Saudi Arabia Boosts Oil Exports to 8-Month High

Saudi Arabia boosted crude exports in February to the highest level since June while it cut oil use at local power plants and refineries to the lowest since March 2011, according to Joint Organizations Data Initiative. The kingdom, the world’s largest crude exporter, increased daily shipments to 7.45 million from 7.09 million a month earlier, […]

Can Iraq meet its oil potential?

The debate over whether the Iraq War was really all about oil may never be fully resolved in some minds, but one thing is clear – either way, Iraq has yet to really cash in. The country’s GDP may have risen several fold in the decade since the war began, yet its income per capita […]

US Crude Oil Production Sets Record in 2012

While advocates of solar, wind and other “Green” energy some are saying that renewable energy is the future, technological advances in the Oil and Gas industries will lead to abundant supplies well into the future, I have been saying for years that Peak Oil is a myth, it is. US Crude Oil production rose by […]

Despite boom, peak oil still a concern

Oil and gas production in the U.S. has surged in recent years, leading to a new sense of optimism within the energy industry. Many imagine this recent boom will mean the end of the drive for engineering research in renewables, or at least a major blow, and a stop to the once rampant talk of […]

US natural gas resource estimate rises 25% in 2 years

Technically recoverable US natural gas resources were a record 2,384 tcf at yearend 2012, 25% (486 tcf) more than the previous record-high assessment 2 years earlier, the Potential Gas Committee reported. Most of the growth came from new evaluations of shale gas resources in Atlantic, Rocky Mountain, and Gulf Coast states, PGC indicated. The biennial […]

Stuart Staniford: Monthly Oil Supply Update

Time for the monthly update on global oil supply in which I summarize the numbers for global oil production from the various oil agencies into a small set of convenient charts. This is for the benefit of those of us who like to do micro-tracking of peak-oil related issues.  This month, I have made one […]

Saudi Aramco’s Manifa Oil Field On Stream Ahead of Schedule

State-oil giant Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Saudi Aramco, said Monday it has started production at its vast Manifa oil field three months ahead of schedule. Output at Manifa is expected to reach 500,000 barrels a day in July, which will gradually increase to 900,000 barrels a day by the end of 2014, Aramco […]

For ExxonMobil, having oil is one thing, but pumping it is another

Here is a puzzle: ExxonMobil has sufficient proven oil and gas on its books to produce at current levels for 16 years. It has 55 years of supply in its total resource base, which is those proven reserves plus deposits to which it hasn’t yet committed the development dollars required before legally calling them “proven.” […]

An Update on Peak Oil

If you’ve been reading this blog regularly, you already know the basics about peak oil: It’s not a kooky conspiracy theory. The obsessively mainstream International Energy Agency, which refused to even acknowledge the possibility of peak oil for years, officially admitted it was real three years ago. Not only that, they even put a date […]

Natural gas: A new duel in the Middle East

It is as if the countries of the old and the new Greater Middle East are living in peace and harmony and are not missing anything except to jump over history toward a happier and prosperous future. All of a sudden a divine reward surfaced. Natural gas has been discovered in the east of the […]

The decline of the world’s major oil fields

With all the talk about new oil discoveries around the world and new techniques for extracting oil in such places as North Dakota and Texas, it would be easy to miss the main action in the oil supply story: Aging giant fields produce more than half of global oil supply and are already declining as […]

Seven Years More Data in the Hubbert Model

On Monday, I objected to some statements by Dennis Meadows that oil production had clearly peaked in the past and would now decline by half within twenty years.  He dismissed various possibilities for higher oil production from low grade sources as irrelevant.  To make my objections, I pointed out by looking at average growth rates, […]

Fracking ‘Not Significant’ in Causing Earth Tremors

New research has found that hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is “not significant” in causing earth tremors. Released Wednesday by the UK’s Durham University, the results of a study of hundreds of thousands of fracking operations showed that the process only caused earth tremors that could be felt on the surface in three cases. The research, titled […]

To Stem Fall in Oil Output, Alaska Seeks to Slash Industry Taxes

President Obama’s budget proposal this week is likely to seek an end to federal tax breaks for oil and gas companies, attempting to revive a bid that died in Congress last year. Meanwhile, with much more rigor, Alaska is heading in the opposite direction. Alaska’s State House is working on a bill already passed by […]

Should the last few years have updated your idea of peak oil?

Nate Hagens draws my attention to this recent interview with Dennis Meadows, lead author of the famous Limits to Growth series of books.  Meadows is very pessimistic.  I was particularly interested in his views on oil production and peak oil, in which he states positively that peak oil is in the past (which is very arguable […]

Aging giant oil fields, not new discoveries are the key to future oil supply

With all the talk about new oil discoveries around the world and new techniques for extracting oil in such places as North Dakota and Texas, it would be easy to miss the main action in the oil supply story: Aging giant fields produce more than half of global oil supply and are already declining as […]

Japan makes breakthrough in extracting seabed gas

Japan today said it had successfully extracted natural gas from methane hydrate deposits under the sea, in the first example of production of the gas offshore. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry showed what it said was gas flaming from a pipe at the project in the Pacific Ocean, 80km off the coast of […]

Gas Starts Flowing from Israel’s Levant Basin, What Now?

The first gas has started flowing from Israel’s supergiant Tamar gasfield in the Levant Basin. Where it will go will redraw the Mediterranean energy map and the geopolitics that goes along with it. The Tamar field stakeholders announced on 30 March that the gas had started flowing, raising the value of Texas-based Noble Energy Inc. […]

Statoil Oil Sands Production Up more than 60% in 2012

Statoil announced Thursday that it boosted production from its Canadian oil sands activities by more than 60 percent during 2012, while the Norwegian firm reduced its carbon dioxide intensity by almost 24 percent. Statoil said that its 2012 Oil Sands Report demonstrates clear progress in reaching the firm’s ambitious targets for responsible oil sands production […]

Reasons Mexico’s Oil Production Has Stagnated

Mexico´s crude production peaked at 3.455 Mbopd in 2004 and has already declined to 2.568 Mbopd, (Feb 28, 2013). I believe it will not be possible to return to former production levels, nor even to the present official forecast of 3 million barrels per day, because of the following reasons: The giant and supergiant oil reservoirs, like Cantarell, […]

Israel Begins Pumping Natural Gas From Offshore Field

Israel moved closer to its goal of energy independence on Sunday as natural gas from a large offshore field began flowing into the country, a harbinger of important change that will benefit the country strategically and economically, officials said. “We are taking an important step toward energy independence,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a […]

Future Natural Gas Supplies and Cyprus

This post began as a view on the developments in Cyprus and I am grateful to Gail for the suggestion. It is my fault that it morphed a little from that original simple objective. One problem in marketing natural gas is that there is so much of it coming onto the market that this makes […]

Awash in Misinformation: America’s Domestic Tight Oil ‘Bump

On March 4, David Frum, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush, published an article on CNN.com titled “Peak Oil doomsayers proved wrong” in which he not only claimed there was no danger of a shortage of oil, but also that “our oil problem is that we’re producing so much of the stuff […]

China Will Soon Be Drilling A Third Of Iraq’s Oil

Ten years after the invasion of Baghdad, major American oil companies are staying away from investing in Iraq’s oil resources, McClatchy’s Sean Cockerham reports. Instead, many of Iraq’s newest oil fields are now controlled by Chinese. Iraq possesses the second-largest oil deposit in the world, in the West Qurna region. Forbes says the country could […]

Iraqi Oil Production

Completing my catch-up on oil production for the three most important Middle Eastern producers, here is Iraq.  Iraq had a substantial gain in 2012 – around half a million barrels per day – backslid a little in December, and then has apparently started to regain in February. I expect further production gains in 2013, and, […]

The Shale Gale Is a Retirement Party

Every day a government agency or industry group in North America still hails natural gas mined from deep shale rock formations as “the bridging fuel” that will power a brighter if not cleaner energy tomorrow. Cheap natural gas, goes the mantra, will solve our energy woes and build a new energy foundation. The government of […]

Peak Oil Is Dead

Yesterday, Citi commodities analysts Seth Kleinman and Ed Morse declared that “the end was nigh” for oil demand. They’re not alone. Last month, the BNY Mellon‘s asset management subsidiary, the Boston Company, published a paper called “End of an Era: The Death of Peak Oil.” AOL Energy’s Peter Gardett pointed us to it. In brief, […]

IEA expects global natural gas revolution

Natural gas is positioned to make a sustained impact on the global energy market but only if it’s developed responsibly, the IEA executive director said. The International Energy Agency hosted its inaugural unconventional natural gas forum in Paris. IEA Executive Director Maria Van der Hoeven said unconventional natural gas development needs a sustainable and responsible […]

Kuwait Minister: US Shale Oil Bonanza is No Threat

Growing production from U.S. shale deposits is not a threat to Kuwait due to its higher costs, the country’s oil minister Hani Hussein said in remarks published late Monday. “There is no effect on Gulf crudes from shale oil in the United States as it will take a long time for this crude to have […]

Iraqi Oil Production to Rise to 4.5M Barrels per Day by 2015

Iraq’s crude oil production is expected to rise to 4.5 million barrels a day by the end of next year, a senior Iraqi oil official said Monday. Thamir Ghadhban, the Iraqi prime minister’s top energy advisor, said in a conference in Dubai that Iraq is considering three scenarios for increasing crude oil production that will […]

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