Oil Demand Is Cooling. Just Don’t Expect Prices to Follow

The world’s two big intergovernmental energy groups have updated their outlooks for the oil market to the end of next year – and they don’t make comfortable reading. High prices, trade wars and weakening currencies are taking their toll on demand growth. That doesn’t necessarily mean that prices will fall. Concern that there isn’t enough spare […]

The World’s Fragile Economic Condition – Part 2

The world economy can appear to be operating quite well but can be hiding a major problem that causes it to be fragile. My presentation The World’s Fragile Economic Condition (PDF) explains why we should expect financial problems if energy consumption stops growing sufficiently rapidly. In fact, a global sell off in the equity markets, such […]

A Few Things You Probably didn’t Know about William Nordhaus, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics

The “base case” scenario of “The Limits to Growth” 1972 report to the Club of Rome. The strong non-linearity of the behavior of complex systems — including the global economy — is nearly impossible to understand for people trained in economics. William Nordhaus, the recent Nobel prize winner in economics, is no exception to the […]

Saudis Vow To Retaliate With ‘Greater Action’ If Hit With Sanctions

Nearly two weeks since Jamal Khashoggi vanished in Istanbul, the shadow of the Saudi journalist’s disappearance continues to loom ever larger. Now, President Trump is threatening “severe punishment” for Saudi Arabia if suspicions of Khashoggi’s murder are confirmed — and Saudis have vowed to retaliate in kind. “The Kingdom also affirms that if it receives […]

IEA: Expensive Energy Is Threatening Economic Growth

Expensive energy is back and it is threatening global economic growth, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its Oil Market Report on Friday, joining other organizations like the International Monetary (IMF) and OPEC that also expressed this week concerns about mounting challenges to economic and oil demand growth. Brent Crude prices have been holding […]

Twelve More Years To Do Nothing

“The future is changing, with or without us.“ When the latest IPCC report landed with a thud on government desks around the world, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists opined:  “There have been many climate warnings issued in the past few decades, but the latest one is more like an air-raid siren than an alarm clock […]

Could The Clash Over Khashoggi Spill Into Oil Markets?

It looks like the United States and Saudi Arabia are heading for a major spat over the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and Saudi citizen who had been living in the United States. As always with questions of Saudi Arabia, this leads to concern about the oil market. If relations worsen between the […]

Oil Company Headquarters Make a Powerful Statement

The Lakhta Center in St. Petersburg, Russia, will be the new headquarters of Gazprom.CreditCreditAnton Vaganov\TASS, via Getty Images   Striking headquarters have long been synonymous with energy companies for canny, unabashedly capitalist reasons, said Marc Kushner, a partner at the architecture firm Hollwich Kushner. “Great architecture by great architects is a way to physically manifest […]

The global economic impact of $100 oil ‘isn’t trivial’: Here are the likely winners and losers

Oil prices have surged more than 25 percent this year, prompting investors to bet that a return to triple-digits could be just around the corner. President Donald Trump’s administration is scheduled to impose crude sanctions against Iran from November 4. “Overall we would put an oil shock in the top three of our concerns over […]

Ex-US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia: ‘This Is the Worst Moment in US-Saudi Relations Since 9/11’

<span data-mce-type=”bookmark” style=”display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;” class=”mce_SELRES_start”></span>   Former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Robert Jordan said on MSNBC today, “I think this is the worst moment in U.S./Saudi relations since 9/11.” The discussion, of course, centered around the disappearance and likely murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. He hasn’t been seen […]

Ban Saudi Oil

Alfred Eisenstaedt Egyptian Fishing Boats. Suez Canal near Port Said 1935  According to Middle East Eye, Richard Branson, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Economist editor-In-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, New York Times, Financial Times, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshah, Viacom CEO Bob Bakish and AOL founder Steve Case have all withdrawn from Saudi […]

China Replaces Venezuela Oil With Canada Imports

Chinese refiners are buying more and more very cheap heavy Canadian crude oil to make up for the dwindling supply of Venezuela’s heavy grades as China’s road construction sector—a key consumer of the heavy oil’s bitumen yield—is booming. China purchased 1.58 million barrels of heavy Canadian crude oil for loading in September, up by nearly […]

Major world cities are making cars a thing of the past

Friday, October 12, 2018, 5:03 PM – As global population increases, so does the number of cars in our city streets and roads. Engineers, policy makers, scientists, and urban planners around the globe have been brainstorming ways in which cities can be more pedestrian-friendly while lowering CO2 emissions. A good number of large cities worldwide […]

‘Expensive Energy Is Back:’ Why the World Should Prepare for Higher Prices

Energy prices may soon rise, but not for anything to do with Peak Oil—the theory that production will soon reach a peak and begin to fall—the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts in its Oil Market Report released Friday. Overall supply has actually grown to record highs of over 100 million barrels a day thanks to […]

How Many People Have Lived on Earth?

This article is an updated version of one of the most popular features on PRB’s website, estimating the number of people who have ever been born. We first made this estimate in 1995, with updates in 2002 and 2011. “Modern” Homo sapiens (that is, people who were roughly like we are now) first walked the Earth […]

The Geopolitics of Petroleum

Petropolitics Presentation by G. Chia to ReNew/ATA group on 27/9/18:   ADDENDUM: I mentioned the main feature of capitalist banking is that it charges interest on debt. The other key feature is that it creates money (for new loans) out of nothing, the so-called fractional reserve banking system.   ERRATA: APOC was the abbreviation for […]

100 Million Barrels: The World Hit a Daily Oil and Liquids Record

The world is pumping out more oil and other petroleum liquids than ever before. Global supply rose to 100.3 million barrels a day in the third quarter, the International Energy Agency said Friday in its monthly oil market report. Output, which includes crude oil, natural gas liquids, biofuels and refinery processing gains, was 2.3 million […]

Exxon: Tapping Algae and Plant Waste to Fuel a Sustainable Energy Future

How scientists are tapping algae and plant waste to fuel a sustainable energy future. ⌃ Cloudy days don’t come often to Calipatria, Calif. This small town, nestled in Southern California’s Imperial Valley, sees only three inches of rain each year. Sunlight beats onto its parched beige soil, pushing temperatures past 100 degrees. Yet just above […]

Donald Trump Is Rerouting the World’s Oil Tankers

U.S. President Donald Trump is redirecting global oil flows. West African and Latin American producers are sending ever-growing volumes of crude to China. America’s exports to the Asian country have slumped in favor of its neighbors. There’s an urgent global need to find replacement barrels for Iran’s, whose exports might just collapse next month. The […]

Oil flowing at new site within petroleum reserve in Alaska

Oil is flowing from a drill site in what is now the farthest-west producing site on Alaska’s North Slope, ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc said on Tuesday. Production at Greater Mooses Tooth 1, a prospect on the western edge of existing Arctic Alaska oil development, started last Friday, ConocoPhillips said. Production at GMT 1 is expected to […]

World’s largest fusion facility to see ‘light’ by 2025

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the worlds largest experimental fusion facility in which India is a scientific partners, will start generating “a new, clean, safe and unlimited light” by 2025, its Director General, Bernard Bigot has said. ITER aims to prove that fusion power can be produced on a commercial scale. If successful, generations […]

Saudi Writer Was Killed and Dismembered in Istanbul Consulate by Hit Squad Deployed by Saudi Leadership

Top Saudi leaders deployed a 15-man hit squad to lie in wait for dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi inside Riyadh’s consulate in Istanbul, The New York Times said in an explosive story. Among the assassination team was a forensic expert who brought a bone saw to dismember Khashoggi’s body after killing him, the Times reported on […]

Forget cars, plastics could soon become the ‘single most important driver’ of oil demand

Huge potential for bioenergy to grow: IEA   7:40 AM ET Mon, 8 Oct 2018 | 02:32 Petrochemical products like plastics will become the most prominent driver of oil demand over the coming years, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) told CNBC Monday. “When we discuss oil demand, peak oil demand (and) oil […]

What if oil goes to $100?

Brent is expected to peak at $95 per barrel (/bbl) by the end of Q2 2019, said the Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML), citing a forecast by Francisco Blanch and team and analysing the impact on  global growth of an even larger and more sustained oil spike. The analysis specifically discusses the factors that […]

The Russian Oil Decline

Oil Supply Tailspin I have previously explained the breakdown of global crude oil production. As the date for renewal of US sanctions against Iran approaches (November 4), the market presumes there will be constriction on the supply side moving forward. Supply is driven less by aggregate production and more by how much volume actually makes […]

Saudi-Russian Cooperation Marks New World Order For Oil

Global oil prices are continuing their upward trajectory amid concerns that more Iranian barrels will be removed from the market once U.S. sanctions hit the country’s energy sector Nov. 4. Oil market jitters are also being exacerbated by supply disruption problems in Venezuela, Nigeria and Libya—all OPEC members. Additionally, geopolitical factors are putting upward pressure […]

A $240 Per Gallon Gas Tax To Fight Global Warming?

A new U.N. report suggests a $240 per gallon gas tax equivalent is needed to fight global warming. The U.N. says a carbon tax would need to be as high as $27,000 per ton in the year 2100. If you think that’s unlikely to ever happen, you’re probably right. A United Nations special climate report […]

Is Saudi Arabia The Middle East’s Next Failed State?

Reports are growing that Muhammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s hyperactive crown prince, is losing his grip. His economic reform program has stalled since his father, King Salman, nixed plans to privatize 5 percent of Saudi Aramco. The Saudi war in Yemen, which the prince launched in March 2015, is more of a quagmire than ever […]

Why American Democracy Was So Easy To Destroy

As I perused the headlines today, I was amused and saddened — a strange feeling — to see endless articles lamenting the death of democracy in America. They are perfectly right, of course — American democracy is taking its last few breaths, fighting for life. Now, those of how’ve studied and lived through social collapse have been warning of precisely such […]

True Revolution

A radical change in human behavior away from its patterns of oppression, exploitation, war and ecocide will necessarily involve a drastic transformation in humanity’s relationship with thought. I’ve been saying this over and over again in different ways for a long time now, and yet I still get criticisms saying that I have useful insights […]

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