Kunstler: Another Mighty Conundrum

The sanctuary city movement, and all its baggage, terminates in one troublesome idea: that the USA should have open borders and that anyone from a foreign land who manages to get here by whatever means is home-free-all. The most recent Democratic nominee for president said just the other day that she dreamed of open borders. […]

Is The Global Oil Market Too Dependent On Prospective Growth In The Permian?

Summary Anticipated US liquids production growth accounts for almost all projected non-OPEC growth in 2018 and 2019. Roughly 70% of US production growth will come from the Permian Basin. This raises the risk of a “black swan” even in the global oil market if productivity or production trends in the Permian unexpectedly deteriorate. In this […]

U.A.E. Says Oil Cuts Removed ‘85% of the Problem’ of Oversupply

Energy minister plays down risk to oil from possible trade war Russia is ‘a great partner’ in cuts deal: Suhail Al Mazrouei The global deal to rein in oil output has removed “85 percent of the problem” of oversupply, and OPEC and allied producers are seeking ways to cooperate after the agreement ends, according to […]

Top ten takeaways: The world energy outlook

We recently attended Fatih Birol’s presentation in advance of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) first publication of the Global Energy and CO₂ Status Report. Their flagship publication, World Energy Outlook, was published in November 2017. As the IEA’s director and a leading energy expert Birol’s talk was illuminating, particularly as the international energy landscape is […]

Why the Standard Model of Future Energy Supply Doesn’t Work

The most prevalent view regarding future oil supply, as well as total energy supply, seems to be fairly closely related to that expressed by Peak Oilers. Future fossil fuel supply is assumed to be determined by the resources in the ground and the technology available for extraction. Prices are assumed to rise as fossil fuels […]

The Problem with EIA Shale Gas and Tight Oil Forecasts

Each year the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) produces forecasts of U.S. oil and gas production in its Annual Energy Outlook (AEO), which is widely viewed as an authoritative assessment of what to expect for future U.S. oil and gas output (the EIA prefers the term “projection” to “forecast”). The EIA’s reference case is considered […]

Iraq Unveils Plan To Diversify Away From Oil

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi on Sunday unveiled an ambitious plan to end its dependence on oil through building up its private sector over the course of just five years. The plans are reminiscent of Iraq’s earlier plans to shift away from oil and towards the industrial sector, which were discussed in mid-2013. At […]

The Truths We Have In Common

In recent posts here on Ecosophia.net, I’ve sketched out the way that the era of abstraction in which we’ve all grown up has foundered, following patterns that were old before our civilization was born. We’ve talked about the way that the abstract generalizations that started out helping to make sense of on-the-ground realities have been […]

China’s State Owned Media Proclaims Petroyuan Will “Shake People’s Confidence In The US Dollar”

Just days after initiating its ‘petroyuan’ futures contract, and hours after an unprecedented announcement that China will pay for oil in yuan, The Global Times, the unofficial mouthpiece of the Chinese government, printed a remarkable story from ‘one of its editors’ highlighting the ‘petroyuan’ and its potential to topple the US Dollar as global reserve […]

Is Russia Cheating On The OPEC Deal?

After three months of steady output, Russia’s crude oil production increased in March to 10.97 million bpd, the highest level since April 2017, as the top two Russian companies boosted their production. According to data by the Russian Energy Ministry, Russian oil production in March was 46.39 million tons, or 10.97 million bpd, up from 41.85 million tons […]

Peak Shale? Payback Time: Oilfield Services Raise Prices

Oilfield service providers are upping their prices, the latest Dallas Fed Energy Survey has found, confirming what producers began to complain about last year when oil prices started recovering. The survey found the index of input costs for oilfield services jumped from 46.8 from 30.9 this quarter from last. The index for oilfield service prices was also […]

Kunstler: Syriasly

“Peace with Honor” was President Nixon’s anodyne phrase for futzing around as long as possible in Vietnam to conceal the reality that the US military was getting its ass kicked by what we had initially thought was a 98-pound weakling of a Third World country. That was a half-century ago and I remember it now […]

Peak Oil Demand Is Approaching Thanks to EVs and Autonomous Vehicles

Nearly a decade ago, I talked about the concept of “peak oil.” Simply put, this theory states that global oil production will hit a maximum level before declining. When oil prices hit a record high of $147 a barrel in July 2008, many analysts focused on the supply-demand equation and the topic of peak oil. […]

Russian ‘green’ trolls are targeting the US energy sector

download Listen to the full interview. One of the thousands of posts by Russia’s Internet Research Agency that aimed to sow politcal discord in the US and potetntially help Russia’s energy sector. Credit: US House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Russian internet trolls from the same outfit blamed for meddling in the […]

In Unprecedented Move, China Plans To Pay For Oil Imports With Yuan Instead Of Dollars

Just days after Beijing officially launched  Yuan-denominated crude oil futures (with a bang, as shown in the chart below, surpassing Brent trading volume) which are expected to quickly become the third global price benchmark along Brent and WTI, China took the next major step in the challenging the Dollar’s supremacy as global reserve currency (and […]

A Choke Point In The Permian, Temporarily Anyway

Summary The Permian basin in West Texas has emerged as the most prolific shale play in recent times. Due to a high amount of gas associated with the oil some operators are experiencing delays in putting completed wells on production. This article discusses some possible ramifications of this situation. This was previously discussed in my […]

US Crude Oil Production — Hubbert Peak Oil Theory Revisited

US crude oil production. Link here. I find it incredible such “authoritative” sources as Wikipedia have not updated their “Hubbert Peak Theory” post. Hubbert Peak Theory describes a bell-shaped curve, not “twin peaks.” The Million Dollar Way (The Bakken Oil Blog)

Bahrain makes largest oil discovery in its history

Bahrain on Sunday announced it has discovered the largest oil and gas field in the history of the small kingdom, which unlike its Gulf neighbors is not energy-rich. Authorities estimate the newfound reserves at “many times” the volume of Bahrain’s only other known oil field, the state-run BNA news agency said. BNA did not give […]

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