Energy / Oil Prices

• Politics and Peak Energy - Have we Reached the Tipping Point?

  Economic success, growth, and an affluent (happy) consumer lifestyle directly depend on an abundance of inexpensive energy. Conversely, the quantity and type of energy consumed can have a very adverse effect on the surrounding environment and world ecological balance. It then follows that politics, the subject of governing civilized societies, is also directly dependent on the common denominator of energy, just at a time that we are facing the imminent and terminal decline of our prime energy source, oil, and ultimately all finite fossil fuels. Yet, the advocates of different positions, for instance, climate change (man made or not), or…

• The U.S. No Longer Controls the Price of Oil in a Peak Oil World

  Back in the days when US oil demand controlled the price of oil, a massive recession in the United States would have sent oil to 12.00 dollars a barrel. That era, which ended last decade, was defined by ongoing spare capacity in OPEC, low-cost oil in Non-OPEC, and nascent demand for oil in the developing world. That was then, and this is now. And so it’s rather quaint that the energy analysts from that previous era still gather each week on American financial TV, to discuss the inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma. Inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma? The US has been removing…

• Happy 50th Anniversary Year OPEC

  On September 14, 1960 OPEC began operations as an ad-hoc talk-shop of sorts, and five years later became a permanent part of Vienna’s international bureaucracy.  I have decided to send my birthday greeting to them early however, because today (March, 17) is the day (in 2007) that I began my course on oil and gas economics at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Bangkok, during which I explained to various students that no matter what they had been led to believe by other researchers and lecturers, a new oil day had arrived due to the sophistication of OPEC, and…

• Crude Prices Stagnate Amid Doubts About Global Demand

  Oil Market Summary 03/08/2010 to 03/12/2010. Crude oil prices tread water for the week as uncertainty about demand continued to weigh on the market. Prices were down slightly on the week, with the benchmark West Texas Intermediate settling on Friday at $81.24 a barrel, compared with $81.50 a week ago. Not even relatively bullish forecasts for oil demand, such as the International Energy Agency’s report on Friday raising its forecast by 70,000 barrels a day for 2010, or the decline in the dollar could propel oil prices forward. One analyst even predicted crude oil prices dipping below $60 a barrel…

• There Will be No Economic Recovery as the Era of Cheap Oil Comes to an End

  a href="http://www.businessinsider.com"> When oil crossed $120 a barrel for the first time in May 2008, oil cornucopians knew they were in trouble. Prices had quadrupled in just five years, yet had failed to bring new production online. Regular crude had flatlined around 74 million barrels per day (mbpd). The case for peak oil was looking stronger with every new uptick in crude futures. The following month, prominent peak oil critic and cornucopian Daniel Yergin of IHS-CERA changed his stance: The peak oil threat would be neutralized by peak demand. Gasoline consumption had peaked in the U.S. and Europe, he argued,…

• Iraq Awards Drilling Contract as it Reaches for Ambitious Oil Production Target

  Iraq announced a $318 million contract with a unit of Turkish Petroleum to drill 45 wells in the supergiant Rumaila oilfield as the country strives to regain and even surpass pre-war production levels. With the third-largest proven oil reserves in the world, Iraq said at an industry conference last month that it wants to raise its production capacity to 12 million barrels a day in the next six years from the current 2.5 million, putting it in the same league as Saudi Arabia. Industry experts have expressed skepticism about this plan, but agree that any progress in that direction would…

• One Night Stand Pricing

  What's more important: upside or stability? That debate constantly rages amongst commodities producers. Especially when it comes to deciding whether to sell gold, copper or oil at spot versus long-term pricing. Long-term pricing is the stable option. Like being in a good marriage. A seller has a decent price, one they can count on. There probably aren't going to be any big surprises. An acceptable profit will be made. Spot pricing is the "one-night stand" of the sales world. Each day you're going to get something new and different. There's a certain thrill in knowing tomorrow could be the "big…

• Oil Prices Rise Amid Mixed Economic Data as Euro Concerns Ebb

  Oil Market Summary for 02/16/2010 to 02/20/2010. An easing of the crisis in Europe gave energy markets a firm tone last week that enabled crude oil futures to gain nearly 8% amid mixed economic news and some concerns about supply. A strike at French oil refineries lifted prices to a five-week high Friday, with the benchmark West Texas Intermediate finishing the week at $79.81. The French strike threatened to limit U.S. imports of refined products from Europe. Earlier in the week, the show of solidarity by European Union governments regarding fiscal problems in Greece and other countries in the eurozone,…

• More About Oil (Part 2): OPEC'S STRATEGY

  The IEA has apparently calculated that OPEC earned 575 billion (U.S.) dollars in oil export revenues in 2009, a relatively depressed year, and might earn more than 700 billion this year. If this is true, I choose to believe that OPEC's future strategy is almost identical to the one I would employ if I were in their place. I am sure that this confession will win me neither friends nor employers, however as we said in the United States when I was a boy, "I would rather be right than president!" To be explicit, OPEC's announced intentions are almost the…

• More About Oil (Part 1): A Preview of The New Decade

  In 20 years I predict energy wars over oil and  gas resources. By the time it becomes politically profitable to react to problems  in the transport energy sector, it will be too late for significant development of alternatives and too politically risky not to fight over remaining supplies.-LenGould  (in EnergyPulse, Jan. 8, 2008)I never contemplate the 'details' of energy wars, and that means the kind predicted for the future by Len Gould, as well as the one that Alan Greenspan - the  former director of the United States central bank (or Federal Reserve System) -  believes began in 2003, and…