News from September 2010

Saudi Aramco looks deeper into Ghawar

New technology to tap into porous rock formations in the Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia could expand production at the giant field, the operator said. The Ghawar field, believed to be the largest oil field in the world, pumps around 6 percent of the world’s crude oil output. The field is producing around 5 [...]

Oil analyst tells Forbes: peak oil by 2017

Respected oil analyst Charles Maxwell has told Forbes – and with it the North American business establishment – to brace itself for peak oil by “2017 or 2018.” Maxwell (left) is rapidly becoming the new Matthew Simmons, an establishment peak oil whistleblower. Simmons, present when the term peak oil was coined, went on to obtain [...]

Middle East Gas Consumption Outpaces Production

Rapid economic growth in the Middle East has resulted in the consumption of natural gas outpacing production, according to the Ernst & Young report, The Global Gas Challenge. As a result, tension exists between the requirement to supply domestic markets to fuel economic growth and the desire to achieve higher revenues via export sales agreements. [...]

World’s ‘Peak Coal’ Moment Has Arrived

Is the world about to begin running out of coal? Two researchers say so. In a peer-reviewed article published in the journal Energy, they write that the world will hit “peak coal” production next year or shortly thereafter, and then mining would begin a long, steep decline. Bottom line, say the paper’s co-authors, Tadeusz Patzek, [...]

BBC: Billions at risk of ‘water insecurity’

About 80% of the world’s population lives in areas where the fresh water supply is not secure, according to a new global analysis. Researchers compiled a composite index of “water threats” that includes issues such as scarcity and pollution. The most severe threat category encompasses 3.4 billion people. Writing in the journal Nature, they say [...]

One-Fifth Of World’s Plant Life Facing Extinction

More than one-fifth of the world’s plant population could face the threat of extinction, according to research released by British researchers and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on Wednesday. The Sampled Red List Index for Plants, a study conducted by experts from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; the Natural History Museum, London; [...]

Japanese aim at creating a sun on Earth

Outside a small town in Gifu Prefecture is a little-known scientific research establishment engaged in a project to “create a sun on the Earth.” If successful, this venture will profoundly affect the lives of most people in the world. Personal tour: Hiroshi Yamada believes that if successful, the fusion process will be a lot safer [...]

UK government’s oil shock warning

A UK government minister is preparing for a coming global oil shock – a possible doubling of the price of oil. As Monday’s UK Daily Telegraph newspaper reported, “Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, told the Liberal Democrat conference last week that in a world facing economic “shocks” it was possible that the price of oil would [...]

Kuwait output capacity of 3.65 million b/d by 2020

Kuwait Oil Co. has set a production capacity target of 3.65 million b/d of oil, which it hopes to achieve by 2020 and maintain through 2030. The state-owned oil and gas producer earlier had said it wanted to raise capacity to 3.5 million b/d by 2015 (OGJ, Feb. 15, 2010, p. 26). In its annual [...]

Peak Oil Mirage

The closer we get to peak oil the further it goes away. As high prices collapsed when the global economic system fell apart the world is now awash in oil. Back around the beginning of this decade Fed Chairman Allan Greenspan warned that peak natural gas production in this country could put us in a [...]