Peak Oil News

The 2008 US presidential elections will be very important considering the implications of the coming peak oil crisis. The oil issue is likely to be downplayed during the 2006 elections. However, many major oil producing nations are quickly approaching depletion, and many analysts believe we will reach the peak oil production during the 2008-2012 presidential term. A severe oil crunch and resultant high oil prices will impact all sectors of society. The party and president that gets elected in 2008 will have a major economic and social crisis on their hands. » Source: Falls Church Last week they took a poll here in Virginia on how the race for US Senate ...

Oil importing countries faced an unassailable challenge with the "historic high" price of oil. In 1864, a barrel of Pennsylvanian oil traded for 8.06 in dollars of the day ($97.79 of 2004) and in 1980, a barrel of Arabian light (posted at Ras Tanura) sold for 35.69 in dollars of the day ($82.15 of 2004). The world has not yet faced a "fourth oil shock" mainly because the price went up gradually to over $70 a barrel over a full three-year period, unlike in 1979-80. There is a "fear" premium of $7 to $15 due to the destabilisation of the Gulf region. The world energy growth started to increase significantly from 1995. Especially since 2002, the real trend of growth rate of world oil demand is well above 2.25 per cent a year. For some countries, notably China, Iran and Brazil, the growth rate is at least 4 per cent ...

There are three choices for the market in crude oil after its recent steep falls. It can stay roughly around where it is now, $62. It can fall back down through the technical and software barriers that support it to new year lows or it can go higher once more. Perhaps very high. It all depends who, or what, you believe. If you believe the Dow Jones then there can only be one answer. That the market is robust, economic growth is on the move and the demand for goods and services is going to continue to suck up more and more crude oil. Equities are hot; the media is telling us corporations are strong. » Source: Resource Investor Then again maybe we should ask 32 year old trader Brian Hunter. He was the chief guy trading energy at hedge ...

Most schemes for a post-oil technology are based on the misconception that there will be an infrastructure, similar to that of the present day, which could support such future gadgetry. Modern equipment, however, is dependent on specific methods of manufacture, transportation, maintenance, and repair. In less abstract terms, this means machinery, motorized vehicles, and service depots or shops, all of which are generally run by fossil fuels. In addition, one unconsciously assumes the presence of electricity, which energizes the various communications devices, such as telephones and computers; electricity on such a large scale is only possible with fossil fuels. » Source: Counter Currents To believe that a non-petroleum infrastructure is possible, one would have to imagine, for example, solar-powered machines creating equipment for the production and storage of electricity by means of solar energy. This equipment would then be loaded ...

Back in the early 20th Century, when the cheap oil fiesta was just getting underway, and some major new technological innovation made its debut every month – cars, radio, movies, airplanes – there was no practical limit to what men of vision could imagine about the future city, though often their imaginings were ridiculous. The representative case is Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret; 1887 – 1965), the leading architectural hoodoo-meister of Early High Modernism, whose 1925 Plan Voisin for Paris proposed to knock down the entire Marais district on the Right Bank and replace it with rows of identical towers set between freeways. » Source: James Howard Kunstler Luckily for Paris, the city officials laughed at him every time he came back with the scheme over the next forty years – and Corb was nothing if not a relentless self-promoter. ...

Events move quickly these days. Two months ago oil was north of $78 a barrel and, nationwide, gasoline was above to well above $3. The Middle East was threatening a conflagration and another exciting hurricane season was in the offing. Even the concept of peak oil was starting to get some scattered but serious attention in the media. Now here we are at the end of September. The price of crude is down nearly 25 percent. Gasoline is down 75 cents a gallon. The press is full of stories of a great new oil find in the Gulf that could show the way to a cornucopia of oil. The Dow is pushing an all-time high, and financial analysts are predicting lower inflation and solid growth in the year ahead. Finally, those who don't want to believe in peak oil are loudly proclaiming, "I told you so." » Source: ...

Alaska Oil giant BP PLC restarted the eastern side of the Prudhoe Bay oil field - shut down since August when a leak was found - and expects production to reach 150,000 barrels a day by the weekend, a BP spokesman said Tuesday. The eastern side of the country's largest oil field ceased production Aug. 10, a few days after a leak was discovered in a corroded transit line. Initially, the company expected to shut down the west side of the field as well, but kept that side in operation after determining it could be operated safely. The west side is producing about 200,000 barrels a day. » Source: International Herald Tribune Production in the northern part of the field adds about 50,000 barrels a day. The entire field normally produces about 450,000 barrels of petroleum products. BP plans ...

Oil supplies from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) fell 400,000 barrels a day on the month to 30.2 million bpd in September, according to preliminary figures from tanker tracker Petrologistics. Saudi Arabia and Iran led the fall in output. Petrologistics head Conrad Gerber said the kingdom produced 9.05 million bpd in September compared with 9.27 million bpd in August. » Source: Bahrain Tribute Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al Nuaimi said in June that Opec’s biggest producer had reined in output to 9.1 million b/d in April from 9.5 million bpd on lower demand. “Saudi Arabia could be producing more, but some of it could be going into storage,” Gerber said. Iran’s output, which peaked in July at 4.2 million bpd when the Islamic Republic sold oil from floating storage, is at 3.9 million bpd in September, Gerber said. Iran supplied 4.0 million bpd ...

Crude oil makes Kjell Aleklett think about wild strawberries. Aleklett, a Swedish professor of physics, sees inescapable similarities between the steady depletion of the world's most coveted energy source and the foraging habits of berry afficionados. "In Sweden we have strawberry fields where you can go out and pick for yourself. If you go out there in the morning there is a possibility that you can pick a big volume of strawberries. But the first picker picks the big ones. The last one is left with the small ones. It's very much the same thing when it comes to the production of gas and oil. » Source: The Vancouver Sun "The goodies, the big ones, have been picked. It's true all over the world. Now we have to stick to the small ones. That means it's harder to fill the ...

It would be tough to find a roughneck anywhere in the world who would describe working on a drill rig as easy, but Bob Gamble, who toils on the deck of Precision Drilling's rig number 521, comes closest. It is a state-of-the-art rig that bored its first hole just weeks before, an "iron roughneck" that has taken a lot of the backbreaking labour out of a job that has traditionally been recognized as tougher than anything outside a hardrock underground mine. » Source: canada.com If you venture to northeastern B.C., you will find dozens of similar rigs probing the landscape like mosquitoes seeking blood, guided by young workers such as Gamble who trade their labour for paycheques that can reach $100,000 a year. The machines and the workers are the physical manifestations of the biggest natural gas exploration boom in B.C.'s history, part ...