Exxon To Produce All Of Its Oil Despite Peak Demand Fears

ExxonMobil was forced to finally acknowledge the possibility that future climate change policy could lead to peak oil demand, a serious threat to the company’s operations over the long-term. In response to a shareholder resolution passed last year, the oil major just released a report that recognizes the danger of peak oil demand. By 2040, […]

Oil World Turns Upside Down as US Sells Oil in Middle East

The United Arab Emirates, a model Persian Gulf petro-state where endless billions from crude exports feed a giant sovereign wealth fund, isn’t the most obvious customer for Texan oil. Yet, in a trade that illustrates how the rise of the American shale industry is upending energy markets across the globe, the U.A.E. bought oil directly […]

The Shale Boom Might Not Last Long

U.S. shale is growing at a scorching rate, but will the shale industry be around for the long haul? A new study calls into question the heady projections for shale oil and gas, arguing that expectations of huge levels of production for decades to come are based on shaky assumptions. The Post Carbon Institute’s report […]

Saudi Arabia: One-time ‘swing producer’ becomes ‘swayed producer’ of oil

© Getty Images Oil prices have reached the $70-a-barrel mark, their highest since December 2014, but neither Saudi Arabia nor Russia is shouting with glee. That’s because it remains to be seen whether the oil market has achieved price stability for awhile. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih this month spoke of the “fragility of the market.” He […]

The Great Crude Oil Fireball Test

If all goes well, a massive fireball of hydrocarbons will ignite in the New Mexico desert some time in the next year. It will be part of a multiyear Department of Energy research project to understand whether the chemical composition of unconventional crude oils changes the risk they pose to the nation’s highways, pipelines, and […]

Heinberg: U.S. Energy Abundance for Now— But Don’t Peek Behind That Curtain!

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the U.S. Department of Energy is about to release its Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) 2018, with forecasts for American oil, gas, and other forms of energy production through mid-century. As usual, energy journalists and policy makers will probably take the document as gospel. That’s despite the fact that past AEO reports […]

Iran Can Boost Output Fast If OPEC Ends Cuts

Country can add 100,000 barrels daily within a week: Zanaganeh OPEC, allied suppliers to meet in June to assess crude market Bijan Namdar Zanganeh Photographer: Akos Stiller/Bloomberg Iran can swiftly increase production of crude if OPEC decides to scrap limits on global output when the group meets next in June, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh […]

Peak Fracking

What the Frack? a short term, toxic bubble fracking is a toxic, desperate effort to maintain natural gas and petroleum supplies. Conventional oil peaked in the USA in 1970 and conventional natural gas peaked in 1973. Fracking has not raised domestic oil production above this level, although the conventional natural gas peak has been surpassed, […]

Richard Zeits On Ten Million BOPD And What It Means For The US, Saudi Arabia

I have a fairly long post with updates regarding all the hand-wringing about “decreased conventional discoveries” and how that will lead to a scarcity of oil in the “near future.” Some refer to this as “peak oil.” Richard Zeits has an incredibly good column today over at SeekingAlpha further suggesting that “peak oil” will be […]

Russia Struggling To Expand Arctic Oil Production

Oil production from Russia’s Arctic region increased in 2017 as new onshore developments and the only offshore producing platform ramped up production. But challenges in Russia’s arctic remain. Last year, production from onshore fields in Yamal-Nenets autonomous region in northern Russia contributed the most to the rise in oil production in the Arctic. Output from […]

Hydraulically fractured horizontal wells account for most new oil and natural gas wells

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on DrillingInfo Inc. and IHS Markit In 2016, hydraulically fractured horizontal wells accounted for 69% of all oil and natural gas wells drilled in the United States and 83% of the total linear footage drilled. The combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has increased the rate of recent […]

Revisiting Peak Oil; entering the era of abundant oil

Rather than witnessing peak oil supply or oil scarcity, we are now seeing a flood of new oil supplies across the world. Rather than worrying about where all the oil we will need in the future is going to come from, we are now talking about when global oil demand will peak. The timing of […]

Why Canada Is The Next Frontier For Shale Oil

The revolution in U.S. shale oil has battered Canada’s energy industry in recent years, ending two decades of rapid expansion and job creation in the nation’s vast oil sands. Now Canada is looking to its own shale fields to repair the economic damage. Canadian producers and global oil majors are increasingly exploring the Duvernay and […]

Is This The World’s Most Critical Pipeline?

The Southern Gas Corridor, connecting Azerbaijan to the world’s largest economic block, is one of the most important infrastructure pipeline projects worldwide, bringing Caspian gas into Europe. Europe wants to become less dependent on Russian gas and use more clean energy, taking advantage of the technological advances made in the renewables sector, along with the […]

The Dark Side of America’s Rise to Oil Superpower

The last time U.S. drillers pumped 10 million barrels of crude a day, Richard Nixon was in the White House. The first oil crisis hadn’t yet scared Americans into buying Toyotas, and fracking was an experimental technique a handful of engineers were trying, with meager success, to popularize. It was 1970, and oil sold for […]

Technology has pushed oil supply from decades to centuries

Technological advances and innovation change every industry, and energy is no exception. In 2008, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) was estimating that crude oil production in 2020 would be 13.4 quadrillion British thermal units (quads) and would fall to 12.0 quads in 2030. In the most recent estimates (from EIA’s 2017 Annual Energy Outlook), 2020 […]

Oil producers will cooperate beyond 2018, says Saudi Arabia

Global oil producers are in agreement that they should continue cooperating on production after their deal on supply cuts expires at the end of this year, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Khalid al-Falih said on Sunday. FILE PHOTO: Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Khalid al-Falih addresses a news conference after an OPEC meeting in Vienna, Austria, November […]

IEA prediction of explosive U.S. oil growth stokes OPEC fears

OPEC’s fear that another surge of shale oil could neutralize its production cuts might be coming true. U.S. oil output is set for “ explosive” growth this year as prices rally, the International Energy Agency said on Friday. That was just one of a chorus of voices from Goldman Sachs group Inc. to OPEC itself […]

Venezuela Has Some Bad News and Some Really Bad News

I think we can all agree that, absent a war or some deliberate strategy, a 14 percent drop in a country’s oil production in the space of one year is not a good thing. Even worse, though, is a 29 percent drop. These two realities, both undesirable, were presented for Venezuela in OPEC’s latest monthly report, […]

The World’s Oil Kings Are Under Threat

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown in the world’s biggest oil market. Middle East producers who for decades reigned as the undisputed leaders of oil sales to Asia are sensing a threat to their dominance, which is goading them to review age-old habits. Before the U.S. shale boom and the biggest price crash […]

‘Relentless’ growth could see the US topple Russia, Saudi Arabia as world’s largest oil producer

“This year promises to be a record-setting one for the U.S.,” the IEA said in its closely-watched report published Friday The latest monthly report from the IEA comes at a time when crude futures have climbed to highs not seen since the early days of a slump in December 2014 One of the main beneficiaries […]

What’s The Limit For Permian Oil Production?

The ‘hottest shale play’ has been the media’s favorite cliché for the Permian Basin over the past year. And while cliché, the basin straddling West Texas and New Mexico has lived up to this description—its oil production, unlike that in other basins, did not fall off a cliff during the downturn, it recently beat its […]

Million Barrels Per Day Could Go Offline In 2018

Venezuela’s oil production has been falling for years, but 2018 could mark a new, darker chapter for the South American nation.   Late last year, Venezuela’s government defaulted on millions of dollars’ worth of debt, with larger and more significant payments maturing this year. The ability to service billions in debt payments this year is almost […]

The world is not awash in oil yet


The past seven years were both very exciting, and very difficult for the global energy markets. Today’s market faces two key challenges, both the product of human innovation and technological advancement. The first is the challenge faced by oil producers to rebalance the market amid new supplies from unconventional sources due to new and improved […]

Shadows picked up by satellites suggest Saudi Arabia underreported its oil stores last year

Saudi Arabia reported falling oil reserves last year and agreed as part of OPEC to extend production cuts into 2018. LONDON — Satellite imagery of two of Saudi Arabia’s largest oil refineries suggests the kingdom may have underreported its oil stores in the first half of 2017. Satellite images gathered by the tech startup Bird.i […]

Will Oil Majors Really Sink Money Into America’s Waters?

Energy dominance begins at home, and that includes any beachfront property you might have. The Interior Department unveiled on Thursday a draft proposal for leasing areas of the U.S. outer continental shelf for oil and gas drilling between 2019 and 2024. As five-year plans go, it’s an ambitious one, envisaging leasing on fully 25 out […]

America could become oil king of the world in 2018

The United States is poised to ramp up crude oil production by 10% in 2018 to about 11 million barrels per day, according to research firm Rystad Energy. Surging shale oil output should allow the United States to dethrone Russia and Saudi Arabia as the planet’s leading crude oil producer, Rystad predicted in a recent […]

New Pipeline Doubles Russian Crude Oil Supply To China

Russia quietly doubled its crude oil export capacity to China in the new year when it launched a new pipeline, cementing its position as the number one supplier of crude to its Asian neighbor. The extension of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean, or ESPO, oil pipeline between Russia and China started operating on January 1, doubling […]

Russia Boosts 2017 Crude Oil Production To 30-Year High

OPEC’s crude production held steady in December as the group approached a fresh year of output curbs in full compliance with its supply deal. The 14 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries pumped 32.47 million barrels a day, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts, oil companies and ship-tracking data. Libya saw […]

US Shale Can’t Offset Record-Low Oil Discoveries

The U.S. shale resurgence has been one of the main themes in oil markets this year, while OPEC’s production cut deal to deplete the oil overhang and boost oil prices has been the other key development in 2017. U.S. shale production is expected to grow over the next few years as the companies that survived […]

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