Industrialized Cyclist Notepad


China will consume an increasing share of available oil exports

“China is importing an increasing amount of crude, which is the most crucial issue for the country’s energy supply,” said Zhang during the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference

And the most crucial issue for the world’s energy supply too.

One way to look at it is that we in the west are being outbid by people in Asia for available oil exports. The price is high because if it were any lower people would want to consume more than can currently be produced.

via China depends more on overseas oil |Economy |chinadaily.com.cn.

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U.S. Oil Production by Region

A historical perspective.

via Econbrowser and James Hamilton: http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2012/07/shale_oil_and_t.html



Hamilton on the future of U.S. shale oil

Throwing a little cold water on some recent, loudly reported unscientific predictions. When you read Hamilton, always be sure to read the comments by Jeffrey Brown for an important Big Picture view.

In addition to the uncertainties noted above about extrapolating historical production rates, the rate at which production declines from a given well over time is another big unknown. Another key point to recognize is the added cost of extracting oil from tight formations. West Texas Intermediate is currently around $85/barrel. With the huge discount for Canadian and north-central U.S. producers, that means that producers of North Dakota sweet are only offered $61 a barrel. Tight oil is not going to be the reason that we return to an era of cheap oil, for the simple reason that if oil again fell below $50/barrel, it wouldn’t be profitable to produce with these methods. Nor is tight oil likely to get the U.S. back to the levels of field production that we saw in 1970. But tight oil will likely provide a source of significant new production over the next decade as long as the price does not fall too much.

via Econbrowser: Shale oil and tight oil.



The Yergin Gap

Chart by Jeffrey Brown (aka “westtexas”).