Beneath Antarctica, a wonderland of oil awaits

A report in The New York Times published on Monday revealed that the Chinese are aggressively engaged in securing the country’s energy future overseas. The People’s Republic is courting Latin American governments, securing its ties to African strongmen, is building up a military presence in the South China Sea, and has sent hundreds of advisors […]

Peak Russia + Peak USA means Peak World

Since around 2005 many countries have increased their oil production but more have decreased. But the combined production of the United States and Russia have kept the world on a slight uptrend since that time. World oil production jumped in 2011, hardly moved at all in 2013 but it was up by more than  1.5 […]

Of Giants, Super-Giants, And Mega-Giants

Summary The developments in energy in the USA over the last ten years are a miracle. The USA is now and will remain the dominant world energy producer for decades to come. All Americans should know and be proud of the superlative facts of the US energy revolution. Of Giants, Super Giants and Mega Giants […]

Thermodynamic Geoengineereing: The Fourth Way

Geoengineering is the deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climatic system with the aim of reducing global warming. It is most often thought of in terms of carbon dioxide removal or solar radiation management but a third approach using the cooling of ocean surface waters and the surrounding atmosphere with cold water brought up […]

Volcanic eruption could end the world

Mankind is grossly unprepared for a catastrophic volcanic eruption that could kill hundreds of millions of people and cast the world back into a “pre-civilisation state”, academics have warned. The chance of a devastating eruption happening by the end of this century was estimated to be as high as one in ten in a report […]

Oil Find Excites Britain

Oil fever gripped Britain on Thursday after a small company announced the discovery of what it described as “a possible world-class potential resource” in the Surrey countryside south of London near Gatwick Airport. The company, UK Oil and Gas Investments, said an evaluation by an American company, Nutech, of a well drilled by the British […]

Mapping Iran’s Nuclear Program And Oil Facilities

Iran Nuclear “Deal” Post-Mortem, with data courtesy of “The Geopolitics of Iran: Holding the Center of a Mountain Fortress” Mapping Iran’s Nuclear Program And Iran’s Oil Facilities After double overtime negotiations in Lausanne, Iran and six world powers have announced a framework deal that largely covers the key points of a nuclear agreement but that […]

Revisiting the Shale Oil Hype: Technology versus Geology

The press has been all abuzz the past few weeks speculating on what the drop in oil prices will mean for U.S. shale oil (tight oil) production. Pundits have been falling over themselves quoting various estimates of the breakeven cost of production in this play or that, and rushing to be the first to declare […]

Kurdistan has world’s 8th oil and gas reserves

DOR Organization for Kurdistan Oil and Gas Information has recently published a report about Kurdistan Region’s oil and gas sector and announced that Kurdistan Region is the world’s 8th in terms of its oil and gas reserves, and that it will be last place in the world to run out of oil DOR Organization for […]

One earthquake could cut off 70% of California’s water supply

What do you get when you cross a record-setting drought with an earthquake? This question was recently asked on NPR, and it isn’t a pleasant visual. The devastation to the precarious water supply caused by a 7.8 magnitude quake on the San Andreas Fault could sever all four aqueducts at once, cutting off more than […]

JODI, Iraqi Reserves and Ghawar

The JODI data just came in with production numbers for January 2015. I really don’t like JODI all that much but they are about two and one half months ahead of the EIA with their world data. And their data is incomplete so I have to substitute the EIA data for the countries that do not […]

The Oil Age – A new quarterly peer-reviewed printed journal

1. Background & Objectives The journal addresses all aspects of the evolving ‘Oil Age’, including physical, economic, social, political, financial and environmental characteristics. Oil and gas are natural resources formed in the geological past and are subject to depletion. Increasing production during the First Half of the Oil Age fuelled rapid economic expansion, with human […]

The Oil Shock Model with Dispersive Discovery- Simplified

Originally posted at peak oil climate and sustainability Some changes have been made to this post see after the Excel File link.  Below figure 10. The Oil Shock Model was first developed by Webhubbletelescope and is explained in detail in The Oil Conundrum. (Note that this free book takes a while to download as it […]

The Science of Peak Oil

One of the many barbs often pointed at peak oil proponents is that they are constantly shifting the goal posts. Peak oilers are accused of changing the definition of what peak oil actually means, therefore the entire concept of oil production peaking is rubbish. Far from a valid criticism however, this is actually a scientific virtue. […]

Crude Oil: Abundance Wins Over Depletion Theory

While some observers, including oil giant BP, are now predicting a slowdown in U.S. shale oil production as wells are depleted at a faster rate, to be replaced by Middle Eastern output that has lost ground to U.S. sha.. By Andrew Topf In 2008, Canadian economist Jeff Rubin stunned the oil market with a bold […]

How correct were Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrère when they published “The End of Cheap Oil” in 1998?

Desmond Smith posted a comment after my previous blog: “The crash in the price of oil may change the oil market – a look at the IEA’s “Oil Medium-Term Market Report 2015” and it requires a lengthy response. Therefore, I am giving it in this separate blog. 17 years ago, in March 1998, Colin Campbell […]

Huge Oilfields to Boost Kazakhstan’s Crude Output from 2017

Kazakhstan’s currently stagnant oil production is forecast to rise from 2017 after the Central Asian nation’s huge Kashagan oilfield restarts output and the Tengiz project is expanded, a senior energy official said on Wednesday. Kazakhstan, the second-largest post-Soviet oil producer after Russia, lowered oil output by 1.2 percent last year to 80.8 million tonnes. It […]

Where do we look for oil?

In 2008, Canadian economist Jeff Rubin stunned the oil market with a bold prediction: With the world economy growing at 5% a year, oil demand would grow with it, outpacing supply, thus lifting the oil price from $147 to over $200 a barrel. The former chief economist at CIBC World Markets was so convinced of […]

Discoveries of new oil and gas reserves drop to 20-year low

  Discoveries of new oil and gas reserves dropped to their lowest level in at least two decades last year, pointing to tighter world supplies as energy demand increases in the future. Preliminary figures suggest the volume of oil and gas found last year, excluding shale and other reserves onshore in North America, was the […]

Oil, Rare Earths and More: How Long Will They Last?

By sheer limitations of the human brain, it can be hard for us to look past the time span of our own lives—short as they are. I don’t mean to be a downer, but it’s true. Imagine what technology will look like 100 years from now. What about 500? Imagine what transportation will look like […]

Giant Oil Field Spells Promise for Statoil

Johan Sverdrup Field Could Be Profitable Even at Low Oil Prices One of Norway’s biggest-ever oil projects edged closer to production Friday, a field of rare size and potential that officials said could be profitable even if crude prices fall further. The Johan Sverdrup field in the North Sea will start pumping oil by 2019 […]

China’s Deepsea Gas Find Holds Over 3.5 Tcf Reserves

A deepsea natural gas discovery in the northern part of the South China Sea has certified proven reserves exceeding 100 billion cubic metres, making it one of China’s biggest offshore finds, Chinese state television reported. Offshore oil and gas specialist CNOOC Ltd announced the discovery last August after striking high flows of gas in the […]

Oil majors fail to find reserves to counter falling output

* Oil groups produced much more than they found last year * Oil and gas output fell in 2014, echoes trend over past decade * Graphic on oil majors’ output: link.reuters.com/huh93w * Companies now making investment cuts to counter low oil prices   Big oil companies had a poor record of finding and producing oil […]

Arctic Oil On Life Support

Oil companies have eyed the Arctic for years. With an estimated 90 billion barrels of oil lying north of the Arctic Circle, the circumpolar north is arguably the last corner of the globe that is still almost entirely unexplored.  As drilling technology advances, conventional oil reserves become harder to find, and climate change contributes to melting sea […]

Statoil Will Not Drill In Arctic Sea This Year

Norwegian energy firm Statoil will not drill exploration wells in the Arctic Barents Sea this year after a failed campaign in 2014, exploration chief Tim Dodson told Offshore.no. Statoil’s Norwegian exploration will concentrate on the mature North Sea and areas near its Asta Hansteen field in the Norwegian Sea, with a focus on resources that […]

Planetary Boundaries

The Planetary Boundaries framework was first introduced in 2009, when a group of 28 internationally renowned scientists identified and quantified the first set of nine planetary boundaries within which humanity can continue to develop and thrive for generations to come. A Jan 2015 update by the researchers say a fourth of these boundaries – forests – have […]

Shale oil production will level off and we will have a peak in the oil production in 2015

  (Photo: Oil pump east Eagle Frod, K Aleklett) The US Energy Information Administration, EIA, has now made a first forecast of the production of oil from the lower 48 states, the states with fracking. As the decline for individuate wells are very steep the rig count will be a very important factor for the […]

Peak phosphorous is not happening

Phosphorous is an essential ingredient of fertilizer and is a basic building block of all life. Without phosphorous, it’s impossible to grow crops or plants of any kind. Phosphorous has no substitutes, because phosphorous specifically is required for plant DNA, and it would take hundreds of millions of years (if ever) for life to evolve […]

Arctic Explorers Retreat From Hostile Waters With Oil Prices Low

When Statoil ASA (STL) acquired the last of three licenses off Greenland’s west coast in January 2012, oil at more than $110 a barrel made exploring the iceberg-ridden waters an attractive proposition. Less than two years later, the price of oil had been cut by almost half and Norway’s Statoil, the world’s most active offshore […]

Peak Gold Has Arrived

While there is a lot to pay attention to in the markets in the short term, is there a longer-term story in gold that we should be watching? The CEO of Goldcorp (NYSE: GG), Charles Jeannes, recently put forth a case for peak gold. He argued that miners are not discovering as much of the […]

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