Home » Posts tagged 'peak oil' (Page 20)
Tag Archives: peak oil
Shale Oil – Crash Course Chapter 21 | Peak Prosperity
Shale Oil – Crash Course Chapter 21 | Peak Prosperity.
If you’ve watch the previous video chapter on Peak Cheap Oil, you may be wondering how any of that could be still be true given all the positive recent stories about shale oil and shale gas , many of which have proclaimed that “Peak Oil is dead”.
The mainstream press has faithfully repeated every press and PR statement made by the shale producers. And if you simply followed the headlines, you might even believe this about the US:
- It is soon going to be energy independent,
- Its oil production will surpass even Saudi Arabia putting it in the number one spot,and
- The US will even be exporting oil again like the days of old.
The only problem with this story is that it is misleading in some very important ways. And entirely false in others.
Here are there are five main things to know about the shale plays.
Peak Oil Review – Nov 11
1. Oil and the Global Economy
Oil prices fell sharply on Monday and Tuesday last week taking New York futures down from $81 a barrel to touch above $76 on Tuesday. Prices then recovered leaving NY oil to close out the week at $78.65, down 2.4 percent for the week and 27 percent since June. London futures performed similarly dropping from $86 to $83 on Monday andTuesday and then rising to close out the week at $83.39, down 2.9 percent for the week and 28 percent since June. The price drop on Monday and Tuesday came as the Saudis cut prices for shipments to the US. The rebound later in the week had a number of causes including much colder weather due to engulf the US this week and better jobs numbers.
As could be expected, forecasts that the polar vortex will return to the US this winter sent natural gas prices sharply higher – climbing from $3.65 per million BTUs in late October to a close of $4.41 on Friday. US natural gas production continues to break records with production in October running at 7.9 percent above last year with expectations that total US production will be above 72 billion feet per day by the end of the year. Robust production of gas this summer combined with mild weather have left US natural gas stocks only 7 percent less than the five-year average as the winter heating season starts.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Peak Oil: A New Paradigm Suggested Pt 1 – Peak Oil Matters
Peak Oil: A New Paradigm Suggested Pt 1 – Peak Oil Matters.
The author, a graduate student at Queen’s University in Belfast, Ireland, offered a very nice, highly idealistic assessment of what must happen as the effects of and impact from a diminishing supply of fossil fuel takes hold worldwide. While some will surely scoff at the notion of revising every major notion of current national and international economic conduct and theory, absent such a monumental shift in perspective and belief, there’s little doubt that a great deal of needless hardships and unwelcome sacrifices await us all.
I rarely engage in anything approaching the doom-and-gloom forecasts which are more often attributed to peak oil advocates than is the reality. I’m an optimist and yes, an idealist at heart. That has always struck me as a better perspective than to approach a challenge half-defeated before I begin.
Those who choose to remain either clueless about or in denial of the energy supply challenges caused by depletion of finite resources will continue to do what they do: deny, dispute, mislead, distract as many others as they can recruit in order to preserve their own Business As Usual and the current rewards that may bring.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Peak Cheap Oil – Crash Course Chapter 20 | Peak Prosperity
Peak Cheap Oil – Crash Course Chapter 20 | Peak Prosperity.
Energy is the lifeblood of any economy. But when an economy is based on an exponential debt-based money system and that is based on exponentially increasing energy supplies, the supply of that energy therefore deserves our very highest attention.
But we need to be careful here because it’s a mistake to lump all types of energy together because they have very different uses in our economy and they are not interchangeable.
What we’re going to examine in this chapter on Peak Cheap Oil is transportation fuels. The liquids we put in our trucks and cars and airplanes. Why?
Because 95% of everything that moves from point A to point B across the globe does so based on petroleum derived liquid fuels. This makes petroleum quite special and unique.
And despite vastly increasing the global spend on oil operations, despite the shale oil “miracle” so loudly touted by the press — global production remains nearly unchanged. In just a few short years, it’s now costing us double to extract roughly the same amount of oil out of the ground.
Resource Insights: Is there really an oil glut?
Resource Insights: Is there really an oil glut?.
Back in March 1999 “The Economist” magazine carried a cover photo of two men drenched in oil as they attempted to close a faulty valve that was spraying a huge stream of crude skyward. Over the photo was the headline: “Drowning in oil.” At the time it really did seem as if the world were drowning in oil.
The previous December crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange touched $10.72 per barrel. That month U.S. gasoline prices averaged 95 cents per gallon. “The Economist” opined that oil might go down to $5 per barrel.
But, of course, in retrospect the magazine’s cover proved to be the perfect contrarian indicator, for oil had already begun its historic ascent toward $147 per barrel. The 2008 price spike was the culmination of a 10-year bull market that had begun in December 1998.
After dipping briefly to around $35 per barrel at the end of 2008 in the wake of the financial crisis, the new oil bull market sent world benchmark Brent Crude to a daily average of more than $100 per barrel for all of 2011, 2012 and 2013. Through October 27 the average daily price for this year has been $104.86, not all that different from the last three years.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Peak Oil Review – Oct 27
New York futures continued to slide last week closing Friday at $81.01 for the fifth weekly loss. London oil traded quietly around $86 a barrel to finish out the week at $86.13, also down for the fifth consecutive week. There has been no change in the markets’ perception that there is still too much oil chasing too little demand. The only foreseeable change in the situation will come at the November 27th OPEC meeting when we will know whether the Saudis and other Gulf Arab states will cut their production in an effort to raise prices. The other major exporters, particularly Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, are in near desperate need of all the oil revenue they can get and are unlikely to cut anything.
There was a rebound in the markets at mid-week when it was reported that Saudi sales in September were 328,000 b/d lower than in August, but the rally died when it was further reported that Saudi production had increased by 100,000 b/d last month with the rest of the oil going into storage. The weekly US stocks report showed the crude inventory increased by 7 million barrels the week before last. The stockpile at Cushing, Okla. was up a bit to 20.6 million barrels which about what is necessary for a smooth flow of futures market deliveries.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Peak Oil Notes – Oct 23
New York oil futures traded around $82 a barrel this week until Wednesday’s stocks report showed an unexpected 7 million barrel jump in US crude stocks. The jump resulted in a nearly $2 decline in the futures market to a close of $80.52 a barrel, the lowest settlement since June of 2012. London’s crude, which had been trading around $86 slid $1.51 on Wednesday to a close of $84.71. Refinery maintenance is in full swing with utilization down to 86.7 percent, the lowest since March, as changeover to winter blends continues. Refinery maintenance, the primary cause of the crude inventory build, is now at its peak, but should be over in a few weeks. Gasoline inventories fell last week due to less production, but distillates increased as demand for heating oil and diesel is currently weak.
US natural gas futures fell to a new 11-month low on Wednesday as traders are expecting that Thursday’s report will show that a larger than normal amount of gas was injected into storage last week. Mild weather, with minimal demand for heating gas, is expected to continue across the US for the next couple of weeks and long-range forecasts are predicting that really cold weather will not settle in across the US until January.
…click on the link above to read the rest of the article…
Inspiring New Film, “Voices of Transition,” on the Agriculture That We Need | David Bollier
Inspiring New Film, “Voices of Transition,” on the Agriculture That We Need | David Bollier.
How will agriculture have to change if we are going to successfully navigate past Peak Oil and address climate change? A new film documentary, Voices of Transition, provides plenty of answers from Transition-oriented farmers in France, Great Britain and Cuba.
Produced and directed by French/German filmmaker Nils Aguilar, the 65-minute film is “a completely independent, participative film project” that both critiques the problems of globalized industrial agriculture and showcases localized, eco-friendly alternatives. The film features actual farmers showing us their farms and describing the human-scale, eco-friendly, community-based alternatives that they are developing. 
You can watch a trailer of the movie in English, German and French here and read a synopsis here. Go to the film’s website to check out the public screenings and DVD versions that you can buy. Here is a link to the campaign around the international launch of the film.
“Omenland” | KUNSTLER
Did a few loose strands of Ebola seep into the organs and tissues of global finance last week? The US equity markets sure enough puked, the Nikkei bled out through its eyeballs, all the collagen melted out of Greek bonds, and treasuries bloated up grotesquely on a putrid stream of terrified “liquidity” that led two Federal Reserve proctologists to maunder about the possibility of a QE-4 laxative, out of which, in due time, will surely gush explosive bloody fluxes of deeper financial sickness.
The oil price fell on its face so hard it crashed through the floorboards. One particular idiot at NPR wrote that this means peak oil was a hoax (Predictions Of ‘Peak Oil’ Production Prove Slippery). I guess she didn’t notice that the junk financing associated with shale oil capex is also dissolving like the poor late Thomas Eric Duncan’s circulatory system. That is, expect a whole lot less drilling in the Bakken and the Eagle Ford in the months ahead, and a substantial fall in production. Unless the US government finds a back door to shovel money at shale (a possibility considering the crucial myth of “Saudi America” to Wall Street psychology), the investment will not be there for the relentless drilling and re-drilling.
…click on the link above to read the rest of the article…
Peak oil review – Oct 20
1. Oil and the Global Economy
Oil prices continued to fall through Thursday when New York futures traded below $80 a barrel and London as low as $82.60. Prices then rebounded to close Friday at $82.75 in NY and $86.15 in London. As has been the case for several weeks, the 25 percent price drop from the year’s highs was based on the perception that there is a glut of oil on the world market; the Saudis and other Gulf Arab states refusal to cut back production immediately; and fear. There are mixed opinions as to whether we have seen the bottom of the price plunge. Better economic data appeared on Friday and Goldman Sachs issued a report challenging the notion that the world markets are over supplied. They believe prices have overshot on the downside. Others, however, note that the pause in the price decline may only be profit-taking and that there is unlikely to be any change in OPEC policies until at least the end of November. Taking advantage of the relatively low prices, China seems to be stepping up its imports, likely to bolster its strategic reserves.
…click on the link above to read the rest of the article…
