OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin + MOMR

The August OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report is out with the OPEC production numbers for July 2014. There were no big surprises and only small revisions in the June data. The OPEC 12 was up  166,000 barrels per day. The increase was due to some Libyan oil coming back on line. Libyan crude only was up […]

Kurds say oil production unaffected by Islamic State incursion

Oil production from Iraqi Kurdistan remains unaffected despite an incursion by Islamic State militants along the autonomous region’s border, its Ministry of Natural Resources said in a statement on Saturday. The United States launched airstrikes in northern Iraq after Islamic State militants advanced to within a 30 minute drive from the regional capital Arbil, prompting […]

Avoiding a new dash for gas

Three things you shouldn’t miss this week Chart: UK open to fracking: Source: DECC Chart: UK gas consumption 2013 by sector: Source: Carbon Brief – data via DUKES Chart: Renewables rising steadily – UK Electricity generation 2013 by source: Source: Carbon Brief – data via DUKES Nearly half the UK is now open to fracking. The latest onshore […]

China Finds Shale Gas Challenging, Halves 2020 Output Target

China has halved the quantum of shale gas it expects to produce by 2020 after early exploration efforts to unlock the unconventional fuel proved challenging, according to an industry website and a government source. China, believed to hold the world’s largest technically recoverable shale resources, is hoping to replicate the shale boom that has transformed […]

Deep Water Fracking Next Frontier for Offshore Drilling

Energy companies are taking their controversial fracking operations from the land to the sea — to deep waters off the U.S., South American and African coasts. Cracking rocks underground to allow oil and gas to flow more freely into wells has grown into one of the most lucrative industry practices of the past century. The […]

Up Close And Personal With A 40-Story Oil Rig In The Gulf

The U.S. is in the middle of an oil drilling boom that few people saw coming. After decades of decline, crude oil production is rising again. Technologies such as hydraulic fracturing in places such as North Dakota are getting . But the Gulf of Mexico still accounts for more than one-fifth of domestic oil production. […]

Egypt, Iran, Jordan Call Off Gas Pipeline Talks

Egypt, Iraq and Jordan have called off talks regarding construction of a gas pipeline as a result of violence, instability and insecurity, reports Daily News Egypt. The goal of the proposed pipeline was to carry Iraqi fuel to Jordan and Egypt or to transform gas to its liquid form in one of the factories operating […]

Marcellus Production Exceeds 15 Bcf/d, to Keep Growing

Marcellus shale gas production, for the first time ever recorded, exceeded 15 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) through July, and further anticipated production growth will allow Marcellus gas to meet demand in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and several other U.S. states. Located primarily in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, the Marcellus shale play is the United […]

The Secret, Simple Reason For High Oil Prices

Why are oil prices so high, after inflation above 1980 record highes? Peak oil enthusiasts have explanations (usually wrong, like their forecasts). There are many factors at work, including one simple but hidden reason: American foreign policy. The USA has played a large role in the suppression of oil production in three major oil producers, including […]

Egypt Plans to Build Channel Parallel to Suez Canal

Egypt plans to dig a new channel parallel to the Suez Canal in an $8.4 billion venture to boost capacity at the vital global waterway, marking a new era of regeneration after the 2011 revolution. Construction of the new passage is scheduled to take three years, though President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has ordered it to be […]

The Amazing Story of America’s Coming Energy Independence

Dependence on foreign oil has long been an economic and political concern for the U.S., but over the past decade, the country has quickly reduced that reliance as domestic drilling exploded and consumers began using less fuel. By late next year, the U.S. will begin exporting a significant amount of natural gas, something it has imported […]

Has the Gulf of Mexico Hit Peak Oil?

There are enough articles on the “myth of peak oil” floating around the Internet to fill a boo. There are enough books on the subject to fill a small library. One of the common threads throughout these publications is their lack of credible sources, because not only is peak oil real, but we’re rapidly approaching […]

Oil companies cooling on Arctic leases

Oil companies that had locked up more than 1.3 million acres of the Beaufort Sea for drilling in 2007 have since relinquished nearly half that territory, signaling the industry’s appetite for tapping those Arctic waters may be waning even as the Obama administration makes plans to auction off more of the area. Oil companies have […]

Armed men blow up Yemen’s oil pipeline halting crude flows

Armed men blew up Yemen’s main oil export pipeline on Wednesday, a local official said, halting crude flows and disrupting an important source of revenue for the impoverished state. Yemen’s oil and gas pipelines have repeatedly been sabotaged by insurgents or tribesmen since anti-government protests led to a power vacuum in 2011, causing fuel shortages […]

Which Countries Produce The Most Fossil Fuels?

Which country takes the most fossil fuels out of the ground? The answer to this question is relatively predictable: China. Today China is the world’s biggest consumer of energy and the vast majority of that comes from burning coal mined in China itself. Little surprise then that China is number one in terms of taking […]

Summer natural gas injection continues at a record pace

The US Energy Information Administration’s current Short-Term Energy Outlook projects a record build of nearly 2,600 bcf from the beginning of April through the end of October, which would put inventories at 3,431 bcf at the end of October. In line with EIA’s expectations, working natural gas storage midway through the summer storage injection season […]

Pemex Predicts Lowest Production in More Than Two Decades

Petroleos Mexicanos cut its output forecast to the lowest in at least 24 years as mature fields are shrinking faster than it had previously expected. The forecast was lowered to 2.41 million barrels of oil a day from a prior projection of 2.5 million, said Gustavo Hernandez, Pemex’s head of exploration and production. This will […]

Anticipating the Peak of World Oil Production

These are indeed good times to be a Peak Oiler. All the  peak oil deniers are dancing with wild exuberance, pointing to that spike of US shale oil production that they believe drives the final nail in the “Peak Oil Theory” coffin. And it is all happening right before reality slaps them in the face. […]

World Oil Production at 3/31/2014–Where are We Headed?

The standard way to make forecasts of almost anything is to look at recent trends and assume that this trend will continue, at least for the next several years. With world oil production, the trend in oil production looks fairly benign, with the trend slightly upward (Figure 1). If we look at the situation more closely, […]

Costs up for oil sands production

The costs of producing bitumen and synthetic crude in the Albertan oil sands have increased over the past year, says the Canadian Energy Research Institute in an annual report that projects steady growth in output. Compared with last year’s report, estimated costs of production before blending and transportation are up 4.4% for steam-assisted gravity drainage, […]

Iraqi Oil In Context: 60% Of OPEC Growth Expectations

While Iraqi crude represents about 4.4% of world production, or around 3.4 mmbd (5th largest in the world);   enabling investors to shrug at any fears that ISIS will spread to the South and interrupt this supply (since it will be ‘contained’); what many do not comprehend is that in such a tight oil market […]

Oil Is Getting Harder and Harder to Find

Oil expert James Hamilton has an interesting summary of the current world oil market up today, and it’s worth a read. His bottom line, however, is that $100-per-barrel oil is here to stay: The run-up of oil prices over the last decade resulted from strong growth of demand from emerging economies confronting limited physical potential […]

Keeping Oil Production From Falling

Production flows from a given oil field naturally decline over time, but we keep trying harder and technology keeps improving. Which force is winning the race? An oil reservoir is a pool of hydrocarbons embedded and trapped under pressure in porous rock. As oil is taken out, the pressure decreases and the annual rate of […]

Terrorism and the Electric Power Delivery System Part 2

My Summary of the 2012 National Academy of Science report written for the Department of Homeland Security: “Terrorism and the Electric Power Delivery System” There are many Really Stupid Energy-Electric Grid Interdependencies that will make terrorism, outage from natural disasters and other failures much worse Here are some other factors that I think will exacerbate […]

Hard Facts About Fracking

A new book evaluates whether natural gas is a ‘transitional fuel’ to a low-carbon future—or perhaps, more like a methadone addiction that’s tearing apart rural communities. Growing up in northern West Virginia in the 1970s, I remember seeing a lot of big white plastic candy canes sticking out of the ground, marking the natural gas […]

North Dakota’s Oil Bonanza Is Unsustainable

A decade ago, North Dakota was a wind-swept also-ran in the oil industry. Wildcatters struck oil there in the 1950s, but the rock was too dense to get most of it out, and the fields never amounted to much. The state produced about 30 million barrels of oil in 2004, enough to satisfy U.S. demand […]

America Has Saved the World From a Global Oil Crisis

By now, you’ve probably heard of all the benefits that the U.S. shale boom has brought: We’re importing less oil, production is supporting job growth, industries are coming back to the U.S. because of the energy savings, etc. I’m guessing you haven’t heard this one, though: Were it not for what’s happened these last few […]

Saudi Crude Exports Fell to Lowest Since 2011

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, shipped the least crude in almost three years in May as domestic refineries processed record amounts and power plants also increased consumption, official data showed. The nation exported 6.99 million barrels a day in May, down from 7.45 million barrels a month earlier, according to data Saudi Arabia […]

Iraqi Kurdistan Starts Oil Pumping from Kirkuk

Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region has begun to pump oil from Kirkuk fields previously controlled by Iraq’s central government into the pipeline system that runs in its own territory, a senior Iraqi oil official said on Thursday. Kirkuk lies on the disputed boundary between the northern Kurdish region and the rest of Iraq and is at […]

North Dakota is poised for more growth in oil production

Crude supplies expected to rise 5 to 6 percent per month, but limits on flaring loom in 2015. fect July 1, well operators are allowed to flare, or burn at the wellhead, no more than 23 percent of the natural gas, Helms said. The limit takes effect in October, and enforcement will begin in 2015, […]

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