North Sea Oil, Gas Projections Disputed

Figures on future UK North Sea oil and gas tax revenues released by the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) to coincide with Thursday’s Autumn Statement have been disputed by the Scottish government. The OBR reduced the forecast it made eight months earlier for North Sea tax revenues in the 2013/2014 fiscal year by approximately GBP […]

Pipeline On Wheels: Trains Are Winning Big Off US Oil

A train leaves the Rangeland Energy company’s crude oil loading terminal near Epping, N.D. So far this year, 60 percent of all oil produced in North Dakota left the state by rail. One economist says there aren’t enough oil tankers to fill the demand. AP The oil boom in the United States is creating another […]

EIA’s World Oil Exports

Jeffery Brown is our Export Land expert and I would never try to match wits with him on world exports. And congratulations to Jeffery for having the Number one post on Resilience.Org. Top 10 Reader’s Favorites – Resilience and Energy Bulletin 1. Peak oil versus peak exports by Jeffrey J. Brown, Samuel Foucher PhD, originally published […]

Iran, Iraq Put OPEC On Notice Of Big Oil Increases

Iran and Iraq on Tuesday put OPEC on notice of substantial oil output increases to come, saying others in the producer cartel will need to give way to make room for them. Speaking ahead of an OPEC meeting, oil ministers for the two countries — rivals as the group’s second and third biggest producers after […]

OPEC’s own outages delay day of reckoning on new supply curbs

* Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Iraq all below capacity * U.S. shale could add 5 mln bpd in 5 years to 2016 * No change to 30 million bpd output target expected VIENNA, Dec 2 (Reuters) – OPEC is perhaps fortunate that the misfortune of some of its own members should make a production policy meeting […]

Robert Rapier: How Alberta’s Oil Sands are Produced

Introduction I spent the first week of November in the heart of the Athabasca oil sands around Fort McMurray, Alberta. I was there as a guest of the Canadian government, which hosts annual tours for small groups of journalists and energy analysts. In the previous two articles, I covered some of the environmental issues arising from […]

Technology giving new nations a shot as energy producers

New technologies to unlock energy below the earth’s surface could transform the global energy picture, allowing a handful of nations not ordinarily thought of as energy producers to emerge. That’s because shale formations holding natural gas and oil are more widely spread around the globe than traditional oil reservoirs, broadening access to energy. “Ten years […]

Tight Oil and Oil Sands Versus Small Deep Water Developments

This post which is based on results from earlier research and analytic work posted on The Oil Drum, Fractional Flow and not least in recent (private) discussions with other international acknowledged experts present some facts and observations about developments of tight oil (which to some extent also applies to oil sands) versus small deep water […]

Large-scale Arctic oil and gas drilling decades away

* Arctic estimated to have 90 billion barrels of reserves * Statoil does not expect major production before 2030 * High development costs, harsh weather are big obstacles * Some wells cost $500 million to drill, firm says Norway’s Statoil said it would be decades until drilling begins for much of the Arctic’s vast untapped […]

Too Much Oil: U.S. Storage Set to Pass the 400 Million Threshold

Trend is to Store more Oil  A year ago oil in storage stood at 274 million barrels, and with another robust year of domestic production, and despite curtailed imports, the US Oil Inventory stands at 391 million barrels and climbing. We are still technically in the building season for oil supplies which peaked in late […]

JODI, Canada and the IEA’s Position On Peak Oil

The JODI data came out a few days ago. Below is JODI World Total C+C with EIA data used for countries not reporting to JODI. I use EIA data also for Venezuela and Iran because JODI uses data reported by these two countries which is political and inflated by about one million barrels per day […]

Water shortages may make fracking impractical

Quantities required for the fracking process may make it problematic in areas of the UK where resources are scarce   Anti-fracking protesters outside IGas’s Barton Moss site in Eccles, Greater Manchester. Photograph: Northern Gas Gala Fracking may be impractical in parts of the UK due to the scarcity of local water supplies, and in other […]

World Crude Oil Production by Geographical Area

Here is charts of World oil production by geographical area. The data is from the EIA with the last data point July 2013. With the next EIA update this post will move to a page that is updated monthly. North America, which is the USA, Canada and Mexico. Central & South America has several producers, […]

Natural Gas Production in Northeast Reduces Need from Other Regions

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently released a report based on natural gas production in the northeast and the effects on the region’s gas inflow, reported the Penn State Extension. Compared to 2008 natural gas records, production in the northeast has increased almost six-fold to 12.3 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day in 2013.  This […]

Analysis of Well Completion Data for Bakken Oil Wells

The following analysis uses “well completion information” contained in a newspaper called the Bakken Weekly, a paper covering western North Dakota.  The Bakken Weekly started providing well completion information for North Dakota counties in the Bakken region in early 2012.  The analysis below is for 2012/2013 from the week of April 1, 2012 through the […]

More from less: how tight oil changes supply

Tight oil is now the main source of new supply – eclipsing the contribution from mega-projects favoured by the major oil companies. Despite spending billions of dollars, the majors have failed to boost their collective production, as rising costs, management constraints and technical challenges have delayed start-ups. Without smaller‐scale investment in thousands of tight oil […]

Peak Oil responds, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

Peak Oil responds, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” A recent post entitled The Welcome Death of Peak Oil by George Koch on the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada website begins with the following optimistic comment: “Improved technology and more efficiency mean North America could eventually become an oil exporter.” [i]   The […]

When Will World Oil Production Peak?

World Crude + Condensate production reached a new high in July, at least according to the EIA. C+C production was 76,531,000 barrels per day or 416,000 bp/d higher than the previous high in February 2012. But keep in mind that June production was revised down by 459,000 barrels per day so those July numbers will […]

Pirates Looting Cargoes With AK-47s Threaten African Oil

Ankur Varma, third officer on the oil tanker M/V Cotton, opened his cabin door at five minutes to midnight on July 14 to find two men pointing AK-47s at him. “They just pushed me into the cabin with the guns in my chest and they told me to stay silent,” Varma said in a phone […]

Peak Oil: Using Energy To Get Energy # 3

‘Tight oil is an important contributor to the U.S. energy supply, but its long-term sustainability is questionable. It should be not be viewed as a panacea for business as usual in future U.S. energy security planning.’ [1] Today, it takes about one barrel of conventional U.S. oil to produce the equivalent of nine barrels, or […]

World’s most expensive oil project starts production

Kazakhstan’s Kashagan super-giant oil field has started production at a rate of around 40,000 bpd. It is predicted to average 75,000 bpd in 4Q13, the stated target for the initial development stage being 180,000 bpd. The project, which has been bedevilled by numerous and lengthy delays and an ever-revolving door of partners, has cost more […]

Saudi Arabia Won’t Make ‘Sharp’ Oil Output Cuts

Saudi Arabia is not expected to make “sharp” cuts to its crude production in November and December, Al Rajhi Capital said. “Any meaningful decline in the kingdom’s oil production will take place only when the majority of Libyan oil production comes back and Iranian oil production starts rising,” the investment arm of the nation’s biggest […]

Shale 2.0, Going Global

How quickly the shale revolution spreads from North America to the rest of the world is the single most important factor affecting the outlook for oil and gas markets over the next two decades. For pessimists, the conditions that made the shale revolution possible in the United States will be difficult to replicate, slowing the […]

Oil Drillers Rush Back to the Gulf of Mexico

The Gulf of Mexico has been left for dead more than once over the past half-century. It’s now roaring back to life with at least 10 recent mega-discoveries that have renewed oil explorers’ enthusiasm for the region. Billions of dollars are being poured into new wells in the ultra-deep waters off Texas and Louisiana, fueling […]

The Coming Bust Of The Great Bakken Oil Field

There has been a lot of Fanfare on the huge increase of oil production coming from the Bakken Field located in North Dakota.  There are many stories of people moving to the state to take advantage of the new OIL BOOM.  It seems like everyone is going there to start a new life and make […]

Iraq’s Delays in Finishing Pipeline Defer Iran Gas Exports

While some Iranian energy officials had earlier said Iran’s natural gas exports to Iraq would begin by mid-March 2014, higher consumption in Iran during the cold season and Iraq’s delays in constructing its side of the pipeline will defer the project by a few months. Iran, which has the largest gas reserves in the world, […]

World map of Peak Oil Production

This animated map is an excerpt from a conference presentation by Randy Park. It shows the peaking of oil production (peak oil) for countries around the world. It also shows oil consumption.

Bakken Crude Production to Top 1 Million Barrels by December

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that total Bakken crude oil well output will pass the 1 million barrel of oil per day (MMbopd) mark in December. Bakken oil production is expected to rise by 26,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) from 976,000 bopd this month to just over 1 MMbopd in December, […]

‘Don’t rely on shale oil’ warns International Energy Agency

The world faces a potential oil supply crunch and higher prices, according to the latest analysis by the International Energy Agency. The IEA said increasing shale oil output by the United States means middle east producers are delaying investing believing there will be an “abundance of oil” from shale, when in fact there will be […]

U.S. producing more oil than it imports

The United States still imports 35% of the petroleum it uses, but its oil production is on the rise while its consumption is falling. The United States tiptoed closer to energy independence last month when — for the first time in nearly two decades — it produced more crude oil than it imported, federal officials […]

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