Peak Oil News

In May 2006 I wrote, "I know about the "Peak Oil" theory that says we either have or are about to reach the point of diminishing returns regarding the world's oil supply, but these recent discoveries suggest there is still plenty of oil to be found." In that commentary I documented nearly a dozen new fields of oil and natural gas discovered since 1995. So I wasn't surprised when, on September 5, Chevron Corporation announced it had discovered new, huge reserves of oil some five miles below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. The initial estimates were that these reserves "could boost U.S. oil reserves by 50 percent." Good news for Americans and good news as well for other oil companies such as BP, Anadarko Petroleum, and Exxon Mobil that have their own projects in progress. Indeed, two days later, Exxon Mobil announced that its Sakhalin-1 project offshore Russia had begun ...

The Bush administration said a Sept. 27 sale of oil drilling leases in Alaska should go forward and rejected a court's objections that environmental effects have not been properly addressed. The U.S. Interior Department said in a court filing yesterday that the impact of expanded drilling on air, water, wetlands and wildlife had been properly considered in the plan to expand drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge James Singleton in Anchorage ruled that an environmental impact statement prepared by the agency failed "to adequately address the cumulative effects" of drilling. » Source: Bloomberg.com "Depending on the resource or activity, the cumulative impacts throughout the entire North Slope are discussed," the Interior Department said in the filing. The agency "conducted the required 'hard look' at those impacts given the limited nature of information ...

Ice defines the Arctic. It determines what exists, and how. It shapes the region's culture and history. It's highway, birthing ground and hunting platform. It's what tourists clamour for, and artists strive to paint. It has helped to forge Canada's identity as a cold, northern nation of strong, resourceful survivors. It is disappearing. In Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut territory, locals report the harbour was clear nearly a month early this year. At the wharf, an Inuit family, tying up after a four-day hunting trip, say they'd seen no seal. The animal needs ice, and the ice was long gone. » Source: TheStar.com Northern temperatures were 2.5C above normal this summer. The ice cap that floats on the polar ocean is now 14 per cent smaller than in 1978, and 20 per cent thinner than the four-decade average. The Arctic will continue to deep freeze ...

The melting of the sea ice in the Arctic, the clearest sign so far of global warming, has taken a sudden and enormous leap forward, in one of the most ominous developments yet in the onset of climate change. Two separate studies by Nasa, using different satellite monitoring technologies, both show a great surge in the disappearance of Arctic ice cover in the last two years. One, from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, shows that Arctic perennial sea ice, which normally survives the summer melt season and remains year-round, shrank by 14 per cent in just 12 months between 2004 and 2005. » Source: Independent Online The overall decrease in the ice cover was 720,000 sq km (280,000 sq miles) - an area almost the size of Turkey, gone in a single year. The other study, from the Goddard Space Flight Centre, in Maryland, shows that the perennial ice melting rate, which has averaged ...

An attempt by four suicide bombers to attack two oil refineries in Yemen has been foiled. The Yemeni interior ministry in a statement said the gunmen had attempted to attack the installations in four cars packed with explosives. Aljazeera's correspondent in Yemen said two refineries, in Marab and Hadramut, had been singled out for attack. » Source: Al Jazeera The four attackers and one security guard were killed in the incident, the interior ministry said. Friday's early morning attacks occurred 35 minutes apart, directed at a Yemeni oil refinery in the northeast province of Marab and a Canadian-Yemeni oil storage facility at the Dubba Port in Hadramut province - scene of a 2002 attack on the French tanker Limburg. The four men, two at each target, were dressed in uniforms similar to those worn by staff at the facilities and had timed their attacks to coincide ...

SUB-Saharan Africa’s economy would probably expand 6,3% next year, the fastest pace in more than three decades, boosted by higher output from oil-exporting countries such as Angola, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says in its World Economic Outlook released yesterday. Growth in the region was forecast to reach 5,2% this year, the third consecutive year it would exceed 5%, the Washington-based lender said in its semi-annual report released in Singapore. Next year’s growth rate would be the highest since 1971. Growth in SA would moderate as higher oil prices and rising interest rates curbed spending. » Source: Business Day Economic growth would probably slow to 4% from 4,2% this year, the IMF report said. SA’s $239bn economy expanded at a 21-year high of 4,9% last year. Rising oil prices have boosted investment in countries such as Angola, sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest oil producer. Other African ...

Gasoline is composed of many different hydrocarbons. Crude oil enters a refinery, and is processed through various units before being blended into gasoline. A refinery may have a fluid catalytic cracker (FCC), an alkylate unit, and a reformer, each of which produces gasoline blending components. Alkylate gasoline, for example, is valuable because it has a very high octane, and can be used to produce high-octane (and higher value) blends. Light straight run gasoline is the least processed stream. It is abundant and cheap to produce, but it has a low octane. The gasoline blender has to mix all of the components together to meet the product specifications. There are two very important (although not the only) specifications that need to be met for each gasoline blend. The gasoline needs to have the proper octane, and it needs to have the proper Reid vapor pressure, or RVP. While the octane of a ...

World oil demand was weaker than expected in the first half of 2006 because increasingly efficient use of oil is limiting consumption despite economic growth, OPEC has said in a monthly report. "World oil demand growth in 2006 has been revised down by 0.1 million barrels per day (bpd) since the last MOMR (OPEC monthly report) to stand at 1.2 million barrels pr day," The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said in its September report on world oil markets. "Recent data shows weaker-than-expected demand in the first half of the year," OPEC said Friday. » Source: Yahoo News Gasoline demand in the United States "grew by only 0.7 percent, well below the annual average of 1.6 percent despite the stabilization of gasoline prices. "This has led to downward revisions of 0.2 million bpd and 0.1 million bpd to second- and third-quarter oil demand figures for North America," the report said. "Developing Countries, which account ...

In its need for more fuel to supply an expanding economy, China is pursuing a dynamic "holistic" approach to energy partnerships in Africa that has surprised many Western competitors, says South African Warrick Davies-Webb. Davies-Webb, political analyst at Executive Research Associates, a risk-management consulting firm headquartered in Pretoria, South Africa, spoke at a September 13 briefing sponsored by the African Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS), a U.S. government agency located at Fort McNair near downtown Washington. Established in 1999, ACSS sponsors seminars and training sessions for African midlevel military officers and defense officials. It recently opened an office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to oversee programs on the continent aimed at increasing the professional skill of African militaries while building closer ties with U.S. counterparts in the defense community. » Source: US INFO With oil, gas and coal use far ...

If you think your fuel bill has skyrocketed, pity the people who operate the eight-engine B-52 bomber. The lumbering aircraft, built in the 1950s when jet fuel cost a quarter a gallon, guzzles 47,000 gallons in a single mission. Today, that's $100,000 a fill-up. Tally in the gas hogs in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere — fighter jets, bombers and cargo planes — and you can understand why the American taxpayer got a $5-billion fuel bill last year for the Air Force alone. On Tuesday, the Air Force will begin test flights here that could represent a major step in the Pentagon's plan to find less costly sources of fuel. A B-52 will take off with two of its engines burning a new blend that may eventually replace the oil-based kerosene formula that has powered jet engines since they were invented. Source: LA Times The test flight, which will be observed by top ...