Why Did Saudi Arabia Reduce Oil Production?

I’m a bit slow in getting to this, but there now seems to be a bit of a mystery about Saudi oil production (latest data shown above).  In mid 2011 through mid 2012, Saudi production was hovering a little below 10mbd (averaging all data sources).  It started to drop a little bit last fall, but […]

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 […]

US Crude Oil Production 1920-2012

The Archruid yesterday posted a graph that purported to be US oil production from 1920-2012: In fact, his graph only goes through 2010.  The full record through 2012 is as follows: Production in 2013 is likely to be over 7mbd. The full graph makes it clear that the tight oil boom of the last few […]

OPEC must prepare for big rise in oil supplies

High oil and gas prices have unleashed the biggest drilling boom in 30 years. OPEC members must prepare for a big increase in oil supplies in the second half of the decade, as well as heightened competition from natural gas in some of their core markets, and a further erosion in demand as conservation and […]

Roger Helmer: Peak Oil or false summit?

The doomsters have spoken. We’re facing “peak oil” – a point of maximum production, followed by an inexorable decline, when oil prices will skyrocket, and petrol and diesel cars will rust by the road-side. In 1922, a US federal commission predicted that “production of oil cannot long maintain its present rate”. Back in the sixties, […]

Peak oil takes an unexpected turn

No less authority than the United States government itself has declared that some time this year, the country should reach a landmark not seen in nearly two decades – indeed, one that many experts believed had been permanently consigned to the history books. The U.S. will be producing more oil than it is importing. Globe […]

Oil majors are whistling past the graveyard

The world’s “supermajor” independent oil companies — BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, and Total — project a rosy future, assuring us that oil will be abundant for decades to come. But in fact they’re spending record amounts to keep oil flowing, while their production is actually falling. The BP Energy Outlook 2030, released in […]

Libyan Production at Risk amid Gialo Field Protests

Production at Libya’s Waha Oil Co. is at risk if strikes and protests at Gialo field continue, Libyan Deputy Oil Minister Omar Shakmak said Tuesday. Protesters from a nearby town have been blocking the entrance to the Gialo field, which feeds crude into a pipeline to the Es Sider export terminal, since last week to […]

Petrobras aims to triple Brazil’s offshore oil output

Brazil‘s state-run energy giant Petrobras said Tuesday it aims to triple oil production from its huge deep-water fields by 2017. By that date, the company plans to extract 962,500 barrels a day, more than three times the current 300,000, according to the management and business plan released to investors. “The company’s top priority is exploration […]

Wow, North Dakota, That’s a Lot of Oil

It’s no secret that North Dakota has been in the middle of an oil boom since about 2008, but a new chart from the North Dakota Industrial Commission, Department of Mineral Resources, shows just how steep the increase has been. As of 2006, the state was only producing about 100,000 barrels of crude oil per […]

Reassessing Arctic oil

Shell Oil will discontinue drilling for oil off the coast of Alaska during the summer of 2013.  According to Marilyn Heiman, Director of the U.S. Arctic Program of Pew Trusts, “[Shell] had some safety and management challenges that I don’t think they had fully thought through.” Shell, along with every other oil company out there, […]

Saudi Arabia to Drill Seven Shale Gas Test Wells

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, will drill about seven test wells for shale gas this year, according to Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi. “We know where the areas are,” Al-Naimi said at a conference in Hong Kong today, referring to the country’s shale gas deposits. “We have rough estimates of over 600 trillion cubic […]

EROEI of Methane Hydrates

In the wake of the recent posts about methane hydrates, the overarching question is, as with any new energy source, what is the energy return on energy invested for these hydrates? In fact early indications are quite promissing: values of more than 30 initially, gradually deteriorating to 7 after 30 years of well exploitation. [sciforum.net […]

Libya’s oil sector makes quick recovery after 2011 revolution

Libya’s oil and gas sector, long the lifeblood of this desert nation, has made a surprising recovery since the country’s bloody 2011 revolution. Thanks to concerted efforts by the national oil company — and those of major foreign firms that have retained a leading role in Libya’s oil fields for decades — the country’s oil […]

The Post Fossil Fuel Era: Any Hope?

According to Bloomberg, “The U.S. expanded its oil production this year by the most since the first commercial well was drilled in 1859, upending a belief that Americans were increasingly hooked on foreign crude.” Further, “Domestic output grew by a record 766,000 barrels a day to the highest level in 15 years, government data show, […]

Is The U.S. Oil Boom About To Bust?

The United States is expected to lead the pack among non-OPEC members in terms of oil supply growth for 2013. That’s the assessment from this month’s market report from the Vienna-based cartel. OPEC said it projected U.S. oil supply growth of around 600,000 barrels per day in 2013, with most of that coming out of […]

Peak Oil: Natural Gas Truth v. “The Truth” Pt 7

This is the seventh and final part of a series [links below], discussing how the same “skate past the facts and hope no one notices” strategy typically employed by most Peak Oil deniers is not-so-surprisingly used by those cheerleading for shale gas development. What triggered this is a March 2012 article written by a Chevron […]

OPEC Raises Crude Output to 3-Month High on Saudi Arabia, Iraq

OPEC boosted its crude production to the highest in three months in February led by increased output from Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries pumped 30.31 million barrels a day last month, the producer group said in its monthly oil market report. That’s up from 30.24 million in January and is […]

Natural gas production in New Mexico declines

Natural gas production in northwestern New Mexico’s San Juan Basin continues to sink. Production dropped 4.2 percent in 2012 for the sixth straight year of declining production in the region. Northwestern New Mexico produced 780 billion cubic feet of natural gas in 2012. That’s down from about 815 billion cubic feet in 2011 and the […]

BP sees growing diversity of oil, gas supply

The oil and gas industry faces a growing diversity of reserves worldwide ranging from shale plays to Arctic drilling, BP PLC Chief Executive Bob Dudley said in an opening keynote address Mar. 6 to attendees at IHS CERAWeek in Houston. “The opportunities are plentiful, but they are also complex and difficult,” Dudley said. “And from […]

China’s ragtag shale army a long way from revolution

China’s plans to unlock what could be the world’s biggest shale gas reserves risk running further off track after 16 firms awarded exploration rights in the latest auction lacked one core skill – not one has drilled a gas well before. Beijing is hoping shale gas can transform the country in the same way as […]

Meet The New US Petroleum Pipelines

Still confused why crony capitalist #1, the “rustic” Octogenarian of Omaha, and Obama tax advisor #1, Warren Buffett has been aggressively attempting to corner the railroad market, while the administration relentlessly refuses to allow assorted new, and very much competing petroleum pipelines from America’s neighbor to the north to cross through the US (in gratitude […]

Dwindling Production Has Led to Lesser Role for Venezuela as Major Oil Power

President Hugo Chávez relished using Venezuela’s oil wealth to project power internationally, nudging OPEC to raise oil prices when he could, showering allies like Cuba and Nicaragua with subsidized oil shipments, and mocking the United States while selling it his crude. But Mr. Chávez’s death on Tuesday has had surprisingly little impact on global oil […]

‘Secret energy revolution’ could hasten end to dependence on foreign oil

A wealth of new technologies — from underwater robots to 3-D scanners to nano-engineered lubricants — are transforming the energy exploration industry in ways that will hasten the end of America’s reliance on Middle East oil. That’s the take on America’s “secret energy revolution,” according to a report in the Washington Guardian. And the proof […]

Decommissioning to Reach New Heights in 2013

With a staggering $3 billion allocated to the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) decommissioning market over the next five years, it’s safe to say that this is currently a hot sector for the industry. This growing sector is thriving due to a late 2010 federal regulation requiring operators to plug and abandon (P&A) wells and subsequently […]

With natural gas so abundant and cheap, should US export it?

The natural gas boom in North Texas is sputtering, with the number of rigs working the Barnett Shale recently hitting a 10-year low. It’s an issue elsewhere, as well, as the glut of domestic energy that’s transforming America drives down the price of natural gas and makes drilling less profitable. An industry association based in […]

Peak Oil: Natural Gas Truth v. “The Truth” Pt 6

This is the sixth part of a series [links below], discussing how the same “skate past the facts and hope no one notices” strategy typically employed by most Peak Oil deniers is not-so-surprisingly used by those cheerleading for shale gas development. What triggered this is a March 2012 article written by a Chevron Corporation executive, […]

Supply Availability Key to Ensure ‘Golden Age’ of Gas

The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s forecast of a global “golden age” of gas can only be realized if sufficient natural gas supplies can be brought to market, a Chevron official told attendees at the IHS CERAWeek conference Wednesday in Houston. Natural gas has become a hot topic not only in the United States but worldwide […]

BP CEO: ‘Peak oil’ talk quieted by abundance

HOUSTON – BP CEO Robert Dudley said booming oil-and-gas production from sources including onshore shale formations and deepwater regions has defeated arguments that global oil production will soon peak and go into an irreversible decline. Dudley, in a speech, noted projections of overall global demand energy growing by over a third by 2030, including the […]

Will the Unconventional Revolution be a Global One?

Global demand for energy will increase an estimated 40 percent by 2030, according to some research agencies, but ExxonMobil forecasts that natural gas demand will grow by 55 percent between 2005 and 2030. With this increasing demand for energy, the global tight oil race has kicked-off with many industry leaders feeling that the unconventional revolution […]

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