Will the U.S. Surpass Saudi Arabia in Oil Production?

Recent news reports said yes, based on the Executive Summary of a big international report by the International Energy Agency. Columbia University geologist Peter Kelemen takes a closer look at the full document, and what lies ahead for energy demand and fossil fuels. Last week, major news outlets reported on bullet points that accompanied the […]

LNG set sails for Japan via Arctic route

First ever tanker loaded with liquid natural gas (LNG) sails the Northern Sea Route with gas from Norway to energy hungry Japan. “New development,” says Gunnar Sander with the Norwegian Polar Institute. “This voyage is interesting because it shows how the shale gas has turned the gas market upside down,” says Senior Researcher Gunnar Sander. […]

US shale oil abundance: Bernstein vs the IEA

When the International Energy Agency’s big annual report came out last week there was a big top line story picked up nearly everywhere: that US oil production will overtake Saudi Arabia by about 2020. This is due to projected rises in oil being wrung from the sort of shale formations that have been the source […]

Peak, What Peak?

[Editor’s comment: This article is by Dr. Tad Patzek, chairman of the Department of Petroleum & Geosystems Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Patzek’s research involves mathematical modeling of earth systems with emphasis on multiphase fluid flow physics and rock mechanics. He is also working on smart, process-based control of very large […]

Deutsche Bank: Don’t bet on the IEA’s prediction of U.S. oil dominance

Reading the pages of the Business Spectatorin recent months I’ve noticed a seemingly endless stream of articles by Robert Gottliebsen claiming the US “shale gas revolution” will result in US energy independence, a resurgence in US domestic manufacturing and the demise of Australia’s LNG export industry (unless the unions are crushed and construction costs dramatically […]

Fracking: A new dawn for misplaced optimism

You would think we were swimming in oil. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) latest World Energy Outlook forecasts that the United States will outstrip Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest producer by 2017, becoming “all but self-sufficient in net terms” in energy production. While the “peak oil” pessimists are clearly wrong, so is a simplistic […]

Saudi Arabian Oil Exports Rise

Saudi Arabia’s crude oil exports rose in September to 7.28 million barrels a day as local refineries cut processing by 14.6 percent, according to the Joint Organizations Data Initiative. The world’s largest crude exporter shipped 2.9 percent more crude while producing 0.3 percent less oil than it did in August, according to data posted today […]

Tech Talk – Global oil supply and Iranian Production

One of the headlines this week has come from the IEA Report that suggests that the United States will be the top global oil producer in five years. Yet back in DeSoto Parish in Louisiana where the Haynesville Shale discovery in 2008 started the bonanza, revenues are now falling and school board budgets are being […]

Light crude surplus spins world oil trade compass

The world is increasingly saturated with hitherto scarce high-quality light crude with Europe’s market to join the United States in a surplus, traders say, predicting a scramble to export to Asia and a global shortage of once abundant heavy oil. The shale oil boom has pushed U.S. production to the highest in more than 15 […]

Two dead and two missing in US Gulf of Mexico oil rig fire

Two people are missing and four injured after a fire on a shallow-bed oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, off the Louisiana coast, officials say. The four people who were hurt were in critical condition in hospital, a spokeswoman said. Earlier, the US Coast Guard said two people had died. The oil production platform […]

Even Hubbert Was Wrong

The founding myth of “peak oil” has always been Hubbert’s 1956 prediction that US oil production would peak in the early 1970s and decline, never to rise again. This myth is being disproved as we speak. Thanks to technological breakthroughs, US oil production is rising again: The trend is set to continue. From yesterday’s Los […]

China Looks to Emulate US Shale Success

In the last couple of years, shale exploration and production has sparked a petrochemical renaissance in the United States which has not gone unnoticed. With over 50 new petrochemical projects planned in the United States, the country is on track to become the world’s top gas producer in 2014. According to the U.S. Energy Department, […]

Canada Oil Sands Continue to Gain Global Attention

Canada holds the largest crude oil deposits outside the Middle East, most of which are in the form of oil sands, and are expected to play a major role in supplying the world’s future energy requirements, stated a new report by energy experts GlobalData. The new research states that Canada is one of the leading […]

Oil Supply Continues Flat in 2012

The future might be too bright to stare at, but back here in 2012, oil supply continues to look flat.  There’s been no significant upward trend since January.  This is starting to feel a bit like the 2005-2007 plateau: Note that this graphs above show three estimates of total liquid fuel production (and their average).  “All […]

IEA Oil Forecast Unrealistically High; Misses Diminishing Returns

The International Energy Agency (IEA) provides unrealistically high oil forecasts in its new 2012 World Energy Outlook (WEO). It claims, among other things, that the United States will become the world’s largest oil producer by 2020, and will become a net oil exporter by 2030. Figure 1. Author’s interpretation of IEA Forecast of Future US Oil Production […]

Oil and Gas Professionals See American Self-Sufficiency for Natural Gas, but Not Crude Oil

America can bank on plentiful domestic natural gas, but should expect a continued reliance on foreign oil, according to oil and gas decision-makers who participated in a new Deloitte survey. Three-quarters of the survey respondents think the United States is already natural gas self-sufficient, or will be within 10 years. When it comes to oil, […]

World Energy Outlook 2012 – NYT article focusing on the USA

Today the IEA’s World Energy Outlook for 2012 was released. I will comment on the report when I have had an opportunity to read it. At the moment numerous newspaper articles have misunderstood the contents of WEO2012. For example, an article in the New York Times has been published under the headline: U.S. to Be […]

Iranian oil output, exports rebound

Iranian oil output rose in October after seven months of decline due to Western sanctions and its exports rebounded strongly as China and South Korea bought more oil, the West’ energy watchdog said on Tuesday. The International Energy Agency, adviser to industrialised nations on energy policy, said the rebound in Iranian output was adding to […]

Gas Bubble Leaking, About to Burst

For the past three or four years media sources in the U.S. trumpeted the “game-changing” new stream of natural gas coming from tight shale deposits produced with the technologies of horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing. So much gas surged from wells in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania that the U.S. Department of Energy, presidential candidates, […]

Iraq to Invest Up to $150B to Boost Oil Output Capacity

Iraq could spend up to $150 billion on projects to expand its crude production capacity to more than 12 million barrels a day, the country’s oil minister said in remarks published Monday. “Iraq can reach 9 million barrels per day in 2018 and I believe we can exceed 12 million barrels per day given the […]

U.S. the New Saudi Arabia? Peak Oilers Scoff

The U.S. is set to increase oil production so much that it will overtake Saudi Arabia and become the world’s biggest producer by around 2017, the International Energy Agency said today. The reaction from “peak oil” theorists? Not a chance. They continue to argue that the surge in U.S. production coming from shale oil and […]

The Cyber Threat To the Global Oil Supply

The future of energy insecurity has arrived. In August, a devastating cyber attack rocked one of the world’s most powerful oil companies, Saudi Aramco, Riyadh’s state-owned giant, rendering thirty thousand of its computers useless. This was no garden-variety breach. In the eyes of U.S. defense secretary Leon Panetta, it was “probably the most destructive attack […]

IEA: US To Be World’s Largest Oil Producer

The IEA has released it’s 2012 World Energy Outlook.  The big headline is that they’ve bought into the idea that the US energy future is too bright to stare hard at: Energy developments in the United States are profound and their effect will be felt well beyond North America – and the energy sector. The […]

Gas-to-liquids is a risky investment

A news story recently proclaimed the benefits of gas-to-liquids technology: A Chesapeake Energy (NYSE:CHK) backed company and Oxford Catalysts Group (OCG:London) are planning U.S. factories to make diesel, gasoline and jet fuel from gas, which fell to a decade-low price this year. Their goal is to make motor fuels more cheaply and easily than oil-based products […]

Saudi Arabia to be self-sufficient in gas by 2021

Saudi Arabia will remain self-sufficient in natural gas, with production and consumption rising to 131 billion cubic meters (bcm) by 2021 from an estimated 94.8 bcm in 2011, BMI said in “Saudi Arabia Oil and Gas Report Q4 2012”. However, the report noted that though refinery expansion is proceeding broadly to schedule, Saudi Arabia cannot […]

Saudis Warn of Retaliation If Iran Continues to Intrude on Oil Facilities

Saudi Arabia has reportedly warned it will retaliate if Iran continues to intrude on the airspace and waters around its offshore oil facilities in the Persian Gulf, and reserves the right to retaliate, as Tehran’s firing at a U.S. drone last week raises concerns about an escalation in tensions in the region. Saudi Arabia’s envoy […]

Correction: US Oil Boom story

In a story Oct. 23 about the boom in U.S. oil production, The Associated Press misidentified the year and amount of peak U.S. oil output. U.S. oil output peaked in 1970 at 11.7 million barrels per day, not in 1985 at 11.2 million barrels per day. A corrected version of the story is below: US […]

Shale Gas: India Goes China’s Way

India wants to emulate the methodology China has adopted in developing a pool of scholars with academic and technical expertise in shale gas exploitation by engaging with US industry and academia. “Our consul general in Houston has brought to our attention some very ingenious efforts by the Chinese oil and gas industry to learn from […]

OPEC acknowledges shale oil supply may be significant

OPEC acknowledged for the first time on Thursday that technology for extracting oil and gas from shale is changing the global supply picture significantly, and said demand for crude will rise more slowly than it had previously expected. In its annual World Oil Outlook, OPEC cut its forecast of global oil demand to 2016 due […]

Update on coal

This a guest post by Jean Laherrère, retired geologist from TOTAL and key founding member of ASPO; in recent years he has been a prolific contributor to this website. In this post Jean updates his model of future world Coal extraction and puts it in perspective within his fossil fuel model. In 2007 the world […]

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