“Energy Dominance,” what does it mean? Decoding a Fashionable Slogan

“Now, I know for a fact that American energy dominance is within our grasp as a nation.” Ryan Zinke, U.S. Secretary of the Interior (source) “All Warfare is Based on Deception” Sun Tzu, “The Art of War” Over nearly a half-century, since the time of Richard Nixon, American presidents have proclaimed the need for “energy […]

Saudis Slash Oil Output. Get Ready for Trump Tweets

The list of things that President Donald Trump criticizes in his tweets varies from one day to the next. He may soon have to direct his ire to oil prices and the actions of his ally, Saudi Arabia, once again. The desert kingdom is already making good on its promise to slash supply, and the […]

The World’s Most Productive Oil Field

Many people will tell you that the production rate of Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar oil field, which has yielded 5 million barrels of petroleum per day for decades, will never be surpassed. In fact, no other oil field has ever come close to topping the production rate of Ghawar, and up until recently I would have […]

Oil And Gas See Regulatory Windfall Under Trump

Trump’s border wall is at a standstill, his infrastructure plan never got off the ground, and many other policy initiatives are in disarray. But one area where the Trump administration has been ruthlessly effective has been in promoting the interests of the energy industry. His federal agencies have succeeded in gutting a long list of […]

OPEC oil output falls most in two years as Saudi Arabia makes cuts

Before its agreement to cut oil supplies even started, OPEC’s production plunged by the most in almost two years last month. In a sign of the urgency felt by the cartel amid tumbling crude prices, leading member Saudi Arabia throttled back production, according to a Bloomberg survey of officials, analysts and ship-tracking data. The group’s […]

Will Exxon Greenlight This Huge LNG Project?

Exxon has secured long-term purchasing commitments for liquefied natural gas from its Rovuma project in Mozambique, moving closer to a final investment decision on a facility that will add as much as 15.2 million tons of LNG to global capacity. In a statement, the oil supermajor, which also has significant plans in the liquefied natural […]

Oil Sands Rebound in 2019

The Canadian oil industry could be in for another turbulent year in 2019, depending on how some pivotal events pan out. Government-mandated production cuts and the potential startup of a key crude pipeline are among key developments to watch for next year. Here’s a look at each one: Production Curtailments While the announcement of production […]

Drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge One Step Closer

The U.S. Department of the Interior has taken another step towards allowing oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by issuing a draft environmental impact statement for the leasing program proposed for the 1002 Area (coastal plain). In 2017, Congress mandated the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to establish a program for […]

Nigeria To Run Out Of Oil In 52 Years

Nigeria To Run Out Of Oil In 52 Years, Says DPR If new crude oil discoveries are not made to add to Nigeria’s current reserves of 36.971 billion barrels (bbls), the country will run out of oil in about 52 years, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has disclosed. The DPR also explained that the […]

Saudi Energy Minister Confident that OPEC+ Will Extend Cuts in 2019

OPEC, Russia and other oil producers will continue to trim production next year to balance the market, according to Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih. “We will meet in April and I’m certain that we will extend it,” Al-Falih told reporters in Riyadh, referring to the next meeting of OPEC+ members to discuss whether to […]

Oil Plunge Threatens to Leave Even Parts of Permian Under Water

The plunge in U.S. oil prices has wells in some parts of the Permian Basin below break-even levels, threatening to put the brakes on the record flow from the prolific field. Oil produced from the Permian in Midland, Texas, is now trading below $40 a barrel for the first time since August 2016, according to […]

Mexico Targets 50% Jump in Oil Output

Mexico aims to lift oil and gas production by almost 50 percent in the next six years and in January will award infrastructure and drilling contracts to develop 20 fields, state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos said on Saturday. Octavio Romero, chief executive officer of the company generally known as Pemex, said the new government would […]

Market Could be Oversupplied by 2020

The market could be quite tight in the first half of 2019 but oversupplied again by 2020, according to a new industry note from Jefferies, which was sent to Rigzone on Thursday. “The combination of OPEC+ cuts, curtailments in Canadian production and further sanctions-related declines in Iranian exports should be sufficient to drive OECD inventories […]

US to ‘end 2018 as world’s top oil producer’

U.S. crude oil output growth was expected to slow slightly for this year compared with previous forecasts, the Energy Information Administration said on Tuesday, but at a record 10.88 million barrels per day, the nation will end 2018 as the world’s top producer. Output this year was forecast to rise 1.53 million bpd to 10.88 […]

Saudi oil output at 11.1 Mmbpd in Nov.

Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Khalid Al-Falih said Friday the kingdom produced 11.1 million barrels per day (Mmbpd) in November, but should reduce production by 400,000 Bpd in December amid lower demand, Kallanish Energy reports. Speaking at a press conference in Vienna after the 5th Opec/Non-Opec meeting, Al-Falih said loadings for December were falling and customers were being notified […]

Permian Oil Reserves May Be Twice As Big As We Thought

The U.S. Geological Survey has revised the technically recoverable reserves in the Wolfcamp Basin, in the Permian shale play, to 46.3 billion barrels of crude and 281 trillion cu ft of natural gas. That’s up from 20 billion barrels of crude and 16 trillion cu ft of gas in recoverable reserves in late 2016. It’s […]

Saudi America Continues Energy Dominance

In 1956, geologist M. King Hubbert presented a paper to the American Petroleum Institute in which he warned that new reserve discoveries failed to keep up with the rate of fossil fuel consumption. Hubbert accurately predicted the domestic production peak of the 1970s, making him synonymous with the term “peak oil.” However, he failed to […]

What OPEC+ Must Do for Oil to go Above $70 in 2019

OPEC+ countries must cut 2019 supply growth by 1.5 million barrels per day if they want oil prices back above $70 per barrel next year, according to Rystad Energy. “We believe a cut announcement that effectively removes anything less than one million barrels per day of 2019 supply would be interpreted negatively by the market,” […]

Jean Laherrère: Thoughts on the Future of World Oil Production

I have spent my professional career as a geologist-geophysicist involved in oil and gas exploration on every continent, and have been an active participant in the peak oil debate during the past quarter century (petroleum geologist Colin Campbell and I were instrumental in initiating that debate via our article, “The End of Cheap Oil” published […]

The Saudi Dilemma: To Cut Or Not To Cut

To cut and push up prices or not to cut and preserve market share, this is the question that Saudi Arabia is facing ahead of this year’s December OPEC meeting. It seems like just yesterday when OPEC met in 2016 and decided to cut production by 1.8 million barrels daily, including from Russia, to reverse […]

Saudis Won’t Cut Oil Production On Their Own

Saudi Arabia is going to do whatever it takes to stabilize the oil market, but it can’t and won’t do it alone without a collective decision from the OPEC and non-OPEC deal participants, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said on Wednesday. “We are going to … do whatever is necessary, but only if we act […]

At G20, oil kingpins try to fix a new fiasco

Yet again, energy experts have gotten the oil market wrong: Less than two months ago, Brent crude was about $86 a barrel, and the talk was a certain return to ultra-profitable $100 oil. Today, Brent closed at $58.68, down 31% from the peak, after the industry’s worst two months in a decade. Oil’s biggest kingpins […]

The romance of drilling for oil has peaked

When the price of crude oil goes through one of its periodic downturns, as it is doing now, it sends a shiver through the oil industry. History promises that higher prices will return. Until then, US shale companies are under severe pressure and big oil companies wonder about the viability of new projects. There is […]

Oil Falls Below $50 for First Time in Over a Year

Oil crashed below $50 a barrel for the first time in more than a year as Russia signaled little urgency to commit to supply cuts, while U.S. crude stockpiles continue to grow. Futures tumbled as much as 1.8 percent in New York, after sliding 2.6 percent in the previous two sessions. Just days before talks […]

Saudi Output Reaches Record as Trump Presses for Cheaper Oil

Saudi Arabia is pumping more crude than at any time since its first barrel was extracted 80 years ago, responding to pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to keep driving oil prices lower. Saudi daily output reached 11.2 million barrels a day, from 10.8-10.9 million barrels earlier this month, according to a person familiar with […]

Canada Is Now A Land Of Oil Trains

Canada’s oil industry is facing record-low prices for its exports, a glaring lack of infrastructure to bring its product to market, and an uncertain long-term outlook. But none of that is stopping the oil patch from increasing production. And as one pipeline project after another fails to launch, the industry is relying more heavily than […]

Number of wells producing oil, gas declines

The number of wells producing crude oil and natural gas in the United States declined in 2017, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). © Shutterstock Oil and gas producing wells dropped from a peak of 1,039,000 in 2014 down to 991,000 in 2017. The decline can be primarily attributed to advances in technology […]

US shale oil forecasts too optimistic

The fracking of hard-to-reach oil reserves has helped the US regain its crown as the world’s top crude oil producer. But even the International Energy Agency (IEA) is now worried that the shale boom has been overhyped. Since it first came on stream a decade ago, US shale oil has been hailed as the great […]

US Expected to Produce Half of Global Oil and Gas Output by 2025

Relentless American shale development is set to allow the U.S. to leapfrog the world’s other major oil and gas producers, with the potential for the country to account for roughly half of global crude and natural growth by 2025, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday. In its annual World Energy Outlook report, the IEA said […]

In OPEC’s Heartland, Billions Are Spent to Boost Oil Capacity

OPEC members may be weighing oil production cuts again, worried that a slowing global economy will undermine prices, but in the group’s Middle East heartland producers are spending billions to add output capacity for the long term. As the global oil industry recovers from one of the worst slumps in its history, the biggest international […]

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