Category: Peak Oil

Cheap Oil A Boon For The Economy? Think Again thumbnail I thought it might be a nice idea to question a certain someone’s theories using their own words, while at the same time showing everybody what the dangers are from falling oil prices. There are many ‘experts and ‘analysts’ out there claiming that economies will experience a stimulus from the low prices, something I’ve already talked about over the past few days in The Price Of Oil Exposes The True State Of The Economy and OPEC Presents: QE4 and Deflation . And I’ve also already said that I don’t think that is true, and I don’t see this ending well. Today, our old friend Ambrose Evans-Pritchard starts out euphoric, only to cast doubt on his self-chosen headline. He’d have done better to focus on that doubt, in my opinion. And I have his own words from earlier in the […]

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While Americans were stuffing their faces with poultry Thursday, global oil markets were in chaos. And the implications are far-reaching. The price of oil was down more than 9.9 percent Friday afternoon after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries decided it would not cut back production significantly in the months ahead. In other words, even amid a sluggish global economy and a boom in oil production in the United States, oil-producing countries from Saudi Arabia to Nigeria to Venezuela are going to keep pumping rather than pull back on output in hopes of pumping prices back up. The latest decline pushes oil prices in the United States under $70 a barrel; the prices were more than $100 for almost all of July. And the latest OPEC move (or non-move, as it were) suggests that it isn’t going to reverse course anytime soon. The reporting out of Vienna , […]

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Oil prices have fallen a long way this year. They might fall much further still. Crude prices have fallen 36% since their summer peak, then sent into a tailspin by  the failure of OPEC, the cartel of oil producing countries accounting for 40% of global supply, to trim its output quotas. And history suggests prices can fall substantially further. It’s worth bearing in mind that for nearly two decades to 2005, crude oil prices largely ranged between $20 and $40 a barrel in today’s money. The average inflation-adjusted price of West Texas Intermediate oil since 1970 is a little under $55 a barrel compared with a little under $70 now. That’s not to say that’s how far they’ll drop. A rapid technical snap-back is always a possibility. But the fundamentals seem stacked towards lower rather than higher prices for now. Which will make for some interesting economic dynamics. Current […]

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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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4729 Votes Now the dust from the Shock & Awe of the 30% drop in oil prices has started to settle, two things are clear: (a) Saudi Arabia did not engineer anything (b) they don’t have a Machiavellian plan to stick one up the wildcatters in North Dakota, or the Russians…the Iranians…the Venezuelans, or even the genius from the Daily Telegraph who was bemoaning the fact that if oil prices go down it will be hard to import inflation into U.K. Here are five good reasons why they are going to pass on the opportunity to slash their oil production by 30% so that other OPEC members can cheat and make a windfall, like they all did in 1987/8. 1. Read My Lips Since oil prices jumped from $80 to $110 in early 2011 the Saudi’s have been saying, over, and over and over again, that oil was over-priced […]

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4728 Votes Here’s What The New Era Of Cheap Oil Means For The World’s Major Economies Brent crude oil prices hit a four-year low in November of $77.83, and Credit Suisse believes sub-$100 prices are  here to stay  for at least the next three years. What does the sudden and sharp decline portend for the world economy? Generally speaking, falling crude oil prices are an importing economy’s paradise and an exporter’s inferno. But the macroeconomic ripple effects are a bit more complicated. The United States and Malaysia, for example, are both importers  and  exporters, meaning that the same macroeconomic trend that benefits ordinary consumers and retailers can be a headwind for energy production and have mixed effects on overall GDP. In emerging markets, countries that subsidize fuel are affected differently than those that do not. To sort it all out, Credit Suisse has detailed what low oil prices mean […]

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