Peak Oil News

Rising investments costs and weaker than anticipated fourth quarter earnings have analysts and investors questioning Shell's (NYSE: RDS) ambitious financial and production targets. Europe's biggest oil company, Royal Dutch Shell, reported a 4.3 percent drop in fourth quarter earnings to $6.5 billion, and chalked it up to weaker industry refining margins and the decline in American natural gas prices. But despite disappointing earnings for the quarter, CEO Peter Voser expressed his satisfaction with the company's overall performance, with net profit up 54 percent to $30.92 billion in 2011. Weak fourth quarter results aside, Shell boasts ambitious plans for big growth in the coming years. Aggressive expansion projects along with a boost in production and capital investments aim to produce a...

Earlier this week, I hinted about a second investment sweet spot in the U.S. oil boom that has been overlooked. To be more accurate, however, we should say that this play is being overlooked by the wrong people. Fact is, some of the biggest M&A deals in the United States aren't being made in North Dakota, but rather on Texas soil. Why? Although some states are geologically blessed with the right oil and gas resources, Texas has had all the luck since the birth of the U.S. oil industry. And ever since the gusher at Spindletop, you just can't lose in the Lone Star State. After all, this is where the U.S. shale revolution truly began. By 2006, the success in the Barnett Shale started to spread to other formations across the country. Some of us still remember the buildup to that story:...

The Obama administration is paving the way for a stronger focus in the United States on wind power, a sector of renewable energy that hasn’t been getting its fair share of focus since solar panel prices began falling. On Thursday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a move that would allow fast-paced development of four offshore wind farms. Though the U.S. currently has a number of wind farms of various sizes located all across the country, there are currently no farms offshore.  But energy companies believe building offshore could be a great jump for renewable power. And evidently, Salazar agrees.  He told USA Today: “The wind potential off the Atlantic coast is staggering, and no developer should have to wait nine to ten years to get a lease.” The governm...

In observing the recent struggles of various segments of the global cleantech industry, including renewable energy and advanced energy technology firms, a pattern is emerging. Today's Wall St. Journal reports "Wind Power Firms on Edge," as the US wind industry hunkers down pending the renewal or expiration of a key subsidy at the end of 2012. A maker of electric-vehicle batteries that received a federal grant to build a factory in Indiana is reorganizing via bankruptcy, wiping out the equity of its original investors. Meanwhile, the US International Trade Commission may be on the verge of imposing retroactive tariffs on imported Chinese solar power equipment. Each of these stories has unique features, but what they share in common is the consequences of renewable energy policies around the...

We don't all immerse ourselves in energy. If I told you XOM beat analysts' Q4 EPS estimates this week at $1.97 on revs of $121.6 billion, you might look at me cross-eyed. You might understand a bit better if I said Exxon (NYSE: XOM) posted fourth quarter earnings this week and earned $1.97 per share on revenue of $121.6 billion, beating Wall Street expectations. Sometimes things are unnecessarily complex. Industry jargon, false assumptions about what people already know, and a deliberate effort not to 'give too much away' often make even the simplest energy-related topics difficult for retail investors to understand. It shouldn't be that way. And we do our best here to offer insights to the market in a way everyone can understand. With that in mind, I've been receiving more inquiries about...

Anyone following natural gas knows prices have steadily declined over the course of three months. Last recorded at $2.50 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), natural gas prices are reaching the lowest levels in 13 years. So why are prices so low? A confluence of problems has besieged the industry, undermining Wall Street’s price predictions for natural gas, and causing production companies big and small to rethink their strategies for the rest of 2012 and 2013 to see improved quarterly returns. The first problem afflicting the industry is a glut in supply. New technologies, like horizontal drilling and shale fracking, have made mining for natural gas easier then ever and opened up deposits considered unreachable just 5 years ago. That's resulted in a supply 21 percent above the...

Sudan and South Sudan are continuing a painful disagreement over the oil fields. Since South Sudan declared its independence from Sudan in the summer of 2011, tensions have continued in regard to the oil fields, over which South Sudan gained control of nearly three quarters. But Sudan has been less than accommodating to South Sudan in its efforts to transport the oil to the coast.  The two are still in disagreements over the price of a transit fee for the pipelines. South Sudan has halted its oil production for the time being in an effort to pressure Sudan into an agreement. The new nation produces about 350,000 barrels per day, of which China buys an average 260,000 barrels per day. This shut down created a loss of about 5% of China’s oil imports.  In addition, China has i...

The Solar Decathlon was the brainchild of the U.S. Department of Energy in 2002 to promote education of and innovation in the solar market. It is a biennial competition that challenges 20 college teams to design and construct solar homes over a period of two years, keeping in mind energy efficiency and consumer appeal. The home each team builds will be judged in ten different categories.  Students receive points from each category to determine the winner. Categories include architecture, market appeal, engineering, communications, affordability, comfort zone, hot water, appliances, home entertainment, and energy balance. With this wide range of requirements, it is clear that the decathlon is not just for the engineers.  Students from many different areas of study could lend to th...

As many of you know, sand is an integral part of the fracking process. It’s mixed with water and chemicals to extract oil and gas trapped in shale rock beneath the earth’s surface. What you may not know is that much of this sand is obtained from mines located in Wisconsin and Minnesota. And the increased demand has resulted in a major supply shortage. Disastrous news for America’s only publicly traded sand mining company Carbo Ceramics (NYSE: CRR).  Carbo stock prices fell 20 percent last Thursday from $131 to $103 after it failed to reach Wall Street’s consensus view. Analysts had expected earnings of $1.70 per share in the fourth quarter, 38 cents higher than the company's reported earnings of $1.32. However a sand shortage isn’t the only problem afflic...

“Can't say I blame them for reacting like that,” I was told over the phone late last week. What started as a typical call with a friend turned into an hour-long conversation about Peak Oil. Both of us had just gotten word of Australia's Report 117 and the fact that the Australian government was keeping a tight lid on its contents. “So you're saying it was okay for them to bury it like that?” I asked. “Nowadays, I don't put anything past them... Besides, it's not like we didn't see it coming.” Unfortunately, I knew all too well what he meant. First, a brief rundown on Peak Oil. Simply put, Peak Oil is the point at which oil production reaches its maximum rate. Every single oil field on the planet goes through this cycle. Now, let's be clear here. We're no...

We're all aware of the Keystone Pipeline. It's the $7 billion project that would send a much-needed 1.1 million barrels of crude oil per day from Canada's oil sands to the American Heartland. But you're probably a bit fuzzy on what its status is. Because of fiery political rhetoric and backroom maneuvers, it can be tough to figure out where the project stands. I offered my no-spin take a few weeks ago, when the headline was that Obama “killed” the Pipeline, concluding: This man has an election to win over the next ten months. He can't kill a pipeline that would create thousands of jobs, break a supply logjam in Oklahoma, and carry between 500,000 and 1 million barrels of secure Canadian oil to the States every single day. It will happen... eventually. A Tale of Two Pipelines In...

Last week I attended the media preview of the Washington Auto Show. With its dual focus on cars and energy policy, this is always a high point of the winter for me, even if this year's display lacked a draw of the magnitude of the pre-production Chevrolet Volt I drove at the 2010 show. Instead, I was pleased to find that the emphasis on fuel economy and technology in carmaker presentations was matched by a broad array of efficient and attractive new products. They still don't quite constitute the new car fleet needed for the 54 mile-per-gallon target the federal government requires them to meet by 2025, but in my opinion they're off to a very good start.No one listening to the presentations I sat through last Thursday could have missed the shift in focus from previous years. Performance an...

Anyone expecting the announcement of big new energy initiatives in this year's State of the Union address was disappointed last night. What was new, however, was a welcome shift in the President's emphasis on conventional energy--the fuels he referred to as "yesterday's energy" in last year's speech. Never mind that the resurgent oil production for which Mr. Obama took credit is demonstrably the result of events and policies that preceded his inauguration, or that his administration has pursued policies that have held back faster development. If his remarks signal a return to federal energy policy that expends more than 10% of its effort on the sources that account for more than 80% of the energy we use, we should applaud him. The other new ingredient last night was an effort to ground the...

This Friday at noon Eastern Time I'll be participating in a webinar on The Energy Collective covering the application of innovation to the emissions from oil and natural gas. The topic is timely, not just because of the current debate over the fate of the Keystone Pipeline, but because despite the growing importance of renewable energy, oil and gas will constitute a major part of our energy diet for decades to come. As I was thinking about my remarks, it occurred to me that the best starting point might be a refresher on how the industry's current emissions are distributed along the value chain. For all the heavily-publicized concerns about higher emissions from the extraction of unconventional hydrocarbons such as oil sands crude and shale gas, combustion by end-use applications accounts...

Well, that didn't take long. The administration issued its decision denying the Keystone XL Pipeline application today, rather than using the remaining 34 days in the Congressionally mandated timeline to attempt to find a better solution. This is a prime example of what frustrates so many Americans of all political affiliations about how the nation is being governed. If you read the carefully drafted press release from the State Department, which had been given responsibility for determining whether the pipeline was in the national interest, it explicitly states that today's decision was neither final nor on the merits of the project. Implicit in this document is that today's move is exactly that, the latest move in the game that the President and Congress have been playing with a project...

A pair of items in today's Financial Times could signal a longer run of high oil prices, even if Europe were to slip into recession and economic growth elsewhere slow. The first article (registration required) reported that Saudi Arabia has raised its target oil price to $100 per barrel, up from the $75 level that King Abdullah had previously endorsed as "fair." Meanwhile, Venezuela has announced that it would withdraw from a World Bank body for arbitrating contractual disputes, preferring them to be resolved within its own judicial system. That can't be welcome news for companies that had been considering new investments in the country's oil and gas sector. Taken together, these stories suggest both less future supply and a greater likelihood that OPEC would respond to any significant wea...

Yesterday the Environmental Protection Agency released its tabulation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from large facilities in the US. In perusing the data I couldn't help thinking of the quote attributed to Willie Sutton concerning why he robbed banks. Even if he never actually said, "Because that's where the money is," the simple logic of that analysis transfers neatly to the question of why we might be interested in assessing and ultimately managing GHG emissions from such installations. While there are other important sources, notably including motor vehicles and aircraft, the more than 6,000 sites reported in the agency's online registry account for roughly half of all US GHG emissions. Furthermore, just a quarter of these sites--power plants--contribute nearly three-fourths of US emission...

Without much fanfare, the Energy Information Agency of the US Department of Energy released a report on 2011 energy commodity prices yesterday. It confirmed that crude oil and key petroleum products set annually averaged price records last year. This largely snuck up on us, because it occurred without the kind of dramatic price spike we experienced in 2008 or in the oil crises of the 1970s. Prices rose early in the year, during the Libyan revolution, and they didn't fall much, subsequently. The situation was also masked by the ongoing crude oil bottleneck in the US mid-continent, which depressed prices of the grade of US oil that for decades had been regarded as the best indicator of global oil prices, a role in which it has recently fallen short. These record prices for oil and its produc...

Earlier today I attended a luncheon and press conference rolling out the annual "State of American Energy" report from the American Petroleum Institute. API's President and CEO, Jack Gerard, also used the occasion to launch a new "Vote 4 Energy" campaign, which he described as a non-partisan effort intended to start a conversation about energy during a key election year. He also touched on a number of issues that are very familiar to readers of this blog, including the Keystone XL Pipeline decision, the need for greater access to US energy resources, along with energy security and jobs. A phrase that Mr. Gerard used in his remarks, and that recurred several times during the press conference, was "energy reality." This struck me as an apt encapsulation for the energy policies that should be...

At the start of 2011, I thought the hallmark of the year's energy events and trends might involve regulation, with the White House seeking to implement measures that couldn't garner enough support in Congress to become laws. But for every major new regulation issued, such as last week's release of the new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for power plants, others were delayed or deferred, including the EPA's effort to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and the agency's proposed ozone standard. Outside of the utilities and other industry groups directly affected by these rules, it seems likely that 2011 will instead be remembered for big, unpredictable events like the Fukushima nuclear accident and the Solyndra bankruptcy scandal, along with several major trends that reached c...

In just under two weeks, standard 100 Watt incandescent light bulbs will be officially banned in the US, in the first step of a gradual phaseout of Edison's technology. However, as a result of recent Congressional action, enforcement of this regulation has been delayed by about a year, leaving the bulbs and the retailers who sell them in a temporary limbo. This change adds to the confusion consumers now face when purchasing lighting products, as our choices have multiplied to include compact fluorescent lights (CFL), LEDs, halogen incandescents, and shortly another new option, the "electron stimulated luminescence" (ESL) bulbs produced by VU1 Corporation. The lighting efficiency standard of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 helped to create this diversity, although it remain...

Late yesterday I saw a headline reporting that Chevron was being assessed more than $10 billion for a spill from its drilling activities offshore Brazil last month. The story was later revised to clarify that the amount in question was associated with a civil lawsuit being filed by a Brazilian prosecutor, rather than an actual fine by the government petroleum or environmental agencies. Either way, the sum involved goes beyond surprising. Given the quantity of oil that actually leaked from an appraisal well at Chevron's Frade platform, it is grossly disproportionate to any objective gauge of the scale of the spill and the effectiveness of the response, which stopped the leak within a few days and reduced the surface oil slick to around one barrel within a couple of weeks, without any oil re...

After going into sudden-death overtime, the UN climate conference in Durban, South Africa wrapped up this weekend with an agreement that only a climate diplomat could love. Constituting in effect an agreement to agree to some future agreement, the outcome is open to interpretation. Is this the failure that was widely predicted, the breakthrough indicated by some involved, or just a fig leaf to perpetuate a seemingly endless series of climate conferences in the only manner possible, by avoiding a breakdown that might have ended the entire effort for good? From what I have read in the last day, it's probably a bit of all three. The reactions from environmental groups have certainly been a mixed bag.Briefly, it appears that the participants agreed to begin negotiating toward a new global clim...

With the end of the year approaching, the annual Congressional debate over extending a variety of expiring federal tax credits and other benefits is gearing up again. Few of these measures are as high-profile as the payroll tax cut, but each has a vocal constituency, including renewable energy. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has launched a major effort seeking inclusion of the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind power in this year's "tax extenders" package. That might seem premature, since the PTC won't expire until the end of 2012, until you realize that eligibility for the stimulus-funded Treasury renewable energy grants for which many wind project developers have opted over the PTC ends in a few weeks with little chance of a further extension. However, before simply tackin...

US petroleum product exports have been in the news, along with the welcome discovery that we are apparently on track to become a net exporter of these fuels this year, for the first time since the 1940s. This is a far cry from energy independence, as various oil skeptics have been quick to point out, but it's still a noteworthy inflection point in energy trends. However, I've also seen stories suggesting that US consumers will pay a lot more at the pump as a result of this change, to which the most succinct response so far is "rubbish." Being a net exporter hasn't suddenly connected US fuel prices to the world market, as if they had somehow been insulated from it until now. In fact, we've been exporting products for many years--as I know from personal experience--but for most of that time...

I see that Russia's national gas company, Gazprom, is warning Europeans about the environmental risks of shale gas development. Aside from the hypocrisy stemming from a Russian legacy of environmental disregard that rivals the worst excesses committed anywhere, along with the likelihood of Gazprom profiting if it can deter competition from proliferating shale drilling technologies like hydraulic fracturing (a.k.a "fracking") and horizontal drilling, this looks quite clever. Environmental concerns--exaggerated or not--are the Achilles heel of shale drilling. We've seen how how effective environmental opposition to fracking has been in places like New York state. The mere fact of Gazprom's warning about shale drilling doesn't constitute a winning argument either for or against the practice,...

What if they held a UN climate conference and no one came? That's certainly not the case at this year's COP-17 (Conference of the Parties) meeting now underway in Durban, South Africa, but with expectations for dramatic progress low, and a breakthrough on the scale needed to salvage the expiring Kyoto Protocol nearly unimaginable, it could be where the UN-led process is headed. If Durban fails to deliver the goods, it won't be because the participants were any less concerned about climate change than those at past sessions. Nor will it be because of the latest release of Climategate emails, as embarrassing as some of them should be for the scientists involved. The reason is much simpler, and it's the same one that helped Bill Clinton unseat George H.W. Bush in 1992: "It's the economy, stup...

It's fairly easy to agree on the desirability of shifting our energy diet away from fossil fuels and toward more renewable or sustainable sources, but it's much harder to agree on the time scale involved. While recognizing the great potential of renewable energy technologies such as wind, solar and geothermal power, along with advanced, non-food-based biofuels, I am convinced that the transition will take much longer than many hope--longer than many will have patience for, in light of pressing concerns about energy security and the environment. When considering future shifts in our energy diet, it's instructive to review some of the changes we've already experienced, and how long they took. The graph below displays the relative contribution of America's main energy sources since 1949, base...

It has been widely assumed among pundits and policy makers that the continued expansion of solar photovoltaic (PV) installations will drive down PV costs until the electricity they produce is competitive with conventional power sources without the need for subsidies. This belief is grounded in both recent PV cost trends and the well-known "experience curve" effect in manufacturing, in which costs tend to fall in proportion to cumulative output. However, anyone following the fortunes of big PV manufacturers like First Solar, SunPower, and China-based Suntech and Trina Solar might have reason to question this conventional wisdom. Their latest earnings reflect an industry stressed by softening demand in its core market in Europe and facing global overcapacity along the supply chain. This has...

Between the Libyan revolution and the shaky US and European economies, oil markets hadn't been paying much attention to Iran's nuclear program until last week's release of a new report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA.) For the first time, the IAEA presented a detailed picture of a well-organized Iranian effort encompassing projects and technologies that go beyond what could reasonably be construed as having purely civilian purposes. Traders are once again talking about an "Iran risk premium," though the market's initial response has been sufficiently muted that it's hard to distinguish from other factors, such as the narrowing of the spread between West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude and worries about the Euro. As long as the international reaction to Iran remains con...

Filed under: Oil Sands, North America, USA After spending several years carefully reviewing the application from TransCanada for the permit necessary to run its Keystone XL pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada to the refineries and ports along the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Department of State has finally announced a decision. It has decided not to decide right now, saying it will wait until 2013 to decide, so it can spend more quality time examining routing options around certain environmentally sensitive parts of the Sand Hills area of Nebraska. As one might imagine, the decision, or non-decision if you prefer, is being received differently by different people. Some of those opposed to the project are, perhaps prematurely, celebrating a final victory, taking comfort in earlier...

In an article in today's Washington Post an official of the National Wildlife Federation was quoted linking rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline with breaking our addiction to oil. Even with the administration apparently having delayed its decision on the project until 2013--quite possibly killing it--this point merits further exploration. Just how might we go about breaking that "addiction", and when could we reasonably expect the task to be accomplished? As with everything else to do with energy, the answers to those questions must be based on facts and figures, rather than wishfulness.The brief quote and its context imply that a decision to forgo additional supplies of oil from Canada or any other source would, by itself, move us significantly closer to breaking our addiction to oil, a...

A year from today Americans will know who will serve as President from 2013 to 2017. Even though $4 gasoline was still fresh in the minds of voters, energy played only a minor role in the outcome of the 2008 election, overshadowed by two wars and a crippling financial crisis. Will that be the case again in 2012, or will energy loom larger, propelled by its close connection with the economy? Several Republican candidates have already raised energy as a campaign issue, and the administration has repeatedly emphasized the linkages between energy, jobs and taxes. Whether any of those arguments gains traction in a race that at this point seems likely to be dominated by unemployment and deficits could depend on how deftly the administration handles decisions such as the Keystone XL Pipeline perm...

Last week US liquefied natural gas provider Cheniere signed a long-term agreement to sell BG (formerly British Gas) LNG exported from the Gulf Coast. The governor of Alaska was also recently quoted suggesting that his state's surplus natural gas might find a better market in Asia than if sent to the lower-48 via a new pipeline. Both stories indicate just how much the shale gas revolution has altered the US energy balance. They also provide further validation of its likely staying power. Coincidentally, they reminded me that time was running short to respond to my residential gas supplier's offer to lock in an annual fixed price, as I did last year. That's relevant, because even though the risk of a big spike in natural gas prices looks very low now, the prospect of future US gas exports--a...

Another firm that received a loan guarantee from the Department of Energy has just filed for bankruptcy. Beacon Power had drawn down $39.1 million of the $43 million authorized by the DOE for the construction of its 20 MW energy storage facility in Stephenstown, NY, but was still operating at a loss and unable to find additional backing. As was the case for Solyndra, the DOE's "loan guarantee" actually took the form of a direct loan from the Federal Financing Bank, an arm of the US Treasury, rather than from a commercial bank or other private-sector lender. If two data points can indicate a pattern, the one here reflects poorly on venture capital decisions made solely by government officials lacking any stake in the eventual outcome of the investment. Real venture capitalists make bad bets...

Some days the economic news seems to emanate from the Twilight Zone. When the official summit document from Wednesday's meeting of EU leaders seeking to avert another financial crisis includes a reference to repaying a portion of Greek debt with the output of a huge PV array that might not be completed for several decades, if it is built at all, I don't know how else to describe it. And that's before considering the perplexing economics behind the Helios scheme, which apparently entails Germany or other EU members investing or lending--after lenders have just agreed to take a 50% haircut on previous Greek debt--up to €20 billion to build a 10 GW PV installation in Greece to generate power that would be sent to central Europe via transmission lines that don't all exist yet. Either I'm...

The year ahead appears poised to be another wild ride for the energy sector. A recovering US economy combined with continued strength in China and India will send oil and coal prices toward highs not seen since 2008. Meanwhile, solar and wind power will become increasingly attractive investments and grow their share of the energy pie. Oil: Gasoline Gets Expensive Again The financial collapse of September 2008 took the wind out of oil's bullish run from $10 per barrel in the late 1990s to over $140 in mid-2008. But as the US economy regains its footing (even the housing sector by late 2011), gasoline is shooting back up toward $4 per gallon. Prices recently climbed back above $3 per gallon – meaning that Americans are again sending over $1 billion per day for overseas imports to serve our...

My post is mainly an update to Global Oil Supplies as Reported by EIA's International Petroleum Monthly for September 2010, based on data which the EIA reported in the past few days. I will also briefly present updated information regarding OECD and Non OECD oil supplies/consumption. The stacked columns show crude oil and condensates supplies split among OPEC, Russia and ROW (Rest Of World which also includes OECD), from January 2001 through August 2010. The development in the average monthly oil price is plotted on the left hand y-axis. Note that world oil production has been on a plateau, from late 2004 to the present, with a small dip when prices dropped in late 2008 to early 2009. This graph considers crude and condensate only, excluding natural gas liquids and other forms of liqu...

This is a post that was originally written in 2007. There are regularly stories in the media or in the blogosphere about various pipeline projects that are announced with much publicity, and are seen to have major strategic consequences, or conversely about projects that are more discreet but are seen as the "real" justification for various military or diplomatic acts. For instance, the announcement last month of an agreement between Russia and several central Asian republics about a new pipeline was widely interpreted as a major move against European energy security. Similarly, the war in Afghanistan has often been blamed on a long mooted Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline. These analyses (which are absurd to anyone with a basic knowledge of the oil&gas industry) completely ignore...

This post was originally written by Rembrandt in 2006. Will 730 billion barrels be added to the reserve pool from reserve growth between 1996 and 2025 as estimated by the United States Geological Survey? This post is the third part in a three piece series about the phenomenon of reserve growth in found oil fields. Insight in future reserve growth, often attributed to technological advancement, is crucial in determining the peak of conventional oil production. Parts 1 and 2 can be found here and here. What we learned in part 2 of this series is that the data with respect to reserve growth is utterly confusing. Nonetheless, we need an answer to the question what the future perspectives are for reserve growth in order to; 1) improve forecasting the peak in conventional oil production; 2) Incr...