Author: ASPO-USA

Pickens: Oil Could Hit $100 A Barrel thumbnail Amid falling oil prices mostly due to fears of oversupply and a surging U.S. dollar, American business magnate and financier T. Boone Pickens said Tuesday that oil prices could reach $100 a barrel by the end of next year. The 86-year-old billionaire, who chairs the hedge fund BP Capital Management, also revised his previous forecast in which he said that the prices would hit the $100 mark as early as this year. According to Pickens, the idea of “peak oil” — when oil production goes into an irreversible decline — should not be ignored as regions other than the U.S. are experiencing decline in their oil output, Reuters reported. “I think you could very well be at $100 a barrel by the end of 2016,” Pickens said at the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco. Although oil prices briefly recovered […]

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David Bernal, Allegro Development This article is written by David Bernal who is a Senior Solutions Manager for Allegro Development, a real-time commodity trading information services and risk management firm. Whether you blame technology, politics, softening demand or a mix of all three, the recent oil price plunge is testament to the dynamic nature of energy markets and the huge risks that emerge in a period of profound volatility. The most important question for energy market participants however, is how they can minimise our exposure? Technology in the form of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and horizontal drilling has arguably made America the world’s pre-eminent oil producer, pulling up to 4m barrels a day from sources that were once called “unconventional”. So much oil is sloshing around that Congress has taken its first tentative steps toward removal of the crude export ban by allowing exports of certain condensates. Full-on exports of crude […]

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Rising energy prices will challenge western way of life thumbnail A little-known Ministry of Defence (MoD) report published earlier this year warns that converging global trends will dramatically affect UK economic prosperity through to 2040. The report says that depletion of cheap conventional “easy oil”, along with shortages of food and water due to climate change and population growth, will sustain rocketing energy prices. Long-term price spikes are likely to lead to a long recession in Western economies, fuelling internal unrest and the rise of nationalist movements. The report departs significantly from the conservative and relatively optimistic scenarios officially adopted by the British government, as exemplified in the coalition’s new Energy Security Strategy published in November last year by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc). Peak “easy oil” The report predicts that “the imminent passing of the point of peak ‘easy oil’ will mean that hydrocarbon-based energy […]

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What if the world never again sees sustained prices for oil over $100 per barrel? What if—absent exogenous black-swan events like major wars—oil never sells for much more than $50 per barrel for decades into the future? Who wins? Who loses? Short answer: The winners are consumers everywhere, and American businesses that produce oil. The losers are nations that are oil monocultures, and businesses or policies everywhere anchored in expensive oil. Is such a scenario likely? Or is the current price collapse a kind of inverse bubble? History is often meaningfully predictive. In the roughly 150-year history of oil prices there have been just three short periods where oil sold for over $50 per barrel (measured in inflation-adjusted terms). It happened first for about 20 years after 1860 at the dawn of the oil age, followed by nearly a century with oil cycling around $20. The second price bubble, […]

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Sadly, fossil fuels are about as sustainable as my chocolate supply thumbnail WHAT exactly is Transition about? asks Sally Elias. “No, I still don’t get it,” said a good friend, exasperated. “What exactly is Transition all about?” We Dorking Transitioners have always struggled with the challenge of a succinct explanation – a lift-pitch. If you say “We are trying to save the planet”, you sound “boring and worthy” (not my words). If you mention post peak oil, people glaze over or say, “Well now they have discovered fracking we don’t need to worry”. Or if you mention global climate change… well, we all know how that goes down with some people – apparently it’s NOT HAPPENING.  I am not terribly bright, but I do hang out with intelligent people who have read a lot more, studied a lot more and understand a lot more than I do about all […]

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March 11, 2015 (NATIONAL) — If you’ve never heard of the concept of "peak oil" don’t feel left out. The news media rarely mentions it even though it may be one of the most significant events in the history of humans on earth. Because if peak oil hits in our lifetime, things could get dicey for every human being on the planet sometime this century. LIfe as we know it in a modern world could change forever. Peak oil is a predicted future event made famous by Marion Hubbert (October 5, 1903 – October 11, 1989) who was a a geoscientist working at the Shell research lab in Houston, Texas. He made important contributions to geology and petroleum geology, including what is called the Hubbert curve and Hubbert peak theory, a basic component of peak oil. Peak oil refers to the point in time when the maximum rate of […]

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BLASTED: An aerial photograph showing what United States military officials describe as a Command and Control Facility in the town of Tikrit, Iraq, after air strikes appears in this recent undated military handout photograph. As the empire continues to collapse, imperialism and the blatant lies (that come with it) will no longer matter. The PTB will plow forward steamrolling anything in the unrelenting ways of “progress”. We all know what the perpetual war in the middle east is about. Most mindlessly go about filling the car and shopping, whispering to themselves, “We see it, we know it, we just are not allowed to say it”, for fear of losing the false sense of security that the deception of empire instill, through delusion of comfort and “security”. “Oh holy crude” sung to the tune of “Oh Canada.” Elijah and the Widow would be proud ( The Peak of The Oil […]

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By Robert and Sonia Vogl President and Vice President, Illinois Renewable Energy Association We were asked recently if peak oil remains an issue. Just as cold weather stimulates doubt regarding climate change the current low price of oil stimulates doubt about peak conventional oil. Such short-term anomalies confuse the public and bring out a new round of denials regarding the existence of these long-term trends. Researchers documenting peak conventional oil provide data indicating it occurred around 2005. Since then the production of conventional oil has been virtually flat. The dramatic increase in the production of oil shale in the United States obscured recognition of the long term implications of the drop in conventional oil supplies. As major independent oil companies such as Exxon Mobil and Shell spent more money on developing new sources of oil the actual amount of oil secured per capital expenditure declined. In response, oil companies […]

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Why don’t more homes have this sign? Photo: U.S. Department of Agriculture/Flickr. Some people who worry about peak oil like to point out that renewable energy won’t save us. That is, given the amount of fossil fuels that the world uses today, it would take an unrealistically large increase in the amount of renewables available now to make up the difference as oil, natural gas and coal start to deplete. So we might as well resign ourselves now to a future of shivering in the dark. Those same peak oil doomers share what they seem to think is news to the rest of us — namely, that solar panels require oil. Petroleum-based plastics and chemicals go into solar panel components. And of course energy, mostly fossil fuels, is required to make, ship and even install solar panels. This is somehow supposed to mean that solar power is bogus and […]

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