Exxon, Chevron And Why The Future Of Big Oil Should Include Refining And Chemicals

It seems like Big Oil can weather most economic storms.  In a difficult fourth quarter, with flat oil prices and a shale boom in the U.S. keeping natural gas in place, with the world’s largest economy contracting and China slowing, Exxon Mobil and Chevron handily beat profit expectations, despite mediocre revenue numbers and decent production […]

Why is US Oil Consumption Lower? Better Gasoline Mileage?

United States oil consumption in 2012 will be about 4.7 million barrels a day, or 20%, lower than it would have been, if the pre-2005 trend in oil consumption growth of 1.5% per year had continued. This drop in consumption is no doubt related to a rise in oil prices starting about 2004. Figure 1. […]

Fish Near Fukushima Shows More than 2,500 Times Legal Radiation Limit for Human Consumption

The two-year anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster is rapidly approaching, and the waters around the crippled plant are still highly contaminated with radiation, according to new reports. A fish caught as part of an ongoing Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) seafood monitoring program recently tested at levels of 254,000 becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg) […]

Alaska January Crude Output Down 7.9 Percent From Year Earlier

Oil production from Alaska’s North Slope dropped 7.9 percent in January from a year earlier as output from wells declined and new ones weren’t added. Production averaged 576,959 barrels a day last month, down from 626,155 in January 2012, the state tax division said on its website. December output was 582,150 barrels a day. Alaska’s […]

Energy Secretary Chu to Resign

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu will resign from his position, with plans to return to teaching and research in California, Chu told U.S. Department of Energy employees in a letter Friday. “I came with dreams, and am leaving with a set of accomplishments that we should all be proud of,” said Chu, noting that his […]

Panorama 2013: Easing of oil price unlikely

With futures markets anticipating a price of Brent crude oil of $110/bbl this year, an easing to $90/bbl appears possible in three unlikely cases, according to Panorama 2013, an annual review by IFP Energy Nouvelles (IFPEN) of Paris: • “A strongly deteriorated economic situation” with growth worse than projected by the International Monetary Fund in […]

Employment/Population Ratios

The BLS is out with a new employment report this morning.  The headline unemployment rate ticked up to 7.9%, but my preferred employment indicators are the employment/population ratios by gender for ages 25-54.  That ratio for men is as above.  Basically, the recovery stalled out in 2012 – we ended the year much where we […]

Is the Pentagon Buying Iranian Oil?

A new report by the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) suggests there is a likelihood that the Department of Defense inadvertently purchased fuel from US-sanctioned Iran. The United States paid for the purchase and delivery of fuel to the Afghan security forces for years, totaling $1.1 billion for just the Afghan army since 2007. […]

UK Oil Output Fell by Record 28% in September-November

The extent of the oil-production outage that contributed to tipping the U.K. economy into a fourth-quarter contraction was laid bare Thursday, as official statistics showed production of crude fell nearly 30% in the three months to November. Production of petroleum fell a record 27.9% compared with the same period the previous year, according to energy […]

Russian Mig Buzzes Israel After Attack on Syria

The Syrian announcement of an Israeli air strike on a military site near Damascus Wednesday, Jan. 30, drew strong condemnation from Moscow the next day: “Such action if confirmed would amount to unacceptable military interference in the war-ravaged country,” said the statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry Thursday. “If this information is confirmed, then […]

The Linchpin Lie: How Global Collapse Will Be Sold To The Masses

In our modern world there exist certain institutions of power.  Not government committees, alphabet agencies, corporate lobbies, or even standard military organizations; no, these are the mere “middle-men” of power.  The errand boys.  The well paid hitmen of the global mafia.  They are not the strategists or the decision makers.  Instead, I speak of institutions […]

The legacy of Fukushima: Two years on

It has been nearly two years since the world watched in horror as the Fukushima Daiichi reactor buildings exploded, one by one. Although the death and destruction that were caused by the tsunami were far worse, the nuclear crisis provided a harrowing global spectacle, with heroes like the 50 or so workers who stayed onsite, […]

Saudi Arabia Completes Its Biggest Solar Power Plant

Saudi Arabia completed its biggest ground-mounted photovoltaic plant as the world’s largest crude oil exporter seeks to generate a third of its electricity with energy from the sun by 2032. Germany’s Phoenix Solar AG (PS4) developed the 3.5-megawatt plant in Riyadh that uses 12,684 panels from China’s Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. (STP) and inverters […]

Peak Oil: Natural Gas Truth v. “The Truth” Pt 1

I rarely write about natural gas, mostly because I like to think I’m smart enough to know how much I don’t know, and thus opt out of adding my two cents’ worth to topics with which I have at best marginal familiarity. But there’s no denying its significance. It’s home-grown, plentiful, and touted as the […]

Who Says Renewables Can’t Beat Out Natural Gas?

Solar and wind industries have had a tough couple of years for a variety of reasons, one of which is the low price for the increasingly abundant natural gas supplies in the US. Utilities are less interested in renewables, we hear, because they can get cheaper natural gas. A few years from now that won’t […]

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