At Least 9 More Decades for North Sea Oil

Oil and gas production in the UK North Sea can continue until the end of this century provided the right government policy decisions are made, according to Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing. Speaking to Rigzone at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston Tuesday afternoon, Ewing said: “In domestic terms, the [Scottish] industry is having a […]

Shell presses ahead with world’s deepest offshore oil well

Royal Dutch Shell is pressing ahead with the world’s deepest offshore oil and gas production facility by drilling almost two miles underwater in the politically sensitive Gulf of Mexico. The move is being viewed in the oil industry as a demonstration of Shell’s confidence that its technology can deliver returns on expensive and risky offshore […]

ExxonMobil starts Julia ultradeepwater gulf oil project

ExxonMobil Corp. will develop a field with nearly 6 billion bbl of resource in place more than 30,000 ft below the sea floor in more than 7,000 ft of water in the Gulf of Mexico. An initial development phase will result in production of 34,000 b/d of oil from Julia field starting in 2016. Capital […]

Saudi Aramco to Open 3 US Research Centers

Saudi Aramco has announced the opening of three research centers in the United States with Houston named one of the cities to house a new facility focused on upstream research. Houston joins two other U.S.- based centers in Cambridge, Mass. and Detroit designed to extend the energy giant’s global research and development (R&D) network. The […]

Shale Oil and Gas: The Contrarian View

No one is questioning the fact that we have either reached or will soon reach “peak oil”; that existing fields are being depleted at the rapid rate of 7 percent a year, and that the search is on for “unconventional oil” as alternative forms of energy are slow to reach critical mass. There are many […]

How the oil and gas boom will change America: An interview with Michael Levi

Let’s get this out of the way first: Michael Levi’s new book, “The Power Surge,” is very likely to be one of the best things you’ll read about the ongoing oil and gas boom in the United States. True, the book doesn’t really have a grand overarching theory. There aren’t any sweeping predictions that shale […]

North American tight oil play economics compared

Barry Rodgers Rodgers Oil & Gas Consulting Edmonton This report is the second of two parts on the economics and fiscal competitiveness of North American tight oil resources. The purpose of the first part of the report was to establish general context for considering the individual plays and to highlight the importance of the fiscal […]

Surging US oil production pushes reserves to highest levels in 30 years

Surging oil production has put the United States on track toward greater energy independence, pushing US reserves to their highest levels in 30 years. But analysts say bottlenecks in the distribution system are keeping oil from reaching markets. US oil stocks reached 395.3 million barrels last week, a level not seen since US authorities began […]

Top 10 Oil & Gas Cities in the World

For years, the petroleum industry has created significant job opportunities and economic benefits through energy hubs around the world. Innovations in technology and old-fashioned determination have allowed vast supplies of oil and gas to be brought to market from key cities in nearly every country. The running list of active and pending projects, along with […]

Could fracking solve China’s energy problems?

China is an oil-devouring behemoth that is almost entirely dependent on other countries for its energy needs. Also, China is fortunate enough to have massive amounts of shale gas reserves — natural gas that is trapped in sedimentary rock. Sounds like an easy solution, right? Not really. If it were, China would be tapping that rock. […]

Oil Drilling Technology Leaps, Clean Energy Lags

Technology created an energy revolution over the past decade — just not the one we expected. By now, cars were supposed to be running on fuel made from plant waste or algae — or powered by hydrogen or cheap batteries that burned nothing at all. Electricity would be generated with solar panels and wind turbines. […]

Iraqis, Kurds Reach Agreement over Oil Payments

The federal government in Baghdad and Iraq’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan have reached a tentative agreement to resolve a dispute over payments to foreign companies that has shut down most crude oil exports from the region, Iraqi officials said. The tentative deal was reached during a meeting earlier this week between federal Prime Minister Nouri […]

China struggles to tap its shale gas

In a remote corner of Sichuan with lush, terraced hillsides, oil exploration teams have been scaling cliffs to lay seismic charges and struggling to move heavy equipment along winding mountain roads. That is where China hopes to find vast stores of natural gas trapped in shale rock. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has estimated that […]

Peak Oil Still Isn’t Real, You Guys

And despite all the Malthusian nonsense, we’ve still got plenty of oil and natural gas, reports the National Journal‘s Amy Harder. The United States has double the amount of oil and three times the amount of natural gas than previously thought, stored deep under the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana, according to […]

Interview with Steve Kopits

Steven Kopits has been Managing Director for the New York office of energy business advisors Douglas-Westwood since 2008. He is solely responsible for the views expressed. Q: You’re dialed in right now on the issue of compression of capital expenditures—or capex compression—in the oil industry. Can you give us a quick definition of what that […]

Faster Drilling, Diminishing Returns in Shale Plays Nationwide?

Today’s shale gas boom has brought a surge of drilling across the US, driving natural gas prices to historic lows over the past couple of years. But, according to David Hughes, geoscientist and fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, in the future, we can expect at least the same frenzied rate of drilling – but […]

Excluding the US, rest-of-world crude production in 2H2012 was not higher than in 2005

Excluding the US, rest-of-world crude oil production in the 2nd half of 2012 was on the same level as in the 2nd half of 2005, despite 85% higher oil prices. There are many reasons for this.  Declining oil production in many countries which cancelled out growth elsewhere. The 2nd Russian oil peak petering out. Saudi […]

Ready (or Not?) for a Great Coming Shale Boom

About a year ago, talk began circulating in this West Texas town about a huge oil-producing formation called the Cline Shale, east of the traditional drilling areas around Midland. Then the oilmen and their rigs arrived. Now homes and hotels are sprouting, “help wanted” signs have multiplied, and a major drilling company has cleared land […]

Tech Talk – OPEC and EIA short-term projections

ust this month Saudi Aramco announced that production had begun at their Manifa oilfield, and by July would be supplying up to 500 kbd to the new refinery that is being built at Jamail with the collaboration of Total. The first oil from the refinery is expected to ship in August, and both projects are […]

The only true metric of energy abundance: The rate of flow

Okay, I’m going to give you the shortest course ever in energy abundance: Energy abundance depends entirely on the RATE of energy flow. Let me say it again: Energy abundance depends entirely on the RATE of energy flow. Now, here is what it does NOT depend on: supposed, but often unverified, fossil fuel reserves in […]

Water recycling is big business

Just a few years ago, Fort Worth-based Bosque Systems mostly operated wastewater disposal wells for oil and gas operators. And another Fort Worth-based oil field company, FTS International, was busy becoming one of the nation’s biggest providers of hydraulic fracturing services. Now, both are rolling out water recycling operations, as is Austin-based Omni Water Solutions. […]

North Sea Comes Back To Life

– On the windswept hills that line the west coast of the Shetland Islands, roaming sheep bear lonely witness to a surprising industrial comeback. A gray, metal-and-concrete skeleton slowly emerging from the peat bogs makes up the last leg of Laggan-Tormore, Total SA’s GBP 3.3 billion ($5 billion) project to extract natural gas from the […]

Latest Saudi Arabian Oil Supply

I’m resolved to follow Saudi Arabia a bit more closely after the big cut-back this winter.  The above is the latest data: March shows a very slight increase in production (probably less than the uncertainties in the data, so we could call it basically flat over February).  There was also one extra oil rig in […]

‘Backyard Oil’ a real-life ‘Beverly Hillbillies’ as DIY drillers turn into millionaires overnight

$300,000. That’s how much a guy named ‘Coomer’ makes each month from an oil well he drilled. In his own back yard. So forget about digging for gold or trawling for Alaksan King Crabs, Discovery’s newest show chronicles the “high stakes, comical roller coaster ride through the world of wildcat oil drilling.” “’Backyard Oil’ is […]

UAE: ‘Days of Easy, Cheap Oil are Gone’

The United Arab Emirates is planning to get up to 25% of its power from nuclear energy by 2021 as it looks to reduce its domestic reliance on fossil fuels and ensure it has enough oil to export as its economy expands, the country’s new energy minister said Monday. “Nuclear energy is expected to account […]

Tech Talk – The BP view of the future

So I suspect I should apologize. Here I am talking about the future projections for energy production that have been made by companies such as ExxonMobil and Shell, as though they were still the key and only players in the world. Yet, in reality, Saudi Aramco (12.5 mbdoe); Gazprom (9.7 mbdoe) and National Iranian Oil […]

Killing The Keystone Pipeline Won’t Stop The Oil Sands Being Mined

I have to admit that I don’t really understand one of the arguments being used against the Keystone pipeline project. Several of the arguments I do understand and simply disagree with, but one of them I just don’t get in some important manner. That’s the one that if the pipeline isn’t built then the oil […]

A $30 Billion Hole In Caspian Sea?

For more than a decade, the promised bonanza from Kazakhstan’s giant offshore Kashagan oil field has been a costly mirage for its developers. And the wait still isn’t over. The companies backing the project — which include Exxon Mobil Corp., Eni Spa and Royal Dutch Shell PLC — in March missed the startup date Eni […]

Total production by the top five oil majors has fallen by a quarter since 2004

This is a guest post by Matthieu Auzanneau, a freelance journalist in France, author of the Oil Man blog at Le Monde, where this post first appeared. The combined crude oil production of the five main international oil companies (Exxon, BP, Shell, Chevron and Total) hit an historic high in 2004. Since then, it has […]

Shale Boom Could Happen in Russia, China but Not Europe

Russia and China will lead the way in the production of resources from shale after the U.S., according to executives, but Europe will likely lag behind. Torbjorn Tornqvist, chief executive of trading house Gunvor, said Wednesday it was clear that shale production on a scale similar to that in the U.S. is possible in several […]

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