Egypt Seals $10bn BP Natural Gas Deal

Egypt has finalised a $10bn deal with BP that could significantly boost the country’s natural gas production. The gas project had stalled for three years in the face of political, social and economic turmoil in the Arab world’s most populous country but Egypt’s prime minister has announced completion of the deal according to Egyptian media […]

EIA conference speakers warn of US light crude oil’s ‘day of reckoning’

The US could find its light crude oil production growth stymied if it doesn’t allow more of it to be exported, speakers warned during the US Energy Information Administration’s 2014 energy conference’s first day. John R. Auers, executive vice-president of Turner, Mason & Co. Consulting Engineers in Dallas, described what he termed “a day of […]

Coal Plant Carbon Pollution Injects Life in Old Oil Wells

The dream of pollution-free coal plants is getting a boost from growing demand for carbon dioxide used to revive old oilfields. In one of the first projects to harness the C02 waste of a coal plant for oil drilling, power generator NRG Energy Inc. (NRG) announced today that it’s beginning construction on a $1 billion […]

EIA’s Drilling Productivity Report

Just as I was finishing this post North Dakota published their production numbers for May 2014. North Dakota production was up over 36,000 barrels per day on 227 new well completions according to The Director’s Cut. I will have a post on all that tomorrow. The EIA’s Drilling Productivity Report has just came out. Below […]

The Real Shale Revolution

By now everyone knows the shale revolution was made possible by the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. But although fracking has captured the popular imagination, and is often used as a synonym for the whole phenomenon, horizontal drilling was actually the more recent and important breakthrough. Mastery of horizontal drilling around 1990, originally […]

Tech Talk – Here we go again, again

A couple of posts or so ago I mentioned that there are three major problems sitting relatively un-noticed as we head into the mess of Peak Oil. Of these, perhaps the one that gets the least attention is the steady decline in production from existing wells. We are just about at the point where the […]

Oil Abundance? Not So Fast – Drilling holes in the energy boom story

The story of America’s new energy abundance has been accepted uncritically by too many people.  A closer look at the realities of today and the last decade, coupled with a better understanding of our energy and oil systems, reveals risks that must be discussed and included in planning for the years ahead. This brief paper […]

Oil pipeline across Iowa proposed

A Texas energy company is hoping to build an 1,100-mile underground pipeline to transport a highly volatile type of crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields through 17 Iowa counties en route to Illinois. The project still faces regulatory hurdles from the Iowa Utilities Board and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, and from […]

Best Place to Find Oil Is In An Oil Field

Cheap oil has allowed the modern world to develop as it has, but cheap oil is becoming a thing of the past. Oil prices have risen about 10-fold over the past two decades, and the trend is likely to continue as oil becomes scarcer, small and recent fluctuations notwithstanding. According to some experts, Peak Oil […]

US: Oil production in 2015 to be highest since 1972

U.S. crude oil production, rising steadily since 2008, is likely next year to hit its highest level since 1972 while Iraq’s output, despite unrest there, is expected to hold steady, according to a forecast Tuesday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Spurred by the use of hydraulic fracturing or fracking in shale rock deposits, U.S. […]

5 Shocking Places Where Fracking Is Taking Off

By now, many people have heard about the booming Bakken Shale in North Dakota where there is a mad rush for oil, enabled by the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a practice that pumps millions of gallons of water, chemicals and sand underground to break rock and release hydrocarbons. The Bakken has garnered big […]

Tech Talk – of longer wells and drawdown pressure

There are, simply, three major parts to the coming global economic mess that will be created as we enter into the period of Peak Oil. The first of these comes from the current rising demand for oil, particularly emphasized by those countries, such as China and India, where demand is rising fastest. The second part […]

North Dakota and Texas Now Provide Nearly Half of U.S. Crude Oil Production

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Petroleum Supply Monthly U.S. crude production in April 2014 was 8.4 million barrels per day (bbl/d), with two states, Texas and North Dakota, accounting for nearly half of this total. Texas production topped 3.0 million bbl/d for the first time since the late 1970s, more than doubling production in the […]

USA Biggest Oil Producer After Overtaking Saudi Arabia

The U.S. will remain the world’s biggest oil producer this year after overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia as extraction of energy from shale rock spurs the nation’s economic recovery, Bank of America Corp. said. U.S. production of crude oil, along with liquids separated from natural gas, surpassed all other countries this year with daily output […]

Libya declares oil crisis over after state reclaims ports

Libya’s acting Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni said the government had reached a deal with a rebel leader controlling oil ports to hand over the last two terminals and end a blockade that crippled the OPEC nation’s petroleum industry. “We have successfully reached an agreement to solve the oil crisis. We have received today Ras Lanuf […]

EIA World Crude + Condensate Production Update

The EIA updated their International Energy Statistics Monday with their January update. I spent several hours on that update, updating all my spreadsheets, updating the Non-OPEC Charts page, the World Crude Oil Production by Geographical Area page, and creating the post below. Then after I had finished all that they, the EIA, published another International […]

Despite Saudi pledge, another big oil outage would strain supply

The world’s unused spare oil production capacity would struggle to cover for another big outage, industry officials and analysts say, increasing the chance governments may tap strategic reserves should Iraq’s southern exports be disrupted. Unrest in Iraq comes as the almost total loss of Libyan supply, Western sanctions on Iran as well as conflict in […]

Ailing Shale Gas Returns Force a ‘Drilling Treadmill’

After studying production data from 65,000 wells from 31 different unconventional shale rock formations in 2012, David Hughes predicted big trouble ahead for North America’s unconventional hydrocarbon revolution. The prominent geologist, who has studied Canada’s energy resources for four decades, warned that shale gas and tight oil operations shared four big challenges: escalating capital costs, […]

Tech Talk – the numbers keep going down

One problem with defining a peak in global oil production is that it is only really evident some time after the event, when one can look in the rearview mirror and see the transition from a growing oil supply to one that is now declining. Before that relatively absolute point, there will likely come a […]

North Dakota and the Bakken by County

Looking at North Dakota oil production by county, and historical production by county, gives a better  perspective of what is happening in the Bakken and the rest of North Dakota than just looking at total production. The data is available here: ND Historical Barrels of Oil Produced by County You will notice it says:(Confidential Wells […]

Pessimism and Oil Production

The end of oil and/or peak oil is always just around the corner.  Whether it be at the global, national, state, or geological formation scales, the lack of long-term optimism is the same.  And yet, time after time, history – more precisely, economics coupled with technological advancements – proves the detractors wrong. In 1980, during […]

Michael Lynch: Has Production Peaked?

The remnants of the peak oil community cling avidly to the belief that oil production has already peaked and that high prices prove this. “Look at the data” seems to have become a catechism amongst them, and it can be hard to dissuade them otherwise, especially by considering more than one variable as explaining oil […]

BP’s Technology Chief ‘knocks peak oil theory’

Advances in technology will continue to ensure that there are adequate reserves of oil and gas, as fears over supply recede, according to BP’s head of technology, David Eyton. Addressing the 21st World Petroleum Congress in Moscow, Eyton said that generally speaking the theory of peak oil has had its time. There may be other […]

Mexico will not produce 3 million b/d until 2020

Delays in implementing Mexico’s sweeping energy sector reforms will prevent the country from producing over 3 million b/d until at least 2020, an executive with the country’s state oil company Pemex said Tuesday. “We can increase, of course, but not enough to arrive at 3 million [b/d],” Fluvio Ruiz Alarcon, a professional and independent board […]

North Dakota pumping a million barrels per day

North Dakota has joined the ranks of the few places in the world that produce more than a million barrels of oil per day, largely due to the rich Bakken shale formation in the western part of the state. The April figures released last week by the state showed the record tally. North Dakota had […]

Oil and Iraq Burning at both ends

BEFORE Islamist fighters seized much of northern Iraq, hopes that the recent era of stable oil prices would last rested heavily on the country. Its exports were expected to go on rising, providing lots of low-cost oil at a time when the depletion of mature fields elsewhere is beginning to bite into supplies. The International […]

Baiji oil refinery secured as Iraq fighting continues

Iraqi government forces regained full control Thursday of the country’s biggest oil refinery following heavy fighting as the country scrabbles to contain the Sunni militants which still threaten further advances in northern Iraq. Insurgents pressing the major offensive were repelled from the 320,000 b/d-capacity Baiji plant after clashes Wednesday and early Thursday, according to reports. Fighting began at the […]

Indonesia cuts 2014 targets for subsidized fuel demand, crude oil output

The Indonesian government reached a deal with lawmakers late Wednesday to revise down its targets for subsidized fuel consumption and crude production in its 2014 budget to make the figures more realistic, officials said. The measure cuts the subsidized fuel consumption quota 4.2% to 46 million kiloliters, from 48 million kl previously. Subsidies for fuel […]

Might the Bakken Boom Get Derailed?

“Should an incident occur within or near a densely populated area … an incident … has the potential to be truly catastrophic and result in billions of dollars in personal injury and property damage claims. The damages potentially resulting from an exposure could risk the financial soundness and viability of the rail transportation network in […]

BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2014

BP has released its Statistical Review of World Energy 2014. There are a lot of things in this report but I am only posting charts on liquid petroleum only. The BP report includes crude oil and NGLs. Their data does not include ethanol or any type of biofuels or process gain. The report actually has […]

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