The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle

We begin this ominous month with the curious case of Daniel Yergin, who won the Pulitizer for his 1992 epic history of the oil industry, The Prize, later turned into a PBS megadocumentary. Since his big score, Yergin has set up a public relations firm called Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) which, in the spirit […]

If we do not wake up soon, there will be no human dawn left for us

As the philosopher Hegel reminded us … here on Earth, and elsewhere in our “Universe”, formal logically and dialectically, in our closed, limited, finite system … everything that comes into existence merits to pass away. This reality, we witness daily every where. That we do not like this flowing, overflowing, over-flowing Truth, that individually we […]

Uranium explorers stake out Canada

Canada’s hot and humid summer is often a quiet time in the mining industry but some exciting uranium finds this year have kept prospectors and investors from lounging at the lake. There’s been a 44 percent surge in the uranium price this year, and Canada’s exploration industry has fanned out across almost every province and […]

Oil Shock

Most economists pull the 1970s oil crisis out as an example of how rising prices eventually crimp demand and send prices lower. But let me give you two reasons why it’s different this time: China and India. Over the last three years, China has accounted for over a third of the global increase in oil […]

Oil labor shortage triggers training

Five years ago, Kris Grimland read a story about aerospace company Lockheed Martin Corp. hiring Russian computer technicians to bulk up its employee pool. I said, ‘Hey, Russia has the largest oil field in the world,’” said Grimland, general manager of Maverick Stimulation Co. LLC, an Englewood-based oil and gas industry service firm that helps […]

Home Bubbles Don’t Deflate, They Burst: Mark Gilbert

Jamie Westenhiser, Playboy Enterprises Inc.’s Playmate of the Month for May, says her disrobing days are over. With house prices in her home of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, up 105 percent in the past five years, the 23-year-old model told the magazine she’s embarking instead on a career in real estate. U.S. housing is at its […]

The Asian Threat: Interview with Colonel Gordon Cucullu

Colonel Gordon Cucullu is the author of “Seperated at Birth: How North Korea Became the Evil Twin” and has a weekly column entitled “The Right Approach”. He served as a political-military advisor to Paul Wolfowitz, then the assistant secretary of state for East Asia Pacific Affairs. Col. Cucullu had also been assigned to the Pentagon […]

Tehran struggles to push ahead with India pipeline

Officials in Iran are eager to get under way with a proposed gas pipeline to Pakistan and India that has been the subject of talks for more than a decade. Initial discussions among the participating countries concerning a 2,600-kilometer, overland natural-gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan to India began in the early 1990s. Iran sits […]

Chinese oil firm CNOOC withdraws $18.5B bid for Unocal, cites politics

China’s CNOOC Ltd. said Tuesday it has withdrawn its $18.5-billion-US cash offer for Unocal Corp., stating it considered raising its bid, and “would have done so but for the political environment in the U.S.” CNOOC’s withdrawal frees the way for Chevron Corp. to clinch its $17.4-billion bid for El Segundo, Calif.-based Unocal.Canada.com

Russia increases oil exports

Russia produced 270.3 million tons of oil and gas condensate from January through July this year, a 2.8 percent year-to-date increase, the central dispatch department of Russia

Oil prices spike infrastructure

HIGH oil prices are underpinning another surge in infrastructure investment that could continue for years to come, a new report has found.The Access Economics-Delta Electricity investment monitor found an 11.1 per cent increase since March in the value of projects on the drawing board or under construction.

Times Change…Will Attitudes?

The passage of the Energy Bill may be the last major marker at the end of an era. But not perhaps in total, the one that you would immediately picture. For, over the past decades, as oil replaced coal as the major fuel source, and natural gas also took its share of the market, proponents of each fuel have sought advantage at the cost to the other.

Tradeoffs and political favoritism has led to the passage of legislation that helps one source of power over another, and the management of each has sought to cut the costs to generate product, in order to remain competitive. Thus mining companies have fought for relief from some provisions that were sought to tighten environmental constraints on their operation. Oil companies sought tax relief as they put together the billion dollars or so required to drill in the deeper waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Each step had, as a driver, the need for that fuel to remain competitive, against the inroads of the other into the market.

Those days are coming to a close. As the nation and the world move to a time that we will need all sources of energy to meet the world supply in its various forms, the pressures to shave that last cent from the price of a ton of coal, for example, will no longer be there.

Much more after the jump at The Oil Drum.

Congested city may ban trucks

A REVOLUTIONARY transport project could see lorries barred from York’s ancient streets and deliveries made by a fleet of electrically-powered vehicles to reduce congestion. Trucks clogging up the city centre have become a major source of pollution and remain one of the biggest factors blighting York Council’s attempts to tackle congestion. Plans have now been […]

Carbon dioxide emissions rise despite climate change pledge

Britain’s carbon dioxide emissions are expected to rise significantly in 2005 for the third year running and will reach the highest level since 1992, when the UK signed the Climate Change Convention at the Rio Earth Summit and pledged to combat global warming. Energy statistics released by the Department of Trade and Industry show that […]

Saudi succession leaves no room for young princes

King Abdullah, who succeeded Fahd on Monday, and the new Crown Prince Sultan are both octogenarians and unlikely to be more than transitional rulers. In turn they could be succeeded by princes barely 10 years their junior.

“Abdullah and Sultan are not just old, they are very old. So their reigns will be short,”

Reuters

July sees rise in Iraqi oil exports

Iraq’s oil exports rose to an average of 1.6 million barrels a day during July, and tenders have been issued to build new refineries to help cope with fuel shortages hitting the country, the oil minister says. Speaking on Monday, Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum said Iraq’s crude exports had been 1.44 billion barrels a day for […]

Coconut oil cash to flow

The people of Gulf Province (Papua New Guinea) can now expect more cash flow in the province with the launching of the Gulf coconut project by Governor Chris Haiveta at Iokea village last Friday. … Mr Haiveta has committed K300,000 to kick start the project that will see villagers earning an income for themselves by […]

Ireland demands Shell dismantle pipeline

The Irish Minster for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources Noel Dempsey has ordered oil giant Shell to dismantle a three-kilometre gas pipeline in the west of Ireland which had been constructed without permission. The pipeline, which is intended to transport gas from the Corrib gas field off the coast of Co Mayo to an onshore […]

Major Oil Projects Revisited or CERA meet ODAC

For those who do not normally follow these things, you may not have heard of the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, nor of Chris Skrebowski, who is a Trustee. Which is a pity, because last November they issued a report that led to the headline “New Projects Cannot Meet World Needs this Decade.” (updated here ) […]

Ryanair rises on passenger growth

Ryanair, Europe’s biggest low-cost airline, has seen a jump in quarterly earnings helped by a 30% rise in the number of people flying on its planes. … Despite its better-than-expected profit the company was “cautious” about the outlook for the rest of the year. It cited record oil prices and concerns about further bomb blasts […]

Saudis reassure oil markets as Fahd dies

Saudi officials on Monday reassured markets that there would be no change in oil policy as they engineered a smooth handover of power after the death of King Fahd, who ruled the world’s most powerful crude producer for 23 years. … Oil analysts predicted no short-term shift in the kingdom’s oil policy. Traditionally driven by […]

Venezuela Co. Reveals Oil Output Shortfall

Venezuela’s state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. revealed that its oil production fell 162,000 barrels a day in 2003 to roughly 2.75 million barrels a day following a devastating strike that year. PDVSA, as the company is known, previously had said average 2003 output was higher, at about 3 million barrels a day. The […]

How Oil Rigs Work: Part 3

Heading Out writes: If you remember, we have bought a drilling bit, and over to the side of the site we have some pumps that can deliver a flow of drilling mud to that bit. But where do we go from here?

Well this is where that tall tower known as an oil derrick, so emblematic of the industry, comes into the picture (for which see, for example, the picture here . Because we have to now have something to attach to the drill bit that will turn it, and push it into the rock. (From which it follows that the top guy on the rig is known as the tool pusher). At the same time this connecting device has to be able to allow the mud to get down to the jet nozzles on the bit. The logical way of doing this is to have a tube or pipe, into which the drilling bit can be threaded on the lower end. (Which gives rise to the expression oilfield tubulars). Now, by attaching the mud pumps to the upper end of the pipe, we can also get the mud down into the bit. There is usually a special piece of pipe that fits between the bit itself and the main sections of the pipe, and this is called the drill collar.

Drill pipe comes in various sizes, depending on the hole that is being drilled, but for the sake of an example we might use a pipe that is 5.5 inches diameter on the outside and 3.25 inches wide on the inside. This would weigh around 14 lb a foot, and is normally used in 30 ft lengths.

A whole bunch more about how an oil rig is constructed after the jump at The Oil Drum.

Wind Powered Liberty

I’ve been reading about the potential for wind turbines to replace the need to rely completely on coal and gas fired electrical power plants for our electrical system. There are great strides being made, such that a modern wind turbine can generate enough electricity at peak times (usually at night) to power hundreds of homes. […]

Get Rigged for Oil

“Oil didn’t go up today because King Fahd died,” Jim Cramer told his “Mad Money” viewers Monday night. “That’s silly.” Indeed, King Fahd had been ill for some time and his influence on oil wasn’t terribly important anymore. But King Fahd did keep oil cheap, which cut demand for alternative energy. As a result, we […]

Texas Family with Contaminated Water Fighting Uranium Mining

The extended Garcia family has lived for five generations in a cluster of frame and trailer homes here that now has a sad distinction: Their water is contaminated with uranium at levels so high the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration has told them to stop drinking it and see their doctors. State environmental officials and the […]

Australia Says ASEAN Nations Keen on New Climate Pact

Southeast Asian countries have expressed interest in joining a new U.S.-led partnership to cut greenhouse gas emissions by developing technology and economic incentives, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said. The Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate between Australia, the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and India was unveiled at an Association of […]

Vermont Could See First Wind Power Project in National Forest

The evergreen trees of the Green Mountain National Forest in southern Vermont could soon be dwarfed by 370-foot-tall wind turbines. A company wants to build up to 30 of the turbines in the forest in what would be the first-ever wind power project on U.S. Forest Service land. The project would produce enough electricity to […]

Simple but discouraging arithmetic (on oil supply)

Heading Out writes: So now we come to August. The French are sensible and taking the month off. In the United States traffic on the highways is getting heavier even though our vacations are barely half as long as that of the Europeans. And as the political and governing folk disappear for a while, the consumption of oil does not take a holiday but continues to go up.

As mentioned yesterday US consumption is already up 0.5 mbd over last year, and with the economy building steam, one must assume that if anything this growth will get larger as the year moves on.

The OGJ has been running a series on China over the last month, and it is interesting to catch a couple of points from that study. The first is that the Chinese will start filling the tanks, now completed, that form the start of their Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The second is that they have been rapidly building new refineries to help meet the growing demands that have developed.

More after the jump at The Oil Drum.

Harare: A Case Study for Peak Oil

I happened to be scanning the Washington Post the other day and came across an interesting article (HERE) about how the lack of gasoline, oil and other commodities have literally brought the city of Harare to a standstill. I think, rather than dwelling the causes of the crisis here, we might well consider how this […]

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