Ron Patterson: OPEC August Production Data

Data for the OPEC charts below are from the OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report. All OPEC data are through August 2018 and in thousand barrels per day. OPEC 15 crude only production was up 278,000 barrels per day in August to 32,565,000 bpd. Most of that increase was Libya, up 256,000 bpd. July OPEC production […]

Is A New Crisis Brewing In The Saudi Royal Family?

Major changes are never going without instability, conflict and possible crisis. Saudi Arabia’s dramatic change to diversify its economy away from an oil-based rentier state status is not going as smooth as expected. The continuing delay of the Aramco IPO, the struggling gigaprojects commissioned by the sovereign wealth fund PIF, and changes to the social […]

Xi, Putin meet as Russia kicks off biggest ever war games

Russia launched its largest war games since the Cold War on Tuesday with hundreds of thousands of troops, including Chinese soldiers taking part for the first time, in eastern Siberia. The massive military manoeuvres come as tensions between the West and Russia have intensified to the highest level since the days of the Soviet Union. […]

Nuclear Power Plants At Risk Of Direct Hit By Hurricane Florence

North and South Carolina nuclear power plants are in line for a possible direct hit from Hurricane Florence. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), there are twelve operating nuclear power plants in the Carolinas that make electricity by the continuous splitting of uranium atoms (i.e., a nuclear reaction). These plants generally reside near a […]

Why The U.S. Is Suddenly Buying A Lot More Saudi Oil

For a few months now, OPEC has been boosting production to ease concerns about high oil prices amid expected supply losses from Venezuela and Iran. The cartel’s largest producer and exporter, Saudi Arabia, has been specifically targeting an increase in crude oil exports to the most transparent market, the United States, which reports crude oil […]

The Air-Conditioning Debate Isn’t Really About Air-Conditioning

Jacobin recently published an article calling for a national and worldwide expansion of air-conditioning usage. In it the writer, Leigh Phillips, used the suffering of economically and ecologically stressed people and communities during heat waves as a rationale for doubling down on a technology that, at the same time it’s cooling the indoors today, is heating up the […]

Coal holds its own in global energy mix

Historical data about energy use tell us a lot about expected trends as well as the impact of policy changes, economic growth and projected prices. The 2018 issue of the influential BP Statistical Review of World Energy is preceded by a detailed review of energy developments in 2017. Energy in transition is what we have […]

Global demand for fossil fuels will peak in 2023

Global demand for fossil fuels will peak in 2023, an influential thinktank has predicted, posing a significant risk to financial markets because trillions of dollars’ worth of oil, coal and gas assets could be left worthless. Explosive growth in wind and solar will combine with action on climate change and slowing growth in energy needs […]

The Biggest Challenge Facing Shale Oil Could Be Overcoming Its Own Success

If you follow energy markets at all, you know that prices on the Brent global oil benchmark have traded within a robust band of $70 to $80 a barrel for the last five months. But such prices are a pipe dream – literally – for U.S. shale producers, particularly those in the prolific Permian Basin […]

Trump Illegally Approved Oil Pipeline From Canada

Native American tribes in Montana and South Dakota sued the Trump administration on Monday, claiming it approved an oil pipeline from Canada without considering potential damage to cultural sites from spills and construction. Attorneys for the Rosebud Sioux tribe and Fort Belknap Indian Reservation asked U.S. District Judge Brian Morris in Great Falls, Montana, to […]

Oil in Global Economy

While the oil market continues to focus on supply/demand fundamentals, these are some key updates that you need to keep a tab on, U.S. oil rig count: The United States is continuing to see a surge in production. According to the latest report, the production is at 11 million barrels per day. Despite fewer rigs […]

PetroChina and Qatargas Sign 22-Year LNG Supply Deal

PetroChina Co. signed a deal with Qatargas Operating Co. to purchase 3.4 million tons of liquefied natural gas annually, the Chinese company’s biggest supply deal, amid a brewing trade war with the U.S. that threatens to stifle the Asian nation’s purchases of American fuel. Under the 22-year agreement, Qatargas will supply LNG from the Qatargas […]

Dollar, Oil Take ‘Counterintuitive’ Market Paths

In “Futures In Focus,” Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management, examines the dollar, oil prices, and Treasuries. He speaks with Bloomberg’s Vonnie Quinn on “Bloomberg Markets.” (Source: Bloomberg)

Covert US Plot For Venezuela Coup Detailed In Explosive NYT Report

“This is going to land like a bomb” in the region, a former Latin America diplomatic official told the New York Times in this morning’s explosive lengthy report detailing how the Trump administration held covert meetings with Venezuelan military coup plotters targeting President Nicolás Maduro. The “clandestine channel” involved contacts with what are described as “rebellious officers” bent on […]

Kunstler: Three-Bagger

And so the Golden Golem of Greatness re-enters the hall of mirrors that Syria has become. The US intelligence “community” has informed the US Media that Syrian President Assad is planning a new gas attack on Idlib Province, where a ragtag army of US-backed “rebels” (ISIS, etc) remain holed up against Assad’s forces backed by […]

The world’s not as bad as our brains would have us believe

Even highly educated people have gross misconceptions about state of the world, says the book “Factfulness.” On many fronts — economic, health, mortality, — the real picture is a lot brighter than people think. Chimpanzees are better at answering questions on the state of the world than Nobel Prize winners, according to a book I’ve […]

The Collapse Of Venezuela’s Imaginary Oil Currency

Earlier this year, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro rolled out his latest scheme to rescue his economy, offer an alternative to the increasingly worthless bolivar, and skirt U.S. sanctions on financial transactions. But Maduro’s cryptocurrency, supposedly backed by Venezuela’s oil reserves, is a very hollow promise. To be sure, few analysts expected much from the “petro,” […]

Permian Auction Doubles 2008 Record with near Billion-Dollar Sale

The price to access unexplored shale assets on the New Mexico side of the Permian Basin soared to $95,001 an acre in a federal government auction, a record high for North America’s biggest oil field. The state’s previous record was $40,001 an acre set in December, according to a statement yesterday by the U.S. Department […]

Are The Saudis Keeping Oil Prices Suppressed?

We’ve seen very little recently to dissuade us from the thesis of much higher oil prices to come. EIA charts here on oilprice.com consistently show just how far short of projections the US is going to be to expected production this year. And if we scan the news, the continuing bullish headlines are just about […]

How al-Qaida won the West

With the 9/11 anniversary upon us, we can pat ourselves on the back. Osama bin Laden was killed seven years ago, and his beloved creation, al-Qaida, is a spent force — thoroughly defeated in the Pakistan/Afghanistan region and on the run in Yemen and Somalia. Legions of other al-Qaida leaders have been killed and imprisoned […]

Iraq Pumping Oil at Record Levels, Unaffected by Protests

Iraq is pumping crude at record levels and the violent street protests that engulfed the oil-rich south have not affected energy facilities in OPEC’s No. 2 producer. The country’s crude exports reached a record of 3.59 million barrels a day, Oil Minister Jabbar al-Luaibi said after a meeting with representatives of foreign oil companies working […]

Earthquake Blackout Points to Japan’s Fragility

“This was an extremely rare case,” said Akihiko Mayumi, the power company’s president, at a news conference. “We thought the risk of complete power failure was low.” By restarting more oil- and coal-powered plants, the company will probably be able to restore power to most households on Saturday, the government said. A Hokkaido Electric spokesman […]

Global LNG prices exceed past winter peak

Asian spot liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices edged higher this week as Asian demand ahead of the winter persisted and the region’s vulnerability to unpredictable natural events was underscored by the worst power outages in years in Japan due to an earthquake. Spot prices for October delivery in Asia rose to $11.55 per million British […]

Israel’s Secret War Against Iran Is Widening

It has recently become clear that Israel is engaged in a secret war against Iran in Syria. The war is conducted mainly by means of air power, presumably combined with the intelligence work necessary to provide the country’s airmen with the relevant targets; there is also evidence that targeted killings are among Israel’s tactics in […]

Oil demand to hit 100 mln bpd sooner than projected

World oil consumption will reach 100 million barrels per day (bpd) later this year, hitting that level much sooner than previously forecast, OPEC’s secretary-general said on Wednesday. OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo attends a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Russia May 25, 2018. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin Mohammad Barkindo also told an energy conference […]

Saudi Arabia juggles geopolitics and oil prices

Saudi Arabia is putting its crude production capabilities – and its ability to balance the oil market – to the test. The kingdom finds its oil production policy at a crossroads, with the need to appease allies countered by its desire for higher prices to balance its books. Urged by US President Donald Trump to […]

EIA’s Latest USA & World Oil Production Data

These first charts are taken from the EIA’s Monthly Crude Oil and Natural Gas Production. The data is through June 2018 and is in thousands of barrels per day. (Click to enlarge) US C+C production was up 231,000 barrels per day in June to 10,674,000 bpd, an all-time high. (Click to enlarge) Texas was up 165,000 barrels per […]

Iraq Is Facing A Major Internal Crisis

Despite the fact that production and export figures presented by Iraqi sources are showing a significant improvement, optimism should be tempered. Iraq continues to head towards a major showdown between the two main political rival blocks, led by Prime Minister Al Abadi and former PM Al Maliki. Both are currently in a race to lead […]

Tainted Fuel Disrupts Shipping Industry

Oil may skyrocket to $400 a barrel Contaminated fuel has damaged and clogged engines on hundreds of oil tankers and shipping vessels around the world, creating costly delays for shippers. The source of the contamination has not yet been identified, but bad fuel has been traced back to production in the Gulf of Mexico and […]

Houthis Claim Successful Attack On Aramco Oil Facility

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have claimed a successful attack on an unidentified oil facility of Saudi Aramco in Jizan, according to a report in Iranian state news agency IRNA. The strike with Badr 1 missiles took place on Monday, two days after an earlier one that targeted a Saudi frigate in Jizan. That earlier attack, IRNA […]

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