Peak Oil News

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/us-fracking-regulations-upset-oil-industry/3398To those of us who have been following the shale boom, the following information shouldn't be too much of a surprise. Wherever there is a large enough public debate, there is also the nose of the government. Washington loves playing mediator – it's a good look for them. The U.S. Interior Department aims to implement new regulations for hydraulic fracturing (what a shocker). The new regulations surround concerns over the environmental safety of fracking and target several specific issues. According to the proposal, companies must share a list of fracking chemicals, but they are permitted to do so after fracturing has already been completed. Companies may...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/austrian-wind-power-investing/3405A new opinion poll conducted in Austria has found that 77% of Austrians are in favour of wind energy compared to just 4% in favour of fossil fuels and 1% for nuclear power. The poll, published on 8 May by the Austrian Wind Energy Association, IG Windkraft, also found that Austrian’s are prepared to pay €25 per year for wind energy – five times the level they currently pay. “Austrians want an energy transition and wish for the expansion of wind power,” said Stefan Moidl, Managing Director of IG Windkraft. The survey also polled people currently living near a wind farm – of whom 82% said the turbines have no impact on their life, 15% said t...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/3d-solar-printing-investing/3397 I want you to take a look at two pictures. First, here's an image of the Bell Solar Battery, the first solar device to successfully convert sunlight directly into electricity: Using solar cells developed by Bell Labs, engineers were able to achieve a 6% conversion efficiency. This provided enough juice to power a single phone during field trials. Now take a look at this... These are modern solar photovoltaic panels manufactured by SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ: SPWR), available commercially, boasting an efficiency of 24%. The California Public Utilities Commission just recently approved a 20-year power purchase agreement whereby these panels will supply 100 megawatts to t...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/wyoming-oil-rail-terminal/3404Meritage Midstream will be developing a crude oil rail loading facility right inside the Wyoming shale oil play. But there’s an added advantage to Meritage’s decision. That area of Wyoming happens to be coal country, and that’s why Meritage went ahead and paired up with Arch Coal (NYSE: ACI) of St. Louis, which owns the Black Thunder mine. The two will be sharing rail capacities for dual loads. From Progressive Railroading: "The Powder River Basin has been the largest coal-producing region in the country for many years and currently accounts for approximately 40 percent of U.S. coal production. Now, new drilling technologies are being applied to legacy oil...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/lng-export-terminal-approved/3403Freeport LNG has been granted U.S. government approval to begin exporting its liquefied natural gas (LNG) to countries outside of the free trade agreement (FTA). Last Friday’s announcement is only the second time such a permit has been awarded, but it shows a growing commitment to sending natural gas to countries beyond U.S. borders. The export terminal must still pass environmental and regulatory review, but granted no major hiccups occur, it will have free range to export domestic LNG to any country with which trade is permissible. Under authorization, Freeport has the right to export up to 1.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day for the next 20 years to any n...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/fracking-oil-investments/3401Contrary to popular belief, hydraulic fracturing didn't start five years ago... That's just when people began to notice the flood of oil from North American shale formations like the Bakken. And it certainly didn't start at the birth of the shale boom, when George Mitchell was tinkering with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing back in the early 1980s in the Barnett Shale... Believe it or not, this technology has been around for over six decades. The first time an oil well was successfully fractured was back in 1949, at the Hugoton gas field in Kansas — although things were quite different back then. Rather than injecting millions of gallons of water, lik...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/chesapeake-nyse-chk-turnaround-ahead/3402A change in leadership could be just the thing to save Chesapeake (NYSE: CHK). The Oklahoma-based company announced that Robert Douglas Lawler will take over as CEO on June 17. Lawler will leave his most recent position as Senior Vice President of International and Deepwater Operations at Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC). He has 25 years of onshore and offshore experience in exploration and production. Before Anadarko, his career started at Kerr-McGee in 1988 – a company that was purchased by Anadarko in 2006. Lawler’s entrance comes as a relief to shareholders, who were fed up with former CEO and co-founder Aubrey McClendon’s performance as leader o...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/argentina-shale-investing/3400Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) and Argentina’s YPF (NYSE: YPF) may finally have reached an agreement about developing the Vaca Muerta basin. Why is this important? Well, for starters, Chevron has gone on record saying that the Vaca Muerta basin may very well be the second-largest unconventional oil reserve in the world. Chevron, as Forbes reports, plans to invest as much as $1.5 billion into the first phase of development. That works out well for Argentina, which faces an energy crisis and is importing energy for the first time in nearly two decades. YPF was actually nationalized by the Argentine government in a moment of crisis brought on by errant inflation and general pres...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/keystone-xl-approval-investing/3399It looks like the Keystone XL will most – likely be going ahead despite the fact that the topic remains highly contentious. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently declared that the pipeline, which will lead to the U.S. Gulf Coast, is quite essential, stating that oil will be transferred across the U.S. one way or another. The Keystone XL pipeline, if you recall, still needs President Obama to sign off on it (or deny it). Clearly, Harper intended his remarks to exert some added pressure and possibly speed things up. ABC News reports that Harper’s recent talk in New York City were attended by numerous protest groups, who remain set against the environm...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/japan-and-us-lng-investing/3396Friday, a joint venture was announced that would represent Japan’s first crack at U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG). It also marks the increasing eagerness to export natural gas from U.S. shorelines. Mitsui & Co. (OTC: MITSY), Mitsubishi Corp. (OTC: MSBHY), and Nippon Yusen K.K. (OTC: NPNYY) will each take stake in the construction of an export facility as part of Cameron LNG’s terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. The export facility will cost roughly $10 billion. Mitsui will take a 16.6 percent stake, while the other two companies will jointly take another 16.6 percent. U.S.-based Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE), developer and coordinator of the Cameron LNG project, will...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/a-nuclear-energy-future-for-the-us/3395Nuclear power could be top priority with a new U.S. Energy Secretary. In a nomination bid that could give a helping hand to the nuclear power sector, the Senate confirmed Ernest Moniz as the new head of the Department of Energy in a bipartisan 97 to 0 vote. Moniz is a nuclear physicist and teacher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During his tenure at MIT, he also served as director of the Energy Initiative and was a former member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future. He also has experience in government, having served as DOE undersecretary. Moniz believes in a balanced approach when it comes to American energy. He has been met w...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/ernest-moniz-energy-investments/3394There's no doubt about it... It's extremely rare these days to find members of Congress approving much of anything coming out of the Obama administration — at least, not without the obligatory dog and pony debates and strategically planned series of huffs and puffs from media whores and partisan slaves. But this time around, it didn't take too long (relatively speaking) for Ernest Moniz to become the next Secretary of Energy. In a 97 to 0 vote, Moniz seems to be receiving an uncommon welcome in a Washington den of thieves and liars. Sure, there's been the expected tantrums and intern-constructed press releases. But for the most part, Moniz has been given a clean...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/goldman-sachs-nyse-gs-funds-solarcity-nasdaq-scty/3393Elon Musk’s profile just keeps rising. First, the Tesla Model S hit the news for its continued successes, and Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) just recently saw its stock shoot up. Now, Goldman Sachs has given SolarCity Corp. (NASDAQ: SCTY), the solar developer that Musk chairs, financing worth a bit more than $500 million. The agreement in question began brewing sometime last year, and the amount of funding was increased this April. Bloomberg reports that the lease-financing agreement means SolarCity will be able to develop some 110 megawatts of solar systems, without homeowners and businesses incurring much upfront costs. Investors should pay attention to t...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/tesla-nasdaq-tsla-to-shed-government-loan/3392Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA) is putting its stamp on the auto industry. It's achieving something that just doesn’t happen for a new car company nowadays: not only is it surviving, but it’s thriving. Last week, Tesla reported its first quarterly profit as a company; now, just one week later, it is making plans to repay its $465 million loan from the Department of Energy. The loan is part of the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program set forth by President Barack Obama in 2009. This move proves that a company can use the government’s assistance and get off the ground to become a success. And it’s doing more with less. Under th...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/shell-nyse-rds-a-middle-eastern-oil-investments/3391Shell (NYSE: RDS-A) is setting up a wider tent in the Middle East. The Anglo-Dutch company will begin producing crude in the Majnoon oil field of Southern Iraq next month. It is mostly for domestic consumption, but there is room for exports. Shell is currently the lead operator of the Majnoon, with a 45 percent stake. Malaysia’s Petronas holds a 30 percent share, and the Iraqi government holds the remaining interest. Output from the region is expected to start by the middle of this year. But Shell is going after Middle Eastern natural gas as well. The company is also in the midst of negations with Saudi Arabian officials for a natural gas project in...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/utica-shale-boom-or-bust/3390“The whole thing is a bust. We might as well give up.” That's what a friend of mine told me earlier today, during a phone call on my way in to work. I have a feeling it won't be the last time I hear this sentiment... My friend was referring to a recent report released by Ohio's Department of Natural Resources. The annual report shows statistics for drilling, permitting, and production. This year's report was highly anticipated because it reveals the activity in the Utica Shale for the year. And this particular report  is significant due to the frequency with which the department publishes these reports. North Dakota, for example, allows us access to dril...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/lng-investing/3388BG Group plc (LSE: BG), the British oil and gas company, has decided to put more emphasis on its operations relating to the exploration, exploitation, and development of liquefied natural gas. BG’s major assets lie in Brazil and Australia. Reuters reports that the company’s impressive levels of capital spending will likely peak in 2015, while the part of its total production with profit margins over $50 per barrel of oil equivalent is expected to increase about threefold over the next half decade. Shareholders may expect surplus cash returns from that time onward. BG’s basic ambition is to either sell or produce at least 50 percent of its discovered resources over the ne...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/kinder-morgan-nyse-kmi-coal-exports/3387Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMI) is bowing out of its plans to export coal from the terminal at the Port of St. Helens on Oregon’s Columbia River. The announcement came Wednesday, as the company shut the doors on a project that was expected to send 30 million tons of coal from the Pacific Northwest terminal each year to Asian markets, most notably to China. This endeavor is little more than a blip on Kinder Morgan’s radar, as the Houston-based company with a diverse portfolio vows to keep full steam ahead in its efforts to export coal from U.S. shores. The midstream success of Kinder Morgan is unwavering; export volumes are still on the rise, and other terminals...

Yesterday's panel discussion in Washington, DC on "The Trust Factor" in energy couldn't have been more timely. The stakes for lost trust seemed especially apparent against the backdrop of an EU probe into allegations of price fixing in the spot oil market, involving some of the industry's largest players, and coverage of the IRS and Associated Press wiretapping scandals.  The session was hosted by The Energy Collective and communications firm Edelman, which presented the energy-related findings from its latest annual Trust Barometer.  The theme of this year's survey was a "Crisis of Leadership."Edelman found a small improvement in the US public's trust for the energy industry, compared to last year.  Yet energy's trust level of 59%, which is slightly bett...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-price-manipulation/3386Allegations of financial corruption persist in the oil market. Statoil ASA (NYSE: STO), Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-A), and BP plc (NYSE: BP) have all been implicated by the European Commission for a violation of Europe’s antitrust laws. The companies are accused of colluding and manipulating prices with data reporting company Platts, owned by McGraw Hill Financial Inc. The offices of these companies were raided on Tuesday in an unannounced inspection. Platts is also accused of disallowing participants to enter their trading data. EC officials charge that such activity has been ongoing for over a decade. Companies under investigation are in full cooperation with authoritie...

This Article Originally was Published here: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/natural-gas-pipeline-investing/3385Last week saw the introduction of a bill by U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) that is sure to be greeted with enthusiasm by oil and gas developers around the nation. HR 1900 seeks to amend Section 7 of the Natural Gas Act by mandating the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve a new gas pipeline within a year of its public notification. This should be a valuable step forward, since the FERC tends to do a good job generally reviewing applications for permission to build and develop new pipelines, but it cannot enforce any deadlines for state or federal agencies. The Oil and Gas Journal quotes Pompeo, commenting on the bipartisan bill: “This bipartisan piece o...

Last month the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that the amount of carbon dioxide emitted for each unit of global energy use was essentially unchanged between 1990 and 2010, despite the implementation of global climate agreements and the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars for renewable energy projects and incentives. Just a few days earlier, the US Environmental Protection Agency released its annual inventory of US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, showing a 1.6% reduction from 2010 to 2011. US emissions were up 8% since 1990 but have fallen 5% since 2000 and nearly 8% from their pre-recession peak in 2007. Much of the US's recent divergence from the global trend is attributable to the displacement of coal from the power sector by shale gas. As unwelcome as the I...

Alternative fuels have lost some of their luster in the US, lately, for understandable reasons.  Oil production here is booming based on shale resources that keep expanding, while the market for ethanol, our most successful alternative fuel, has stalled at the long-anticipated "blend wall", resulting in ethanol plant closures and bankruptcy filings.  More advanced cellulosic biofuel is still only available in minute quantities, and last year's sales of electric vehicles will displace less than 24 million gallons per year of gasoline--around 0.02% of US gasoline demand.  With all this in mind, it seemed like an excellent time to speak with former Shell Oil Company President John Hofmeister, who recently joined the advisory board of the Fuel Freedom Foundation, a gro...

Because of the slow progress in displacing fossil fuels with renewables, carbon capture and sequestration should receive much more attention as a game-changing technology.The challenges that must be overcome for CCS to be deployed on a large scale remain significant.Yesterday I ran across an excellent article in The Atlantic on the importance of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).  In light of last week's warning from the International Energy Agency that efforts to reduce the carbon intensity of global energy have yielded minimal results over the last two decades, the authors' chosen title, "Learning to Live with Fossil Fuels", seems particularly apt. Although neither they nor the IEA are suggesting we abandon renewable energy, they do effectively question the conve...

Poor water availability could hamper efforts to develop Saudi Arabia's shale gas resources, in order to meet growing gas demand from Saudi industry.Water recycling and alternative fracking fluids could provide the solution.  Recent comments by Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Ali Al-Naimi, indicated that Saudi Aramco would soon begin exploring the country's shale gas resources. As another means of reducing oil consumption in the Kingdom's electricity sector, in order to preserve oil exports, this appears to make both practical and economic sense. However, as noted by the Wall St. Journal, compared to the US Saudi Arabia has much less water available for the hydraulic fracturing of shale and tight gas reservoirs. Absent a reallocation of its substantial conventional gas produc...

How far could crude oil prices fall, and what does it mean for US pump prices this summer?The broad trends behind oil's current weakness could persist for some time. We all carry assumptions around with us.  For many who follow energy one such assumption is that oil prices, and thus gasoline prices, generally rise over time.  In an otherwise fairly well-reasoned blog post I read yesterday, that logic underpinned the case for electric vehicles (EVs) becoming more attractive to consumers.  Yet if we review the history of oil prices, it becomes clear that they don't only rise.  Just recently, the price of Brent crude oil, the current world benchmark, has declined roughly 11% since the start of April, prompting speculation about where it's...

The President's budget proposal would increase taxes on energy in ways that would harm US competitiveness and consumers.Presenting the Energy Security Trust as a zero-sum game undermines its potential effectiveness and bi-partisan appeal.After spending some time going through the White House's proposed budget for 2014-23, several conclusions were inescapable.  First, this administration still hasn't thought through the implications of the energy revolution that's currently unfolding in the US, as a result of the technology to develop our enormous shale oil and gas resources, which grew even larger this week. Not satisfied to see tax revenues and royalties from oil and gas expand as production grows, they miss no opportunity to seek to slice more from the current pie.&nb...

Last month's publication of the State Department's latest environmental impact report on the Keystone XL pipeline project has sparked great interest in the logistics of shipping crude oil by rail. As described in a long article in the Washington Post, the availability of a rail option for oil sands crude could prove to be a crucial element in determining whether the pending decision to permit the pipeline to cross the US border would actually affect Canada's oil sands output, and thus its greenhouse gas emissions. As the article makes clear, however, oil's rail trend is already well underway , thanks to the surge of "tight oil" production from shale formations. Moving crude oil by train is experiencing a "Back to the Future" moment. Oil shipments in rail cars are nothing new; the practi...

Filed under: Green Culture, Legislation and Policy, Oil Sands The controversial Keystone XL pipeline that would deliver tar sands oil mined in Alberta, Canada to Texas for cleanup and then return it to Canada has a number of serious issues and points of contention. Among the debates going on in Washington are which route would be used and what, exactly, are the risks of environmental disasters. We have another example of what the Keystone XL might bring now that ExxonMobil is dealing with a pipeline rupture in Mayflower, AR in its Pegasus pipeline. The oil company is cleaning up thousands of barrels of heavy Canadian crude oil spilled from an Arkansas pipeline Friday, March 29. The pipeline is about 65 years old and broke near a housing development in Mayflower, streaming oil across yard...

A front-page article in today's Washington Post reported on the trend of energy-related investments in the US by European companies.  This is another aspect of the competing energy revolutions I mentioned a few weeks ago, in my comments on President Obama's State of the Union speech.  Germany's 2000 Renewable Energy Law introduced feed-in tariffs for wind and solar power that have made that country a global leader in green energy implementation, yet it has also become increasingly apparent that this carefully planned transformation paid insufficient attention to the cost of the new energy sources it was embedding at the heart of the German economy.  The Post describes how leading German firms are looking across the Atlantic to invest where energy is cheaper, t...

The sudden abundance of natural gas in the US triggered a startling divergence of crude oil and natural gas prices that, in turn, has energized the advocates of using more gas in transportation. Yet despite the availability of wholesale natural gas at less than $0.60 per gasoline gallon equivalent (GGE), and with retail compressed natural gas (CNG) prices under $2.00/GGE in many locations, natural gas accounted for less than 3% of US transportation energy consumption in 2011--most of it attributable to pipeline compressors. The picture is very different in countries like Italy and Pakistan, where CNG has a significant market share in motor fuels. As the US looks ahead to greater reliance on secure domestic gas for road transport, it's worth considering why other countries have such a bi...

Two weeks ago I received an email announcing that Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS), a D.C.-based watchdog organization, had awarded this year's Golden Fleece for wasting tax dollars to the federal government's efforts to promote the development of small, modular nuclear reactors (SMRs).  My quick perusal of the award's justification left me with distinctly mixed reactions, before I filed it away with the other announcements I received that day.  Since then, every time I ran across a reference to SMRs I was drawn back to the group's assertions about the technology, while questioning whether my opinion of the award would have been different had they singled out the renewable energy loan guarantee program, renewable energy cash grants, or some othe...

I've read a number of stories on President Obama's nomination of MIT physicist Ernest Moniz to be the next Secretary of Energy.  This overview of his background from the Washington Post is as good a place as any to start.  Although I haven't met Dr. Moniz, I've seen him on various panels and am familiar with some of his department's work, such as MIT's reports on the Future of Natural Gas, Future of Coal and Future of Nuclear Power.  As many comments since his announcement have suggested, it would be hard to find a more ideal steward of an all-of-the-above energy strategy. At the same time, this choice also reflects many of the key challenges facing the Department of Energy at this moment, not least the preservation of its R&D activities and oth...

Barring a last-second deal to avert it, the federal government's budget will be cut on Friday by $85 billion for the current fiscal year, which ends in September.  These cuts will be applied across the board to every cabinet department and agency of the federal government, though at different rates for defense and non-defense activities, and with some functions exempted by the legislation that set the sequester in place.  Energy is no exception, and some of the cuts there may seem surprising, given the President's emphasis on promoting new energy sources.  It's worth putting all this into perspective.Much of the discussion I'm hearing about sequestration, including efforts to replace it with a mix of smaller, more-surgical spending cuts and new tax revenue, seems to mis...

Last weekend thousands came to Washington, DC to protest against the Keystone XL pipeline project, just a few days after a smaller protest in front of the White House resulted in a batch of arrested celebrities.   The State Department's decision on the cross-border permit is expected within a few months.  However, unless the President devises an unexpectedly Solomonic solution, one side or the other will come up short. That much is obvious, but I'd suggest that it's also worth considering the possible unintended consequences for the winning side.  Keystone could prove a Pyrrhic victory for either environmentalists or the energy industry.That assessment starts with the fact that both sides have contributed to exaggerating the stakes out of a...

It was no surprise that energy and climate change featured prominently in last night's State of the Union speech, giving me plenty to discuss in my on-camera interview with Reuters this morning. The President devoted an entire section of his address to these topics, leading into it in a very upbeat way: "Now is the time to reach a level of research and development not seen since the height of the Space Race.  And today, no area holds more promise than our investments in American energy."  You'd never guess from that introduction that this president faces a strikingly different energy challenge than his seven most recent predecessors. There are two energy revolutions underway in the US, and the unplanned one is racing ahead of the one to which he devoted most of his remarks--and m...

Filed under: Ethanol, Legislation and Policy, Oil Sands Another round of fighting has started over whether E15 - a blend of ethanol (15 percent) and gasoline (85 percent) - should be adopted nationwide. The latest jab comes from Scott Faber, a lobbyist for Environmental Working Group, who says that, as far as greenhouse gasses go, ethanol is "worse than Canadian tar sands." Ethanol has destroyed more wetlands and grassland in the last four years than were wrecked in the last 40, as far as greenhouse gas emissions go, Faber says. That argument touches a nerve, since about 40 percent of the US corn crop goes to ethanol and an ongoing Midwest drought has contributed to high corn prices. The price spike has been encouraging farmers to plow marginal virgin land, releasing stored carbon into t...

2012 was a remarkable year for energy in the US, with domestic output of oil, gas, wind and solar energy all advancing strongly.  This was the result of an unfolding revolution in unconventional oil and gas, along with federal, state and local incentives and regulations promoting renewable energy.  Yet despite extensive media coverage and vocal constituencies for each of these energy sources, I haven't seen any recent efforts to compare their respective contributions to US energy supplies.  That may be due in part to the confusing array of energy units involved. It's daunting to match up oil in 42-gallon barrels (bbl), gas in cubic feet or British Thermal Units (BTUs), and wind and solar in kilowatts (kW) or Megawatts (MW) of capacity, or kilowatt-hours (kWh) or Megawatt-hou...

Fisker Karma at 2013 DC Auto ShowYesterday I made my annual trek to the Washington Auto Show, which hosts a media day before opening to the public.  Between the show's focus on policy--a natural draw inside the Beltway--and the opportunity to connect with OEM contacts, it's always worthwhile.  Besides, the cars never look the same on a screen or printed page as they do in person.  Yet despite all of that, this year's show left me with what I regard as a healthy form of disappointment: Unlike past years, which provided my first opportunities to see--and sometimes drive--cutting-edge cleantech cars like the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf, I saw ample signs of evolutionary change but no new revolutions in the offing.  A few data points to support that conclusion: Fir...

I've spent the last couple of weeks contemplating California's Monterey shale, which has been widely discussed recently as the country's next Bakken-style oil play, or even bigger.   The Bakken shale has turned North Dakota into the second-biggest oil-producing state in the US, at the same time that development of the Eagle Ford shale has been shoring up Texas's claim to the number one spot.  So far, The Golden State has largely missed out on the shale revolution, despite having shale oil resources estimated to exceed the rest of the US combined. The scale of the opportunity makes it an intriguing subject, but I find it particularly interesting, because the Monterey is deeply intertwined with the long history of the California oil industry, in which I spent the first ha...