counterpart Albukamal are on a strategic supply route. A three-year civil war in Syria has left most of eastern Syria in the hands of Sunni militants, including the Albukamal-Qaim crossing. The […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Iraq's Shiite militiamen parade in show of force

Thousands of Shiite militiamen have paraded in Baghdad and several other cities in southern Iraq with heavy weaponry, signaling their readiness to take on Sunni militants who seized much of the country’s north. In Baghdad, about 20,000 men, many in combat gear, marched through the Sadr City district on Saturday with assault rifles, machine-guns, multiple rocket launchers and missiles. Similar parades were held in the southern cities of Amarah and Basra, with the militants in Basra displaying field artillery pieces hauled by heavy trucks. The parades were staged by followers of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and came after the al-Qaida breakaway Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and allied Sunni militants, captured a crossing on the Syria-Iraq border the day before. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below. Sunni militants have seized an Iraqi crossing on […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Iraq’s Shiite militiamen parade in show of force

Thousands of Shiite militiamen have paraded in Baghdad and several other cities in southern Iraq with heavy weaponry, signaling their readiness to take on Sunni militants who seized much of the country’s north. In Baghdad, about 20,000 men, many in combat gear, marched through the Sadr City district on Saturday with assault rifles, machine-guns, multiple rocket launchers and missiles. Similar parades were held in the southern cities of Amarah and Basra, with the militants in Basra displaying field artillery pieces hauled by heavy trucks. The parades were staged by followers of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and came after the al-Qaida breakaway Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and allied Sunni militants, captured a crossing on the Syria-Iraq border the day before. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below. Sunni militants have seized an Iraqi crossing on […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Kurdish government says oil contracts viable

The semiautonomous Kurdish government in northern Iraq said it’s delivering oil to its customers under contracts that are commercially viable. Two vessels loaded with oil from the Kurdish north of Iraq have left the Turkish port of Ceyhan in recent weeks. The export is a source of contention between the federal government in Baghdad, which says unilateral Kurdish action is illegal, and the Kurdistan Regional Government, which says it’s operating according to the rule of law. The KRG issued a statement Thursday saying it’s selling its oil through a pipeline system to Ceyhan on an international commercial market basis. "The KRG has been able to deliver oil to its customers under commercially viable contracts, and all payments are being made into the KRG’s account in Turkey," the Kurdish Ministry of Natural Resources stated. "Export volumes are expected to double within the next weeks." The U.S. government, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple