State windmill plan causing quite a flap

Foes say spinning turbines endanger bats and birds The Pennsylvania Biological Survey has gone to bat for the bats in a swirling policy debate over whether commercial wind power development should be permitted in state forests. The debate pits advocates of wind power as an alternative energy source against those who fear that windmills are […]

Mine safety regulations have failed to save miners lives

RESCUE operations to save six trapped, and presumably, dead, Utah miners in the Crandall Canyon mine have failed. So have the safety regulations designed to protect them. How did this happen? After a string of mining tragedies – especially the Sago coal mine disaster in West Virginia – the federal government stepped up its efforts […]

Who resolves Arctic oil disputes?

Russia’s planting of a flag at the North Pole this month has set off a race for control of the Arctic, with five nations preparing to make claims to the seabed at the top of the world. Since Aug. 2, when a Russian research submarine placed the flag on the seabed 13,000 feet below the […]

Forget Peak Oil, Peak Net Worth Is The Real Danger

The reason the As for the headline net worth figure that serves to assuage economist

The oil game in Horn of Africa

ONE of the reasons that the US took a renewed military interest in Somalia after having suffered a humiliating disaster in the Horn of Africa country in 1992 seems to have emerged itself. It was and is the interest of the oil lobby in the US, which is now smelling victory in Somalia, and this […]

Iraq-Syria oil flows depend on security

Iraq is interested in re-activating a pipeline linking its oil centre of Kirkuk to a Syrian port only if it could be secured, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain Al Shahristani said. The two countries, which are at odds politically, have been discussing restarting the 880-km pipeline from Kirkuk to the Banias terminal on the Mediterranean.The pipeline, […]

Iraq plans to resume north oil flows

Iraq is preparing to resume oil exports through Turkey in a few weeks through a new pipeline built in the midst of violence to help handle the flows, Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said. Crews have finished testing a 500,000-barrel per day pipeline covering a section of the northern export route and a special security force […]

Norway Debates the Promise, Costs of New Drilling

Oil Means More Revenue But More Climate Change This small country, which has a vast treasure of undersea oil and an intense civic concern about global warming, is struggling with a dilemma — but it is one that most nations would envy. In little more than two generations, oil and gas have transformed Norway from […]

Europe

A widening natural gas glut in Britain will bolster the profits of UK utilities and could threaten the dominance of gas monopolies in continental Europe, according to a leading gas industry forecaster. The gas oversupply could rise to as much as a fifth of the total market in the winter of 2008-09, depressing the wholesale […]

East woos West in Oilsands

At the height of the market meltdown last week, Abu Dhabi National Energy Co. broadcast its intention to take advantage of depressed share prices and cashed-out balance sheets to expand aggressively in Canada’s energy sector, where it hopes to become one of the top-10 producers. The plan, the first by a Middle East investor in […]

Mexico halts Coatzacoalcos oil shipments due to Dean

MEXICO CITY, Aug 21 (Reuters) – Mexico suspended crude shipments from its Coatzacoalcos port in the state of Veracruz as powerful Hurricane Dean approached the area, a port official said Tuesday. “There were two shipments scheduled (for Tuesday) but they have been suspended,” said port official Juan Jimenez, referring to state oil monopoly Pemex. The […]

Young Chinese worried about global warming, but want cars

BEIJING (AFP) – Most of China’s urban youth are concerned about global warming, but not enough to forsake the luxury of owning a car or other perks of being rich, state media said Monday, citing a survey. According to the survey of 2,500 people aged on average 30 years in cities across the country, 76 […]

Do EIA Natural Gas Forecasts Contain Systematic Errors?

In the July, 2007 issue Public Utilities Fortnightly, we published the article ● The well-head price of NG was underestimated in 21 of 22 annual forecasts (95%) ● Consumption of NG by electric generators was underestimated in 22 of 22 forecasts ● Domestic production of NG was overestimated in 19 of 22 forecasts (86%) In […]

Kunstler: Hot Shots

The Federal Reserve seems to be manufacturing an impressive supply of “greater fools” to go along with the dribs’n’drabs of credit that it is dropping into the sucking chest wound that the economy has become for the body politic. The Fed’s idea, I suppose, is that if they lend a little money to the geniuses […]

China’s increasing hold over Kazakh oil

Kazakhstan is about to become one of the world’s top oil producers, and as the scramble for its resources intensifies, the country’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, says the game is fair, and that Russia, China and the West are all welcome to invest. “The United States, Russia and China are all interested in Kazakhstan, and we […]

Denmark eyes North Pole riches

“Dragons be here!” That is how the unknown region of the North Pole was marked on ancient Danish maps. Much still remains to be mapped and Denmark is engaged in that work now, with a new polar expedition. Cutting through ice as thick as five metres (16.5ft), 45 scientists are on a mission to explore […]

A Pipe Dream for Chavez?

President Hugo Chavez loves using Venezuela’s vast oil and natural gas reserves to enhance his power and prestige in Latin America, while thumbing his nose at the U.S. But his hopes for playing an even greater role have suffered an embarrassing setback as potential partners back away from his most ambitious project to date: a […]

Iran seeks foreign oil investment

Iran appointed a new deputy oil minister for international affairs on Monday as part of a government reshuffle. Hossein Noghrehkar-Shirazi, who will take over responsibility for liaison with foreign companies, was appointed by the acting oil minister, Gholam-Hossein Nozari. The oil ministry said Mr Noghrehkar-Shirazi had previously been a diplomat in Austria and had studied […]

Iraq needs $100-150 bln for reconstruction: Finance minister

Iraq needs at least $100 billion to rebuild its shattered infrastructure after four years of violence and lawlessness following the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, Finance Minister Bayan Jabor said on Monday. “The country is devastated and we are in need of at least $100 billion to $150 billion to restore infrastructure — from sewerage to […]

Crude Oil Little Changed After Hurricane Dean Misses Gulf Rigs

Crude oil was trading little changed amid forecasts Hurricane Dean would miss U.S. oil platforms and refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. Dean, now a “potentially catastrophic” storm, may enter the southern Gulf later today after battering Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Most U.S. production is in the northern Gulf. Mexico’s […]

Biofuels switch a mistake, say researchers

Increasing production of biofuels to combat climate change will release between two and nine times more carbon gases over the next 30 years than fossil fuels, according to the first comprehensive analysis of emissions from biofuels. Biofuels – petrol and diesel extracted from plants – are presented as an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels […]

The Oil Drum: Hurricane Dean and Cantarell, Things Just Got Worse

This is an update from yesterday’s post. Hurricane Dean became a Category 5 storm last night with winds reaching 165 mph and reaching a low pressure of 914 mb (Katrina was 920 mb and Camille 909 mb). If the current forecast holds we could be talking about 2.5 million barrels per day of supply capacity […]

How bad is peak oil, really?

Recently we’ve had a couple of discussions here at Gristmill concerning various aspects of peak oil; that is, the assertion that very soon (if it hasn’t happened already) the global supply of oil will peak, and even though demand is going up, supply will start to come down, so prices will skyrocket. It seems to […]

Pemex Shuts Down Oil Platforms in Gulf Ahead of Hurricane

Mexican state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said Monday it is temporarily shutting down and evacuating all its oil and gas production platforms in the Campeche Sound as Hurricane Dean approaches the zone. In a press release, Pemex said the shutdown of 407 wells in the zone, located in the southern Gulf of Mexico, […]

Economist said ‘peak oil’ point is approaching

Peak oil, the point at which production of oil worldwide begins a progressive decline, is probably coming soon, economist George Littel told members of the Kansas Independent Oil and Gas Association at their annual convention this morning. Further, Littel said, when peak oil arrives it will be an economic, not a geologic, event because demand […]

INJECTION RISKS TREMORS, POLLUTION

KUWAIT CITY: Chairman of Green Line Environmental Group Khaled Al-Hajri accuses Kuwait Gulf Oil Company (KGOC), a subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum Company (KPC), and Saudi SAK Oil Company of planning to inject approximately 9 million cubic meters of chemical toxic wastes into the ground in close proximity of Wafraa farms. At a press conference held […]

Gulf to Japan VLCC freight hits four-year low partly due to Opec cuts

London: The world’s main crude export route sank to a four-year low last Tuesday, hit by strong fleet supply, long-standing Opec cuts and refinery maintenance in Asia, according to brokers and analysts. The Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) route from the Gulf to Japan struck W50 – its lowest level since October 2003, according to […]

Oil market uncertainty hampers investment

Uncertainty in the oil market outlook is allying with environmental measures in consuming countries and other factors to limit demand for OPEC crude and create obstacles for future investment in capacity expansion, according to OPEC. In a report on the oil market, the 12-nation Cartel said there is a need for stronger energy security to […]

Many Pressures Led to Cave-In

Critics Cite Economics, Lax Safety Rules in Utah Mine Disaster HUNTINGTON, Utah — In the small hours of Aug. 6, before the mountain came down around six men working to hollow it out, immense forces were concentrated on the far reaches of the Crandall Canyon coal mine. Not all of them came from within the […]

The Oil Drum: US Peak Oil Adaptation: Prognosis in a Credit Crunch

In this post I want to start exploring a hypothesis that is worrying me a lot. Specifically, the possibility that the emerging financial/credit crisis could cause a near-term collapse in demand for energy, energy prices, and investment in energy infrastructure. That in turn could lead to an even poorer failure to adapt to peak oil […]

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