Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Continental Oil, energy, fracking, fracking waste, fracking waste disposal, Hamm, injection wells, oil, Oklahoma, OU
…who studied (and found) the link between fracking waste disposal wells and earthquakes. Hamm is CEO of Continental Oil.
Hamm, the billionaire founder and chief executive officer of Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources, is a major donor to the university, which is the home of the Oklahoma Geological Survey. He has vigorously disputed the notion that he tried to pressure the surveys scientists. “Im very approachable, and dont think Im intimidating,” Hamm was quoted as saying in an interview with EnergyWire, an industry publication, that was published on May 11. “I dont try to push anybody around.”
Yet an e-mail obtained from the university by Bloomberg News via a public records request says Hamm used a blunt approach during a 90-minute meeting last year with the dean whose department includes the geological survey.”Mr. Hamm is very upset at some of the earthquake reporting to the point that he would like to see select OGS staff dismissed,” wrote Larry Grillot, the dean of the universitys Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy, in a July 16, 2014, e-mail to colleagues at the university. Hamm also expressed an interest in joining a search committee charged with finding a new director for the geological survey, according to Grillots e-mail. And, the dean wrote, Hamm indicated that he would be “visiting with Governor [Mary] Fallin on the topic of moving the OGS out of the University of Oklahoma.”
via Oil CEO Wanted University Quake Scientists Dismissed: Deans E-Mail – Bloomberg Business.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Chevron, crude oil, energy, Exxon, fracking, James Hamilton, oil, oil production, peak oil, Royal Dutch Shell, Shell, WSJ
via James Hamilton via WSJ: http://econbrowser.com/archives/2014/01/big-oil-companies-spending-more-and-producing-less
click to enlarge
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Andrew Restuccia, energy, fracking, oil imports, peak oil, Politico, transportation, US oil imports, US oil production
Attention news reporters, editors, producers and quacking heads: The US burns about 18.5 million barrels per day, and produces 7.7.
18.5 – 7.7 is 10.8.
These numbers are from the freakin EIA itself: http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/supply/weekly/pdf/table1.pdf
No wonder the Koreans are kicking our tails in math. We get reports like this, all over the internet and on NPR:
In October, for the first time since February 1995, the U.S. produced more crude oil than it imported, the Energy Information Administration said this week.
EIA, the Energy Department’s nonpartisan statistical arm, said U.S. crude oil production averaged 7.7 million barrels per day in October while 7.6 million barrels per day were imported.
via U.S. oil output tops imports for first time since 1995 – Andrew Restuccia – POLITICO.com.
Even if that were true, all it would mean is that we still have to import half the oil we burn. But we’re not there yet, and may never be (again).
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bakken, energy consumption, exploding oil, FERC Enbridge, fracking, oil, peak oil, shale oil, Tesoro, True
Kind of makes the unsourced story about LPG cars seem like a fake-out.
According to Bloomberg, Enbridge Inc., Tesoro Corp., and True companies all won the approval of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to refuse oil that had high levels of hydrogen sulfide, a highly flammable gas that can be a byproduct of oil production, after they started seeing oil with concentrations tens and even hundreds of times higher than what regulators have deemed safe for exposure. The danger of these elevated levels of gas in the oil was thrown into stark relief on July 6, when an unmanned, runaway train crashed carrying 72 cars of oil. Five of them exploded, killing 47.
via Exploding Oil Sparks Concerns From Railway and Pipeline Companies | Mother Jones.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: deepwater drilling, EIA, fracking, IEA, liquid fuel production, oil price, oil price predictions, oil production, Peak Demand, peak oil, refinery gain, shale oil, tight gas, tight oil
Via Kurt Cobb in the CS Monitor:
Back in the year 2000, the IEA divined that by 2010, liquid fuel production worldwide would reach 95.8 million barrels per day (mbpd). The actual 2010 number was 87.1 mbpd. The agency further forecast an average daily oil price of $28.25 per barrel (adjusted for inflation). The actual average daily price of oil traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange in 2010 was $79.61
[…]
So, what made the IEA so sanguine about oil supply growth in the year 2000? It cited the revolution taking place in deepwater drilling technology which was expected to allow the extraction of oil supplies ample for the world’s needs for decades to come. But, deepwater drilling has turned out to be more challenging than anticipated and has not produced the bounty the IEA imagined it would. …
via When oil forecasts get it wrong – CSMonitor.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bakken, enegy, frack, fracking, IEA, oil journalism, oil production, oil shale, oil supply, Peak Demand, peak oil, shale oil, tight oil, Tom Gjelten
As NPR’s Tom Gjelten reports:
“Petroleum engineers have always known about the untapped underground oil in the United States, but it was unreachable, trapped in tight shale rock. Then the engineers figured out how to crack the rock. Hydraulic fracturing — fracking — got that ‘tight oil’ finally flowing in places like North Dakota.”
via Huge Boost In U.S. Oil Output Set To Transform Global Market : The Two-Way : NPR.
Wrong, Tom. The tight oil has been ‘reachable’ for several decades, it was just such an expensive process that it made no sense to do it when oil was cheap — a money-losing proposition. Now, all the cheap oil is gone, and out comes the ‘unconventional’ oil.
Gjelten also said that the decline in oil consumption in the US was due to efficiency (check the VMT chart Tom). There was no mention of depletion of existing fields, or the striking decline rate of fracked shale wells. And he reported that cheaper oil is just over the horizon.
Would it hurt Mr. Gjelten to do just a tiny bit of research on the topic of his reports so he doesn’t sound like a complete idiot?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Destination Cities, employment, fracking, Houston, National Migration Trend Report, peak oil, Texas, U-Haul, unemployment
…
PHOENIX (April 12, 2013) — U-Haul International, Inc., today released the results of the annual 2012 U-Haul National Migration Trend Report, titled “The U-Haul 2012 Top 50 U.S. Destination Cities.” According to moving data reflective of nationwide statistics for calendar year 2012, families moving to Houston took the No. 1 spot again, for the fourth year in a row.
via U-Haul: About: U-Haul Names Houston as Top 2012 U.S. Destination City.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bakken, fracking, health care costs, shale gas, shale oil, tight gas, tight oil, Watford City
A less obvious form of corporate welfare.
The furious pace of oil exploration that has made North Dakota one of the healthiest economies in the country has had the opposite effect on the region’s health care providers. Swamped by uninsured laborers flocking to dangerous jobs, medical facilities in the area are sinking under skyrocketing debt, a flood of gruesome injuries and bloated business costs from the inflated economy.
via Boom in North Dakota Weighs Heavily on Health Care – NYTimes.com.
This post is an interesting companion to the one below.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bakken, CH4, fracking, horizontal drilling, Natural gas, natural gas flaring, North Dakota, oil production, shale oil, taxes, tight gas, tight oil
Rampant waste and environmental degradation have been part of the Bakken boom. The state doesn’t care about that, but it wants its taxes.
Helms estimates that about 30% of the gas produced in the state is flared, since development of takeaway infrastructure has not matched the pace of drilling.
Producers are currently allowed to flare gas for a year without paying royalties. The new bill would extend that tax-exempt period for two more years if an operator can collect at least 75% of the produced gas.
via N. Dakota tax bills pique industry interest – Upstreamonline.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Chris Martenson, frac, fracking, narrative, oil production, technology
Chris Martenson: Well, this is really important. The current story is something along these lines: “Hey, look at how clever we’ve been. Because of the magic of technology, we have discovered how to unlock these incredible oil and gas resources that we just didn’t even know about before.”
When I talk to people who are in the oil business, they say, “Oh, no, no, we’ve known about those shale deposits, we’ve been drilling into and through them for decades. We’ve had horizontal drilling for decades; we’ve had fracking for decades. What we haven’t had is $80-a-barrel oil reliably enough to support us going into those with those technologies.”
So what really unlocked those reserves was price. Not technology, not cleverness, not ingenuity. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of very clever, ingenious stuff going on in those drilling actions, but price was the primary driver here.
via Conservation Not Technology will be our Savior – Chris Martenson (Part 2) « naked capitalism.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: COGC, Colorado Oil and Gas Association, energy production, Frackenlooper, fracking, fracking ban, Hickenlooper, Longmont, Natural gas, shale oil, tight gas, tight oil
This report in the NYT doesn’t mention that our governor Frackenlooper has all but joined the suit in an attempt to overrule the voters of Longmont. If he plays his Weasel Cards right he’ll be a cabinet member some day.
The lawsuit, filed on Monday by the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, seeks to overturn the ban on the contentious practice that passed by a wide margin last month in the northern Colorado city of Longmont. The measure, the first of its kind in the state, still allows oil and gas drilling within city limits, but it prohibits hydraulic fracturing, which has lifted energy production across the country but has raised concerns about air and water contamination.
via Suit Seeks to Overturn a City Drilling Ban in Longmont, Colorado – NYTimes.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Asjylyn Loder, Bakken, cornucopianism, crude oil, fracking, hydraulic fracturing, lies about fracking, Marcellus, North Dakota, oil extraction, peak oil, PR, propaganda, shale oil, techno-worship, technology, tight gas, tight oil, United States oil production
America’s latest oil rush was spurred by new technology that has made drilling faster, cheaper and better at unleashing oil from rock formations,…
That is false. Fracking (the oil guys always called it ‘fracing’) is old technology. Many decades old. But it’s an expensive way to get oil, relatively speaking. So it hasn’t been prudent to frack/frac for shale oil until the overall situation reached a certain point where the price of a barrel of crude was likely to remain above the cost of extraction. In other words, the fracking boom in the U.S. does not signal the death of Peak Oil. It is in fact part and parcel of a new era wherein cheap oil is a memory, a much more expensive era in energy. Perhaps that is why the misinformation campaign has been in overdrive.
via Asjylyn Loder, “American Oil Growing Most Since First Well Signals Independence,” Bloomberg..
Spreading disinformation through the media is even older technology.
Filed under: maps | Tags: brine, climate, diagonal drilling, energy, environment, fracking, fracking waste, gaming, HCLs, horizontal drilling, Marcellus Shale, natural gas production, radioactive fracking waste, vertical drilling
A link to an animated map of drilling operations in Bradford County since 2008.
http://www.bradfordcountypa.org/Natural-Gas.asp?specifTab=2
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fracking, fracking ban, it's about water, shale gas, tight gas, UK
Poor blokes have been snowed. Quite.
Not only has the UK green-lighted fracking, it is also using tax breaks to promote shale exploration and development. Indeed, the UK hopes to see a shale gas revolution of its own.
So what are the new rules for fracking? Right now it’s still a bit vague, but overall it involves a strengthening of oversight and an automated seismic activity detection system designed to halt operations in time.
via UK Lifts Fracking Ban, Now What?.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: air pollution from fracking, CH4, Clean Air Act, EPA, fracking, gas drilling, greenhouse gases, hydraulic fracturing, methane, New York, oil and gas production, Schneiderman
…
Schneiderman said that the coalition of states “can’t continue to ignore the evidence of climate change or the catastrophic threat that unabated greenhouse gas pollution poses to our families, our communities and our economy.” He said Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont joined in sending a required 60-day notice of intent to sue to EPA.
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio – all states with intensive oil and gas drilling – didn’t join in the campaign. None of the states that sent the notice to the EPA are major producers of oil or gas
via Drilling Methane Emissions Lawsuit: New York And 6 Other States To Sue EPA.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: biology, China, Chinese energy production, energy, energy production, fracking, oil production, peak oil, water, water pollution
Everyone knows that oil and gas are more important than water. Right?
If fracking takes off in China as planned, it will likely exacerbate the nation’s existing water crisis. “Most of the nation’s shale gas lies in areas plagued by water shortages,” the report says. With about 20 percent of the world’s population and only 6 percent of the world’s water resources, China is one of the least water-secure countries in the world. Its water shortages are made worse by pollution: According to the Ministry of Water Resources about 40 percent of China’s rivers were so polluted they were deemed unfit for drinking, while about 300 million rural residents lack access to safe drinking water each year.
via China planning 'huge fracking industry' | Environment | guardian.co.uk.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bakken, crude oil, demand destruction, energy, fracking, IEA, KSA, mbd, oil consumption, oil production, Our Finite World, refinery gain, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabian oil production, shale gas, shale oil, tight gas, tight oil, Tvberg, Tverberg, unconventional oil, US oil production, WEO, World Energy Outlook
The happy talk on future production is crazier than ever in the latest IEA World Energy Outlook, but there are also some stunningly pessimistic predictions buried inside. Wild!
For instance: The US will become number one oil producuh again and rediscover our lost oil-producing prowess with about 11 million barrels/day (Yay!) — which must mean Saudi Arabia won’t approach IEA’s previous prediction for that country of roughly 15 mbd output (Ooof). And the predicted exporter status of the US (Yay!) relies as much on a huge drop in consumption as it does on increases in production (Ooof). So it’s a bit of a sad day in IEA land, where consumption always went up, up, up.
From Tverberg:
The International Energy Agency (IEA) provides unrealistically high oil forecasts in its new 2012 World Energy Outlook (WEO). It claims, among other things, that the United States will become the world’s largest oil producer by 2020, and will become a net oil exporter by 2030.
Figure 1. Author’s interpretation of IEA Forecast of Future US Oil Production under “New Policies” Scenario, based on information provided in IEA’s 2012 World Energy Outlook.
Figure 1 shows that this increase comes solely from the expected rise in tight oil production and natural gas liquids. The idea that we will become an exporter in later years occurs despite falling production, because “demand” will drop so much.
Note that IEA and other maniacs add NGLs, biodiesel and even ‘refinery gain’ to the US oil production number, in a crude attempt to fool y’all.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: China, energy, fracking, good cop-bad cop, jobs, LNG, LNG exports, LNG trade, Natural gas, natural gas trade movements, Obomney, OMG, RBAC, Robama, shale gas, tight gas, trade deficit
“We are confident that either one would be supportive of LNG exports,” Cooper told Rigzone.
U.S. LNG imports, which peaked at nearly 2.4 billion cubic feet per day in 2007, have fallen substantially as the growth in North American gas production due to shale gas, according to an Oct. 18 report by RBAC Inc., a company that develops and licenses management decision support systems for the energy industry. As a result, LNG facility backers are now seeking to outfit existing U.S. LNG import facilities with liquefaction equipment to ship LNG overseas.
Proponents say U.S. LNG exports will benefit the United States by creating construction jobs, and generate revenue to reduce the U.S. trade deficit through LNG sales and federal, state and local government tax revenues.
via RIGZONE – Romney, Obama Seen Favoring U.S. LNG Exports.
Know what else creates jobs and generates revenues? Cheap domestic gas. Exporting gas which would otherwise be flooding the U.S. market would raise the price for Americans. This would probably destroy a lot more jobs than would be created to build and maintain LNG terminals. The job-creation argument goes out the window.
In the meantime, the negative consequences of energy production would accrue right here in America.
Are western Americans willing to sacrifice their water so international companies can frack their shale gas and ship it to China? Robomney bets yes.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Douglas, energy, fracking, Natural gas, natural gas drilling, Niobrara, Niobrara shale, shale gas, shale plays, tight gas, Wyoming
Niobrara fights back.
An oil well blowout in Wyoming prompted 50 residents to evacuate their homes amid concern that a spewing cloud of natural gas could explode.
Gas continued to erupt from the ground Wednesday after the blowout Tuesday afternoon five miles northeast of Douglas in east-central Wyoming. Witnesses told television station KCWY-TV they could hear the roaring gas from six miles away.
Residents evacuate after gas leaks from Wyo. well.
Industrialized Cyclist Notepad 