Why Predicting Oil Prices Is Hard

Two years ago this week the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was trading at about $105/barrel (bbl). I certainly hadn’t anticipated such a price, because on January 13, 2014 with the price of WTI at $91.45/bbl, I predicted lower prices for 2014. This was the only of my 2014 predictions that looked questionable at […]

Are Higher Oil Prices Here to Stay?

Bloomberg’s Andy Cosgrove reports on oil prices. He speaks on “Bloomberg ‹GO›.

Worst Economy Since the Great Depression

Many economic indicators are at their worst since the Great Depression … For example, we noted in 2009 that more Americans will be unemployed than during the Great Depression. We noted in 2010: The following experts have – at some point during the last 2 years – said that the economic crisis could be worse […]

‘Catastrophe’ if we don’t leave fossil fuels behind

America has been convinced by fossil fuels industries that we’ve become a new superpower in petroleum. Industry public relations departments and U.S. Energy Information Agency get out this message. A false message. At the turn of century, Richard Heinberg, James Kunstler and others at our local Energy Fair said the peak of oil production was […]

Are We Nearing Peak Oil?

According to Bernstein Research, peak oil – when oil usage is expected to begin falling globally – could arrive as soon as 2030. While this may seem unlikely with low prices and plentiful supply today, it is not only possible, but also necessary. If this sounds like deja-vu for you, it probably is. For years, we’ve […]

Has ‘Glut’ Become a Permanent Economic Fixture?

While the “oil glut” has captured heavy media headlines since the legendary “energy crash” of mid-2014, which diminished oil per barrel price from $100 to $30 during the first quarter 2016, that glut has expanded well beyond “oil” to encompass an ever expanding number of economic entities. These would include a wide range of industrial […]

What Happens When Demand for Oil Peaks?

A gradual move away from oil, will have many benefits for the global economy, write Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of energy and sustainability at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, and Jeroen van der Veer, former CEO of Royal Dutch Shell. According to Myers Jaffe and Van der Veer, a diminished role for […]

Daniel Yergin: Oil Prices Won’t Top $100 a Barrel

Following a stunning decline, oil prices have clawed back near the $50 level this year. Production boomed in the U.S. but is now slumping. Globally, OPEC is in disarray and major producers can’t agree on steps to boost prices. Daniel Yergin is the vice chairman of research firm IHS Inc. He has written two books […]

This is Peak Oil

In the last press review of 2015 I asked if that had been the year petroleum peaked. The question mark was not just a precaution, the uncertainty was really there. Five months later the reported world petroleum extraction rate is pretty much still where it was then. This is not a surprise, but the impact […]

Why Brimming Oil Inventories Aren’t Crashing Prices

Inventories of crude oil and refined products have soared, but seem to be having little impact on prices. Measured in terms of the number of days of demand that could be met by the stored oil, OECD commercial inventories have risen from 57 days at the end of 2013 to 67 days at the end […]

Of Sun, Rain, and Anti-Utilitarianism: A Review of “Degrowth”

So the question is not whether capitalism will survive the technological innovations it is spawning. The more interesting question is whether capitalism will be succeeded by something resembling a Matrix dystopia or something much closer to a Star Trek-like society, where machines serve the humans and the humans expend their energies exploring the universe and […]

Is Food the Last Thing to Worry About?

Our food system is woefully dependent on petroleum, as writers such as Richard Heinberg (1) and Michael Pollan (2) have eloquently pointed out. Soaring food costs have brought on riots in some countries, and in unstable nations, famine continues to be a regular visitor. Fears of empty grocery shelves have made food security the centerpiece […]

Predictions for the change in oil price through to 2017

After a dismal start to the year, oil prices staged a partial recovery, with dated Brent Blend, the global benchmark, rising by almost 70% from a 13-year low of US$26/barrel in January to US$44/b on May 10th. The rally was driven in part by stronger economic data from China and robust gasoline demand in the […]

The Real Economy Is Already In Recession

You are about to see a chart that is undeniable evidence that we have already entered a major economic slowdown.  In the “real economy”, stuff is bought and sold and shipped around the country by trucks, railroads and planes.  When more stuff is being bought and sold and shipped around the country, the “real economy” […]

Why the Economy Should Stop Growing—And Just Grow Up

Listen to the political candidates as they put forward their economic solutions. You will hear a well-established and rarely challenged narrative. “We must grow the economy to produce jobs so people will have the money to grow their consumption, which will grow more jobs…” Grow. Grow. Grow. (Photo: Jessica Lucia/flickr/cc) But children and adolescents grow. […]

Peak Oil: Where To Begin?

The unpleasant truth now and soon is that the ready supply of oil and gas which we almost always take for granted [the occasional price spike notwithstanding] is on its way to becoming not-so-ready. A host of factors now in place are steadily converting possibility into likelihood. Thinking that we’ll just implement a few crash […]

Researchers Just Solved One of the Biggest Problems for World Hunger

Planet Earth is doomed with a fast growing global population and a limited amount of farmland to produce food for everyone. That means that we’re going to need to figure out how to maximize what we’ve got—and researchers just made a major breakthrough in getting the most from our crops. Biologists from Cold Spring Harbor […]

Oil Markets Balancing Much Faster Than Thought

Oil markets are only a few months away from a much closer balance as demand holds steady and supply drops off. Several reports from the three major energy entities more or less say the same thing – the supply overhang that the world has experienced over the past two years should narrow and start to […]

Yergin: Where Oil Prices Go From Here

Leaders of major oil-exporting countries used to talk about “saving the oil” for their grandchildren. But now the grandchildren are in charge, and they want to monetize the oil. That is certainly so in Saudi Arabia, where Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—a grandson of the country’s founder, Abdul Aziz ibn Saud—has launched an ambitious […]

Rethinking the oil addiction

Oil prices become the news number three these days. The first lines are occupied by earning reports for the Q1 and Central bank rates. The black gold of the global industry is climbing to the $50 per barrel. However, the point is still unreachable. WTI changed hands at $46.16 a barrel, close to a six-month […]

Resource Doom Postponed Indefinitely

“Time to Wake Up: Days of Abundant Resources and Falling Prices Are Over Forever” was the title of an urgent report written by the legendary asset manager Jeremy Grantham in 2011. Grantham proclaimed the advent of a resource scarcity “paradigm shift” that was “perhaps the most important economic event since the Industrial Revolution.” As evidence, […]

Michael Lynch: Whatever Happened To The New Oil Paradigm?

Roughly a decade, many analysts argued that oil had entered a “new paradigm” where strong demand and restricted supply would mean permanently higher oil prices. This is not to be confused with either the “Superspike” argument made by Goldman Sachs or the “peak oil” theory; the former was talking about price reaction to supply disruptions […]

Hungry Venezuelans Hunt Dogs, Cats, Pigeons as Food Runs Out

Ramón Muchacho, Mayor of Chacao in Caracas, said the streets of the capital of Venezuela are filled with people killing animals for food. Through Twitter, Muchacho reported that in Venezuela, it is a “painful reality” that people “hunt cats, dogs and pigeons” to ease their hunger. RAMÓN MUCHACHO ✔ ‎@ramonmuchacho A propósito de la noticia […]

Crude soothsayers should recall cautionary tale of ‘Peak Oil’

We view the world in stories. But the story does not always precede the fact. In markets, we often adjust our story, and our view of the world, to fit the fact of a move in the price. And no market lends itself to grand narratives as much as oil. This week at the annual […]

Lawn Farming, the Next Big Thing

Last week’s discussion in the comments section about making hay the simple, old fashioned way led me on to grandiose thoughts. Sounds crazy but the logic is all there. We have 40 million acres of lawns in this country. We spend $30 billion on lawn care. We annually irrigate our lawns with seven billion gallons […]

The real oil limits story; what other researchers missed

For a long time, a common assumption has been that the world will eventually “run out” of oil and other non-renewable resources. Instead, we seem to be running into surpluses and low prices. What is going on that was missed by M. King Hubbert, Harold Hotelling, and by the popular understanding of supply and demand? […]

Pickens: Oil Prices Between $50 and $60

Boone Pickens, BP Capital’s chairman and chief executive officer, discusses the outlook for oil prices with David Westin at the SALT Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada on “Bloomberg Markets.”

EIA Sees Brent Oil Prices Rebounding to $76 Per Barrel in 2017

The price of Brent crude oil should rebound in the next year to about $76 a barrel as consumption continues to increase in coming years, a key U.S. energy agency said on Wednesday. The U.S. Energy Information Administration anticipates increased growth in fuel consumption, largely through growth in emerging economies in Asia, the Middle East […]

Can Cities Be Sustainable?

In a rapidly urbanizing world, cities have become a hot spot for climate action. As urban communities expand, urban planners must increasingly play the role of climate change problem solvers, experts said yesterday. Currently, more than 3.5 billion people live in cities, according to the World Bank. That number is expected to reach 5 billion […]

Of Boomers and Doomers

I suppose this is going over old ground, but I’ve been struck anew recently through various readings and conversations about the nature of techno-utopianism, and the difficulty we seem to have nowadays in breaking out of a boomer-doomer dualism – that is, either the (rather unhistorical) ‘boomer’ notion that human rationality, optimism and ingenuity always […]

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