Iran to Ship $10 Billion in Gas to Iraq, Syria Via New Pipeline

Iran will sign a $10 billion contract tomorrow to export natural gas to Iraq and Syria, the Oil Ministry said on its news website, citing remarks yesterday by Javad Owji, National Iranian Gas Co.’s managing director. The gas will be shipped from the South Pars field via a new pipeline route that may take three […]

Earnings up but output down at many oil companies

The world’s largest oil companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) and Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L), are expected to report out-sized quarterly profits, but investors are likely to respond with a yawn, focusing instead on the companies’ ability to raise output. Analysts at Barclays Capital expect profits at the oil companies and refiners it follows […]

China, rich with coal, seeks more next door in Mongolia to meet its energy needs

Overlooking a deep black gash in the Gobi Desert, Od Jambaljamts watched Caterpillar trucks rumble across the rim of the world’s biggest undeveloped coal deposit — and mused on Mongolia’s good fortune to have the world’s most voracious consumer of coal just a few scores of miles away. “China is so big that even if […]

Our Oil Future may not be as Bleak as it Seems

The wide-ranging Al Fin hit upon a graph that will stun the peak oil believers.  You’ll want to save this.  The flip side is it comes from the International Energy Agency (IEA) – a point that many will use to cast justifiable suspicion.  Yet absolute accuracy isn’t needed, the blocks paint a picture of a […]

Matt Simmons – Peak Oil (2008)

Matt Simmons addressed members of the Minnesota Senate Energy, Utilities, Technology & Communications Committee and the Minnesota House Energy Finance and Policy Division (4 Feb 2008). This is a 5-minute sample from a 2.5-hour presentation. I edited the video, inserting the speaker’s slides and adding markers to help viewers follow along.

Sorry, but Fracking Doesn’t End the Peak Oil Debate

Here’s his peak oil take: A decade ago, the Peak Oil theory attracted a lot of adherents. It postulated that global oil production would peak in 2006, and that the following shortage would send oil prices skyrocketing. Sure enough, in 2008 a barrel of oil shot to $150. It looked like the Peak Oil theory […]

The coming UK energy meltdown

The UK desperately needs a new energy strategy based on a realistic assessment of its assets, its needs and the options available to it. Unfortunately, its freedom for technical and financial manoevre is deeply restricted by its self-imposed Climate Change Act and its commitment to the EU’s 20-20-20 targets. Its technically illiterate, if financially canny […]

The end of cheap coal

World energy policy is gripped by a fallacy — the idea that coal is destined to stay cheap for decades to come. This assumption supports investment in ‘clean-coal’ technology and trumps serious efforts to increase energy conservation and develop alternative energy sources. It is an important enough assumption about our energy future that it demands […]

BP Sets New Voluntary Standards in GOM Drilling

BP Exploration & Production (BPXP) will implement a new set of deepwater oil and gas drilling standards for its operations in the US Gulf of Mexico, demonstrating the company’s commitment to safe and reliable operations. The announcement was made in a letter to the director of the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and […]

Still Mad About Gas Prices? Your Conspiracy Theories Are True

Whatever you’re paying for gas these days—likely just shy of $4 a gallon—you’re right to be angry about the causes of the gouging. Forget supply and demand; budget-busting high oil prices are the result of speculation on “paper” barrels of oil—and manipulation. Those are the conclusions of author, political commentator and retired commodities trader Raymond […]

Tin production — A classic case of limits to growth

The tin production story is out there is in plain sight, but only those directly involved in supplying the tin ore, refining it or consuming tin metal are paying any attention. Bloomberg’s Bear Market in Tin Ending as Shortages Mean PT Timah’s Profit Advances 55% explains what’s going on now, and what’s been going on […]

Saudi oil output hits 9.7m barrels a day

Saudi Arabia raised its oil production by 700,000 barrels per day to reach 9.7m b/d last month as the kingdom took unilateral action to meet higher demand for crude, according to the International Energy Agency. The monthly oil market report, released on Wednesday, provides the first hard evidence of Saudi Arabia’s response to Opec’s failure […]

Global Oil Supply up in June

Both the IEA and OPEC have now released figures for total liquid fuel supply in June (see above), and both show a sharp increase, mainly due to OPEC, particularly Saudi Arabia.  However, levels have still not reached those prior to the loss of Libyan production in February/March (still less returned to the pre-Libya trend). Here’s […]

Oil markets face production shortfall in second half

The International Energy Agency may not have a solution but no one can accuse them of no longer understanding the gravity of the problem. In their June report, the IEA warned that unless OPEC could increase production by at least 1.5 million barrels a day, world oil demand is going to surpass available supply during […]

Iraq signs initial deal to tap natural gas

Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. have signed an initial deal with Iraq to tap natural gas in the country’s south, an oil executive said Tuesday, the latest push to develop Iraq’s energy sector battered by years of neglect and war. The deal, which Iraqi officials have said is worth between $12 billion […]

The Last Drops: How to Bridge the Gap Between Oil and Green Energy

Oil Economy Oil threatens the environment, destabilizes nation, and is in dwindling supply. It also provides 35 percent of the power we use on Earth. Oil won’t run our world forever, but as we make the transition to a greener economy, it will need to run it for at least another few decades. For all […]

Saudi Oil Production Up 450kbd in June

At least according to the OPEC MOMR out this morning.  Well, well, well – maybe we really are going to see 10mbd in July, notwithstanding my increasing scepticism.  Or then again, who knows? The graph above shows five different estimates of Saudi oil production (left scale) with the average being the heavy black line.  The […]

Heinberg: Petroleum Propaganda 101 Develop vs Deplete

The following POP QUIZ is brought to you in part by the American Petroleum Institute: Which sounds better? A) The Obama administration should be doing more to develop U.S. oil-and-gas reserves. Or, B) The Obama administration should be doing more to deplete U.S. oil-and-gas reserves. If you answered “A” give yourself a pat on the […]

Petrodollars: putting aside oil money for a rainy day

With some states seeing a flood of revenues from higher prices and new streams of energy, some of them are looking at the Alaska model of creating a permanent fund to benefit residents. In this week’s Platts Oilgram News Petrodollars column, Starr Spencer looks at the plans being hatched in West Virginia and North Dakota. […]

Iran: Will Spend $18B on O&G Fields in South through 2015

Iran will invest $18 billion in the development of its oil and gas fields in the hydrocarbon-rich south of the country in a 5-year development plan ending 2015, its deputy oil minister in charge of planning was quoted as saying Sunday. The remarks comes as Iran is moving forward with projects to develop its oil […]

Phosphate: A Critical Resource Misused and Now Running Low

If you wanted to really mess with the world’s food production, a good place to start would be Bou Craa, located in the desert miles from anywhere in the Western Sahara. They don’t grow much here, but Bou Craa is a mine containing one of the world’s largest reserves of phosphate rock. Most of us, […]

Deffeyes: “The better is the enemy of the good”

First, it was “finding oil on Wall Street.” Now, it’s “finding oil in the Federal bureaucracy.” The Energy Information Agency has discontinued their International Petroleum Monthly and substituted a New! Improved! data set. Suddenly, world oil production (around 73 million barrels per day) increased to 85 million barrels per day; an increase of 13 million […]

Shale Oil vs. Peak Oil

J. Howard Marshall II had heard it before in his decades as an industry scholar, regulator, and executive: We are going to run out of oil! Marshall recounted one story concerning the eminent petroleum geologist Everette DeGolyer (1886–1956)  in his autobiography, Done in Oil (Texas A&M University Press, 1994): I had one such argument with […]

Ghana’s Jubilee to Reach Peak Oil Output Later Than Planned

Ghana’s Jubilee oil field may reach peak production in August or September, a month later than planned, after boosting output to as much as 80,000 barrels a day since the start of this month, according to Tullow Oil Plc (TLW), the field’s operator. “Output will rise to 120,000 barrels per day,” Gayheart Mensah, spokesman for […]

How long will oil sands producers be disconnected from world prices?

Oil sands producers in Alberta can’t but help notice the nearly $20 per barrel spread between landlocked West Texas Intermediate and global prices such as Brent Crude. Even the U.S. Department of Energy is charging world oil prices (Light Louisiana Sweet – whose price mimics Brent) for the 30 million barrels it is releasing from […]

An alternative version for three of the “key graphs” in IEA’s 2010 World Energy Outlook

Recently Jorgen Randers (best known for being one of the co-authors of The Limits to Growth, 1972) asked me to do some modelling work on the World3-Energy model, an updated version of the classic World3 computer model that was used in The limits to Growth that includes a much larger amount of information about energy. […]

Oil Supply: Peak Oil and the Role of Enhanced Oil Recovery

“Peak Oil” is a reality that will continue to play a critical role in the lives of billions of people who live in the 195 countries of the world who depend on oil. Matthew Simmons, one of the leading and most knowledgeable advocates of Peak Oil before his untimely death in 2010, wrote a highly […]

Brazilian Oil Production

The above graph show Brazilian oil production since 1991 through Jan 2011, according to the Oil and Gas Journal.  You can see that Brazil is a story of steady growth.  Tropical rivers have dumped a lot of organic matter off the coast of Brazil for a very long time, and the result is quite a […]

China’s Imminent Collision With Peak Coal

This is a guest post by Dr. Minqi Li. Dr. Li was a political prisoner in China from 1990 to 1992. He received a PhD in economics from University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2002, and he has been teaching economics at University of Utah since 2006. He has published many articles on peak oil, climate […]

Shell President Odum optimistic on chances for 2012 Arctic offshore drilling

Shell Oil President Marvin Odum has faith that his company can develop vast reserves in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s northwest coast. But he’d like to get on with exploratory drilling to tap into a resource that could be crucial to meeting the country’s energy needs. “That’s an area where working in Alaska has, frankly, […]

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