Water Shortages Will Limit Global Shale Gas Development, Especially in China

If all the world’s theoretically recoverable shale gas could be developed, our supply of clean-burning natural gas would expand 47 percent—lowering both greenhouse gas emissions and energy prices, according to estimates from the Washington-based World Resources Institute. The hitch is that the process for extracting shale gas, called hydraulic fracking, sucks up as much as […]

Aging oil fields can turn the Arabian Peninsula into a powder keg

If one studies the world’s oil resources and oil production then the Arabian Peninsula is of central interest. The remaining monarchies of the region have established the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). This was formed in 1981 as a response to the Iranian Revolution and Iraq’s attack on Iran. The GCC is comprised of Saudi Arabia, […]

US Now World’s Leading Natural Gas Producer

According to the BP 2014 statistical world energy review, the U.S. has achieved world-leading natural gas production, by reaching a new all-time high of 328 billion cubic feet per day (BCPD). World usage of natural gas is about 24% of all primary energy consumed, behind oil’s 33% and coal’s 30%. Over the past five years, […]

Russia, China Begin Construction Of World’s Largest Gas Pipeline

If after months of Eurasian axis formation, one still hasn’t realized why in the grand game over Ukraine supremacy – not to mention superpower geopolitics – Europe, and the West, has zero leverage, while Russia has all the trump cards, then today’s latest development in Chinese-Russian cooperation should make it abundantly clear. Overnight, following a […]

Fracking: Will it save us from peak oil?

There is a boom of shale oil production going on in the US? Is peak oil dead?

Why The Shale Revolution Is Not About To End

Doubts about the sustainability of the North American oil and gas boom centre on rapidly declining output from many shale wells after they are initially drilled. Shale sceptics point to the need to drill an ever-increasing number of new holes just to replace the declining output from existing wells, let alone expand production. At some […]

Shell Submits a Plan for New Alaskan Arctic Oil Exploration

Royal Dutch Shell submitted a plan to the federal government on Thursday to try once again to explore for oil in the Alaskan Arctic, following years of legal and logistical setbacks as well as dogged opposition from environmentalists. While the plan is just a first step in the process, it reflects the energy potential in […]

Norway to Cut Oil-Production Forecasts as Costs Delay Projects

Norway, western Europe’s biggest oil producer, will probably cut its long-term forecast for crude production as companies reduce spending to counter rising costs and improve shareholder returns. As investments in Norway’s oil industry fall after a peak this year, production beyond 2015 will be lower than expected, according to Bente Nyland, head of the Norwegian […]

Saudi Aramco Chief Executive Warns on Oil Supply

The chief executive officer of Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil producer, said Monday that worries such as rising oil-sector costs and global turmoil could lead to a lack of oil supplies down the line, if oil companies fail to make sufficient investments. “The factors I just highlighted are likely to put downward pressure on […]

Saudi Aramco Plans To Invest $40B A Year For The Next Decade

Saudi Aramco plans to invest $40 billion a year over the next decade to keep oil production capacity steady and double gas production, CEO Khalid Al-Falih says. Argentina and Mexico’s governments are setting a trend in Latin America that should extend through 2020 toward maximizing rather than nationalizing oil and gas resources, making the region […]

Mexico’s Pemex Lowers Expected Oil Output for 2014

Mexico’s state-owned oil company Petróleos Mexicanos said Friday that crude-oil output this year would fall to about 2.35 million barrels a day after accounting for water and other impurities coming out of its fields in increasing quantities. Pemex, as the company is known, said crude-oil measured at the wellhead in the January-to-July period averaged about […]

Kurdish Oil Breakthrough Said to Enable Quadrupled Export

Iraq’s Kurds, who have defied the central government by selling oil independently, are working to quadruple the capacity of their export pipeline within months, according to an official with knowledge of the situation. The Kurdistan Regional Government, or KRG, more than doubled daily capacity to 300,000 barrels on its pipeline to Turkey as of yesterday […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: When?

For those following the world oil production situation, it has been clear for some time that the only factor keeping global crude output from moving lower is the continuing increase in U.S. shale oil production mostly from Texas and North Dakota. Needless to say once the fabled “peak” comes, oil and gasoline prices are certain […]

American Oil and Natural Gas: Crushing it

Energy Rich U.S. States Saw Fastest Economic Growth in Late 2013 Wall Street Journal: U.S. economic growth accelerated in the second half of 2013 before unexpectedly contracting early this year. But growth late last year was uneven across the nation, with some energy-rich states leading the pack while economies slowed in New England and on […]

Potential oil window is last gasp for Utica Shale

  Jim McKinney, senior vice president and general manager from EnerVest, a Houston-based company, said his company believes that with changes in drilling techniques, activity will increase in the oil-rich northern part of the Utica Shale, which includes Trumbull County. “When companies first drilled, they were using the same techniques they were using in the […]

Islamic State may be smuggling its oil to export markets

Iraq said on Wednesday it was troubled by reports that Islamic State militants were smuggling oil to export markets and warned the purchase of such supplies could help the group fund its operations. Iraq reiterated that only the Ministry of Oil was authorized to carry out sales – an apparent swipe at the Kurdish region […]

Raymond James Labels Dry Holes a ’20th Century Problem’

The relentless escalation in well productivity is proving as impactful to exploration and production (E&P) operators as are commodity prices, say analysts with Raymond James & Associates Inc. The production growth largely has been credited to the discovery of new resources and the elevated rig count, noted analysts John Freeman, J. Marshall Adkins and Praveen […]

UK oil and gas forecasts ‘incredibly pessimistic’

Scottish government attacks OBR forecast on amount of cash it expects to be raised from North Sea oil and gas Forecasts of future revenues from North Sea oil and gas by an economics watchdog have been described as “incredibly pessimistic” and could be six times lower than the actual levels, according to a report. The […]

Mexico Oil Output Bloated by Water Barrels

Petroleos Mexicanos, facing a 10th straight year of production declines, is including water in its oil output and may revise previously reported data, according to a company official briefed on the matter. A record gap this year between reported output and what the state-owned company processes is partly explained by measuring systems at older fields […]

China’s National Effort in Oil and Gas Fracking Fails

China’s “economic miracle” faces an existential threat now that the nation is the world’s largest importer of oil. The Chinese central authorities mandated a $275-billion crash investment in fracking to develop cheap energy from China’s 30 trillion cubic meters of natural gas trapped in the world’s largest shale fields. But China’s effort to knockoff America’s […]

OPEC’s 165th meeting: ”Everybody is happy”

On 11 June OPEC held its 165th meeting in Vienna and the organisation’s 12 members decided to maintain its production volume of 30 millon barrels of oil per day (Mb/d). The meeting is reported in the OPEC Bulletin 6/14. They also decided to extend Abdalla Salem El-Badri’s term as general secretary of OPEC until the […]

Norway’s oil production up 8 percent

Oil production from Norway, one of Europe’s top producers, in July was 8 percent higher than the previous month, the government said Thursday. The National Petroleum Directorate, a government regulator, said preliminary production figures for July show an average daily production of 1.93 million barrels of oil, natural gas liquids and condensate, about 8 percent […]

Can Pemex Handle New Oil Reserves in Mexico?

“Foreign Affairs” Editor Gideon Rose and Bloomberg’s Olivia Sterns examine Mexico opening up energy reserves to big oil companies. They speak with Tom Keene and Adam Johnson on “Bloomberg Surveillance.”

IEA report implies US crude production may start to peak 2016

The Medium Term Oil Market Report of the International Energy Agency (IEA, Paris),  published in June 2014,  contains a graph which implies that US crude production will start to peak in 2016. Few took notice although the world is continuously occupied with oil and energy related conflicts and wars in Ukraine, Libya and Iraq. So […]

Utica Shale Exceeds 1000 Horizontal Wells Drilled

The Utica Shale continues to make headlines, with its third milestone moment coming last week when the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) released data showing that more than 1,000 horizontal wells have been drilled in the formation. That rounds out a hallmark stretch that’s come over the last eight months. As of Aug. 9, […]

EIA Sees US 2014 Natgas Output Up 5.3% From 2013’s Record

The U.S. Energy Information Administration on Tuesday raised its estimate for U.S. natural gas production in 2014 to 5.3 percent over 2013’s record high levels. In its August Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), the EIA said it expects marketed natural gas production in 2014 to rise 3.71 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) from 2013 to […]

Michael Lynch: Peak Shale Gas Proves As Wrong As Peak Oil

Since the beginning of the shale gas boom, there have been skeptics and uncertainties, which is hardly surprising for a new type of production. How much could be recovered, what were the costs, could processes be transferred from one shale to another, and especially, what impact would high production decline rates have. Quite a bit […]

Mexico Opens Gas, Oil to Foreign, Private Firms

President Enrique Pena Nieto signed into law on Monday new rules governing a historic opening of Mexico’s state-run oil, gas and electricity industries to foreign and private companies. Pena Nieto said the government will let potential investors know by Wednesday which blocks of gas and oil fields will be open for them. The state-owned oil […]

Three ways that oil matters for the crisis in Iraq

For months now, Sunni militants from the Islamic State (better known as ISIS) have been seizing control of large swathes of Iraq. ISIS is now threatening a major oil-producing region of Iraq But it wasn’t until they encroached into semi-autonomous Kurdish territory and near the Kurdish capital of Erbil — an oil boomtown full of Western […]

Tech Talk – Rig Counts in the Middle East

In recent posts about the situation in the Middle East, I have noted the need for Aramco to increase the number of drilling rigs that it must use, since it is now looking for natural gas in their tight sand deposits rather than finding the large reserves that they had hoped in the shale reservoirs. […]

« Previous Page — Next Page »

LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Why the IEA is Wrong About Peak Oil Demand
• Did we inadvertently speed global warming?  
• Venezuela’s Oil Monopoly Eases
• Why Germany is Choosing Natural Gas Over Nuclear Power
• U.S. coal-fired electricity generation decreased in 2022 and 2023

• America Cracks Down on Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Facilities
• Meet America’s Newest Oil Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden
• Is It Time To Refill America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
• Oil prices set to end year 10% lower as demand concerns snap winning streak
• What’s Driving America’s New Oil and Gas Boom?
• China’s peak oil demand bombshell eviscerates Danielle Smith’s energy strategy