Why Saudi Arabia Needs An Aramco IPO

At the start of the year, hopes and expectations were that the US and China would come to a relatively speedy resolution on trade and the world economy would be set once again on a moderate path of expansion. These hopes have been repeatedly disappointed. Instead the failure of negotiations has seen the US escalate […]

How serious are oil and gas companies about the energy transition?

New energy’s time has come. It’s less than four years since the Paris Agreement set the long-term goal to limit the rise in global temperature to well below 2°C. Back then, the oil and gas industry had zero appetite to invest in decarbonisation. Paris lit the fuse. I caught up with Valentina Kretzschmar, Research Director, […]

Oil Markets Face Nightmare Scenario

Oil prices rose sharply on Tuesday after President Trump decided to delay tariffs, recognizing the negative impact tariffs would have on the U.S. economy. But by Wednesday, oil prices crashed again, as financial markets see the risk of economic recession rising in spite of the tariff delay. The closely-watched spread between two-year and 10-year treasury […]

Quarter of the World’s Population Facing Extremely High Water Stress

Data compiled by the WRI’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas has revealed that 17 countries representing one quarter of the world’s population are facing “extremely high” water stress, with most located in the Middle East and North Africa. A new generation of solutions is emerging, but nowhere near fast enough. Failure to act will be massively […]

How will we travel the world in 2050?

If the aviation industry was a country, it would rank among the world’s top ten emitters of carbon dioxide (CO₂). Aviation emissions have risen by 70% since 2005 and as demand increases in rich and poorer countries, they’re forecast to increase by between 300% and 700% by 2050. Arresting this incline will be the first […]

Declining Quantities Of Consumers Vs. Increasing Energy Consumption?!?

Summary I compare the UN World Population Prospects 2019 report (split by the World Bank Gross National Income data) vs. the EIA International Energy Outlook 2017. I show the observed data sets from 1980 through 2018 and projected data sets from 2019 through 2050. Imminent declines in the wealthier nations consumer populations are sure to […]

Saudi Aramco Reports $47 Billion in Earnings, a Drop From a Year Earlier

The oil giant Saudi Aramco is prepared for an initial public offering, its chief financial officer said on Monday, reviving the prospects for a long-awaited listing that could be a major step toward diversifying Saudi Arabia’s economy. The state-owned company has been moving toward greater financial transparency as it courts international investors, and the suggestion that it was […]

Nuclear-powered Cruise Missile Likely Source of Russian Explosion

Last Thursday, an eruption at a missile test site on Russia’s Arctic coast released radiation and killed at least seven people, including five nuclear workers. Authorities took days to admit what happened, first spreading disinformation to the public before conceding that there was some kind of malfunction with a nuclear reactor. It appears that the […]

‘Unprecedented’ fires spread through the Arctic

Wildfires are spreading through parts of the Arctic, including Siberia, Alaska, Greenland and Canada at “unprecedented levels,” according to wildfire expert Mark Parrington from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. According to BBC, the increasing number of wildfires affects air quality as well as conditions on the ground. Fires release toxic pollutants and gases into the […]

Kurt Cobb: The wheels come off shale oil

A flurry of coverage about the gloom and outright calamity in the shale oil business appeared last week. Low prices continue to dog the industry. But so does lack of investor interest in financing loss-making operations for yet another season. Plunging stock prices portend more bankruptcies if circumstances don’t change. I received considerable pushback last […]

Saudi Aramco IPO: ‘Fool Me Once, Shame On You, Fool Me Twice.’

Summary Aramco to be “IPO-ed in 2018.” We were “clear all along the timeframe would be 2020 or 2021.” IPO shelved due to a host of problems. KSA has to reform before an IPO. Perhaps Aramco will sell reserves to China to diversify risk. This idea was discussed in more depth with members of my […]

Warnings Grow of Threats to Food and Water Supplies

Separate reports released this week that warn of looming food and water supply crises are the latest calls for countries to act with greater urgency in the face of climate change and the exploitation of natural resources. The planet’s ability to feed humanity is being threatened by the increasing use of land and water resources, […]

IEA Says Oil Outlook is Fragile

The outlook for global oil demand is “fragile” amid growing signs of an economic slowdown, which squeezed consumption growth during the first five months of this year to the weakest in a decade, the International Energy Agency said. The IEA, which advises major economies, trimmed forecasts for oil-demand growth this year and next, and warned […]

Putin covering up nuclear disaster?

Putin’s top secret war missile ‘may have exploded during tests’ in Nyonoska Radiation levels higher in city 18 miles from military accident, causing civil panic Iodine tablets sold out at pharmacies after hospitals advised their consumption   Zircon hypersonic missile capable of hitting US target cities in five minutes Reports claim six casualties had suffered from […]

Peak energy, peak oil, and the rise of renewables

Global energy demand is headed toward a plateau over the next ten to 20 years, as the world focuses on electrification, energy efficiency, and more service-driven economic growth. Read more > Listen to the podcast (duration: 31:40) >

America doesn’t win wars anymore

A month into his presidency, Donald Trump lamented that the US no longer wins wars as it once did. “When I was young, in high school and college, everybody used to say we never lost a war,” Trump told a group of US governors last February. “Now, we never win a war.” Dominic Tierney, a […]

Oil Needs to Fall Below $20 to Compete With Green Alternatives

For the same investment, new wind and solar energy projects combined with battery-powered electric vehicles will eventually produce as much as seven times more useful energy than gasoline cars with oil priced near current levels, according to BNP Paribas SA. Oil will have fall to $9-$10 a barrel in the long-term in order for gasoline […]

Even Boone Pickens is falling out of love with oil

Venerable oil baron Boone Pickens is giving up on oil — sort of. Less than 18 months ago, his fund launched an exchange-traded fund tracking stocks of companies expected to benefit from any increase in Brent crude oil prices. But soon, BOON — the ticker of the NYSE Pickens Oil Response ETF — will be […]

Saudi Arabia Is Steering Ever More Oil to China, Draining the U.S.

Signals from oil tankers last month suggest that Saudi Arabia is sending an ever-larger portion of its crude to China — with the U.S. losing out. Saudi Arabia’s observed exports to China soared to 1.74 million barrels a day in July, the highest since Bloomberg began tracking the tanker shipments in January 2017. At the […]

Humankind’s innate ability to adapt will see us through brighter, hotter, days to come

The Enlightenment’s greatest forecasting error was made by a mostly forgotten Englishman, the Reverend Thomas Malthus. His mistake was due to his failure to account for mankind’s second most important trait; adaptability. The good pastor noticed that humans reproduced exponentially. Starting with merely two humans some four thousand years previously, there were one billion at […]

Oil Has a Millennial Problem

Oil companies have a problem, and his name is Robert Paver. This 22-year-old graduate, along with his fellow students of earth sciences at the University of Oxford, should be natural recruits for an industry that has a long and lucrative history in the U.K. But instead of contemplating a career at an offshore driller, he’s […]

The Twilight of the Monofuture

I’m pleased to say that my post here two weeks ago, on the way that belief in progress depends on a certain kind of historical amnesia, got a lively and mostly thoughtful response. Oh, I fielded and deleted some saliva-flecked denunciations, to be sure, but that always happens when I try to pose hard questions […]

The Bakken Oil Boom Is Facing A New Bottleneck

Bakken drillers could struggle to grow oil production as they may soon run into transportation bottlenecks. The latest snag comes from a new law in Washington State, set to take effect at the start of 2020, that would prevent refineries in the state from unloading oil from a rail car that has a Reid vapor […]

Water scarcity is inevitable, up to 270 million people at risk

Even if the world reduces its population to seven billion by 2100, reduces inequalities, carries out effective land-use regulation, limits intensive consumption of resources and adopts environmentally-friendly technologies and lifestyles, the planet will still face water scarcity. That is the conclusion reached in the final draft of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report […]

Is Andrew Yang the Doomer Candidate?

How will Democratic candidates respond to the crisis of climate change? Over the course of two early August debates, the front-runners outlined their ambitious plans to save the future. Elizabeth Warren pledged to put $2 trillion toward research into energy innovation, creating millions of jobs and producing technology the world can use. Joe Biden promised […]

3 of the Best Ethical Alternatives to Fossil Fuels

In recent years, ethical issues regarding our energy use and systems have increasingly been at the forefront of the global conscious. Growing awareness of climate change has led us to question how we’re producing and using energy, and how sustainable these practices are. These ethical considerations are more important now than ever. The IPCC has […]

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