Russia to push on with Yukos sale

Russia has said it will auction off a key production unit of embattled oil company Yukos as planned this weekend despite a US court injunction. Authorities aim to sell Yuganskneftegas on Sunday, 19 December, to pay Yukos’ $27.5bn (£14.2bn) tax bill. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4099673.stm

Cairn shares slump on oil setback

Shares in Cairn Energy, a UK oil firm, have plunged more than 20% after a disappointing drilling update and a warning over possible tax demands. The company said tests had revealed that there would be no more significant discoveries at its Indian oil fields. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4103927.stm

ESAI: IEA’s Russian oil production forecast ‘optimistic’

“After reaching an absolute post-Soviet peak of 9.49 million b/d in September, Russia’s average daily production has been falling for 2 consecutive months, and November’s drop was the largest single-month decline since January 1999,” said Yulia Woodruff, ESAI’s Russian analyst.

OGJ

Is the oil market in crisis?

Platts presentation, Dec. 10, Singapore

Today’s Analysis OPEC: Losing Control Of Oil Markets?

Stratfor poses an interesting thought. With oil prices still above $40 per barrel, a country like Saudi Arabia, and for that matter, all OPEC countries, which depend on oil revenues for almost all their operating capital, should be pumping all the oil that they can get out of the ground, and should be looking for more.

But, they are not, which leads to the Stratfor conclusion: “All of this leads Stratfor to one inescapable conclusion: Saudi Arabia, the bastion of the oil markets and the producer of last resort, has no excess capacity.”

Rigzone

Opec bolstered by rivals’ crude supply shortfalls

(Reuters) 17 December 2004 LONDON – A surge in global oil consumption is slowing but supply shortfalls from rival producers such as Canada and Russia will bolster demand for the Opec group’s crude this winter, Opec said yesterday. Opec’s monthly Oil Market Report forecast demand growth of 1.5 million barrels per day next year in […]

UAE Energy Minister’s remarks on reserves/depletion.

http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/BusinessNF.asp?ArticleID=143771 Mohammad Bin Dha’en Al Hamili, UAE Minister of Energy- CLIP >>Al Hamili said most of the oil in the world had been more or less discovered. “I can’t see more giant oil fields being discovered. Now we are looking to better the recovery rates and arrest the depletion in reservoirs. “In some of the […]

Lybian PM says oil running out fast !

Dr Shukri Ganem, Libya’s prime minister. http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/BusinessNF.asp?ArticleID=143767 CLIP>>” “The challenge we face today is that oil has become a problem for us. We can not think beyond oil. It is going to run out in the near future… He predicted a further increase in the price of oil. …Research reports suggest that oil consumption will […]

Turkey droppings fuel power plant

NEW YORK (Reuters) — Turkey leftovers will take on a whole new use after a Minnesota company finishes construction of a power plant fired by the birds’ droppings. http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/12/16/energy.environment.turkeys.reut/index.html

US Dept of Energy supports Peakoil theory

In case you missed this story: DOE

Yukos awaits U.S. bankruptcy fate

Embattled Russian oil giant Yukos is set to learn if a U.S. bankruptcy court will try to block the sale of its main production unit this weekend. However, lawyers and analysts said Thursday they expected Moscow would put Yuganskneftegaz up for auction on December 19 at a starting price of $9 billion, in pursuit of […]

‘Bin Laden’ tape urges oil attack

An audio tape said to have been recorded by al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has called on his supporters to attack Gulf oil supplies. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4101021.stm

Largest Housing Plunge In 11 Years

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. current account trade gap widened to a record $164.71 billion in the third quarter, data showed on Thursday. The deficit, the broadest measure of U.S. trade, was not as great as feared, spurring a dollar rally. In separate reports, the government said first-time claims for jobless aid posted their sharpest […]

Independent oil company CEO says lots of oil available at higher prices

‘We’re either in a boom or bust’ Higher prices for oil and natural gas have spurred a miniboom in drilling in the USA. To find out what’s going on in the domestic industry, reporter Mindy Fetterman talked with Bruce Bell, chairman of the Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association of Oklahoma and CEO of Post Oak […]

SUV Sales Roar Ahead

File under “Slouching Towards Armaggeddon”: Americans are buying more SUVs than ever; in some states (Colorado and Wyoming), there’s already one SUV for each five licensed drivers, vs one for eight nationwide. 77% of all trucks (which includes SUVs) were used for personal transportation.

Shell chief says he’s under threat

Shell was seen as a possible bid target by rivals such as Total of France after the reserves rebooking. Mr Van der Veer called the period “dark days indeed. Perhaps some of you even started to take French lessons”.

FT

Energy of the future

Qatar has reached a $12 billion deal with ExxonMobil, the world’s biggest oil company, to supply liquefied natural gas to Britain by 2007, Energy Minister Abd Allah bin Hamad al-Attiyah said.

Al Jazeera

U.S. drilling takes off

Nationwide, higher prices have spurred so much drilling that companies can’t get rigs to handle it. “All the rigs are pretty much spoken for,” says Richard Mason, publisher of The Land Rig Newsletter,based in Lubbock, Texas.

USA Today

Rampant Insider Selling Raises Red Flags

NEW YORK – Talk about a double standard. While corporate leaders tout the benefits of investors owning their stocks, many executives seem to be running for the doors themselves. The Miami HeraldSelling of shares by insiders – which includes executives and other top officers and directors at a company – has been rampant in recent […]

American Geophysical Union debates peak oil

Scientists debate decline of oil stores: Sooner or later? – Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer Wednesday, December 15, 2004 Scientists meeting at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco debated Tuesday whether the world has plenty of oil for centuries to come — or if it faces impending shortages that might trigger economic chaos, […]

Oil surges on heating oil weakness

“Most people were looking for distillate supplies to get better because last week was not that cold,” said Phil Flynn, an oil analyst at Alaron Trading. “Now we’re going into a cold week with heating fuel supplies at a deficit compared with their levels last year,” Flynn said.

CNN Money

Russian Oil Group YUKOS Seeks Bankruptcy

Russian oil group YUKOS has filed for bankruptcy protection in a U.S. court in an attempt to stop the Russian government from auctioning off its main production unit on Dec. 19, it said on Wednesday.

Reuters

End of Oil Could Fuel ‘End of Civilization as We Know It’

Opponents in a long-running debate over when the world will run out of oil squared off Tuesday in a crowded room of scientists, reaching only one conclusion: The supply of fossil fuels is fixed and the world economy will eventually have to wean itself from oil. The most dire and perhaps speculative forecast calls for […]

Solar Cell Teams Plastic and Carbon

Today’s solar cells are relatively expensive because they are made from the computer chip material silicon, which requires relatively expensive manufacturing processes including clean rooms. It is possible to make solar cells from cheaper, easier-to-work-with materials, including organic, or plastic-based materials. The trick is finding inexpensive materials that are also efficient.Researchers from the Georgia Institute […]

The Status of Oil and Gas Depletion in Russia

by C. J. Campbell
there may be a second peak around 2010 perhaps at about 10 Mb/d, although Russian officials now speak of minimal increases. Consumption stands at about 2.5 Mb/d yielding exports of 5.7 Mb/d. On balance it seems likely that Russia can hold close to the present level of exports only to around 2010 before decline sets in.

energybulletin

Production will peak and decline and oil prices will rise.

In spite of projections for growth in non- OPEC supply, it appears that non-OPEC and non-Former Soviet Union Countries (non- FSU) have already peaked and are currently declining Once OPEC’s excess productive capacity is gone and its oil production peaks, OPEC exports will begin an inexorable decline. At that point in time, the oil markets […]

U.S. Trade Deficit Widens More Than Expected to Record as Oil Imports Jump

Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. trade deficit widened to an all-time high of $55.5 billion in October, boosted by higher oil prices and record imports from China, a government report showed. The trade gap in goods and services followed a revised $50.9 billion deficit in September, the Commerce Department today said in Washington. The […]

Landslides from permafrost melting could destroy pipeline

50 feet diameter boulder that rolled over 2 miles, destroying everything in it’s path.

The article warn that:

“Frequent landslides triggered by global warming will threaten safe operation of the proposed $7-billion Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline, a Canadian permafrost expert warned here yesterday.”

The Star

The End of Fossil Fuels: Part 2. Twilight or Dawn?

Part 2 will look toward a much more uncertain future beyond fossil fuels. With the judicious employment of the technologies we have learned – and with a bit of luck – we may be able to create a more harmonious balance with the rest of the biosphere, but only at substantially lower population levels and […]

The End of Fossil Fuels: Part 1. How Long the Twilight?

This country and the world are in for profound change as the petroleum boom winds down. I find that even specialists in the fields that will be most affected have not seriously considered what that transition will be like or how they will handle it. This study is an effort to describe the transition and […]

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