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BP recently published energy data through December 31, 2017, in its Statistical Review of World Energy 2018. The following are a few points we observe, looking at the data:

[1] The world is making limited progress toward moving away from fossil fuels.

The two bands that top fossil fuels that are relatively easy to see are nuclear electric power and hydroelectricity. Solar, wind, and “geothermal, biomass, and other” are small quantities at the top that are hard to distinguish.

Figure 1. World energy consumption divided between fossil fuels and non-fossil fuel energy sources, based on data from BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy 2018.

Wind provided 1.9% of total energy supplies in 2017; solar provided 0.7% of total energy supplies. Fossil fuels provided 85% of energy supplies in 2017. We are moving away from fossil fuels, but not quickly.

Of the 252 million tons of oil equivalent (MTOE) energy consumption added in 2017, wind added 37 MTOE and solar added 26 MTOE. Thus, wind and solar amounted to about 25% of total energy consumption added in 2017. Fossil fuels added 67% of total energy consumption added in 2017, and other categories added the remaining 8%.

[2] World per capita energy consumption is still on a plateau.

In recent posts, we have remarked that per capita energy consumption seems to be on a plateau. With the addition of data through 2017, this still seems to be the case. The reason why flat energy consumption per capita is concerning is because oil consumption per capita normally rises, based on data since 1820.¹ This is explained further in Note 1 at the end of this article. Another reference is my article, The Depression of the 1930s Was an Energy Crisis.

Figure 2. World energy consumption per capita, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018 data.

While total energy consumption is up by 2.2%, world population is up by about 1.1%, leading to a situation where energy consumption per capita is rising by about 1.1% per year. This is within the range of normal variation.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

In-depth: BP’s global data for 2017 shows record highs for coal and renewables

June 17, 2018

Yosu Gas ship on Huangpu river before the skyline of Pudong, Shanghai, China.

Yosu Gas ship on Huangpu river before the skyline of Pudong, Shanghai, China. Credit: Stephane ROUSSEL / Alamy Stock Photo.

In-depth: BP’s global data for 2017 shows record highs for coal and renewables

Renewable energy grew by the largest amount ever last year, while coal-fired electricity also reached a record high, according to new global data from oil giant BP.

However, set against continued rapid rises in energy demand fuelled by oil and gas, renewables were not enough to prevent global CO2 emissions rising significantly for the first time in four years, the figures show.

This was partly because cyclical economic changes had flattered progress in previous years and, last year, cancelled out some of the slow, continuing shift towards a lower-carbon energy, BP says.

Still, the goals of the Paris Agreement look as far away as ever in the wake of these latest figures, given emissions must, ultimately, reach net-zero by mid-century to avoid dangerous warming.

Carbon Brief runs through the 2018 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, which, for the first time, covers all sources of electricity and the key materials needed for electric vehicles.

Another renewables record

Wind, solar and other non-hydro renewable energy sources grew by 69m tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) in 2017. This was their largest-ever increase, breaking last year’s record of 53Mtoe. Renewables were also the fastest-growing source of energy last year, up 17%.

Nevertheless, all low-carbon sources together met just a third of the 253Mtoe (2.2%) increase in global energy demand in 2017. Fossil fuels met the remaining two thirds, with gas (+83Mtoe, 3.0%) the single-largest source of new energy supply last year.

Changes in the sources of global energy supply between 2016 and 2017, millions of tonnes of oil equivalent. Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018 and Carbon Brief analysis. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How much of the world’s energy is supplied by renewables?

June 14, 2018

How much of the world’s energy is supplied by renewables?

BP and the International Energy Agency (IEA) measure the contribution of renewables to the global energy mix in terms of primary energy consumed while the World Bank estimates it in terms of final energy consumed. All three give different results, with BP estimating a total renewables contribution of 9.5% in 2015 compared to IEA’s 13.7% and the World Bank’s 18.1%. The BP/IEA differences become larger when contributions are segregated by source (BP estimates almost three times as much energy from hydro as as IEA and IEA estimates four times as much energy from “other renewables” as BP). This post documents these discrepancies while making no attempt to say who is right and who is wrong – that would have to be the subject of another post. But it does raise the question of whether we really know how large a contribution renewables are making to the world’s energy mix.

The BP and IEA “primary energy” estimates

It’s important to establish exactly what primary energy is before proceeding. Fortunately there is general agreement on how to define it:

OECD: Primary energy consumption refers to the direct use at the source, or supply to users without transformation, of crude energy, that is, energy that has not been subjected to any conversion or transformation process.

United Nations: Primary energy should be used to designate energy from sources that involve only extraction or capture

Wikipedia: Primary energy is an energy form found in nature that has not been subjected to any human engineered conversion or transformation process. It is energy contained in raw fuels, and other forms of energy received as input to a system.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Life, the Sea and Big Oil

May 24, 2018

Life, the Sea and Big Oil

Photo by Glenn Beltz | CC BY 2.0

“It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist: the threat is rather to life itself.”

– Rachel Carson

When I learned about the oil giant BP’s plan to drill off the coast of my home, my heart felt like it dropped out of my chest. As I write this the West Aquariusrig is well on its way to the Nova Scotian Shelf. By the time this is published, it might have already arrived. My thoughts went immediately to those oil sullied shorelines in the Gulf of Mexico, and to the fishermen there whose families and livelihoods were shattered to pieces, and the countless species of fish, mammals and marine birds suffocated in the earth’s primordial blood. BP forever damaged that region and not only in an environmental way. The scars, the untraceable diseases, the suicides and domestic conflicts induced by despair, the financial ruin, displacement and alienation persist to this day.

Many of my ancestors were fishermen here in Nova Scotia for generations. They negotiated the treacherous storms endemic to the North Atlantic and many of them perished in the icy waters which surround this rocky, unforgiving peninsula. I’ve several relatives whose livelihoods are still dependent upon the ocean. But it is more than just a job. The sea is entwined with one’s heart here. It informs the culture, the food, the language. The life of this province cannot be separated from it.

Until settlers stole their ancestral lands, Mi’kmaq, the region’s First People, lived in balance and harmony with this sea for thousands of years, carefully studying its character and respecting its surly and churlish mood swings.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oil Traders, Supermajors Diverge On Demand Forecasts

March 22, 2018

Oil Traders, Supermajors Diverge On Demand Forecasts

The world’s oil supermajors and largest oil trading companies are not in agreement on the future trends in oil demand, a recent event has revealed. This, although normal, should serve as a signal to everyone watching the oil industry that any forecasts on supply and demand, regardless how bullish or bearish they are, need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Or two.

It wasn’t always this way. Once, oil demand was something certain to grow consistently, as there were no alternatives to fossil fuels. Now there are a growing number of these and some industry players are beginning to acknowledge their effect on oil’s fundamentals.

BP was the first to do so: in its latest Energy Outlook, the supermajor forecast that oil demand will peak some time in the next decade. The company noted in the report that “the continuing rapid growth of renewables is leading to the most diversified fuel mix ever seen,” adding that “Abundant and diversified energy supplies will make for a challenging marketplace.”

Different companies are responding to this challenge in different ways. Shell, for instance, is pushing into renewables at breakneck speed. BHP Billiton, on the other hand, is exiting shale oil (under pressure from Elliot Management, but an exit is an exit) and looking for quick-return projects. Exxon is still an oil bull, forecasting that oil demand will continue to grow until 2040 driven by the transport sector and the chemicals industry.

But Exxon and other oil bulls may be underestimating the changes that the energy sector is already undergoing. That’s according to the chief executive of Gunvor. At the FT Commodities Global Summit in Switzerland, Torbjorn Tornqvist, said “I think that generally the oil industry has underestimated the challenges ahead. I think that electric vehicles are just the beginning, the advances create momentum which feeds that’s momentum and accelerates it.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Old Fields Die Hard

March 12, 2018

Old Fields Die Hard

Oil is setting up for a turbulent year.

In an industry that is always full of contradictions, 2018 has been a particularly complicated and divisive year for the global oil markets–and it looks like it won’t be letting up any time soon.

For months, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has been pushing for a dramatic decrease in production in the interest of bolstering prices at the pump. They’ve even managed to get major OPEC outsiders like Russia and the oil cartel to agree to production cuts. While the original deal is due to expire at the end of March, 2018, OPEC has just extended the production caps to the end of the year in an attempt to counterbalance the global glut of crude oil.

However, despite OPEC’s best efforts, some countries are not stemming the flow of crude, and some are even ramping up production and even opening new major oil fields. Nigeria, for example, is talking out of both sides of its mouth, promising compliance with OPEC in the same year that it has pushed its output to the highest level in more than two years and is set to start up production in a new large-scale oil field by the end of the year, their first in half a decade.

Now, another major issue has arisen. British Petroleum (BP), which has long expected their mature oil fields to naturally plateau and then decrease in production, has now announced that their legacy fields are increasing output, to the great surprise of experts in the field and BP executives alike. An astonished Bob Dudley, BP’s chief executive officer, told an interviewer at the CERAWeek by IHS Markit energy conference in Houston that he, “cannot remember ever in my career having seen a negative decline rate.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BP Sees Peak Oil Demand In 2030s

February 24, 2018

BP Sees Peak Oil Demand In 2030s

BP says oil demand will peak in the 2030s, and that EVs will rise 100-fold to capture about a third of the car market.

BP released its annual Energy Outlook, with forecasts through 2040. Unlike in years past, this version sees more upheaval on the horizon as the energy landscape evolves rapidly. “Indeed, the continuing rapid growth of renewables is leading to the most diversified fuel mix ever seen,” BP CEO Bob Dudley said in a statement. “Abundant and diversified energy supplies will make for a challenging marketplace. Don’t be fooled by the recent firming in oil prices: the focus on efficiency, reliability and capital discipline is here to stay.”

BP believes that just about all of the growth in energy demand will come from fast-growing developing economies, with China and India alone accounting for half of the total growth in global energy demand through 2040.

BP offered several different forecasts, but all predict a peak in oil demand in the 2030s, with varying degrees of decline thereafter. Its central forecast sees peak oil demand in the mid-2030s at about 110 million barrels per day (mb/d), with consumption plateauing and declining through 2040 and beyond. In other words, demand grows for another two decades, rising by 15 mb/d, before consumption tops out.

BP sees the number of EVs on the road surging to 320 million by 2040, capturing about a third of the market in terms of miles traveled. That equates roughly to a 100-fold increase from the 3 million EVs on the road today. It is also sharply up from the 100 million EVs BP expected to be on the road in 2035 in last year’s Energy Outlook.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

From Shahs To The CIA: The History Of Western Intervention In Iran – Part 1

January 7, 2018

From Shahs To The CIA: The History Of Western Intervention In Iran – Part 1

“Once you understand what people want, you can’t hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can’t hate them, because you can find the same desires in your own heart” – concluded Andrew Wiggins in the novel Speaker for the Dead. When Americans hear the word Iran, many have a sort of knee-jerk visceral reaction. The very mention of the word conjures up frightful images of be-turbaned bearded imams leading mobs of Kalashnikov-carrying Muslim men and women whose faces are grotesquely contorted by intense anger as they enthusiastically wave banners bearing squiggly lines, no doubt saying, “Death to America”.

Such specters are no frightful flights of fantasy, but reflect a real time and place in Iranian history. The year was 1979 and the place was Tehran. But the Islamic Revolution and subsequent American embassy hostage crisis which shocked the world, catching the West completely off guard, did not materialize in a vacuum. The chaotic domino effect which would lead modern Iran into the hands of the Ayatollahs was set off from the moment the CIA intervened with its 1953 coup d’état in Tehran, which became known as ‘Operation Ajax’.

The opening sequence from the 2012 movie ‘Argo’ features a brief history of aggressive Western intervention which shaped modern Iran.

But Western intervention in Iran’s affairs actually started many decades prior even to the CIA’s well-known covert operation with the establishment of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, or today’s British Petroleum (BP). After this, the 20th century witnessed a series of external interventions in Iran – a pattern which could potentially be continued now at the beginning of the 21st century as officials in the US and Israeli governments are now calling for action in support of protesters.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Terrible Oil News Nobody Noticed

March 18, 2016

The Terrible Oil News Nobody Noticed

A terrible bit of news went unnoticed in the commotion amid the modest rebound in oil prices over the past two weeks.

While every news outlet shouted about Iran and OPEC, a U.S. energy icon quietly announced news that could potentially shatter the industry.

As I’ve explained recently, many oil companies are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. But news out of Alaska could lead to disaster.

BP Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust (BPT) – operated by the Alaskan division of oil giant British Petroleum (BP) – sells oil from the Prudhoe Bay oilfield. It just announced a 65% drop in its economic oil reserves.

We’ll explain exactly what that means in a moment… but you can expect the numbers that the other area shale explorers release in the coming weeks will be even worse…

From 1968 to 2015, Prudhoe Bay was the most prolific oilfield in the country, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Today, Prudhoe Bay ranks third in the U.S. behind Texas’ Eagle Ford and Spraberry Shales.

Prudhoe was so large, three major oil companies – BP, Arco, and Humble Oil – spent $8 billion in 1977 constructing the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) to bring its oil to market. That’s more than $31 billion in today’s dollars.

For a while, that investment paid off. By 1988, the field produced nearly 2 million barrels per day – almost as much oil as the entire state of Texas. From 1985 to 1995, the field produced as much as 25% of the entire U.S. oil output.

In 2013, the North Slope fields still produced more than 479,000 barrels per day, though that accounts for only about 5% of U.S. production. In 2014, more than 12.5 billion barrels of oil remained in the area, according to the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission. But that’s actual barrels… not “economic reserves.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Greenwash: Shell May Remove “Oil” From Name as it Moves to Tap Arctic, Gulf of Mexico

July 12, 2015

Greenwash: Shell May Remove “Oil” From Name as it Moves to Tap Arctic, Gulf of Mexico

Shell Oil has announced it may take a page out of the BP “Beyond Petroleum” greenwashing book, rebranding itself as something other than an oil company for its United States-based unit.

Marvin Odum, director of Shell Oil’s upstream subsidiary companies in the Americas, told Bloomberg the name Shell Oil “is a little old-fashioned, I’d say, and at one point we’ll probably do something about that” during a luncheon interview with Bloomberg News co-founder Matt Winkler (beginning at 8:22) at the recently-completed Shell-sponsored Toronto Global Forum.

“Oil,” said Odum, could at some point in the near future be removed from the name.

Odum’s comments come as Shell has moved aggressively to drill for offshore oil in the Arctic and deep offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, while also maintaining a heavy footprint in Alberta’s tar sands oil patch.

Image Credit: Bloomberg News Screenshot

Shell also recently acquired BG (British Gas) Group, a company that owns numerous assets in the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry, transforming the company into what Forbes hailed as a “world LNG giant.”

Winkler quipped in Toronto that due to this major asset purchase, it might be more accurate to call Shell Oil, “Shell Gas.”

In October 2011, BG Group signed a major contract with the U.S.-based LNG giant Cheniere to ship its gas product obtained via hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) to the global market. That LNG will begin to flow by the end of the year.

Just a week before Odum told Winkler that Shell may take “oil” out its company name, he appeared on Bloomberg News on the sidelines of the Aspen Ideas Festival to boast about his company’s big plans — plans to drill for oil in the deep offshore Gulf of Mexico Appomattox field. At Aspen, Odum called Appomattox a “world class oil and gas project.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BP Data Suggests We Are Reaching Peak Energy Demand

June 24, 2015

BP Data Suggests We Are Reaching Peak Energy Demand

Some people talk about peak energy (or oil) supply. They expect high prices and more demand than supply. Other people talk about energy demand hitting a peak many years from now, perhaps when most of us have electric cars.

Neither of these views is correct. The real situation is that we right now seem to be reaching peak energy demand through low commodity prices. I see evidence of this in the historical energy data recently updated by BP (BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2015). Of course,

Growth in world energy consumption is clearly slowing. In fact, growth in energy consumption was only 0.9% in 2014. This is far below the 2.3% growth we would expect, based on recent past patterns. In fact, energy consumption in 2012 and 2013 also grew at lower than the expected 2.3% growth rate (2012 – 1.4%; 2013 – 1.8%).

Recently, I wrote that economic growth eventually runs into limits. The symptoms we should expect are similar to the patterns we have been seeing recently (Why We Have an Oversupply of Almost Everything (Oil, labor, capital, etc.)). It seems to me that the patterns in BP’s new data are also of the kind that we would expect to be seeing, if we are hitting limits that are causing low commodity prices.

One of our underlying problems is that energy costs that have risen faster than most worker’s wages since 2000. Another underlying problem has to do with globalization. Globalization provides a temporary benefit. In the last 20 years, we greatly ramped up globalization, but we are now losing the temporary benefit globalization brings. We find we again need to deal with the limits of a finite world and the constraints such a world places on growth.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

This Is The Man Exxon Chose To Lead Its Effort Against Climate Science

March 25, 2015

This Is The Man Exxon Chose To Lead Its Effort Against Climate Science

This DeSmog UK epic history post portrays Lee Raymond, the Texan captain who steered the Exxon ship against the rising tide of climate science.

In 1997, BP’s British boss, John Brown, stunned the world by endorsing the science of climate change and calling for government regulation to reduce carbon emissions. Exxon’s Lee Raymond (pictured), however, was an entirely different beast: brash, bullish and brutal.

This real life J.R. Ewing came from working class stock all the way from the Great Plains and fought his way to the top of the oil giant Exxon.

Raymond lived in a 8,642-square-foot, five-bedroom brick-façade home in Dallas, had around-the-clock access to the Exxon fleet of nine corporate planes for personal and work trips, and enjoyed the protection of an armed bodyguard and chauffeur who was a former New York police officer.

‘Oil and Gas Purist’

According to Steve Coll, the author of the award-winning Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, Raymond ruled the company with a “drill sergeant-inspired ethos” and he “considered himself unabashedly to be a ‘free-market capitalist’ and resisted government intervention and regulation instinctively.”

Raymond was also an “oil and gas purist” and, in taking over the company, ended the brief flirtation with environmentalism that had taken place under the former chairman Clifton Garvin, who had installed solar panels to heat his home’s swimming pool.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BP makes $1bn loss as oil prices slump

February 3, 2015

BP makes $1bn loss as oil prices slump

Company faces losses, share-price fall and more fines over Deeepwater Horizon spill with underlying profits likely to take a hit

BP has crashed to a $1bn loss in the final quarter of the year as low oil prices and more writedowns hammered its results.

Its chief executive, Bob Dudley, warned the industry had now entered a “challenging new phase” of reduced crude prices clearly signalling he expected no quick bounce back for the value of Brent.

The $969m (£645m) replacement cost loss in the final three months of the year compared with a profit of $1.5bn for the same period last year. The underlying replacement cost loss – a “clean” figure preferred by analysts – came in at $2.2bn, compared to $2.8bn last time.

Shares in BP fell over 2% in early trading despite the company raising the dividend for investors to 10c.

The troubled oil company, which has in the past been a subject of takeover speculation, said it would be slashing its spending for 2015 to $20bn, down from a target of over $24bn in 2014.

BP also revealed it had so far spent $43.5bn on fines and other liabilities resulting from the Gulf of Mexico blowout. The company admits it could still face charges of $13.7bn under a Clean Water Act but is hopeful it can avoid this.

“We have now entered a new and challenging phase of low oil prices through the near and medium term,” said Bob Dudley, BP group chief executive.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Rigging Triangle Exposed: The JPMorgan-British Petroleum-Bank Of England Cartel Full Frontal | Zero Hedge

December 30, 2014

The Rigging Triangle Exposed: The JPMorgan-British Petroleum-Bank Of England Cartel Full Frontal | Zero Hedge.

The name Dick Usher is familiar to regular readers: he was the head of spot foreign exchange for JPMorgan, and the bank’s alleged chief FX market manipulator, who was promptly fired after it was revealed that JPM was the bank coordinating the biggest FX rigging scheme in history, as initially revealed in “Another JPMorganite Busted For “Bandits’ Club” Market Manipulation.” Subsequent revelations – which would have been impossible without the tremendous reporting of Bloomberg’s Liam Vaughan – showed that JPM was not alone: as recent legal actions confirmed, virtually every single bank was also a keen FX rigging participant. However, the undisputed ringleader was always America’s largest bank, which would make sense: having a virtually unlimited balance sheet, JPM could outlast practically any margin call, and make money while its far smaller peers were closed out of trades… and existence.

But while the past year revealed that FX rigging was a just as pervasive, if not even more profitable industry for banks than the great Libor-fixing scandal (for details see “How To Rig FX Like A Pro “Bandit”, And Make Millions In The Process“), the conventional wisdom was that it involved almost exclusively bankers at the largest global banks including JPM, Goldman, Deutsche, Barclays, RBS, HSBC, and UBS.

Now, courtesy of some more brilliant reporting by Vaughan, we can finally link banks with the other two facets of what has emerged to be an unprecedented FX-rigging “triangle” cartel: private sector companies that have no direct banking operations yet who have intimate prop trading exposure, as well as central banks themselves.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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