ExxonMobil Interested in Exploring for Oil in Afghanistan

Exxon Mobil Corp. told Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines it is interested in bidding on the right to explore for oil and gas in the country. A spokesman for the Irving, Texas-based energy giant said Monday a unit of the company, Esso Exploration International Ltd., filed an “expression of interest” in the Afghan-Tajik Basin over the […]

Oil sands, conventional growth will double Canada’s oil output by 2030

Production of crude oil will more than double to 6.2 million b/d by 2030, largely from oil sands, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. Production last year was 3 million b/d, of which 1.1 million b/d came from conventional resources in Western Canada, 1.6 million b/d from oil sands, and 300,000 b/d from […]

America’s Jaw-Dropping Shale Gas Boom Is Starting To Slow Down

Everyone’s raving about the American shale gas revolution, which could make the country the next Saudi Arabia of energy. Indeed, the growth rate in shale gas production has gone geometric. However, things are showing signs of slowing down. Credit Suisse’s Oil & Gas Exploration & Production research team led by Arun Jayaram is out with […]

Tech Talk – a new Energy Report from Harvard makes unsupportable assumptions

The OGPSS posts of the last few months have been following a path of looking in a relatively realistic manner at crude oil production with emphasis on that coming from the United States, Russia and Saudi Arabia – the current focus of the weekly pieces. An earlier piece, looked at a Citigroup report of considerable […]

Vietnam Warns China to Halt Oil Bids

Vietnam’s state-run oil explorer warned China to halt efforts to develop disputed areas of the South China Sea that Hanoi’s leaders have already awarded to companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and OAO Gazprom. Vietnam Oil & Gas Group, also known as PetroVietnam, will ask China National Offshore Oil Corp., the government-owned parent of Cnooc […]

Iraq to sign oil deal with firms

Iraq will sign initial contracts in July with three foreign companies that won deals to explore oil and gas blocks as it looks to attract more foreign investment to develop its energy sector. The Opec member is expected to be the world’s biggest source of new oil supplies over the next few years after signing […]

Oil exploration ramps up in US Arctic

Shell is preparing to lead a new ‘oil rush’ in the American north. A new round of exploratory oil drilling is due to begin in the Arctic this July. Oil companies are no doubt dreaming of a northern oil rush, while environmentalists face nightmares of devastating spills. The oil giant Shell has been granted permission […]

New study forecasts sharp increase in world oil production capacity, and risk of price collapse

Oil production capacity is surging in the United States and several other countries at such a fast pace that global oil output capacity is likely to grow by nearly 20 percent by 2020, which could prompt a plunge or even a collapse in oil prices, according to a new study by a researcher at the […]

China’s Lu’an Group Manages to Produce Coal-based Synthetic Oil

China’s Lu’an Group said Tuesday that construction work has started on its pioneer 5 million tonne/year coal-based synthetic oil production facility in Changzhi City, northern Shanxi Province. The facility, named as Shanxi Lu’an Coal-based Synthetic Oil Demonstration Factory, have reached a production capacity of 2 million tonne/year of synthetic oil, the company said. Lu’an Group’s […]

America’s new energy reality – A bidding war for declining global net oil exports

Americans are reading, almost on a daily basis, about increasing oil and gas production in the US. For example, Daniel Yergin wrote about his optimistic outlook for increasing US oil and gas production in an OpEd piece in the June 10, 1012 New York Times entitled “Americas New Energy Reality.” It’s certainly true that US […]

Oil Exporting Alternatives in the Persian Gulf

Stratfor Vice President of Strategic Intelligence Reva Bhalla examines investor interest in developing oil exporting alternatives to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. For more analysis, visit: http://www.stratfor.com

Saudi Arabia and production from Safaniya

In recent posts I have been looking at the potential for the historically high producing Saudi oilfields at Abqaiq, Berri and Ghawar to increase, or even sustain current levels of production into the future. This is particularly important when one considers the historic main oilfields in production within that country. And of these the largest […]

For oil executives, the fracking revolution raises spectre of a gas flashback

I don’t know any oil executives who use Twitter, but if they did, their “trending” hashtag might be #gasflashback. Behind this virtual podium, their tweets would focus on what is now the most anxiously-asked question in the oil patch: “Can the fracking revolution do to oil prices what it has done so ruthlessly to North […]

Why oil prices are lowest they’ve been in months

 By Patti Domm, cnbc.com The free-fall in crude prices is unlikely to reverse course without significant signs that the world economy is improving. Oil, like stocks and other risk assets, fell sharply Thursday as fears of slowing global growth gripped markets, which were also beset by speculation about pending bank downgrades and Europe’s sovereign crisis. But the […]

Latin America: The Enron Of Oil?

As any energy watcher will tell you, one of permanent dates in the diary is the release of BP Statistical Review, providing a detailed overview of how the numbers do or don’t stack up. The 2012 edition was unveiled in Londonthis week, and the findings were as interesting as they were depressing. The good news was we managed to ‘keep the […]

Record High Bids Seen in First Central Gulf Sale Since Deepwater Horizon

Gulf lease sale nets $1.7B in winning bids The federal government’s first auction of offshore petroleum leases in the same area where the Deepwater Horizon exploded in 2010 brought in $1.7 billion in winning bids Wednesday. By CAIN BURDEAU Associated Press NEW ORLEANS —The federal government’s first auction of offshore petroleum leases in the same area […]

Iraq oil hopes slide on legal limbo

LONDON // Five years after the first attempt by the Iraqi authorities to ratify anoil law, the country’s petroleum sector is still in legal limbo. A hydrocarbon law remains a mirage in Baghdad and the reality is dawning that Iraq’s plans to become one of the world’s top-five oil producers are jeopardised by the legal deadlock. Many oil […]

USGS Releases New Estimates for Global O&G Reserves

The U.S. Geological Survey has released a new global estimate for potential additions to oil and gas reserves due to reserve growth in discovered fields outside the United States. The USGS estimates that the mean undiscovered, conventional reserve additions in the world total 665 billion barrels of oil (bbo), 1,429 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of […]

Marginal Oil Production Cost Nearing $92 Per Barrel

Future Pundit points to a Bernstein Research paper describing the marginal cost of oil production – Marginal Oil Production Cost Nearing $92 Per Barrel. Energy analysts at Bernstein say the marginal cost of oil production, already $92 per barrel, is nearing $100 per barrel. The marginal cost of the 50 largest oil and gas producers […]

2012 Global Fuel Supply Still Flat

I seem to be the only person paying much attention to this, but I still think it’s significant.  May figures for global liquid fuel supply are out from OPEC and the IEA and they continue to show that global supply has increased very little since January (in contrast to the very strong increases in the […]

Tech Talk – Current oil production and the future of Ghawar

There is a growing impression being given in the discussion of oil and natural gas supplies, that the world is moving into a period where there will soon be such a plentiful sufficiency of crude that the US may consider exporting some of its production. (h/t Leanan). But if one looks behind the headlines, and […]

Nationalised oil can deliver output growth

Venezuela’s oil minister stood up in public this week and denounced the man beside him as “predatory” and a peddler of “the colonialist high-handedness which has done so much harm to the world”. His unfortunate neighbour on the conference podium was the boss of U.S. oil firm ConocoPhillips, which is claiming billions of dollars in […]

US shale gas going nowhere fast as LNG

The idea that a wave of LNG produced from US shale gas fields is ready to crash over Asian consumer markets, disrupting traditional supply routes and oil-linked pricing mechanisms doesn’t hold much water with producers in the Middle East, Australia and Southeast Asia. “Reality says that there will be a finite amount of gas out […]

Peak oil: Why we’ll never run out of oil

Remember the term “peak oil”? What happened to it? The notion that world oil production had reached its summit and would soon begin a decline — bringing with it shortages, economic collapse, resource wars, and general ruination — was in vogue not so long ago. “Is global oil production reaching a peak?” asked the BBC […]

The Saudi Oil Problem, by Tam Hunt

Tam Hunt is an attorney specializing in renewable energy law. He is the owner of Community Renewable Solutions LLC, a consulting firm based in Santa Barbara, California. Tam recently offered another informative essay on the reality of Peak Oil, touching on the too-infrequently discussed topic of net oil exports—specifically those from Saudi Arabia. I first […]

Sad news for peak oil disciples

Whenever oil prices surpass US$100 per barrel, a certain group of well-known economists and investment banks re-emerge to tout their dire warnings that oil will soon top US$200 or more because of peaking oil supplies. Several bestselling books have been written warning that the world’s supply of oil has peaked and we had better prepare […]

Al-Naimi: Maybe There Is Need For Higher Oil Output

Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said Monday there might be a need for higher oil production above OPEC’s current ceiling, and the kingdom will continue to meet its customers’ demand. “I said maybe… When customers…say ‘we want oil’, what do you do, we give it to them,” Mr. Naimi told reporters in Vienna in […]

Labor Supply Poses Challenge for Canada’s Oil Sands

Collaboration will be critical in addressing labor challenges surrounding development of Canada’s oil sands resources, according to a recent report by Deloitte, “Balancing the People Equation: How enhanced collaboration can help solve labour challenges in the oil sands”. Demand for workers in Canada’s oil sands industry in particular poses as a challenge for Canada’s energy […]

Former President of Exxon Arabian Gulf Says We Have Exploited Much of the Easy to get Oil

Dr. Gerald Bailey tells FutureMoneyTrends.com that “the cheap oil is pretty much behind us.” Though he is not a believer in peak oil, he does believe the world has exploited much of the easy to get oil. In this 11 minute interview with FutureMoneyTrends.com, Dr. Bailey covers the state of the current oil markets and […]

Iran Seeks to Build New ‘Hub’ for Crude Exports

Iran will build a $5.2 billion export terminal in the southern port city of Jask and turn it into the new “hub” for crude exports, the Oil Ministry’s website, Shana, reported. Some 20 million barrels of crude will be kept at the storage terminal, which will be located on the Gulf of Oman, east of […]

« Previous Page — Next Page »

LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Why the IEA is Wrong About Peak Oil Demand
• Did we inadvertently speed global warming?  
• Venezuela’s Oil Monopoly Eases
• Why Germany is Choosing Natural Gas Over Nuclear Power
• U.S. coal-fired electricity generation decreased in 2022 and 2023

• America Cracks Down on Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Facilities
• Meet America’s Newest Oil Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden
• Is It Time To Refill America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
• Oil prices set to end year 10% lower as demand concerns snap winning streak
• What’s Driving America’s New Oil and Gas Boom?
• China’s peak oil demand bombshell eviscerates Danielle Smith’s energy strategy