Author: ASPO-USA

When an asset class takes a swan dive off the cliff, fortunes can be lost trying to call the bottom. It’s often impossible to tell whether the asset in question is on a suicide run or undergoing a short-term correction. And so it is with oil. Oil prices are down by a third since June and are less than half of their 2008 high of $147 (U.S.) a barrel. So time to buy? If I knew how to call bottoms, I would not be a miserable, ink-stained wretch; I would be filthy rich and living in a villa on the Amalfi Coast or Côte d’Azur, martini in each hand. But allow me to present four ideas of why the foundation for a compelling oil price bounce-back is being set even as prices tumble. I’m just not going to tell you when that might happen, because I have no clue. […]

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It is the year 2004. With record high prices at the gas pumps and what seemed like a largely oil-explored world, it was an occasion to do what engineers do best: identify technical problems and devise solutions. With what seemed like a real “peak oil” energy shortage looming ahead, the need for reduction of electric power use had a direct impact on electronic design, resulting in the emergence of low-power circuit design. Is that emphasis still required? While some decry the demise of the ecosphere due to the burning of hydrocarbon fuels, an equal problem is the anticipated inability to supply those fuels to meet the growing world demand. This article looks in retrospect at the problem, largely through comments from senior oil engineers inside the industry, and then surveys what happened. The Oil Conundrum We go back a decade, to 2004. Glenn Morton, a geophysicist who headed North […]

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4728 Votes Getting in on the Water Rush Scramble for groundwater lures driller back into business Among critics of our society’s reliance on petrochemicals, there’s long been talk that we are nearing “peak oil” — the beginning of the end of oil reserves. Then came the fracking bonanza, and — bam! — U.S. oil supplies gained a new lease on life. The peak oil buzz died down. Maybe the critics should be talking about “peak water” in the San Joaquin Valley instead. Growers pumped out huge amounts this past summer to keep their productivity up amid drought, and they’re likely to do so again in 2015 — if they can afford it. Everybody paying attention to the situation senses that the game will be up for the Valley’s powerhouse agricultural machine if extreme drought continues, but few know it as clearly as Hanford resident Robert Carvalho. The wily 75-year-old businessman has worn a […]

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THREE times in the last 35 years, Russian military forces have crossed international borders – in Afghanistan in 1979, Georgia in 2008 and the Crimea earlier this year. As Simon Derrick, the currency strategist at BNY Mellon points out, each occasion coincided with a peak in the oil price. And each incursion was followed by a very sharp fall in the price of crude (see chart). Now of course, one can’t say the Russian actions caused the oil price fall. However the oil price peaks, by boosting the economy, may have bolstered the confidence of Soviet/Russian leaders and thus encouraged the military action. The subsequent declines simply show that the Russian government has very bad timing.  Indeed the weakness of oil in the 1980s (and the sapping effect of the Afghan conflict on morale) played its part in the downfall of the Soviet empire; this time round, the Russian […]

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4721 Votes The peak oil theater I am a little late for the talk at the peak oil conference. Fortunately, it seems that I didn’t lose much: the speaker must have started just a few minutes before I arrived and I only missed the introduction by the chairman. So, I relax in my seat as the speaker goes on with his presentation.(*) The first thing I note is his the way he is dressed; not the standard one in this conference. Most speakers, so far, have been physicists and they have a typical way of dressing: they look like physicists even when they wear a tie; and they usually don’t. This speaker, instead, not only wears a tie, but even wears a double breasted suit (or so it seems to me – even if it is not a double-breasted suit, he wears it as if it were one). And […]

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4719 Votes [ This is a complex question, because the quality of the oil matters.  We’ve gotten the good stuff, the light, easy oil. Much of the remaining oil is deep, nasty-gunky stuff, in arctic and other remote areas, and will take a lot more energy to produce and refine ] Ron Patterson. July 14, 2014. World Crude Oil Production by Geographical Area . Peakoilbarrel.com Check out the graph “World Less North America” at Peak Oil Barrel which shows world oil production minus North American production is down by 2 million barrels.  Are we starting to see the petticoats of the net energy cliff?  As David Hughes wrote in Drilling Deeper. A reality check on U.S. government forecasts for a lasting tight oil & Shale gas boom , both peak tight (fracked) oil and gas are likely to happen before 2020 in North America.  Powers has also documented this […]

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4711 Votes The International Energy Agency (IEA) is the energy watchdog of the industrial world. The developed nations of the world were caught off guard by the oil crisis of 1973. They then realized energy resources are so fundamental to all of civilization, and recognized how vulnerable we are to supply disruptions. Forty years ago in 1974, the International Energy Agency was formed, tasked with keeping an eye on these precious resources, and providing policy makers around the world with information to make better informed planning decisions. The primary deliverable from the IEA is the massive World Energy Outlook (WEO) report that is released annually in November. Concerned about peak oil, I began reading the Executive Summary to this report 10 years ago. Five years ago I wrote a summary of what the report has been telling us from 2005 – 2009, concerning issues related to peak oil: The […]

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Printer-friendly The International Energy Agency (IEA) is the energy watchdog of the industrial world. The developed nations of the world were caught off guard by the oil crisis of 1973. They then realized energy resources are so fundamental to all of civilization, and recognized how vulnerable we are to supply disruptions. Forty years ago in 1974, the International Energy Agency was formed, tasked with keeping an eye on these precious resources, and providing policy makers around the world with information to make better informed planning decisions. The primary deliverable from the IEA is the massive World Energy Outlook (WEO) report that is released annually in November. Concerned about peak oil, I began reading the Executive Summary to this report 10 years ago. Five years ago I wrote a summary of what the report has been telling us from 2005 – 2009, concerning issues related to peak oil: The IEA […]

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