Falling global oil reserves: Pricing blip or panic alarm? — Fuel for Thought

For years global oil majors have brushed off speculation that an imminent peak in global oil reserves spells the beginning of the end of the hydrocarbon age. There is a long-term trend of new oil finds and improved recovery outpacing consumption each year, they say, underpinning future output and returns. BP’s latest benchmark energy review, […]

Western Colorado has 40 times more natural gas than thought

Western Colorado has 40 times more natural gas than previously thought, but an immediate boom is unlikely because of low gas prices, government and industry experts said Wednesday. The U.S. Geological Survey said the Mancos Shale formation in Colorado’s Piceance Basin holds about 66.3 trillion cubic feet of gas, up from 1.6 trillion estimated in 2003. […]

Israel’s Leviathan gas field 20% smaller than previously thought

Former environmental protection minister accuses energy ministry of withholding information from cabinet Israel’s Leviathan offshore field holds 20 percent less natural gas reserves than previously reported, the Israeli Energy Ministry confirmed on Thursday. The ministry said there were 500 billion cubic meters of gas in the reserve, opposed to earlier estimates which said it holds […]

40 Volcanoes Are Erupting Right Now As The Crust Of The Earth Becomes Increasingly Unstable

Have you noticed that our planet has begun to shake, rattle and roll?  Over the past few days we have seen major volcanic eruptions in Costa Rica and Indonesia, and according to Volcano Discovery 40 volcanoes around the planet are erupting right now as you read this article.  Meanwhile, earthquakes continue to shake the globe […]

Oil discoveries sink to lowest since 1952

Oil discoveries in 2015 fell to their lowest since 1952 as energy companies slashed exploration budgets in the wake of the oil price fall, creating a gap for meeting future demand, analysts at Morgan Stanley said on Monday. The oil and gas industry discovered 2.8 billion barrels of oil outside the United States last year, […]

Independent Audit Confirms The Falkland Islands Are A Billion-Barrel Basin

Falklands oil and gas producer Rockhopper Exploration Plc has announced that its net contingent oil reserves have doubled to more than 300 million barrels, and independent experts are now eyeing this as nearly billion-barrel basin. Rockhopper owns more than 50 percent of two oilfields, Sea Lion and Isobel Elaine, which are now estimated to hold […]

Norway Opens Arctic Oil Exploration in Russian Border Area

Norway awarded licenses to 13 oil companies as it expands into an entirely new part of the Arctic Barents Sea in an area previously disputed with Russia in a bid to stimulate exploration at a time of low crude prices. Statoil ASA, Lundin Petroleum AB and Det Norske Oljeselskap ASA were among companies that were […]

Geophysicist Ole Kaven on Man-Made Earthquakes

Apparently things are moving and shaking in Oklahoma, literally. In the past 8 years earthquakes in the “Sooner State” have increased from 2 a year to 2 a day. Is the expansion of gas and oil exploration during that same period of time a mere coincidence? This week on Sea Change Radio, we hear from Ole Kaven, a […]

The Massive Decline In Crude Oil Reserves

I spent a lot of time in 2015 warning that at year-end we would see a huge decline in crude oil reserves. As I have explained in the past, the reason I expected this is because of the relationship between proved oil reserves and oil prices. This relationship is important for understanding oil reserves. Some […]

How To Get Prepared For The Coming Earthquakes And Volcanic Eruptions

All over the world seismic activity is increasing.  In recent weeks we have seen a dramatic earthquake in Ecuador, more than 600 earthquakes have experts extremely alarmed about what is happening to Japan’s southern Island, and 37 volcanoes around the planet are erupting right now.  Most of the large earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that we have witnessed lately have […]

The Saudis may know something about oil the rest of us don’t

Investors may be salivating for a piece of Saudi Aramco when the kingdom of Saudi Arabia sells a small chunk of its gigantic state-owned oil company, probably in 2017. But potential buyers ought to beware. “I think they’re hedging the uncertainty that their oil is going to be worth less,” Matthew Weatherly-White, founder of the […]

Six maps that will make you rethink the world

We don’t often question the typical world map that hangs on the walls of classrooms — a patchwork of yellow, pink and green that separates the world into more than 200 nations. But Parag Khanna, a global strategist, says that this map is, essentially, obsolete. Khanna is the author of the new book “Connectography: Mapping […]

Ignoring the Shale Revolution

On March 8, 1956, Shell Oil research geologist Marion King Hubbert delivered a keynote speech at an American Petroleum Institute meeting in San Antonio, Texas, and predicted that U.S. oil production would peak within 10 to 15 years. The reaction was dismissive. Hubbert was challenging an entrenched belief in American petroleum abundance. Fifteen years later, […]

The peak is back

An extensive new scientific analysis published in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy & Environment says that proved conventional oil reserves as detailed in industry sources are likely “overstated” by half. According to standard sources like the Oil & Gas Journal, BP’s Annual Statistical Review of World Energy, and the US Energy Information Administration, the world contains […]

How Much Oil is Left?

In 2005, 60% of world oil production came from just 500 of the giant oil fields of the world, nearly all discovered over 40 years ago (the rest from about 49,000 smaller fields). Therefore, future world oil production depends on the fate of these giant oil fields, because they represent roughly 65% of the global […]

Mexico’s oil reserves slashed by a fifth

Platts has a look at Mexico’s declining oil reserves – Mexico’s reserves slashed by a fifth. The article also notes that the West’s biggest integrated oil companies also failed to replace, on average, their production with new reserves for a second year running, with just half of all production replenished over the year. “ExxonMobil, Chevron, […]

Lithium: An increasingly precious metal

While the Australian mining boom is now receding in the rear view mirror, one mining sector that is still attracting enthusiastic investment is the lithium mining industry. Western Australia currently produces about 30% of the world’s lithium supplies, and 20 new companies are scrambling about the state trying to take advantage of the boom in […]

Hubbert’s Peak or Yergin’s Plateau?

In 1956, Shell geologist M. King Hubbert correctly predicted that oil production in the United States would reach a peak around 1970. Since his Peak Oil theory fits so well with the Malthusian worldview of “Progressives”, anti-capitalists and anarchists, Hubbert has become a posthumous hero to the Left, an unusual role for a scientist polluted […]

A Personal Appreciation of M. King Hubbert

A recent vacation afforded me the opportunity to read The Oracle of Oil, Mason Inman’s excellent new biography of Marion King Hubbert. I strongly recommend it. But, rather than writing a standard book review (which might cover much of the same ground as this one by Frank Kaminski), I’m inspired instead simply to offer a few words in […]

Kenya got oil: what next?

Back in 2012, the news of Kenya’s oil discovery spread fast. Stock markets roared, politicians gushed and the Twitterati tweeted. Fast forward to today: with $70 off oil prices and at least another four to five years to go until the first commercial production, one cannot help but ask, has Kenyan oil been overrated? With […]

A Maverick Geologist’s Quest for a Sustainable Future

The Oracle of Oil is the untold story of M. King Hubbert, one of the twentieth century’s top scientists. Known as “the father of peak oil,” Hubbert made bold forecasts about crucial turning points in oil supplies—the timing of the peak of production—for both the United States and the whole world. Despite holding one of the top […]

Michael Lynch: Threat To Value Of Fossil Fuel Resources Misplaced

My friend and colleague Marianne Kah, the chief economist at ConocoPhillips COP +0.09% spoke recently about the perception that energy companies would find their reserves had lost their value, since climate change policies would result in them being left in the ground. Jeff McMahon wrote a nice piece titled “What Carbon Bubble?” outlining her views, […]

23 percent increase in earthquakes

The total number of earthquakes across Oklahoma has increased 23 percent from this time last year, though most of the quakes are very small according to USGS data. Oklahoma started the year slowly for the total number of quakes, though now has seen a large jump in the number of quakes registering 1.9 magnitude or […]

Russia has less than three decades of oil remaining

“Our recoverable oil reserves are about 29 billion tons. These are the ones that could theoretically be extracted from the subsoil. Crude oil production (without condensate) preliminarily amounted to about 505 million tons in 2015. Such reserves will last for 57 years,” the head of the ministry Sergey Donskoy told Rg.ru. “However, the volume of proved […]

Coal Shock Model

The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Ron Patterson. The eventual peak in World fossil fuel output is a potentially serious problem for human civilization. Many people have studied this problem, including Jean Laherrere, Steve Mohr, Paul Pukite (aka Webhubbletelescope), and David Rutledge. I have found Steve Mohr’s work the most comprehensive […]

Russia may be running out of oil

Oil production in Russia will inevitably decline by 2035 according to an Energy Ministry report seen by the Vedomosti business daily. The different scenarios predict an output drop from 1.2 percent up to 46 percent two decades from now. The document, obtained by the newspaper and confirmed by a source in the ministry, says by 2035 […]

Tony Hayward’s Oil Firm Cuts Reserves

Genel Energy PLC, the oil company chaired by former BP PLC Chief Executive Tony Hayward, reported its worst loss since listing its shares more than four years ago in writing down the value of its prized Taq Taq oil field whose reserves have proved lower than expected. The U.K.-listed oil company, once an investor favorite […]

No sign of Peak Oil

Nor, for that matter, of peak coal or gas. Fossil fuels, said to be on the path for an effective demise in the rich world later this century, will actually continue to fulfil the major part of our energy needs for the foreseeable future. So says the latest BP Energy Outlook. Gone is ‘Beyond Petroleum’, […]

Low oil price hits exploration sector

When Todd Energy and its partners Cue Energy Resources abandoned the wellsite Te Kiri North-1 in coastal Taranaki last month, it meant there was no longer any exploratory drilling for oil and gas taking place in the region or the rest of New Zealand. In 2013, 32 wells were drilled in Taranaki alone – 18 […]

Just How Accurate Are The EIA’s Predictions?

The EIA recently published the February edition of their Short-Term Energy Outlook. If you follow this month to month, and I do, you will notice their prognostications change a little every month. And over several months those small changes can add up to some rather dramatic changes. Nevertheless, below are several charts with their current […]

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