$150 Per Barrel Petroleum??

[trysail]

Fair warning to those who have been lulled to sleep and are oblivious to the current low price of natural gas:


Because large numbers of drilling rigs are being idled by low prices and the decline in natural gas demand, natural gas reserves in the U.S. are not being developed. Existing production falls fairly rapidly ( nationally, it is estimated on the order of 8% per annum ) as the result of depletion from natural decline rates ( in other words, production from a newly completed natural gas well can be expected to fall in every subsequent year; decline rates for fields/wells in the Gulf of Mexico are even higher— on the order of 15-20% per annum ).

At some point over the next 3-4 years, it is not unlikely that natural gas prices will increase dramatically as supplies decline. Domestic supplies may be augmented by deliveries of LNG ( "Liquified Natural Gas" ) sourced from places like Trinidad & Tobago, Nigeria and Qatar ( when their ginormous joint venture with Royal Dutch Shell for the offshore development of the world's largest natural gas field [ the North Field ] comes onstream ). Naturally, the ability of the U.S. to import supplies of LNG may be constrained by the near impossibility of getting approvals for construction of additional LNG receiving terminals, thanks to effective fear-mongering by misguided and ill-informed dunderheads.

By the way— FYI, natural gas prices reached a six ( 6 ) year low yesterday of $3.82/MCF ( 1 MCF= a thousand cubic feet ) on the New York Mercantile Exchange ( "NYMEX" ).

When prices rise, I don't want hear a lot of whining and complaining ( fat chance of that ); you've been warned.

 

[DesertPirate]

Gee and my gas bill went up this year

 

[amicus]

All energy prices are going to increase, it seems to be part of the political plan to encourage Americans to conserve and revert back to Euro style life, bicycles and shared living accommodations.

Everyone should feel a shudder of vulnerability and pray that no adverse weather assaults the gulf coast oil wells and refineries and that OPEC never really comprehends that they really have the US over a barrel. (pun intended)

amicus...

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

AMICUS

Energy use is dropping like a rock anyway. But energy prices are rising.

The analysts say its a combo of devalued dollars chasing decreased production. But I suspect many pension funds and insurance companies and legacies are chasing whatever promises a quick buck.

If the economy keeps declining lotsa energy investors are gonna lose their asses, and we'll be bailing out Harvard and insurance companies and New York State, etc.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aI4VU26qj76o&refer=home

THIS IS A SAMPLE OF WHAT I MEAN. Industrial production is down everywhere. Airlines are cutting flights. FEDEX business is down 15% from a year ago. Ditto for USPS. Energy consumption is wayyyyyyyyyyy down.

 

[trysail]

Job Losses From Obama Green Stimulus Foreseen in Spanish Study
By Gianluca Baratti

March 27 (Bloomberg) -- Subsidizing renewable energy in the U.S. may destroy two jobs for every one created if Spain’s experience with windmills and solar farms is any guide.

For every new position that depends on energy price supports, at least 2.2 jobs in other industries will disappear, according to a study from King Juan Carlos University in Madrid.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget proposal contains about $20 billion in tax incentives for clean-energy programs. In Spain, where wind turbines provided 11 percent of power demand last year, generators earn rates as much as 11 times more for renewable energy compared with burning fossil fuels.

The premiums paid for solar, biomass, wave and wind power - - which are charged to consumers in their bills -- translated into a $774,000 cost for each Spanish “green job” created since 2000, said Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at the university and author of the report.

“The loss of jobs could be greater if you account for the amount of lost industry that moves out of the country due to higher energy prices,” he said in an interview.

Spain’s Acerinox SA, the nation’s largest stainless-steel producer, blamed domestic energy costs for deciding to expand in South Africa and the U.S., according to the study.

“Microsoft and Google moved their servers up to the Canadian border because they benefited from cheaper energy there,” said the professor of applied environmental economics.

 

[trysail]

Observations on ExxonMobil
( a very brief extract from a recent comment, written by the well-known authority, Kurt Wulff )


... ExxonMobil does not invest in renewable energy beyond a vigorous research effort because it has been conditioned to believe the government would make the largest oil company ineligible for the subsidies without which wind and solar is uneconomic.

Moreover even after achieving President Obama’s goal of doubling wind and solar by 2012, the popular palliatives would still contribute less than 1% of total energy. Instead, ExxonMobil is increasing its spending on dependable oil and gas in a year when others are cutting back...

...ExxonMobil has fallen sharply along with most stocks since the inauguration of a new U.S. President, perhaps along with concerns of rising taxation. The ExxonMobil chief declares that changes being debated are not positive for U.S. companies, particularly changes to the foreign tax system that would put U.S. companies at a competitive advantage. Indeed, we notice that Russian, Brazilian, Chinese, European and Canadian stocks in our coverage seem to be outperforming U.S. stocks lately. As a result, much of the damage in the U.S has already been done to stocks. At the same time, the actual implementation of onerous taxes in a weak economic and stock market environment may not happen as it could be politically ruinous to those who would do so.

 

[amicus]

I wish I thought that some on this forum would understand your points and perhaps begin to question the direction this nation is taking.

I do not. But, thank you anyway for the effort.

Amicus...

 

[trysail]

( Fair Use Excerpts )
Pemex May Squeeze Extra 3 Billion Barrels From Cantarell Field
By Andres R. Martinez

April 8 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos, the state oil company, may recover an extra 3 billion barrels from its Cantarell field, or 20 percent more than planned, by using a technology that extracts hard-to-reach crude.

Pemex would inject so-called liquid foam to draw out oil from Cantarell’s rock under the process, Heber Cinco Ley, director of the Mexican Petroleum Institute, said in an interview April 6. The technology, which may be ready in three years, would shake loose oil that has seeped back into the rock walls after the field’s pressure fell, he said.

The company’s output fell at its fastest rate since 1942 last year because of slowing production at Cantarell, which has lost pressure after producing almost a third of Pemex’s oil during the past three decades. The company expects to produce only half the 30 billion barrels Cantarell holds. Three billion barrels is enough to supply the U.S. for six months.

“We want to be able to extend this technology to other mature fields in Mexico,” said Cinco Ley, a former deputy director for exploration and production at Mexico City-based Pemex who holds a doctorate in petroleum engineering from Stanford University. “There is still a lot of oil there.”

*****​

Researchers from the Universities of Texas, Houston, Stanford and the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, are working with the Mexican Petroleum Institute on the liquid foam project, said Cinco Ley, a specialist on so-called fractured oil deposits.

The technique being developed is likely a so-called enhanced oil recovery process, according to George Baker, an independent energy consultant in Houston who studies Mexico’s petroleum industry. Other producers are using similar processes such as pumping gas into fields to increase their pressure and maximize the oil they can recover, he said.

“This is a very important measure,” Baker said in an April 7 interview. The amount of extra oil that Pemex could potentially recover from Cantarell is “the equivalent of discovering three giant oil fields,” he said.

Cantarell was the world’s third-largest field when discovered in 1972. Pemex has pumped about 13 billion barrels from Cantarell, according to company estimates.

The Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest field, followed by the Burgan deposit in Kuwait.

The company is spending $29.1 billion on exploration and production at deepwater and onshore deposits through 2012 to offset Cantarell’s decline. Proved deposits at Pemex fell for a 10th year to 14.3 billion barrels last year.

Chief Executive Officer Jesus Reyes Heroles said in August that output at Cantarell may fall 33 percent to 500,000 barrels a day by 2012, when it is expected to stabilize. The deposit once accounted for 2.2 million barrels a day, or about two- thirds of the company’s output.

Pemex pumped 2.663 million barrels of oil a day in February, 8.5 percent less than a year earlier. Cantarell, stretched over 15,500 square kilometers in the Gulf of Mexico, fell behind Ku-Maloob-Zaap, an offshore field, as the second- largest field in Mexico in January...

...In 1938, President Lazaro Cardenas seized the assets of companies that later became Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest oil company. Mexico created Pemex later that year, and prohibited private, non-Mexican companies from exploring or producing oil until last October when Congress revised the law. Pemex remains the only domestic refiner.

*****​

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601207&sid=abGF4MyUEKxE&refer=energy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantarell_Field

 

[trysail]

( Fair Use Excerpts )

OPEC Cuts Thwarted as Brazil, Russia Grab U.S. Market Share
By Mark Shenk

April 14 (Bloomberg) -- As OPEC nations make their biggest oil production cuts on record, Brazil, Russia and the U.S. are pumping more, sending crude back below $50 a barrel as demand slows.

U.S. imports from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries fell 818,000 barrels a day, or 14 percent, to 5.02 million in January from a year earlier, according to the latest monthly report from the Energy Department. At the same time, imports from Brazil more than doubled to 397,000 and Russia’s increased almost 10-fold to 157,000, a trend that continued in February and March, according to data from each country...

*****​

“OPEC has done a good job keeping oil in the $50 area but they will have to cut substantially more, maybe more than they are capable of, if they want higher prices,” said John Kilduff, senior vice president of energy at MF Global Inc. in New York. “You are going to hear greater calls for non-OPEC producers to cooperate and make cuts.”

Imports fell by 148,000 barrels a day in January just as America’s production increased by 153,000, according to data compiled by the Energy Department in Washington. More oil is flowing just as the slowing economy causes consumption to contract for the second consecutive year.

The U.S. used an average of 18.9 million barrels a day in the four weeks ended April 3, down 4.4 percent from a year earlier, according to the Energy Department, the lowest level since October. Gross domestic product will contract by 3.8 percent in North America in 2009, the International Energy Agency said in a report April 10, dropping an earlier forecast for a recovery in the economy and oil demand in the second half of the year.

Inventories climbed 1.65 million barrels in the week ended April 3, the highest since July 1993, U.S. government data show. Supplies are 12 percent above the five-year average for the period and are the equivalent of 25.4 days of consumption, up from 22.1 days a year ago...

*****​

...OPEC agreed at three meetings last year to cut output by 4.2 million barrels a day, a 14 percent reduction to 24.845 million, as prices fell from a record $147.27 on July 11. The group reduced pumping by 1.2 percent in March, according to a Bloomberg News survey of oil companies, producers and analysts. The 11 members with quotas produced 25.06 million barrels.

As shipments declined, deliveries from exporters that aren’t in OPEC rose by 670,000 barrels a day in January. Russian overall exports climbed 6.3 percent in February and 2.2 percent in March, according to the Energy Ministry. Brazilian total exports more than doubled in both February and March, according to Brazil’s Trade Ministry...

Algerian Oil Minister Chakib Khelil, who held the group’s rotating presidency in 2008, said March 17 that he was disappointed Russia hadn’t cut production to support prices. Suppliers need prices in a $60-to-$75 range to support production of higher-cost resources, Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said on March 16 in Geneva.

Russia also lowered export duties this month to $15 a barrel from $15.70 in March to boost exports, the IEA said in the April 10 report. Brazilian production will rise 7.2 percent in 2009 to 2.54 million barrels a day, the IEA said.

“They want to capture as much of the U.S. market as they can, as fast as they can,” Robert Ebel, chairman of the energy and national security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said of the non-OPEC producers. “As long as they can make some money at it, they will ship their oil here.”

In January, Russia and Brazil earned $23.2 million a day in exports to the U.S., based on the $41.92 a barrel average on the Nymex that month.

“Russia has been trying get a foothold in our market for a long time,” said Bill O’Grady, chief markets strategist at Confluence Investment Management in St. Louis. “With both gas and oil Russia hopes to gain geopolitical leverage.”

*****​

...Petroleo Brasileiro SA, the state-controlled energy company, said in January that it plans to invest $174.4 billion through 2013 to boost production oil and gas production to the equivalent of 4.63 million barrels a day by 2015 from 2.40 million in 2008.

“Brazil is interesting both in the near term and long term,” said Rachel Ziemba, an analyst at RGE Monitor, an economic research company in New York. “In the near term there’s been a lot of production brought online. In the longer term Petrobras has one of the most aggressive investment programs in the industry.”

Lower prices will hamper development of new sources. Total SA, Europe’s third-largest oil company, said April 6 it may postpone an investment decision in Canadian oil sands because of costs. Chevron Corp., the world’s fourth-largest energy company, delayed the start of production at three Nigerian projects and more than doubled cost estimates on some of its biggest new finds. Drilling and equipment costs remain near their 2008 peaks even as prices plunged.

The U.S. will import an average 4.57 million barrels a day from OPEC in 2009, down 7.5 percent from last year, according to the Energy Department’s Annual Energy Outlook. Total imports are forecast to drop 7.3 percent this year to an average 9.02 million barrels a day.

“This is a reallocation of supply,” said Francisco Blanch, head of global commodities research at Merrill Lynch & Co. in London. “The U.S. is a far off point for most of OPEC to deliver to. It’s natural that with OPEC cutting back dramatically you are going to see non-OPEC pick up some market share.”

 

[trysail]

It works both ways folks. It always has. Please remember that in the future. Throughout its history, it has always been a cyclical business.

( Fair Use Excerpt )
Shell, BP Profits May Drop Most in Five Years on Oil
By Fred Pals and Eduard Gismatullin

April 27 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc, Europe’s largest oil companies, may post the biggest drop in quarterly earnings in at least five years after the recession dragged down crude prices...

“We are going to see a very substantial drop in income and there’s very little they can do about costs in the short-term,” said Colin Morton, who helps manage about $2 billion, including BP and Shell stock, at Rensburg Fund Management in Leeds, England. “It’s going to be quite a tough period.”...

...Shell is likely to report April 29 that first-quarter profit excluding one-time items and inventory changes slumped 67 percent to $2.56 billion from $7.85 billion last year... BP’s earnings due tomorrow may have declined to $2.2 billion from $6.49 billion...

...ConocoPhillips, the third-biggest U.S. oil producer, said April 23 that net income declined 80 percent to $840 million. Eni SpA, Italy’s biggest oil company, last week said first- quarter earnings fell 43 percent to 1.9 billion euros ($2.5 billion)...

 

[trysail]

You may not want to hear it, but it happens to be the truth ( which may be why you don't want to hear it ). You can behave like a small child— throw a temper tantrum, cover your ears and stamp your feet but these are immutable facts based on the laws of chemistry, physics, mathematics and economics.

( Fair Use Excerpts )

Chevron’s O’Reilly Says Lawmakers Trade ‘False Hopes’ on Carbon
By Tom Moroney and Tony Cox

May 7 (Bloomberg) -- Chevron Corp. Chief Executive Officer David O’Reilly said U.S. lawmakers “vastly overstate” how quickly reductions in carbon emissions can be made and would risk an economic collapse by imposing unrealistic cuts.

“Seeking those reductions without any realistic plan to replace that energy is a straight path back to a pre-industrial economy and a standard of living to match it,” O’Reilly said in prepared remarks for a speech he’s giving today in Boston.

Without referring to specific bills or members of Congress, O’Reilly said that talk of cutting emissions 20 percent by 2020 or 80 percent by 2050 “sounds good” but is unrealistic. For example, the 62-year-old Dublin native said, replacing all of the global transportation system with zero-carbon alternatives would cut greenhouse-gas emissions by only 15 percent.

“Trading in false hopes and inflated numbers will get us nowhere,” O’Reilly said. “We need to set goals that are both high and realistic.”

U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who chairs the House Energy and Commerce committee, submitted a bill that would create a cap-and-trade system of pollution credits designed to cut carbon emissions 20 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. Waxman told reporters this week that he expects the bill to become law this year.

O’Reilly said that in addition to accepting the costs of cutting emissions linked to global warming, Americans must recognize that an “economy free of all fossil fuels may be beyond our reach.” He said further advances in conservation and technological innovations will help meet emissions goals in what he expects to be a long process.

Century of Investment
“The energy system we have right now is the product of more than a hundred years of investment,” O’Reilly said. “We have to think about the next energy system we’re heading toward as another hundred years of investment.”...

...O’Reilly noted that Chevron is also the world’s biggest producer of geothermal power and is the largest installer of solar power plants in California.

To meet demand and reduce reliance on foreign oil, the U.S. needs greater investment in both new and traditional sources of energy, O’Reilly said. For decades, policy decisions have limited domestic oil and gas exploration, driving down output by almost 4 million barrels a day. Current talk of increasing taxes on oil companies, “an appealing campaign pledge,” will further hinder efforts to boost supply, he said.

‘Wrong Direction’
President Barack Obama submitted a record $3.55 trillion budget today that would increase taxes on oil companies by altering provisions on marginal wells, drilling costs and manufacturing deductions.

“From a policy standpoint, America has been moving in the wrong direction for a very long time,” O’Reilly said.

Global energy use has jumped 50 percent in the past 20 years and will climb an additional 30 percent in the next two decades, O’Reilly said. As the recession ends and energy demand resumes growing, consumers may again face oil prices above $100 a barrel and gasoline at more than $4 a gallon, he said.

U.S. crude-oil futures are trading about 60 percent below last year’s record high.

“When prices decline, there’s always a tendency to pay less mind to long-term energy concerns,” O’Reilly said.

The U.S. can boost domestic supplies by opening up more areas to drilling, O’Reilly said. The Outer Continental Shelf, for instance, is estimated to hold more than 30 billion barrels of oil and natural gas, he said.

“We need nuclear and clean coal,” O’Reilly said. “We need wind and oil and natural gas. To achieve energy security, we need it all. That means getting beyond simplistic proposals and staying focused on energy security.”

 

[trysail]

( Fair Use Excerpt )

By Margot Habiby

May 29 (Bloomberg) -- The number of oil and natural gas rigs operating in the U.S. fell by one to 899 this week, as declines in gas rigs outnumbered increases in oil rigs, according to data published by Baker Hughes Inc.

Baker Hughes said natural-gas rigs fell by eight, or 1.1 percent, to 703, the lowest since Nov. 29, 2002. The count was down 56 percent from a peak of 1,606 on Sept. 12. Oil rigs rose by seven, or 3.9 percent, to 187, the first increase in six weeks. It was at 442 on Nov. 7.

The combined oil and gas rig count rose to a 22-year high last year, peaking at 2,031 Aug. 29 and Sept. 12.

Gas for July delivery fell 12.2 cents, or 3.1 percent, to settle at $3.835 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was up 2.4 cents, or 0.6 percent, at $3.981 before the overall rig count figure came out. Earlier, it was up as much as 3.7 percent at $4.104.

Crude oil for July delivery rose $1.23, or 1.9 percent, to $66.31 a barrel. The futures, which are up 49 percent this year, are 55 percent below the record $147.27 a barrel in July.

Rigs on land were unchanged at 840, the lowest since March 2003. Rigs in inland waters lost two to four.

Wyoming lost the most rigs, falling three to 32. Arkansas, California and Texas each lost one, bringing their totals to 43, 20 and 330, respectively. Rigs increased by two in Louisiana and North Dakota, rising to 143 and 36. Alaska and New Mexico added one rig each to six and 36. Rig counts in Colorado and Oklahoma were unchanged at 45 and 76.

Baker Hughes also reported the rig count for offshore production rose by one to 55, and the Gulf of Mexico added one rig to 54. Canadian rigs rose by 16, or 22 percent, to 90, the highest since March.

The overall U.S. rig count averaged 918 in May, down 77, or 7.7 percent, from April. It was the eighth consecutive monthly decline, though the pace of the drop has slowed since March. Gas rigs fell an average of 52, or 6.7 percent, this month to 723. Oil rigs dropped by 22, or 11 percent, to 187.

Natural gas production in the first quarter, the period for which the most recent data are available, climbed as the rig count dropped. Gas output in the lower 48 U.S. states rose 2.2 percent in March from the year earlier, the Energy Department reported today. It was down 0.5 percent from the previous month.

Baker Hughes, the world’s third-largest oilfield services provider, and its predecessor Hughes Tool Co. have issued U.S. and Canadian rig counts since 1944 and international ones on a monthly basis since 1975. The largest oilfield services companies are Schlumberger Ltd. and Halliburton Co. Baker Hughes is based in Houston.

The global monthly rig count for May will be released June 5.

 

[Handley_Page]

By the way— FYI, natural gas prices reached a six ( 6 ) year low yesterday of $3.82/MCF ( 1 MCF= a thousand cubic feet ) on the New York Mercantile Exchange ( "NYMEX" ).

When prices rise, I don't want hear a lot of whining and complaining ( fat chance of that ); you've been warned.

I don't see the price I'm paying for my domestic gas supply dropping very low.
You'll hear me wailing when they rise though.

 

[trysail]

I don't see the price I'm paying for my domestic gas supply dropping very low.
You'll hear me wailing when they rise though.

Who's your supplier? Centrica?

Don't forget that most RETAIL suppliers of natural gas enter into term contracts with producers. There's always a lag in time for today's low "spot" prices to work their way through the system and be reflected in retail prices. The gas your retail supplier is selling today was most likely purchased last summer or autumn.

 

[trysail]

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/600/42/377579.htm

Gazprom Scrambles for LNG Market
01 June 2009
By Anatoly Medetsky / The Moscow Times

Gazprom has announced that it is speeding up its plans to sell more gas by tankers to a wider range of customers as it faces a sharp drop in demand from its traditional consumers in Europe.

"Trends on the global gas markets create conditions for Gazprom to increase the pace of producing and supplying liquefied natural gas," the company said in a statement late Thursday.

Gazprom's management board ordered the company's engineering divisions to work faster in studying options for building an LNG plant in the Far East, the statement said. The board also ordered the engineers to report on the possibility of building a long-discussed LNG plant that would use prospective gas from the Yamal Peninsula, saying for the first time that the plant would take gas from independent producers.

Privately held Novatek, the second-largest Russian gas company, announced days before that it had acquired a large gas deposit in Yamal from Gennady Timchenko, an acquaintance of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's. Timchenko's Volga Resources investment company said shortly afterward that it had increased its stake in Novatek to more than 18 percent.

LNG plants chill gas into a liquid state for shipment by special tankers. A Gazprom spokeswoman said Friday that she was unaware of the deadlines for submitting the reports on either plant proposal.

Gazprom is headed for a major drop in output this year. Deputy chief executive Alexander Ananenkov has predicted that production could fall 18 percent from last year's level. Exports to Europe, the company's principal source of revenue, were down 57 percent in January through April, compared with the same period last year.

European customers this year have begun to prefer buying cheaper LNG in spot trading from Gazprom's competitors because contracts with the Russian company fix prices for pipeline gas to those of oil six to nine months ago, when it hovered at record high levels.

The Gazprom statement had other details about its plan to build the LNG plant in Yamal, including that it was considering gas from the Tambeiskaya group of fields. Novatek's new field is part of the group.

A cheaper option for Gazprom to counter slumping demand would be to offer a 20 percent discount on pipeline gas to European buyers, said Mikhail Korchemkin, director of East European Gas Analysis, a Pennsylvania-based consulting firm. If it had done so earlier this year, it would have kept sales at last year's level and earned better profits, he said. "It's like making a fast nickel instead of a slow dime," he said.

In addition, cheap LNG shipments from Qatar to Europe would be Gazprom's biggest competition on the market, he said.

Gazprom's comments about an LNG plant in the Far East likely refer to the idea of building a facility near Vladivostok. The company signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan's Itochu Corporation and Japan Petroleum Exploration Company, or Japex, in May to study the option.

The plant would provide lower profits than the plant that Gazprom co-owns with Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi as part of the Sakhalin-2 project, Korchemkin said.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Why aren't you blogging this stuff?
You can set up in many free blogging communities;
blogger.com
wordpress.com
bloggit.com
open.salon.com

and get a better audience for your interests.

 

[trysail]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601207&sid=am9pwxTRgZwE&refer=industries

Oil to ‘Spike’ Without New Investments, Shell Says
By Christian Schmollinger

June 8 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil is set to “spike” without new investments and a price surge is in the making, Royal Dutch Shell Plc Chief Executive Officer Jeroen van der Veer said.

The global energy industry is facing “severe challenges” and the world needs unconventional energy supplies to meet rising demand, he said at the Asia Oil and Gas Conference in Kuala Lumpur today.

Oil’s decline to about $32 a barrel in December from a record $147.27 reached in July prompted explorers to delay or halt projects, a move that will cut supplies and push prices higher as the global economy recovers. Crude has since rebounded, gaining 52 percent this year on signs of economic growth and record production cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

“The economy will turn, demand will come back and the overcapacity of supply will disappear,” van der Veer said.

Oil and natural gas won’t be able to meet all the additional demand that’s required, van der Veer said...

 

[trysail]

"...Representatives Waxman and Markey have released a draft bill to reduce carbon dioxide, a perceived pollutant created in large quantities from coal burned by electric utilities. The bill would require permits to emit the colorless, odorless, tasteless and mostly benign gas blamed for contributing to a global warming trend. Yet, the bill proposes to give away free permits to coal burners thereby undoing almost all but the symbolic impact of the action...

...The Waxman-Markey bill would give away free permits to almost all except the oil refiners. In its extreme, oil refiners could be forced to pay exorbitant prices to buy unneeded permits given freely to others. In any case the costs would be passed on to consumers, mostly automobile owners who buy gasoline. In the worst case, the bill to save the “climate” becomes nothing more than a gasoline tax, that decades old, worn out, discredited idea. The misrepresented concept seems periodically regurgitated primarily by persons in the Northeast, which has public transit, and little oil industry, who would tax differentially the rest of the country, which has little or no public transit and some oil industry. A gasoline tax is nothing more than self-destructive political divisiveness, in our opinion...."

-Kurt H. Wulff

 

[trysail]

[ Emphasis added ]
______________________

"The solution to perceived market manipulation is overt market manipulation."


That's what federal regulators are saying with Tuesday's announcement that they will consider curtailing "excessive speculation" in energy markets. The move comes in response to last year's spike in oil prices, which soared to a record $145 a barrel a year ago next week and pushed gasoline prices above $4 at the pump in many parts of the country. Since the start of this year, crude prices have jumped 42 percent, even though the recession has crimped demand and storage tanks are full.

Speculators must be to blame.

No one seems upset about last fall, though, when those same speculators helped drive down prices by more than $111 a barrel in the last five months of the year.

 

[trysail]

Turkey to Offer Putin, Berlusconi Access for Natural Gas Pipe
By Lyubov Pronina and Ali Berat Meric

Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Turkey may offer its territorial waters for OAO Gazprom and Eni SpA’s proposed South Stream natural-gas pipeline at a signing ceremony in Ankara today.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan are likely to agree to an environmental study for the pipeline that’s seen as a competitor to the European Union-backed Nabucco link into central Europe. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will join the ceremony, his office said today.

Turkish officials may offer sea territory when they sign 16 documents with Russia during Putin’s one-day visit to the Turkish capital, including protocols on gas, oil and nuclear power, Yury Ushakov, Putin’s deputy chief of staff, told reporters in Moscow yesterday.

Russia’s state-run gas exporter Gazprom is looking to the South Stream pipeline, a 900-kilometer (560-mile) link under the Black Sea from Russia to Bulgaria, to help diversify supplies to Europe that were disrupted in pricing disputes with Ukraine, while retaining control over exports to the continent. The pipeline, with annual capacity of 63 billion cubic meters, will open on Dec. 31, 2015, and cost 8.6 billion euros ($11.6 billion) for both the subsea and overland segments, Gazprom Chief Executive Officer Alexei Miller said in May.

Expanding the capacity of another Russian gas pipeline link crossing the Black Sea to Turkey, Blue Stream, may also be discussed today, Ushakov said. Blue Stream’s current design capacity is 16 billion cubic meters a year.

Nabucco Competitor
The competing Nabucco pipeline plans to bring gas from the Caspian region into Austria via Turkey, avoiding Russian territory. Russia is the world’s biggest gas producer and supplies Europe with about a quarter of its gas needs.

The 7.9 billion-euro Nabucco project is meant to prevent a repeat of the hiatus in gas deliveries that cut supplies to European consumers twice since 2006.

Officials from Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria signed an accord in the Turkish capital Ankara on July 13 for the OMV AG-led Nabucco project, which has been in planning since at least 2004. Nabucco is due to send as much as 31 billion cubic meters of Caspian Sea-region gas a year via Turkey to Austria, starting in 2014.

Russia and Turkey may also agree to extend gas contracts. Turkey is the third-largest customer for Russian gas after Germany and Italy. Russian deliveries account for 64 percent of Turkey’s consumption of the fuel. The country delivered 24.5 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey last year, including 10.5 billion cubic meters through Blue Stream, Gazprom data show. Turkey received 9.6 billion of cubic meters of gas from Russia in the first half of this year.

The officials also plan to sign an accord on setting up a working group on a proposed oil pipeline from Samsun to Ceyhan. Gazprom said in July last year that the company’s crude oil arm would be interested in joining a pipeline project planned by Italy’s Eni and Turkey’s Calik Holding AS.

 

[trysail]

18 August-- Angola’s daily crude oil exports are scheduled to rise to the highest this year, signaling that Africa’s second-biggest producer continues to pump more than its OPEC quota.

Sixty-two cargoes totaling 59.1 million barrels, or an average of 1.903 million barrels a day, are scheduled to load in October, preliminary shipping programs show. That is the highest since December 2008 and compares with 58 cargoes, or 1.854 million barrels a day, planned for September. Preliminary schedules are subject to change.

Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, including Angola, have pledged to comply more closely with record production cuts of 4.2 million barrels a day announced in December in an attempt to support oil prices. The group is scheduled to discuss quotas in Vienna on Sept. 9 after leaving output unchanged at its two meetings this year.

Angola’s Oil Ministry has disputed estimates that place its OPEC production target at 1.517 million barrels a day. The ministry has said the information used to estimate the quota is inaccurate and its actual target is 1.656 million barrels a day. OPEC does not publish individual country quotas.

OPEC raised production in July as compliance with quotas weakened...

 

[cpk50]

I'd bet oil will over $100 in 3 yrs

 

[trysail]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601207&sid=aW1lhxYpKsaI

( Fair Use Excerpt )
Oil Sands May Get Cleaner as Shell, Exxon Bubble Tar to Froth
By Joe Carroll

Aug. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s biggest energy companies, are rolling out technology intended to eliminate the environmental disadvantage of Canadian oil sands.

A new process known as high-temperature froth treatment cuts carbon emissions from extracting crude from sand and mud by 10 to 15 percent, said Brad Komishke, a Shell chemist who leads 50 scientists developing new oil-sands techniques in Calgary.

“This means less production of the heaviest, dirtiest part of the crude stream and less pollution,” Komishke said in an interview at the company’s laboratories at the University of Calgary. “It’s about a more efficient use of energy.”

Shell and Exxon say their advances will make tar sands no more polluting than conventional wells in such locales as Texas and the North Sea. Whether that proves true may affect the marketability of crude from Western Canada’s tar-soaked bogs, home of crude worth more than $10 trillion at current market prices, the largest oil deposits outside Saudi Arabia.

About 60 percent of crude from the tar sands is exported to the U.S., where environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council ...

*****​

[ ... are doing their level best to send all of humanity back to living in the caves from which we emerged 200,000 years ago ].

 

[trysail]

Offshore Elephants

( Fair Use Excerpts )

Brazil, Petrobras & Pre-Salt Reserves
By Katia Cortes and Helder Marinho

Aug. 31 (Bloomberg)-- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva today presents new oil exploration rules to officials as his government seeks to increase control over pre- salt fields that may more than double the country’s reserves...

... Lula is seeking to change rules for pre-salt exploration after state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA announced the largest oil discovery in the Americas in the past three decades. New findings in the area may help Brazil at least double oil reserves and turn the state-controlled company into one of the world’s biggest producers...

... Lula said last week that around 71 percent of the pre-salt exploration and production licenses have yet to be auctioned.

Petrobras Chief Executive Officer Jose Sergio Gabrielli said the company’s proved oil reserves may double in the next two years as the Tupi, Iara and Whales Park fields, whose licenses have already been granted, probably hold around 14 billion barrels of crude.

Brazil’s proved oil reserves totaled 12.6 billion barrels last year, according to London-based BP Plc, which ranks countries by production.

The pre-salt area runs 800 kilometers (500 miles) along Brazil’s coast from Espirito Santo to Santa Catarina states and has oil deposits beneath a layer of salt resting as deep as 3,000 meters (9,843 feet) beneath the ocean surface and another 3,000 to 5,000 meters below the seabed.

Full story:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aMLL.7oeeFGM#