Energy / Crude Oil

• Conflict Rising in Iraq Over Oil Contracts and Revenues

  In a development that surprises no-one except armchair analysts, trouble is brewing in Iraq over the sharing of oil revenues between Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdish region and the central authorities in Baghdad over the Kurdistan Regional Government’s unilateral agreement just signed with U.S. oil giant, Texas-based Exxon Mobil, to develop the region’s oil resources. The agreement sets the stage for conflict between central authorities in Baghdad, who insist that the central government has overall oversight for the country's energy agreements and Kurdish authorities in Arbil, working to carve out increased autonomy for retaining an increased share of their region's oil…

• China's Energy Investments on a Global Roll, Now Include Brazil

  China, flush with cash, is on a global search to acquire any and all overseas energy assets. China Petrochemical Corp., known more familiarly as the Sinopec Group, Asia's biggest refiner, will pay $3.54 billion for a 30 percent share in Portugal’s Galp Energia SGPS SA's Brazilian unit, in what is China's 2011 largest overseas energy acquisition. Portugal’s Galp Energia is Portugal's biggest oil company, but affected by the European Union’s fiscal crisis and currently in need of additional immediate cash, incoming revenue is apparently preferable to long term benefits. So, why should this elicit anything other than a yawn? Easy…

• More Oil Discovered in Nigeria - Surprise, Surprise

  On 8 November French company Total S.A. announced that its local subsidiary, Total E and P Nigeria Ltd (TEPNG), struck oil in the southeastern corner of its Oil Mining Lease (OML) 102, 40 miles offshore of the southeastern coast of the country in the Atlantic, about 10 miles southeast of the country’s Ofon field. The Total S.A. test well was drilled to a depth of nearly 1.5 miles in 270 feet of water. One of the three reservoirs encountered tested at 8,500 barrels of oil per day. According to a Total S.A.  press release, “The well encountered three main hydrocarbon…

• No Growth in Oil Production for 7 Years - Will Alternatives Arrive Soon Enough?

  As oil prices rose ever higher in the last decade, the optimists kept predicting rising production capacity and plummeting prices. Looks like they got it wrong. We are entering what may be the longest stretch of no growth in world oil production since the early 1980s. But the reasons for that lack of growth differ in ways that ought to make us all uncomfortable. Starting in 1980, production slumped because for the first time in history people needed less oil. After the huge oil price increases in the 1970s, cars suddenly got smaller. People became more careful about combining trips…

• Peak Oil: The Five Most Common Misconceptions

  I have just returned from the annual ASPO conference in Washington, D.C. This was only my 2nd ASPO conference; the first one I attended was in 2008 in Sacramento. There were many familiar faces; some of whom I had previously met and some I only knew by reputation. The mood seemed remarkably calmer than in 2008. That year, oil prices were just coming down from record highs, a pair of hurricanes were causing spot gasoline shortages, and the economy was headed into the toilet. The general mood was that things were rapidly unraveling. Three years later, the long-term outlook isn’t…

• Peak Oil - Why We need to Plan Now

  It was by teaching a course on energy in 2004 that I first became aware of the enormous challenges facing our society this century. In preparing for the course, I was initially convinced that I would identify a sensible and obvious path forward involving energy from solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, tides, waves, ocean currents, etc. Instead, I came out dismayed by the hardships or inadequacies on all fronts. The prospect of a global peak in oil production placed a timescale on the problem that was uncomfortably short. It took several exposures to peak oil for me to grasp the full…

• Peak Production for U.S. Oil-Producing Regions

  I've just finished a new paper on Oil prices, exhaustible resources, and economic growth (click here for paper), which explores details behind the phenomenal increase in global crude oil production over the last century and a half and the implications if that trend should be reversed. Below I reproduce the paper's summary of the history of oil production from individual U.S. regions. From Oil prices, exhaustible resources, and economic growth: Certainly the technology for extracting oil from beneath the earth's surface has evolved profoundly over time. Although Drake's original well was steam-powered, some of the early drills were driven through…

• IEA Wrong to Expect Oil Production Growth to Come from MENA

  Recently, the International Energy Agency’s Chief Economist Fatih Birol was quoted as saying, In the next 10 years, more than 90% of the growth in global oil production needs to come from MENA [Middle East and North African] countries. There are major risks if this investment doesn’t come in a timely manner. While I agree that we need more oil production, I think we are kidding ourselves if we expect that 90% of the needed growth in global oil production will come from MENA countries. In this post, I will explain seven reasons why I think we are kidding ourselves.…

• Peak Oil and the European Debt Crisis

  With every passing day it is becoming more apparent that the crisis of the depletion of cheap oil has become deeply enmeshed in the European debt crises. The sequence of events is well known. Greece's economy is imploding; the government can no longer pay its bills without continuing bailouts from the EU; at some point Greece will have to default on at least part of the $430 billion it owes to mostly European banks. Such a default would in turn do severe damage to the viability of many major European Banks which are already suffering a liquidity shortage from the…

• Oil Boom in the USA

  The USA, largest consumer of oil and perhaps about fourth in production has entered an oil boom.  Not only is it related to improvements in production technology, but U.S. demand for crude has also fallen.  The U.S. is awash in oil.  It’s the rest of the world that’s driving demand. The past 25 years has seen world oil sales increase 50% since 1986.  Freeing the communist block has consequences like consumers who can afford an energy-supported lifestyle.  The forecast for this year is oil will be used at a daily rate of 89 million barrels a day.  The increases aren’t…