Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi: We’ll never cut production despite plunging prices

The Saudi Arabian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali al-Naimi has declared that the country will “never” cut oil production despite prices hitting five and a half year lows on over-supply and weak demand. Al-Naimi added in a CNN interview that Saudi Arabia was also “not conspiring” to target US and Russian oil producers by not cutting supply and […]

Bakken New Wells Producing Less Confirmed

It is has now been confirmed. The first measured 24 hour production from Bakken wells is a very good predictor of the future production of that well. And it has also been confirmed that new wells with higher well numbers are producing a lot less. In the NDIC’s Daily Activity Reports they publish “WELLS RELEASED FROM […]

The pricing challenge posed by oil’s decline

“Trying to forecast oil demand, supply and price in today’s market is like trying to paint the wings of an aeroplane in flight. Even if one succeeds in covering the subject, it’s unlikely to be a tidy job.” Howard Kauffmann, then president of Exxon, was speaking in 1982, as the price of crude declined from […]

Broken Energy Markets and the Downside of Hubbert’s Peak

A few commenters have mentioned peak oil recently. I am cautious about making forecasts and predictions and prefer instead to observe and document the data as the peak oil story unfolds. I have in fact published a couple of charts recently illustrating aspects of peak oil, one showing a possible peak in the rest of […]

Cheap oil just keeps on coming

The stunning plunge in oil prices – almost 45% since June – has roiled the global oil markets; creating new winners and losers almost overnight. It has also unlocked a number of potential problems and opportunities we would be wise to consider. In our consumer-based economy, savings at the gas pump provide a direct stimulus […]

Heating New England Homes: The Good And Bad News

Falling oil prices are perhaps nowhere more welcome than in northern New England, where most homes burn heating oil in their furnaces. But cheaper heating oil is refilling consumers’ pockets just as high electric prices are emptying them out. For example, a heating oil truck delivers 600 gallons of heating oil every two weeks to […]

Technology Is Driving Fracking Revolution

Although energy producers have utilized fracking since the 1940s, today’s fracking revolution results from recent technological advances and new oil and natural gas discoveries. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, extracts oil and natural gas from shale rock by drilling thousands of feet below the earth’s surface and then injecting water, sand, and trace chemicals under high […]

Despite Lower Crude Oil Prices, U.S. Crude Oil Production Expected to Grow in 2015

Source: North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, Bloomberg Republished December 12, 4:00 p.m. to update data. The recent decline in crude oil prices has created the potential for weaker crude oil production. EIA’s Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) includes indicators that provide details on the effect low prices may have on tight oil production, which accounts […]

A year in a word: Peak

The humble word has become a fully-fledged ‘thing’, writes Jonathan Ford Peak noun – 1. The pointy top of a mountain; 2. The stiff brim at the front of a cap. adj – At the highest level, maximum, as in “peak condition”. colloq, vulg: very good or very bad, as in “Oh man, that rave […]

Oil could drop as low as $20 per barrel

How low can it go — and how long will it last? The 50 percent slump in oil prices raises both those questions and while nobody can confidently answer the first question (I will try to in a moment), the second is pretty easy. Low oil prices will last long enough for one of two […]

North Sea oil industry close to collapse

The UK’s oil industry is in “crisis” as prices drop, a senior industry leader has told the BBC. Oil companies and service providers are cutting staff and investment to save money. Robin Allan, chairman of the independent explorers’ association Brindex, told the BBC that the industry was “close to collapse”. Almost no new projects in […]

Robert Rapier: Five for Five in 2014

As the year expires and the new year arrives, there are several topics I like to cover in a series of articles. One is to review the top energy stories of the year. Another is to grade my predictions for the year. And finally, I lay out my predictions for the upcoming year. Usually I […]

Global Systemic Financial Crisis 2015: Geopolitics, Oil and Currency Markets

For almost two years, by combining various points of view (speculative, geopolitical, technological, economic, strategic and monetary…), we have continued to anticipate a major crisis in the entire oil sector. Today, no one doubts the fact that we are actually at that point, and the GEAB must therefore anticipate the consequences of this veritable atomic […]

What the US Should Learn from Russia’s Collapse

After months of whispered warnings, Russia’s economic troubles made global headlines when its currency collapsed halfway through December. Amid the tumbling price of oil, the ruble has fallen to record lows, bringing the country to its most serious economic crisis since the late 1990s. Topping most lists of reasons for the collapse is Russia’s failure […]

A Continent of New Consumers

Africa has the foundation for an exceptionally long runway for consumer spending. Morningstar’s long-term approach to analyzing companies requires careful analysis of Africa, which we expect to become an increasingly fertile region for consumer spending over the next several decades. Several tailwinds drive these expectations: favorable demographic trends, including a large, young, and rapidly growing […]

Degrowth – A Vocabulary for a New Era

Degrowth. A Vocabulary for a New Era, just published by Routledge, is quite a slim volume of 220 pages and 51 short chapters. Before anything else it seems important to say that there are lots of chapters in this book that I think are quite excellent as short pithy descriptions of the key concepts of […]

Fixing the Crowded Earth

When night falls on Kibera, it is like a door slamming shut. When the sun is up, things are hectic and loud, rough and fetid, but always safe and even welcoming: Bright colors abound and so do offers of nyama choma (roasted meat, usually goat) and bottles of Tusker, the local lager. Soon after the […]

Saudi Oil Minister Naimi says oil price drop temporary

Saudi Arabia’s powerful oil minister said on Thursday that OPEC could not cut output without the support of other big producers and attempts to get them on board had not worked. Ali al-Naimi said it was impossible for OPEC to cut alone to reverse the oil price slump — which he called temporary — when […]

Israel Discovers Third Massive Natural Gas Field ‘Royee’

Israel announced on Sunday the discovery of a major offshore gas field, the third to be located in its waters in the past five years, augmenting its newly acquired status as an energy power. The new field, some 90 miles off Israel’s coast in the eastern Mediterranean, holds at least 3.2 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas, according to a 3D […]

We Can’t Predict the Future of Oil and Gas Prices

In 2003, The Mirage, one of the premiere casino hotels in Vegas, lost an estimated $100 million and 10,000 visitors a week when a hand-raised tiger bit and grievously injured Roy Horn, half of Siegfried & Roy. That bite — which no executive or show producer ever expected — ended the run of one of […]

The True Cost of Food

Forget about the presents and the TV specials, without a doubt my favourite part of Christmas is the food. When it’s this cold outside there’s nothing better than sitting down with some loved ones and eating yourself into a merry stupor. But this year won’t be quite the same for me. For the past 12 […]

Gulf braces for tough times over oil price plunge

Gulf countries are bracing for tough times as vital oil revenues fall and after they missed a golden opportunity to diversify their economies in a decade of unprecedented windfalls, analysts say. The six nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – could soon […]

There Is Hope In Understanding That A Great Economic Collapse Is Coming

If you were about to take a final exam, would you have more hope or more fear if you didn’t understand any of the questions and you had not prepared for the test at all?  I think that virtually all of us have had dreams where we show up for an exam that we have […]

The “Unequivocally ‘Not’ Good” Reality Of Lower Oil Prices & Jobs

The drop in oil prices is certain to cause some incremental unemployment in the U.S. energy industry; the question is simply how much and what that means for the American economy as a whole.  To begin the search for answer, you have to go to the wellhead and consider how many individuals work in American […]

The Conventional Wisdom On Oil Is Always Wrong

In 2008, I moved to Dallas to cover the oil industry for The Wall Street Journal. Like any reporter on a new beat, I spent months talking to as many experts as I could. They didn’t agree on much. Would oil prices — then over $100 a barrel for the first time — keep rising? […]

Oil Price Scenarios For 2015 And 2016

A couple of weeks ago I had a post titled The 2014 Oil Price Crash Explained that was cross posted to over 20 other blogs including The Automatic Earth and Zero Hedge. In this post I use the empirical supply and demand dynamic described in that earlier post (Figure 1) to try and constrain the oil […]

Where Are Oil Prices Headed In The Long Run?

Global benchmark crude oil prices have declined sharply this year on slower demand growth and rising supplies. The growth in demand for crude oil has slowed down significantly this year due to moderating economic growth in emerging markets, such as China and India, and a slower than anticipated economic recovery in the Euro-zone. In China, […]

John Michael Greer: Déjà Vu All Over Again

Over the last few weeks, a number of regular readers of  The Archdruid Report have asked me what I think about the recent plunge in the price of oil and the apparent end of the fracking bubble. That interest seems to be fairly widespread, and has attracted many of the usual narratives; the  blogosphere is […]

Will Population Growth End in This Century?

The human population nearly tripled from 2.5 billion people in 1950 to 7.3 billion today and will continue growing through 2070, according to two recent demographic projections. After that, demographers disagree on whether populations will begin to shrink or continue to rise into the next century, write Worldwatch Institute Senior Fellow Robert Engelman and Research […]

No Easy Answers When Disposing of Oil and Gas Wastewater

We all want easy answers. And often times the harder the question, the easier we want the answer to be. Increased natural gas use, for example, can help decrease U.S. greenhouse gas emissions as it has a lower carbon content compared to coal or oil. Natural gas also can help transition our energy mix to […]

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