Oil Prices Will Recover

On St. Patrick’s Day the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that oil production from three of America’s largest shale plays is in decline. The EIA is forecasting that total U.S. oil production will be in decline in the 3rd quarter. The South Texas Eagle Ford, North Dakota’s Bakken/Three Forks and the Niobrara in Colorado […]

Crude oil prices could go as low at $35 per barrel

Crude oil prices took a roller coaster ride dipping down to a six-year low of $42.17 per barrel before bouncing back up and closing the day at $44.66 per barrel. But one expert on the Eagle Ford shale said conditions are ripe for oil prices to drop even further before they can climb back up […]

The Global Economy’s “Impeccable Logic”

Ever since the Occupy movement coined the terms “the 1%” and “the 99%” to point out disparities of wealth and power, the gap between rich and poor has received a lot of attention. In his highly-regarded 2014 book, Capital in the Twenty-first Century, for example, Thomas Piketty’s central thesis is that wealth inequality is bound to […]

Adjusting the Fifth to a Finite Planet, Part II

Among the avenues by which Takings case law could be adapted to the reality of a finite planet are these three: One: Change the default by changing the definition of what constitutes a reasonable investment expectation. It is no longer reasonable for an individual to expect to profit from using property in ways that would […]

Oversupply Driving Oil Prices Down

Oversupply Driving Oil Prices Down – Bloomberg Business

Winners And Losers At The End Of The Era of The $100 Barrel

  What if the world never again sees sustained prices for oil over $100 per barrel? What if—absent exogenous black-swan events like major wars—oil never sells for much more than $50 per barrel for decades into the future? Who wins? Who loses? The short answers: The winners are consumers everywhere, and American business that produce […]

Rising energy prices will challenge western way of life

A little-known Ministry of Defence (MoD) report published earlier this year warns that converging global trends will dramatically affect UK economic prosperity through to 2040. The report says that depletion of cheap conventional “easy oil”, along with shortages of food and water due to climate change and population growth, will sustain rocketing energy prices. Long-term […]

Building an eco-friendly bunker

A bit of a departure from our usual fare, here’s something for the survivalist in all of us and especially for those folks lucky enough to have some land, preferably in a rural area. — Ed. Most of us have a proverbial “plan-B,” or at least a rough idea of how we would protect ourselves […]

US fuel consumption is soaring amid cheaper prices

Fuel demand in Texas is growing strongly as lower oil prices encourage motorists to use their vehicles more and buy larger replacements. Receipts of motor fuel taxes in February 2015 were 6 percent higher than in the same month in 2014, according to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Texas collected almost $284 million in […]

Your Wallet Isn’t Getting Fatter as Economics 101 Comes Unhinged

 Six years into the U.S. expansion, the link between falling unemployment and rising wages — once almost as basic to economic theory as supply and demand — seems to be coming unhinged. The disconnect is puzzling to people like Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. With one of the best growth rates among the 50 states, a […]

Heinberg: Only Less Will Do

When I’m not writing books or essays on environmental issues, or sleeping or eating, you’re likely to find me playing the violin. This has been an obsessive activity for me since I was a boy, and seems to deliver ever more satisfaction as time passes. Making and operating the little wooden box that is a […]

Kunstler: truthinesslessness

Nothing is stable, nothing is straightforward, everything is fixed, and nothing is fixed. O nation of busboys and WalMart greeters, awake and sing! Can an empire founder on sheer credulousness? After last Friday’s jobs report, I think so. For a culture that luxuriates in statistical analysis (and the false idea that if you measure enough […]

Sadly, fossil fuels are about as sustainable as my chocolate supply

WHAT exactly is Transition about? asks Sally Elias. “No, I still don’t get it,” said a good friend, exasperated. “What exactly is Transition all about?” We Dorking Transitioners have always struggled with the challenge of a succinct explanation – a lift-pitch. If you say “We are trying to save the planet”, you sound “boring and […]

Fatal Ignorance

Figure 1: The Triangle of Flop: (chart by TFC Charts, click on for big). Industrial economies are set to go the way of the Dodo as cost of credit proves to be too great for customers to bear. As oil prices fall the drilling industry calls for more support. The rationale is that drillers borrow […]

Peak Oil Pulled a Fast One on Me

I’ll admit that I was completely caught off guard by the recent (and ongoing?) crash in oil prices. It’d be a stretch to say I’m embarrassed by my lack of foresight, although perhaps “dumb-ass” would be a bit deserving. I would say I’m well enough versed with the reality of peak oil: I’ve read perhaps […]

Can the world get richer forever?

Since the dawn of the industrial age, the world has steadily been getting wealthier, despite setbacks such as the Great Depression and the more recent global financial crisis. We make more, sell more and consume more than ever before. Yet, according to the United Nations, nearly three billion people still live on less than $2.50 […]

Adjusting the Fifth to a Finite Planet

Infinite-Planet Thinking is deeply embedded in our political economy. It’s there in the expectation that investments will pay off at a continually compounding rate. It’s there in the unquestioned consensus among elected officials that economic growth is always good–that it can’t possibly ever be uneconomic growth, costing us more in lost natural and social capital […]

Harold Hamm Dismisses IEA Shale Prediction

It might be discussed over coffee, at the gym, or when a group of friends gather on a Friday night. Analysts write about it, pundits prognosticate about it almost hourly on one cable news channel or another. And everyone probably thinks about it, consciously or unconsciously, when they pull into a gas station. Where is […]

Robert Rapier: Is the U.S. Running Out of Crude Oil Storage?

No, despite the popular narrative that we keep hearing, the U.S is not running out of crude oil storage. Yet there are those who are predicting that oil prices are going to fall to $20 or $30 a barrel, pointing to the crude oil storage numbers and suggesting that we are near maximum capacity and […]

US crude stocks grow, likely to continue building

U.S. commercial crude oil stocks rose 4.5 million barrels during the week ended March 6, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data showed Wednesday. Analysts surveyed by Platts on Monday had expected crude oil stocks to increase 4.2 million barrels week over week. At 448.9 million barrels, inventories pushed further into record-high territory. Crude oil imports […]

We will need more food

We have all heard the oft-repeated United Nations’ prediction for global population growth of about 9.2 billion people by 2050. And no one expects a reduction in population until after 2100. With more of us humans bustling around the planet, more food will need to be grown on the same, or even less, land. The […]

The oil price

STRONG demand and tight supply have stoked a rise in the oil price. Last week, it reached more than $60 for Brent (the benchmark price for North Sea oil) and $50 for West Texas Intermediate, the main American price. Last year’s downward slide seems over. Goldman Sachs, a bank which was forecasting oil at $40 […]

Everyone Is Guessing When It Comes To Oil Prices

Predicting and diagnosing the trajectory of oil prices has become something of a cottage industry in the past year. But along with all of the excess crude flowing from the oil patch, there is also an abundance of market indicators that while important, tend to produce a lot of noise that makes any accurate estimate […]

The oil glut and low prices reflect an affordability problem

For a long time, there has been a belief that the decline in oil supply will come by way of high oil prices. Demand will exceed supply. It seems to me that this view is backward–the decline in supply will come through low oil prices. The oil glut we are experiencing now reflects a worldwide […]

Russia to start supplying natural gas to China in 4-6 years

Gazprom, Russia’s largest state enterprise and the world’s leading natural gas supplier, will begin supplying natural gas to China in four to six years, said Andrey Kruglove, the company’s chief financial officer, according to the Guangzhou-based 21st Century Business Herald. The supply is based on an agreement signed by Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corp […]

IEA Sees Fundamental Shifts in the Current Oil Price

The IEA’s latest medium-term oil forecast is a useful update to the thinking behind its current long-term outlook, which predated much of the current price drop. They expect shale output to be relatively resilient and rely on Iraq’s capacity to expand output in spite of significant security risks. When the International Energy Agency issued its most […]

Dollars are worthless without crude oil

In my previous post I drew some parallels between energy and money – and more specifically, energy and banking – and pointed out that when money is at stake, the presence of energy is likely lurking somewhere in the shadows. It was mostly hypotheses and observations I was throwing around about energy and banking, but […]

Agriculture’s Consumption of Earth’s Resources

During my lifetime as a farmer in the San Luis Valley I have watched the Green Revolution from a front-row seat. My family tended fields throughout the industrial development of agriculture. We participated in and benefited from the mechanization of farming. Tractors and hydraulics replaced manual labor. Manufacturers made larger and more efficient farm implements. […]

Oil Today Is Cheaper Than in 1970

In 1970 a barrel of crude oil averaged about $13 a barrel. Adjusted for inflation, that same barrel of oil should cost about $78 today. Instead, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil for April delivery traded at just under $50 a barrel in the noon hour on Friday. With crude prices at multidecade lows, Saudi […]

The World Has Extracted More Crude Oil Than It Knows What to Do With

The world is so flush with crude oil, it is running out of places to store it all. Crude oil producers are currently pumping nearly 1.5 million barrels a day more of the stuff than the world actually needs, according to The Wall Street Journal. American crude-oil supplies are at an 80-year peak, which leaves […]

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