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BP: Shales Lift U.S. to No. 1 Global NatGas, Oil Producer

Even with turbulent and unsettled conditions in the global energy markets last year, the U.S. shale industry scaled new heights, lifting the country to No. 1 among global natural gas and oil producers, BP plc reported Wednesday. The oil major’s 64th annual Statistical Review of World Energy , one of the most respected energy forecasts by private or public economists, found that the unconventional growth in North America is surpassing all expectations. Chief economist Spencer Dale discussed the findings during a webcast and highlighted events expected to shape the global energy landscape over the next few decades. In a word, it’s shale — oil and gas. No. 1 is the continuing "shale revolution" in the United States, Dale said. The revised data in this year’s review suggest that the United States overtook Russia in 2013 to become the world’s largest producer of gas and oil. "We are truly witnessing […]

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Peak Oilists are the new Flat Earthers

Apparently it is necessary to point out that Peak Oil doctrine is still wrong. Ronald Bailey explains Hubbert’s Peak Refuted: Peak Oil Theory Still Wrong . He points out an author who has written multiple books defending Peak Oil. I just checked Amazon and can find four books from the mentioned author, written in 2001, 2005, 2008, and 2010. All are selling well. Not great, but okay. I’m astounded that so many people still believe that foolishness. Article gives some info I’ve not seen before: As I have explained earlier geologist M. King Hubbert famously predicted in 1956 that U.S. domestic oil production in the lower 48 states would peak around 1970 and begin to decline. In 1969 Hubbert predicted that world oil production would peak around 2000. Yes. The ol’ gig of my precisely calculated, ironclad calculation of the date of disaster is totally wrong so I will […]

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Retreat of ‘peak oil’: supply, demand unexpectedly expand global surplus

Robert J. Samuelson WASHINGTON — The recent meeting of OPEC provides an opportunity to understand the mysteries of the global oil market. As expected, OPEC decided not to cut its oil production. Barring unanticipated developments, prices will drop, says oil analyst Larry Goldstein. Potential oil supply, including drawdowns from bloated inventories, exceeds demand. Goldstein rightly cautions, however, that no one knows where prices will settle. Oil’s dramatic price changes seem baffling. In mid-2014, crude prices averaged around $100 a barrel; now, they’re gyrating between $50 and $60. Over the same period, U.S. gasoline prices have dipped from more than $3.50 a gallon to around $2.50. With the world economy slowly recovering, why have prices collapsed? The standard explanation comes in two parts. First, oil demand is what economists call price inelastic. Slight changes in supply and demand can produce large price swings. People and businesses need fuel. If oil […]

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Greek talks failure hits shares, buoys low-risk debt

LONDON Failure in the latest talks aimed at averting a Greek default hurt shares in Europe and Asia on Monday, drove investors into the safety of low-risk government bonds and weighed on the euro. As contagion from the collapse of Sunday’s talks spread across markets, the premium investors demand to hold Spanish 10-year bonds ES10YT=TWEB over German Bunds DE10YT=TWEB hit its highest since August. "It’s clear that each day that passes we come closer to a potential Greek default and this risk aversion is a natural reaction by the market," said KBC strategist Mathias van der Jeugt. The euro EUR= fell against the dollar, with the single currency also under pressure on investor caution before a U.S. interest rate-setting meeting later in the week. Talks between Greece and its creditors broke up after less than an hour, raising prospects of Athens being unable to repay 1.6 billion euros ($1.8 […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Out of Options and Time, Tsipras Faces Greece’s Moment of Truth

Greek Premier Alexis Tsipras and Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis take a walk in central Athens on June 13, 2015. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has four days to capitulate to demands to keep Greece in the euro — or prepare for a messy divorce. The collapse of talks in Brussels on Sunday has made Thursday’s meeting of euro-area finance ministers the next deadline in the saga that opened in 2009. Bills are piling up and the aid spigot, shut for 10 months, is about to be withdrawn. “This week is deal week,” Mujtaba Rahman, head of euro zone analysis at Eurasia Group in London. So what happens if the gathering in Luxembourg is a bust? Once the prospect of a successful negotiation fades so do the odds of Greece paying the $1.7 billion it owes the International Monetary Fund this month. A default makes it difficult for the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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No, BP, the U. S. did NOT surpass Saudi Arabia in oil production

Even the paper of record for the oil industry, Oil & Gas Journal , got it wrong. With the release of the latest BP Statistical Review of World Energy , media outlets appeared to be taking dictation rather than asking questions about which countries produced the most oil in 2014. If they had asked questions, they would have ended up with a ho-hum headline announcing that last year Russia at 10.1 million barrels per day (mbpd) and Saudi Arabia at 9.7 mbpd were once again the number one and number two producers of crude oil including lease condensate ( which is the definition of oil ). The United States at 8.7 mbpd remained in third place. The most important question they could have asked is this: How is BP defining oil? It turns out that oil according to the BP definition includes something called natural gas liquids which includes […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Pope Francis to deliver explosive Encyclical on climate change, poverty

A roundup of the news, views and ideas from the main stream press and the blogosphere. Click on the headline link to see the full article. Explosive intervention by Pope Francis set to transform climate change debate John Vidal, The Guardian The most anticipated papal letter for decades will be published in five languages on Thursday. It will call for an end to the ‘tyrannical’ exploitation of nature by mankind. Could it lead to a step-change in the battle against global warming? Pope Francis will call for an ethical and economic revolution to prevent catastrophic climate change and growing inequality in a letter to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics on Thursday. In an unprecedented encyclical on the subject of the environment, the pontiff is expected to argue that humanity’s exploitation of the planet’s resources has crossed the Earth’s natural boundaries, and that the world faces ruin without a revolution […]

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The Shale-Oil Boom is Over

It comes now from the US Energy Information Agency, and is headlined by Bloomberg Business , so yes, it’s official. As Bloomberg put it, “ US Shale Boom Grinds to a Halt .” Which, actually, is overstating the case by a good bit, there isn’t going to be a “halt.” Nevertheless, as sane people everywhere have been insisting for years, the shale boom is, as it always was going to be, a bust. This — now official — assessment is in the form of a set of projections by the EIA, which, we should remember, has pretty consistently been overly optimistic in its assessment of the oil business. Remember, they were the folks who estimated that the Monterey Shale in California held 14 billion barrels of recoverable reserves — two-third of America’s total oil wealth — until they ran the numbers again and re-estimated the Monterey at 96% lower. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Peak Oil in the Congressional record

Even the most ardent techno-optimists and economists admit there are limited supplies of fossil fuels, but that we don’t need to worry for a long time. It appears they have succeeded in convincing the government they’re right, because there are only 2 documents about planning for peak oil that I’m aware of at the federal level (several cities have peak oil task force recommendations): Hirsch, R. L., et al. February 2005. Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, mitigation, & risk management . Department of Energy. GAO. 2007. Crude oil. Uncertainty about future oil supply makes it important to develop a strategy for addressing a peak and Decline in Oil Production . U.S. Government Accountability Office. Congress is very aware of our energy situation, they just don’t call it “peak oil” very often. You’ll get a lot of hits on “energy security” or “energy crisis” at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ The problem is […]

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Oil Prices Down on Strong Dollar, Concerns About Oversupply

Oil prices fell Friday on continuing concerns about oversupply. Oil prices have traded in a tight range in recent weeks, with U.S. prices pivoting around the psychologically key $60-a-barrel level. Forecasts that the global glut of crude oil is due to shrink, due to growing demand and a decline in drilling, have boosted prices from multiyear lows earlier this year. But some investors remain hesitant, especially because some U.S. companies say they can increase production if prices hold above $60. The U.S. oil price “has moved above the $61/bbl level three times since the beginning of May and failed to remain above this level,” said Dominick Chirichella, analyst at the Energy Management Institute, in a note. “This is likely to happen again.” Light, sweet crude for July delivery settled down 81 cents, or 1.3%, to $59.96 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Despite back-to-back losses, crude still […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple