Oil Sands: Crude, Dirty and Dangerous

EVERY day more than one million barrels of oil flow to refineries in the United States from western Canada’s oil sands region. Producers hope to quadruple that amount in the next decade, arguing that oil from a friendly neighbor will deliver an extra degree of national security. But this oil is no ordinary crude oil, […]

Trend in Global Crude and Condensate Production

The EIA produces a breakdown of their version of the global liquid fuel numbers into components – it’s very useful to understand how the different parts contribute to the whole.  This chart shows the four streams since 1995 and through April 2012: Here crude and condensate (liquid hydrocarbons coming out of the ground) are on […]

Pump Action Spurs Iraqi Oil Production

Iraq has reclaimed its place as the second-largest oil producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, overtaking Iran for the first time in 24 years and shifting the balance of power in the group. After years of conflict and poor security, Iraq has finally begun to rebuild its shattered oil industry. In July, it […]

Saudi Arabia Pumps Oil at 3-Decade High

Saudi Arabia pumped crude at the highest level in more than three decades in June, overtaking Russia as the world’s largest oil producer during the month, according to the Joint Organization Data Initiative. The desert kingdom’s output rose 3 percent to 10.1 million barrels a day in June from May as it exported the most […]

Increase in North American oil output to depend on pipeline capacity

Light oil production in North America could increase by 800,000 to 900,000 barrels per day per year through 2016, including an annual increase of 380,000 b/d in Canadian oil sands output that will continue through 2020, if the industry can resolve the lack of pipeline capacity, CIBC World Markets said Friday. Andrew Potter, an analyst […]

Iraqis helping Iran skirt sanctions

* Iranian banks, oil-smugglers bringing in needed dollars * Some officials close to President Maliki profiting * Obama bars Iraqi bank from U.S. dealings WASHINGTON, Aug 18 (Reuters) – Iraq has been helping Iran skirt economic sanctions imposed because of its nuclear program, using a network of financial institutions and oil-smuggling operations that are providing […]

Chinese vessel traverses Arctic Ocean for first time

China has completed its first voyage across the Arctic Ocean to Iceland using an icebreaker. The Arctic’s ice melt which experts attribute to climate change is opening new trade routes and exposing mineral resources. A Chinese vessel has voyaged from the Pacific to the Atlantic via the Arctic Ocean for the first time in the […]

Arctic Drilling Will Begin This Year, Shell Official Says

Despite embarrassing delays and trouble with its equipment, Shellremains confident that it will get final approval from regulators and be able to begin drilling for oil in Arctic waters off the Alaskan coast this summer, the oil company’s top Alaska executive said on Friday. “We absolutely expect to drill this year,” Peter E. Slaiby, Shell’s […]

Global Oil Production Fell 1mbd in June/July

I’ve been commenting for a few months that global liquid fuel production doesn’t seem to have continued increasing in 2012.  I’ve now updated my graph above with the latest data.  OPEC has revised down their numbers for June significantly and both the IEA and OPEC show very slight increases in July relatively to June.  The […]

Natural gas exports likely unprofitable for decades

While discussion of exporting liquefied natural gas has focused on the effect on domestic prices, a new study finds that international prices will be the limiting factor. In fact, not much U.S. gas is likely to find a market overseas through at least 2040, according to “U.S. LNG Exports: Truth and Consequence,” published Aug. 10 […]

Whatever Happened to Peak Oil?

Why are peak oil-ers like Jehovah’s Witnesses? Answer: When the definitive JW prediction of the ‘Day of Wrath’ failed in 1914, they did what false prophets have done in every generation: shifted the goalposts (to 1975 in the case of JW’s—and wrong again). It’s what false prophets do to save face, enabling them to keep […]

32 Mexico coal mines shuttered for safety reasons

Mexico City, Aug 11 (IANS/EFE) Mexico’s government said 32 small coal mines in the northern state of Coahuila have been closed due to safety concerns, a move taken after 13 miners were killed in that region in less than a month. In a press conference Thursday, Labor and Social Welfare Secretary Rosalinda Velez announced the […]

Iraq Daily Oil Output Reaches 3.2 Million Barrels

Iraq’s crude-oil production has risen to 3.2 million barrels a day and will increase as planned to 3.4 million barrels a day by year’s end Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Affairs Hussain al-Shahristani said. The country’s output has now surpassed that of Iran and Kuwait, al-Shahristani told reporters today in Baghdad. The figure would be […]

Is the era of oil nearing its end?

After nearly a decade of warnings that the world’s oil supply was running out, Americans now are hearing about technology breakthroughs that can unlock vast U.S. deposits of natural gas, help reverse a 40-year slide in domestic oil production and perhaps transform America into the next Middle East. But despite the euphoria, there’s a major […]

Tech Talk – tensions over oil in the South China Sea

In the introductory remarks to these posts on Chinese energy supplies and usage, I mentioned that one of the concerns beginning to be evident lies in disputes over the ownership of some of the oilfields offshore. Disputes over ownership have been continuing for some time, and this week was no exception, with Chinese moves to […]

Trade Movements of Petroleum

BP presents in their “Statistical Review of World Energy,” a summary of what they called inter-area movements of petroleum, which refers to the major imports and exports of oil between different countries or regions of the world. The trouble with BP’s over-complicated presentation was that one couldn’t readily visualize the relative petroleum flows from one […]

What EROEI is – and How to Use It

In Friday’s Oil & Energy Investor, I began a discussion about the importance of a metric known as Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI). As our research disclosed in the “Your Future: The Ultimate Pyramid Scheme” documentary, the factor is becoming a substantial element in the availability and cost of energy in general. But oil […]

Peak Oil, Declining EROI and the New Energy-Economic Reality with Dr. Charles A.S. Hall

Dr. Hall provides an assessment of global energy trends from his perspective as a systems ecologist and pioneer in the emerging field of biophysical economics. This webinar examines key concepts regarding energy quality and energy return on investment in the context of current world energy and economic challenges. A critique of neoclassical economics and its […]

Why America Can Make or Break A New Global Gas World

With summer vacations on the horizon, we thought we’d give Forbes readers with a penchant for natural gas a real treat. I’ve hooked up with fellow European energy analyst, Andreas Goldthau to sketch our thoughts on how global gas dynamics play out in the next decade in a specially co-authored piece. We go on a […]

Tech Talk – an introduction to China

When I first began this review of future production from the different oil producing countries about fifteen months ago, I produced this list of the relative performance of the top 30 producers.   Figure 1. Top 30 oil producing countries (those increasing production over 2009 are shown in red).So, after covering the top three the […]

Fixing the world’s biggest blackout

About 10 percent of the world’s population lost power recently as a blackout swept across northern India. As many as 700 million people, or twice the population of the U.S., were affected. Fortunately there have been no reports of deaths connected to the blackout, but the loss of power did result in traffic snarls, stranded […]

1846: The Year We Hit Peak Sperm Whale Oil

Energy experts predict that the global production of oil will soon start to decline, what’s referred to as peak oil. Now while we may not be there yet, there was a time in our history when we did reach a similar plateau, but it was a very different kind of energy source — one that […]

Shell Oil scales back Arctic drilling plan

Shell Oil Co. is downsizing its plan for off-shore drilling in the Arctic this year amid delays completing a spill containment barge required by the federal government, a spokesman said Tuesday. Shell now hopes to complete two wells in 2012 instead of five. One would be in the Beaufort Sea off the northern Alaska coastline, […]

U.S. Leading Oil Production Technology

July 30, 2012 (Bloomberg) — Dr. Nansen Saleri, Quantum Reservoir Impact CEO, shares his thoughts regarding how the U.S. is currently leading in Oil and Gas production technology. He speaks with Carol Massar on Bloomberg Television’s “Taking Stock.”

Look Ma: No Water! Non-Hydraulic Fracking Extends Energy Revolution

New methods of fracturing deep source rock promise to change the face of the tight oil & gas energy revolution. Eliminating the need to use water should minimise concerns about earthquakes and water contamination. Originally developed for shale oil extraction in geographic areas that were far too cold to use water due to freezing, Non-Hydraulic […]

Ugo Bardi: Strahan demolishes Maugeri

David Strahan is a British journalist, known among peak-oilers for his book “The Last Oil Shock“. He doesn’t mince words in his attack to Leonardo Maugeri’s recent, very optimistic report titled “Oil: the next revolution.” Whereas most commenters have criticized the report for its general approach and conclusions, Strahan has been more aggressive and has […]

A mountain-top take on the “flood of oil supply”

If Montana is a microcosm of the world, one message to glean is that we are not in the midst of a decades-long flood of oil supply in the United States, as many suggest. Instead, the red lights are blinking across the exuberant U.S. oil patch. As you recall, much has been made in recent […]

As the Arctic Opens for Oil, the Coast Guard Scrambles

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS/A) has spent $4.5 billion since 2005 preparing to explore for oil off Alaska’s north coast in the Arctic. Shell, which may begin drilling next month, is one of at least six companies planning to extract oil, gas, and minerals from the Arctic as global warming melts ice and opens new sea lanes […]

China in the oil patch, should we ‘fear the dragon’?

During his visit to China in February, Prime Minister Stephen Harper had two things on his mind: pandas and oil. For Canada, the trip was a success. Harper had his picture taken with two of China’s cutest inhabitants, and told China’s leaders often and loudly that Canada’s oil and gas companies are open for business […]

Oil industry, BP still haven’t learned from fatal mistakes

The deaths were never far away. They hovered over the esoteric discussions of safety processes; they were brought up by members of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board who were conducting the two-day public hearing and by members of the audience who were married to offshore oil workers or who had lost a parent in a […]

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