Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
This week saw further confirmation that all is not well in the shale gas industry as ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson admitted “We are all losing our shirts today.”…”We’re making no money. It’s all in the red.” The news comes as little surprise since the price of production is estimated to be around $4-7/per million BTUs and prices have been languishing around $2…
-Exxon: ‘Losing Our Shirts’ on Natural Gas
-Shale Gas Reality Begins to Dawn
-The Sky Is Pink: New Josh Fox Video On Fracking Controversies in New York (and Much More)
-Obama’s Interior chief: State regulation of fracking ‘not good enough for me’
-Ed Davey urged to take ‘foot off the gas’ and focus on renewables [Report]
-Gazprom Biggest Loser As Shale Gas Upends World Markets
At some point personal behavior changes aren’t enough. To become sustainable, we need large-scale investments, which require capital. How can we get access to the financial tools necessary to build a sustainable world? The answer may be through public banking, and one state, North Dakota, points the way.
– The Potential Upside of Captivity
– The Death of Petro-State Risk
– Is Peak Oil Dead?
– Dave Cohen: Should We Still be Concerned with Peak Oil?
Every week another article comes out arguing that peak oil is dead and that we are in a new era of liquid fuel abundance. In the first of a series Andrew McKay takes on the authors of these overly optimistic puff pieces and explains paragraph by paragraph exactly why these people are so wrong.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
-Conferences
-Ten to Follow On Twitter
-Five Featured Videos
Oil prices plunged to less than $89/barrel this week, an eighteen-month low, amid deepening economic gloom. Suddenly everyone is in the business of predicting just how far the oil price might fall – Credit Suisse has forecast $50/barrel – and for how long. One particularly interested and anxious observer is likely to be Vladimir Putin. With around 50% of Russia’s revenue coming from oil and gas the Kremlin is worried about the potential for a budget shortfall.
Over the next two to three weeks, I am going to post a series of short articles utilizing graphics I created from the recently released 2012 BP Statistical Review of World Energy. The topic of this first article in the series is oil reserves.
Geological Consultant Arthur Berman explains to the ASPO 2012 conference his view that the “gold rush” period of shale gas in the US is over. As Art puts it “Once you start drilling shale wells you can never stop…shale plays are not a renaissance or a revolution, this is a retirement party. “
This week saw the release of the annual BP statistical energy review. In the words of the press release 2011 was a year of “disruptions to supplies and ever-increasing demand”. The big stories for oil were supply disruption in Libya, a record average oil price of $100/barrel, an average annual Brent price rise of 40%, a decline in OECD consumption of 600,000 bpd, and an increase in US production of 275,000 bpd — the largest increase outside OPEC…
-For first time in years, the world is producing more oil than it needs
-Bill Reinert Describes What the Future of Energy Looks Like to his University of Colorado Audience
-The Saudi Oil Problem
-Citi’s Ed Morse Has A Huge Note Blasting Everyone Who Believes In Peak Oil
-The Oil Bubble Is Popping, But Will It Pop Down To $67?
-Aggregate factors in the price of oil
-Shale energy triggers bean rush in India
-Halliburton blames guar bean shortage for profit warning
-Shale Gas: Fracking great
-Lawmakers air frustration over federal attention to shale
-China’s shale future: not as bright as promised?
-Gas rebranded as green energy by EU
