GE Sees Saudi Energy Sales Doubling as Gas Turbines Cut Oil Use

GE expects to double energy revenue from Saudi Arabia in the next five years by increasing sales of gas power turbines, curbing the amount of oil needed locally to produce electricity. With oil prices around $100 a barrel, Saudi Arabia and other oil producers in the Middle East will try to free more of their […]

Russian May Oil Output Rises to 10.26 Million Barrel a Day

Oil output in Russia, the world’s largest oil producer, climbed 1.2 percent in May from a year earlier, to the highest since October’s post-Soviet record. Production rose to 10.26 million barrels a day, according to preliminary data from the Energy Ministry’s CDU-TEK unit. That compares with 10.23 million barrels a day in April. Prime Minister […]

Gulf Cooperation Council courts new kingdoms

It all started – as many stories do these days – on Twitter. In May, rumours that Jordan and Morocco might be asked to join the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) spurred a flurry of tweets questioning the motives of Saudi Arabia, the main proponent of the project, and speculating on the respective incentives for this potential […]

Floating LNG: The Final Frontier Of The Gas Age

Shell recently announced that their Prelude floating LNG project off north west Western Australia has passed another milestone, with the $US12.6 billion ($11.8bn) project receiving final investment approval. Prelude is expected to produce 3.6 million tonnes per annum of LNG, as well as 1.3 million tonnes of condensate and 400,000 tonnes of LPG. The facility […]

Fracturing fear

A vote in France to ban hydraulic fracturing of oil and gas wells brings new attention to fear as an element in the making of energy policy. France imports 98% of its gas supply. It professes to lead a geopolitical block trying to cut dependence on gas from Russia. It ranks second among European countries […]

Everything you’ve heard about fossil fuels may be wrong

Are we living at the beginning of the Age of Fossil Fuels, not its final decades? The very thought goes against everything that politicians and the educated public have been taught to believe in the past generation. According to the conventional wisdom, the U.S. and other industrial nations must undertake a rapid and expensive transition […]

The CIA Accurately Predicted How Long World Oil Supplies Would Last—in 1978

Perhaps I am atypical, but I’ve always been hypersensitive to what’s going on around me in the real world. Among my earliest childhood memories are the gas lines that followed the 1973 Arab oil embargo; the event which probably planted the seed that sprouted into awareness of peak oil during my fifth decade on this […]

Natural gas is not exactly environmentally clean

If you live in the United States — almost anywhere in the U.S. — there may be a gas well coming to a site near you. Even on property you think you own, a gas well may be on its way. Then there is the problem of how much air and water pollution that neighborhood […]

Shale Boom in Texas Could Increase U.S. Oil Output

Until last year, the 17-mile stretch of road between this forsaken South Texas village and the county seat of Carrizo Springs was a patchwork of derelict gasoline stations and rusting warehouses. Now the region is in the hottest new oil play in the country, with giant oil terminals and sprawling RV parks replacing fields of […]

Pricey oil fuelling dirtier projects

It has often been said that even without a price on carbon there will be a meaningful shift to renewable energy sources once global oil supply peaks. At that point, the idea is that crude prices — along with the price of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel — will begin to shoot up, making biofuels, […]

China’s coal production up

China’s coal production and traffic volume has maintained double-digit growth, and the national coal reserves stood at 200 million tons by the end of April, helping the nation meet the increasing demand for coal, officials said. China produced 1.12 billion tons of coal by the end of April, an increase of 11.1 percent year-on-year, according […]

Past Peak Oil – Why Time Is Now Short

The only thing that could prevent another oil shock from happening before the end of 2012 would be another major economic contraction.  The emerging oil data continues to tell a tale of ever-tightening supplies that will soon be exceeded by rising global demand.  This time, we will not be able to blame speculators for the […]

Global Oil Exports/Imports

Yesterday, I posted some UNCTAD shipping data which suggested that the global oil tanker fleet was expanding rapidly post 2005: The most obvious interpretation would be that the global oil trade was expanding, which is a little counterintuitive, given that global oil production has been more-or-less on a plateau since 2005 and oil exporters have […]

Dr Fatih Birol (IEA) : Peak Oil was in 2006

Dr. Fatih Birol is Chief Economist and Head of the Economic Analysis Division of the Paris-based International Energy Agency. He is organiser and director of the World Energy Outlook series, the IEA’s flagship publication. He is also responsible for providing regular briefing to the Executive Director and Governing Board of the IEA on the economic […]

Facing Up to End of ‘Easy Oil’

The Arabian Peninsula has fueled the global economy with oil for five decades. How long it can continue to do so hinges on projects like one unfolding here in the desert sands along the Saudi Arabia-Kuwait border. On the Arabian peninsula, U.S. oil giant Chevron has launched a $340-million pilot project to extract heavy oil […]

Venezuela threatens to interrupt US oil supply

Venezuela‘s foreign minister warned late Tuesday that it could no longer guarantee regular oil shipments to the United States after Washington placed sanctions on the Venezuelan state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), this week. The spat underscores long-running tensions over what Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez sees as America’s disproportionate, unjust exercise of power […]

Venezuela to Study How Sanctions Will Affect Oil Exports

Venezuela will study how sanctions imposed by the U.S. today will affect its oil dispatches and may not be able to guarantee exports to some U.S. clients in the future, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said today. South America’s biggest oil producer will provide an “adequate” response in the next few days after evaluating how the […]

The Deepwater China Era Begins

China’s first deepwater oil rig launched yesterday in Shanghai. The CNOOC981, which cost $6 billion to develop, can drill in depths up to 12,000 meters — potentially the deepest oil well in history. This is a huge increase for China, which was previously limited to 500-meter-deep seas. The Global Times has more on the geopolitical […]

Sudan’s Oil-Rich Abyei ‘ablaze’ after capture by north

Sudan’s disputed border town of Abyei is ablaze, with gunmen looting properties days after troops from the government in Khartoum entered the area, UN peacekeepers say. The peacekeepers belonging to UNMIS, the UN mission in Sudan, said on Monday that the burning and looting was perpetrated “by armed elements” but it was not clear whether they […]

Iraq to import Iran’s natural gas

Iraq’s ministry of electricity says Iraq has signed an initial agreement with the Islamic Republic to import 25 million cubic meters of natural gas a day for power generation. A spokesman for the Iraqi ministry of electricity said on Sunday that under the terms and conditions of the memorandum of understanding, Iraq will buy the […]

Shell moving ahead with Prelude floating LNG project

Shell moving ahead with Prelude floating LNG project May 20, 2011 , Rick Wilkinson , OGJ Correspondent MELBOURNE, May 20 — Shell Australia has given the green light to its Prelude floating LNG (FLNG) project in the Browse basin off Western Australia. The company announced its final investment decision on May 20 in Perth. Prelude […]

Saudi Oil Output Rises by 7.3% in First Quarter, Al Rajhi Says

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter, increased its daily oil output by 7.3 percent year-on-year in the first quarter to replace a fall in output from other OPEC member countries, Al Rajhi Capital said in a report. The investment arm of Saudi Arabia’s largest lender by market value said today that it expects the […]

A Long Way From Reaching Our Peak

Inspired, among others, by the typically apocalyptic, ecological maunderings of Jeremy Grantham (the renowned investor here providing us with classic evidence of the general non-transferability of specific expertise from one metier to another), the recent overwrought oil market has brought the Exhaustionists out in full force, each plaintively wailing of the dangers of Peak Oil […]

IEA: Urgent Need for More Oil

The IEA Governing Board, at its regular quarterly meeting on May 18-19, examined oil market developments and their impact on the global economy. Despite a near-10% correction since May 5, oil prices remain at elevated levels driven by market fundamentals, geopolitical uncertainty and future expectations. The IEA Governing Board expressed serious concern that there are […]

Saudi Oil Output could Reach 8.9 Million Barrels in May

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter, may pump about 8.9 million barrels a day in May as demand from refiners globally picks up and Japan raises imports of the nation’s oil, a local economist said. “May’s output should show an increase of 100,000 to 200,000 barrels a day from April as markets are well […]

When the oil runs out…

The most pessimistic analysts say peak oil production from all possible sources will be in 2015 and will reach 90 million barrels per day (bpd). Scientists predict the level of 90m bpd will last 30 years, so that major changes will come soon after 2030. And they are serious, for the 90 per cent of […]

Forest fires, floods affect Canadian oil production

More Canadian operators are reporting temporary shut ins of their production and suspension of drilling and completion activity as a result of forest fires near Slave Lake in northern Alberta and spring floods in southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Penn West Exploration said it has temporarily shut in 35,000-40,000 boe/d of production because of the fires […]

A routine OPEC meeting in June suddenly is full of intrigue

It appears that OPEC will have a real president chairing its June meeting: none other than President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, as his country currently holds the oil cartel’s rotating presidency.Ahmadinejad fired his oil minister, Masoud Mirkazemi, last weekend and has taken over the running of the oil ministry on a caretaker basis. The president wants to […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: The Summer Ahead

Despite the recent drop in oil prices, the outlook for the remainder of the year is not good. If the IEA numbers are correct the world is probably burning more oil each day than is coming out of the ground, with the difference being made up from the 2.6 billion barrel stockpiles held by the […]

Looking in the Rear View Mirror

It has often been said that we would only be able to see peak oil by looking in the rear view mirror. It’s well past time for a head-check, so this post provides a quick look back at production over the last five years and at some of the predictions I and others have made. […]

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