Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bakken, crude oil, energy, IEA, IEA forecast, OECD, oil price predictions, oil supply, OPEC, peak oil, refining capacity, shale oil, tight oil
IEA… Not a good track record with the predictions. Doesn’t stop ’em from throwing out new crazy numbers every year.
While geopolitical risks abound, market fundamentals suggest a more comfortable global oil supply/demand balance over the next five years. The MTOMR forecasts North American supply to grow by 3.9 million barrels per day (mb/d) from 2012 to 2018, or nearly two-thirds of total forecast non-OPEC supply growth of 6 mb/d. World liquid production capacity is expected to grow by 8.4 mb/d – significantly faster than demand – which is projected to expand by 6.9 mb/d. Global refining capacity will post even steeper growth, surging by 9.5 mb/d, led by China and the Middle East.
via IEA – May:- Supply shock from North American oil rippling through global markets.
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: BP, deepwater drilling, energy, GOM, holding station, Hurricane Isaac, jackups, oil production, oil supply, peak oil, platforms, rigs, shut in, Transocean, US oil production
Updated August 30. Almost all of Gulf shut down.
Based on data from offshore operator reports submitted as of 11:30 a.m. CDT today, personnel have been evacuated from a total of 509 production platforms, equivalent to 85.4 percent of the 596 manned platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Production platforms are the structures located offshore from which oil and natural gas are produced. Unlike drilling rigs, which typically move from location to location, production facilities remain in the same location throughout a project’s duration.
Personnel have been evacuated from 50 rigs, equivalent to 65.79 percent of the 76 rigs currently operating in the Gulf. Rigs can include several types of self-contained offshore drilling facilities including jackup rigs, submersibles and semisubmersibles.
via BSEE Hurricane Isaac Activity Statistics: August 30, 2012 | BSEE.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: crude oil, EIA, energy, Iran oil production, Iraq, middle-east, oil production, oil supply, peak oil, Peak Oil is dead, pipeline problems, Turkey
A new fire in the North Sea; blowout in Russia; hacking in Iran; pipeline problems in Turkey; accelerated violence in South Sudan… What I miss?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Citi, Citigroup, energy, fracking, hydraulic fracturing, oil price predictions, oil supply, oil supply predictions, peak oil
Citi analysts have been calling an end to America’s energy problems and for the appearance of a 900-foot-tall golden unicorn named Darren.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: air supply, available net exports, China, Chinese oil production, Darwinian, net exports, Oil Drum, oil production, oil supply
From a comment by “Darwinian” on the Oil Drum.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: depletion, energy, England, North Sea, oil depletion, oil production, oil production declines, oil supply, peak oil, UK, UK oil production
For any modern nation, a 22% decline in oil production would be significant over the course of a decade. A 22% drop over a mere 12 months ought to be front-page news, yet this radical decline has passed relatively unnoticed.
via UK Oil: Plummeting production vs media inattention | Energy Bulletin.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bakken, Daniel Yergin, depletion, EIA, IHS CERA, Iran, Iran sanctions, oil predictions, oil supply, oil supply predicitons, peak oil, shale oil, The Yergin Gap, tight oil
Everything Yergin says here is true. He gives the impression of someone who chooses his words carefully. He won a Pulitzer and wrote two giant books about oil. But he somehow always leaves out half the story. Just doesn’t get it or pretends it doesn’t exist.
Yergin is a self-described optimist who believes human ingenuity (and higher prices) will produce as much oil as mankind would ever want or need. Like many of his ilk, he emphasizes various sources of supply that are on the verge of coming on line, and new sources of supply like the Bakken that are adding to existing supply. He mentions “disruptions” in supply, and indeed there are many of those. Disruptions are always on the verge of being restored to their rightful levels, you see. What he and his cornucopian brethren never mention is the ongoing natural depletion of existing giant oil fields. And his predictions never seem to take this depletion into account — which means his predictions (and those of his firm IHS CERA) have been absolutely laughable. I mean, they will make you lol those old predictions. The existing world of oil makes a lot more sense if you take into account the phenomenon of depletion; unfortunately the future looks a lot more bleak.
“Pulitzer Prize-winning Daniel Yergin” gets trotted out repeatedly, because his blind spot on depletion is quite useful to the contingent that thrives on the false belief that excessive regulation is throttling production in the US. And there is oh so much cash behind that fakery. Yergin’s paycheck depends on his not acknowledging depletion. The whole circus is really quite shameful, isn’t it?
Here he is in the WSJ optimistically listing factors that could keep the price of oil down, counteracting tensions with Iran. Optimism! Let’s see: New supply in the US, and various potential new sources of supply around the world. Check. Also, reductions in demand. Check. He doesn’t mention that “new supply” would have to amount to a Saudi Arabia’s worth every few years just to make up for ongoing depletion. In fact, he doesn’t mention depletion at all. Well done, Daniel.
New petroleum supplies could come into the market over the year from a variety of sources—from Iraq and Angola to Libya and Colombia. And notably, 300,000 barrels per day or more from the United States—primarily from North Dakota and Texas and from a rebound in off-shore production.
The other offset could come from reductions in demand. U.S. gasoline consumption so far this year is down over last year. China’s new economic growth target of 7.5%—down significantly from the 10% or so of recent years—would mean lower growth in its petroleum consumption. Of course, a rebound in global economic growth would increase demand, not only in China but in the U.S., Japan and Europe.
via Daniel Yergin: What's Behind Rising Gas Prices? – WSJ.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: crude oil, oil production, oil supply, peak oil, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabian oil production, Schumer
But Senator — to what degree will desperate-sounding ‘comments’ from US officials like yourself counteract those hypothetical emphatic promises? Seems like Shoom is scrambling for relevance.
Schumer called on Saudi Arabia to repeat its intention to make up for supply losses, arguing the comments will drive down gas prices, which are tethered to global oil prices.
“If the markets believe this is real, the price will come down even further. So we are asking the Saudis to repeat this promise,” Schumer said.
“The more explicit they are, the more emphatic they are, the more they ensure the markets that they are for real here,” he continued, “the more the markets will calm down more permanently and the more the price will come down.”
via Schumer: Saudi Arabia's plan to increase oil supply will lower gas prices – The Hill's E2-Wire.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, depletion, North Sea, Norway, OECD, Oh Heck, oil supply, OPEC, peak oil, Reguly, Saudi Arabia
Like this Eric Reguly character of the Globe and Mail:
Why hasn’t the high price triggered a production surge? The biggie, it seems, is that the non-OPEC countries are simply not up to the job. As Barclays points out, non-OPEC supply last year landed at a full one million barrels a day less than forecast by the International Energy Agency. The North Sea (whose production is shared by Britain and Norway) continued its terminal decline. Brazil and Azerbaijan were also the scenes of production disappointments.
Meanwhile, OPEC, dominated by Saudi Arabia, is sweating exceedingly hard. OPEC production volumes are at three-year highs, to the point that the cartel has only about 1.6 million barrels a day of spare capacity, and still prices are climbing.
via CTV News | All the signs point to a falling oil price – except supply.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: ', China, energy, energy production, OECD, oil production, oil supply, South Sudan, Sudan
Graph from IEA (pdf):
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bob Beamon, Iran, Iranian Revolution, North Sea, oil supply, supply disruption
“If Hormuz was to be disrupted, we’re talking the biggest disruption the oil market has ever seen,” said Blanch.
“We’ve never seen anything like it, and that’s why we think it’s very unlikely,” he said.
via Bottom Line – Iran oil standoff could mean higher gas prices.
The disruption associated with the Iranian Revolution in ’79 holds the current record. Even Bob Beamon’s record got taken out. (Didn’t it?)
After that disruption, the global supply problem was temporarily fixed in large part due to huge reservoirs that were discovered many years prior to the Iranian Revolution, in Alaska and the N. Sea, coming on line.
This time, we have cooked sand.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: exports, gas prices, Iran, oil, oil supply, OPEC, petroleum, Senate, war
Iran Faces Oil Curbs as U.S. Targets Central Bank While EU Adds Sanctions – Bloomberg.
I don’t know if these guys realize. Iran produces a lot of oil, and exports about 2.2 million barrels per day. This is a very strange/interesting development. “Choking off” Iranian exports will not only send prices to the stratosphere here, but could also cause very serious supply disruptions around the world, gas lines, rationing, general chaos. Now why would they want to do that?