Oil Demand Rising Fastest Since 2010

Global oil demand will rise at the fastest pace in five years in 2015 as China leads gains in emerging economies, the International Energy Agency said. World oil consumption will increase next year by 1.4 million barrels a day, the agency said in its first monthly report to assess 2015. The rate of growth will […]

The End of Sustainability

The time has come for us to collectively reexamine — and ultimately move past — the concept of sustainability. The continued invocation of sustainability in policy discussions ignores the emerging realities of the Anthropocene, which is creating a world characterized by extreme complexity, radical uncertainty and unprecedented change. From a policy perspective, we must face […]

Shale Seen Shifting Flows at America’s Biggest Oil Port

For more than 30 years, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port LLC has been a symbol of U.S. dependence on foreign oil, pumping Nigerian and Saudi Arabian crude from the world’s biggest supertankers into underground storage caverns beneath the marshes of southern Louisiana. Now, with domestic production at a 28-year high, LOOP’s managers are thinking the […]

EIA Projections Show Hydro Growth Limited by Economics not Resources

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, EIA-860, and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Note: Capacity values prior to 1989 are estimates. Existing capacity includes conventional hydroelectric and pumped storage. New stream-reach developments are stream segments without an existing dam. Expansions add power to existing dams. Some expansions are included in the Annual Energy Outlook 2014 […]

Plunging toward Armageddon in Israel

The latest cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence is pulling the region and the world deeper into a grotesque crime of religious-inspired slaughter, but U.S. politicians can’t see beyond their narrow self-interests, writes former U.S. diplomat William R. Polk. With the killing of three Israeli teen-agers and the apparent revenge murder of a Palestinian youth – possibly burned […]

Leak at Fukushima Nuclear Plant Threatens Dangerous Meltdown

Trouble is looming at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, as a leak has forced the shutdown of a cooling system that could cause temperatures to exceed dangerous levels. Fukushima operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) was forced to switch off the cooling system at Reactor Unit 5, after engineers discovered it had been leaking water. If […]

25 Million Americans Live Within The ‘Blast Zone’ Of An Oil Train Explosion

Millions of Americans live within the “blast zone” of an oil train accident, according to a new map put together by environmental group ForestEthics. The map, created using industry data and on-the-ground reports of people living close to oil train routes, outlines the routes of oil trains across the U.S. and into Canada. Using census […]

ISIS Has Seized 88 Pounds Of Uranium In Northern Iraq

With the mainstream media having moved on in the news cycle to Dow ‘almost’ 17,000 and the ‘Border Crisis’ Scandal, it seems The Islamic State (the terrorists formerly known as ISIS) have stepped up their game and come out swinging… by seizing 88 pounds of nuclear material (uranium compounds) from Mosul University. As Iraq’s UN […]

World Sets New Oil Production and Consumption Records

Last month BP (NYSE: BP) released the Statistical Review of World Energy 2014. This report is one of the most comprehensive sources of global and country level statistics on production and consumption of oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear power and renewables. Right after the release of the report, I wrote a short post discussing the highlights. Today […]

The age of man

As World Population Day 2014 is observed tomorrow under the theme, ‘Invest in Young People today, to ensure a Bright Future’, the world economy continues to grapple with an ever burgeoning population and rapid urbanization. The latest estimates place the world’s population at just over 7 billion and projections see it rising to over 8 […]

Why China’s Energy Consumption Will Keep Rising

In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was signed. This was to usher in an era where the planet was to tackle climate change, and we were to see an energy transition from dirty, polluting fossil fuels to their low-carbon alternatives. Instead, here is what happened. Global coal consumption grew more in the last ten years than […]

Twenty-First-Century Energy Wars

Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, South Sudan, Ukraine, the East and South China Seas: wherever you look, the world is aflame with new or intensifying conflicts.  At first glance, these upheavals appear to be independent events, driven by their own unique and idiosyncratic circumstances.  But look more closely and they share several key characteristics — notably, a […]

Italy: adapting to collapse

  The new San Lorenzo mall in Florence, Italy. An American style food court designed mainly with international tourism in mind. It is an example of the attempt of the Italian economy to adapt to the ongoing collapse of its traditional manufacturing sectors, trying to exploit new sources of revenue. So far, this brand new […]

Best Place to Find Oil Is In An Oil Field

Cheap oil has allowed the modern world to develop as it has, but cheap oil is becoming a thing of the past. Oil prices have risen about 10-fold over the past two decades, and the trend is likely to continue as oil becomes scarcer, small and recent fluctuations notwithstanding. According to some experts, Peak Oil […]

Jeff Rubin On Peak Oil: Supply or Demand?

Jeff Rubin waxes philosophical on the need for a major paradigm shift in our attitudes, and suggests that we can have the world we want if we are willing to let go of the world we have.

US: Oil production in 2015 to be highest since 1972

U.S. crude oil production, rising steadily since 2008, is likely next year to hit its highest level since 1972 while Iraq’s output, despite unrest there, is expected to hold steady, according to a forecast Tuesday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Spurred by the use of hydraulic fracturing or fracking in shale rock deposits, U.S. […]

How To Invest With A Rothschild – In Iraqi Oil

Whether there is war or peace in Iraq, whether the country holds together or falls apart, the oil will flow. If you want to take a flyer on your own little piece of the future of Iraqi oil, the stock to buy is probably Genel Energy. The company has the highest production volumes and arguably the […]

Towards an Energy Standard of ‘Local’

A couple Saturdays back a favorite vendor was selling strawberries at my local farmers’ market, and knowing they represented the tail end of the season I indulged in a pint. I polished off the sweet berries while wandering by other booths, checking in with a few farmer friends before buying eggs from one who pasture raises his hens with the […]

What if it all becomes obvious enough?

What if Putin, being a strategic thinker that he is in addition to being a master in judo, has an intention to make not just eastern Ukraine but the whole Ukraine a failed-state-showcase of what happens when the US, Nato, EU, and the IMF causes havoc in eastern Europe. Maybe he is giving a lesson […]

Russia in secret plot against fracking, Nato chief says

The Daily Telegraph has one of those stories which makes me wonder who really believes this sort of stuff and why anyone would anyone ever bother saying it – Russia in secret plot against fracking, Nato chief says. Russia is secretly working with environmental groups campaigning against fracking in an attempt to maintain Europe’s dependence […]

Natural gas boom’s future may be in China

China is expected to double its demand for natural gas in the next five years, representing an irresistible market for Western companies attempting to export America’s energy bonanza as well as to exploit China’s own vast reserves. Chinese cities are choking in smog, and its government is intent on moving the country away from coal […]

Platts Big Five: Is anyone surprised that Iraq tops our list?

Welcome to The Oil Big Five for July 2014, where we list the big issues that are keeping our Platts oil experts busy around the globe. You can find our last posting here, which had the problem of not posting comments for a short time when it first went up. We really appreciate everyone who […]

Are We Running Out of Oil?

Dr. Kent Moors writes: For many years, a number of industry experts have been sounding the alarm that America, and the world, are about to run out of oil. This is nothing new. In 1914, the Bureau of Mines said that U.S. oil reserves would be exhausted by 1924. The Interior Department said global reserves […]

Chile to import US shale gas in 2015

Chile’s state oil company ENAP has signed long-term deal with British Gas to import shale gas from the United States at the end of next year, local media reported. Shipments will leave from a U.S. port, Chilean Energy Minister Maximo Pacheco was quoted as saying on Monday in newspaper La Tercera’s Tuesday edition. “Among the […]

Orlov: Village Medicine

I am a family physician in Canada with an interest in what the future of medicine in Western societies might look like. I don’t subscribe to the mainstream narrative of ever more technically exotic and complex medicine, such as nanosurgery, individualized genetic medicine and growing replacement body parts in the lab. I think it is […]

5 Shocking Places Where Fracking Is Taking Off

By now, many people have heard about the booming Bakken Shale in North Dakota where there is a mad rush for oil, enabled by the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a practice that pumps millions of gallons of water, chemicals and sand underground to break rock and release hydrocarbons. The Bakken has garnered big […]

Mortars land in Saudi Arabia near Iraq border

Three mortars bombs landed inside Saudi Arabia close to its border with Iraq on Monday, causing no casualties but raising concerns about instability in the kingdom’s northern neighbour, where Islamist militants have occupied land near the frontier. Saudi authorities said they are investigating the incident to determine the source of the mortars, which caused no […]

Tech Talk – of longer wells and drawdown pressure

There are, simply, three major parts to the coming global economic mess that will be created as we enter into the period of Peak Oil. The first of these comes from the current rising demand for oil, particularly emphasized by those countries, such as China and India, where demand is rising fastest. The second part […]

North Dakota Fracking: Behind the Oil-Train Explosions

When energy companies started extracting oil from shale formations in South Texas a few years ago, they invested hundreds of millions of dollars to make the volatile crude safer to handle. In North Dakota’s Bakken Shale oil field, nobody installed the necessary equipment. The result is that the second-fastest growing source of crude in the […]

Iraq fighting doesn’t raise oil prices, yet

Iraq is one of the world’s top oil exporters, so you would think that a recent attack by militants on its largest oil refinery amid a deteriorating security situation in the country would prompt global fears of oil shortages and spark a spike in prices. Instead, ​prices are about where they were a year ago, […]

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