Why the oil industry has buried the idea of "peak oil"

[Keith_McClary]

You show up here every few months in your new set of Hot Wheels
...
Until then just drive away.

"Drive-by denialism" ?

I almost coined a new phrase, Google returned only 4 results (relating to AGW).
More fitting to PO denialism, tho.

[Keith_McClary]

"the oil industry has buried the idea of 'peak oil'." Rather, it sprinkled a bit of dust on top of it.

You mean fairy dust?

[seenmostofit]

What is the mechanism whereby the industry personnel who discovered peak oil more than half a century ago;

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/13630

and their modern descendants discussing it, in public, at the end of the last century;

http://dieoff.org/page140.htm

and the national newspapers talking about it only half a decade or so ago;

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industrie ... usat_x.htm

and the international energy agencies which have declared it as historical fact;

http://www.the9billion.com/2011/05/24/p ... ays-video/

how is it possible to maintain that this has all been hidden from us by industry?

Just an on topic thought....

[ralfy]

I must respectfully disagree. The IEA wasn't a little wrong here, or a little wrong there, the solution to which is shaving a few percentage points off their numbers to make it agree with someone else. They were wrong down at the structural level, so the value of their projections and numbers are simply zero.

It's not that they were "a little wrong here, or a little wrong there," but as you put it, "[t]hey were wrong down at the structural level." That is why more than five years ago, it was argued that oil production would rise to around 115 mb/d by 2015 and oil prices would drop by less than $60 due to new oil discoveries, new technologie, etc. With less than three years left, and we're not even close to that. Three years ago, Saudi Arabia boasted that they would reach 15 mb/d by 2011. Now, they can barely reach 10 mb/d.

The "structural" problems involve ignorance of EROEI, historical flow rates, etc. If these "structural level" issues had been resolved, we would see lower estimates.

Thus, "the value of their projections and numbers are simply zero" because they are overestimated. But even those over-estimates cannot be hidden for long, as shown in one report from another released by various groups, including ironically oil companies. You will find the reports linked here:

http://ralfyman.blogspot.com

With that, the oil industry had indeed been trying to "bury" the "idea of 'peak oil'" not by debunking it but by ignoring it, promising production ramp-ups and lower prices. But more reports from several of their companies reveal otherwise.

[ralfy]

"the oil industry has buried the idea of 'peak oil'." Rather, it sprinkled a bit of dust on top of it.

You mean fairy dust?

More like references to what is technically recoverable, with the hope of making the ignorant believe that there's an "abundance" of oil.

[ralfy]

What is the mechanism whereby the industry personnel who discovered peak oil more than half a century ago;

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/13630

and their modern descendants discussing it, in public, at the end of the last century;

http://dieoff.org/page140.htm

and the national newspapers talking about it only half a decade or so ago;

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industrie ... usat_x.htm

and the international energy agencies which have declared it as historical fact;

http://www.the9billion.com/2011/05/24/p ... ays-video/

how is it possible to maintain that this has all been hidden from us by industry?

Just an on topic thought....

I think the article refers to the oil industry debunking peak oil rather than keeping the problem hidden.

[SeaGypsy]

I doubt the industry has any use for the term. Also the main debunking, aside from EIA's baloney, is MSM. Peak oil cannot be debunked. Anyone who says it can is either ignorant or willfully misleading. There will be, or has been a peak in oil production, whether in 06 or 11 or 12 or 15, there will definitely be in hindsight a peak. GTL & other technologies keep adding to the energy available total projection, but to what extent these 'alternatives' turn out to be able to replace disappearing oil remains in question and shall do for years yet.

[Keith_McClary]

On today's PO "News" page:

The Nazis understood that oil is a renewable resource, and the U.S. government and Big Oil hid that from the U.S. public – fostering on an uneducated U.S. population the idea that oil is fossil fuel that eventually will be gone — the ‘peak oil’ theory

[Lore]

On today's PO "News" page:

The Nazis understood that oil is a renewable resource, and the U.S. government and Big Oil hid that from the U.S. public – fostering on an uneducated U.S. population the idea that oil is fossil fuel that eventually will be gone — the ‘peak oil’ theory

And with that trick they won the war.

[tubaplayer]

On today's PO "News" page:

The Nazis understood that oil is a renewable resource, and the U.S. government and Big Oil hid that from the U.S. public – fostering on an uneducated U.S. population the idea that oil is fossil fuel that eventually will be gone — the ‘peak oil’ theory

And with that trick they won the war.

And if the Nazis understood that oil is a renewable resource then why did they have to resort to providing themselves with fuel to drive tanks. etc, etc, by coal to liquids, which of course provided nowhere near enough liquids to power the tanks etc, etc.
Which is why they lost the war

[SeaGypsy]

The comments on the linked PO.com news article are mostly spot on. How do morons get books published? By appealing to other morons, of which there is no shortage. Peak moron anyone?

[Rune]

Financial Times

The coming US boom and how shale gas will fuel it

...Today, few realize that the US stands on the cusp of significant economic gains stimulated by low energy costs.

The consensus view discounts the economic boost from natural gas, arguing that the energy sector cannot generate so many jobs.

The doubters wear blinkers; they see nothing but the energy market. They commit the mistake made by forecasters in 1991. They miss the tectonic shifts in trade, shifts that US economist Tyler Cowen identified in his paper in the US magazine The American Interest, What Export-Oriented America Means .

Shale could bring energy independence for many nations, freeing them from a reliance on imports

The backward-focusing observers who dismiss the impact of shale gas fail to understand four conditions that will contribute permanently to a big improvement in the competitive position of the US.

First, the US has perfected a means of “manufacturing” natural gas from shale, in effect breaking the monopolistic control
on hydrocarbon supply once enjoyed by the majors.

Second, this advantage gives manufacturing plants in the US a 60 per cent, 70 per cent or even 80 per cent cost advantage over those operating in China, Japan, South Korea or European countries.

Third, US financial markets (principally futures markets) enable producers and consumers to lock in profits for years ahead. Low cash prices now do not deter producers that sold today’s production a year ago at much higher and profitable prices.

Fourth, competitive and open pipeline systems prevent any single large participant from denying these economic benefits to any producer or consumer.

No country other than Canada enjoys US competitive conditions. Nor will any other country probably enjoy them in the future. Recognising this, groups such as Michelin and Shell intend to build plants in the US to take advantage of the country’s permanently lower-cost energy supplies. Steel mills are also being planned.

In short, low-cost energy provided primarily by shale gas production advances will almost certainly contribute to an investment boom across the US economy.

Leaders outside the US recognise the threat shale gas poses to their competitive position. Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia’s national energy company must respond to the challenge. State energy groups, as well as the world’s integrated oil companies, will no doubt try. One can be confident of their failure, though. The development of shale oil and gas involves drilling hundreds of thousands of low-cost wells. Large energy companies fall flat on their faces every time they attempt such endeavours.

The big multinationals cannot run projects involving thousands of workers on many small sites. This is not their forte. Instead they excel at developing a few very expensive, highly productive projects that yield high-cost supplies. Their executives and shareholders should be thankful that the unique institutional conditions behind the US shale revolution cannot be found anywhere else.

The US and Canada will be, for the foreseeable future, a low-cost energy hegemony. We are the only nations that have promoted small, efficient, low-cost energy producers. Every other country relies on the Exxon type.

As a result of these circumstances, the benefits of low-cost energy supplies will spread throughout the US economy, stimulating exports of goods and services and creating millions of jobs.

Philip K. Verleger, Jr. is a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and was director of the Office of Energy Policy at the US Treasury in the Carter administration

[pstarr]

rune, there is much wrong with that article. But one would never know it because you did not analyze, comment on the article as per your COC obligations.

[kublikhan]

Well shale gas is helping to give the US cheap natural gas. And the expanded production efforts do have large knock on effects for other areas of the economy as well: lodging, entertainment, cars and truck sales, etc. And it's not just small market players who have their finger in the shale pie. Exxon and other large players are in on the game too.

America's most profitable company now produces about as much natural gas as it does oil. CEO Rex Tillerson thinks the fracking party has just begun. Two years ago [Exxon] engineered a $35 billion acquisition of natural-gas producer XTO Energy in large part to buy the company's hydraulic-fracturing expertise. It is easily the largest deal the energy giant has done since the $88 billion mega-merger with Mobil.

Over the past several years fracking has unlocked a vast new source of energy supply in the U.S. Advanced forms of the process that Tillerson used in the 1970s. This shale gas boom has turned assumptions about the future of the U.S. and global energy picture upside down. Less than a decade ago the consensus was that America was beginning to run out of economically recoverable natural gas and that the country would need to import vast quantities of it from overseas. Now we're awash in natural gas. U.S. production has increased 28% since 2005. In 2011 about a third of that production was from shale gas, up from just 11% in 2008. By 2035, according to a study by the research firm IHS Global Insight, shale gas will account for 60% of U.S. production.

The shale gas industry employed more than 600,000 workers in the U.S. in 2010, according to IHS, and by 2015 it will contribute some $118 billion to the U.S. economy.

The biggest single theme in the research, which Exxon uses to guide its strategic planning, was the growing demand for electricity. Exxon estimates that worldwide electricity demand will increase 80% by 2040 as hundreds of millions in the developing world achieve a middle-class lifestyle. An increasing amount of that electricity will be generated by natural gas, which will pass coal as the world's second-largest fuel source, behind crude oil, by 2025. Exxon has been preparing to meet the emerging demand for natural gas for some time. Over the next five years Exxon plans to invest $185 billion in its business, most of it to explore for and develop new sources of oil and gas. The cost of the "next barrel" is on the rise, says Tillerson, as easy-to-access reservoirs are depleted.

Exxon's big bet on shale gas

Deep-sea drilling and fracking are helping to unearth abundant supplies of oil and gas. The coming energy renaissance could be just the elixir the U.S. economy needs.

Many of the pickup-driving diners at the Texas Roadhouse are oil-patch contractors currently employed at one of two massive expansions going on just outside Port Arthur: the $3 billion addition to Valero's (VLO) Port Arthur refinery and, literally across the road, the $7 billion project to double the size of the refinery owned by Motiva Enterprises, a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and Saudi Aramco. Along the coast it's easy to spot the effects of America's oil and gas renaissance in new hotels built in the past five years (many of them now populated by itinerant oilfield workers), in the multiplying numbers of overnight "shale-ionaires," in rising home values, expanding car and truck dealerships, and effectively full employment.

What really excites experts is that these signs of prosperity in the gulf point to a larger trend. "We call it the great revival of the North American oil industry, This is a turnaround not just for North America's oil supply, but one with global impact. It's certainly the biggest development in the world oil market of this century." That means the oil and gas boom could make America a major player again in the world energy market and help spur the entire U.S. economy.

Cheap domestic energy is also good news for the manufacturing sector. "The discovery and development of North America's shale resources has the potential to be the most remarkable source of economic growth and prosperity that any of us are likely to encounter in our lifetimes," U.S. Steel CEO John Surma told the Congressional Steel Caucus in a late March hearing. It's a virtuous cycle: More drilling requires more steel, and lower energy costs give U.S. steel producers a cost edge. This at a time when the Department of Energy reports that the energy intensity of U.S. steel companies is now among the lowest in the world. In St. James Parish near Baton Rouge, ground was broken last year for a $3.4 billion steel plant being built by Nucor Steel (NUE), the first major facility built in the U.S. in decades. U.S. Steel is investing in a new facility in Lorain, Ohio, and V&M Star Steel (the North American subsidiary of the French pipemaker Vallourec) plans to spend $650 million on a small-diameter rolling mill in Youngstown, Ohio.

It's not just Big Steel that will benefit. Feedstock made from cheap natural gas is a boon for the petrochemical industry. Citing "the improved outlook for U.S. natural-gas supply from shale," Dow Chemical (DOW) says it will build an ethylene plant for startup in 2017. (Ethylene is used to make things like plastic bottles and toys.) Dow will also restart its ethylene plant near Hahnville, La.

It is ironic that only a few years ago the conventional wisdom was that America was running out of natural gas. Now becoming "the Saudi Arabia of natural gas," as some industry promoters like to say, means that America will start exporting lots of the stuff. "We're going from being a very large sinkhole for all hydrocarbon products," says Charif Souki, CEO of Cheniere Energy (LNG), a natural-gas supplier, "to becoming the low-cost energy producer in the world."

While the U.S. remains the world's largest importer of crude oil (the nation still imports 45% of its oil) liquefied natural gas (LNG) may soon become a big export item, adding jobs and helping offset America's trade deficit.

For all the ebullience in the industry these days, the boom times could change, and quickly. As the regulars at the Texas Roadhouse can tell you, that's the thing about booms. They eventually always turn to busts. In the meantime, let the good times roll.

America's energy job machine is heating up

[seenmostofit]

With that, the oil industry had indeed been trying to "bury" the "idea of 'peak oil'" not by debunking it but by ignoring it, promising production ramp-ups and lower prices. But more reports from several of their companies reveal otherwise.

The word used in the title is "buried", so you disagree that they are burying it, it is just a matter of neglect, and they hope that no one notices?

I would tend to agree with you, they haven't "buried" anything, just gone about making money, and I'm not sure that their neglect of the topic is even intentional.

[ralfy]

Financial Times

The coming US boom and how shale gas will fuel it

You should also read the comments to the article. In addition to that, one report indicates an ave. increase of 4 mb/d from U.S. non-conventional sources for the next two decades. The problem is that if global energy demand goes up by around 2 mb/d a year to prop up economic growth, then that won't be enough.

Finally, the current economic growth is likely driven by incredible amounts of credit pumped into the system to keep it afloat. These are the actual "blinkers" worn to make it appear that everything is fine.

[ralfy]

The word used in the title is "buried", so you disagree that they are burying it, it is just a matter of neglect, and they hope that no one notices?

I would tend to agree with you, they haven't "buried" anything, just gone about making money, and I'm not sure that their neglect of the topic is even intentional.

I think "buried" as used in the article means "debunk," not to hide.

[kublikhan]

In fact, all analytical roads lead back to the Middle East, starting with Saudi Arabia, which holds the title of the world’s large supplier of easily recoverable crude oil and the repository for most of the world’s spare production capacity. The kingdom, in other words, is the world’s great swing producer, allowing the country to effectively raise output relatively quickly. The late Matthew Simmons, a widely quoted oil analyst in his day, warned in his 2005 book Twilight in the Desert that Saudi Arabia’s production was nearing a peak. The forecast appeared to be accurate for several years, although the latest data reveals that it was premature after all. The kingdom’s crude oil output reached an all-time high at the end of 2011, according to EIA. In fact, one of the key reasons why global production is up is because of the chart below:
As always, there’s the enduring question: Will it last? Can the world continue to increase oil production? Yes, according to the BP Energy Outlook 2030 published earlier this year. Good thing too, since total global consumption of crude is expected to rise in the decades ahead as well. How will the oil industry satisfy this thirst? “Rising supply to meet expected demand growth should come primarily from OPEC, where output is projected to rise by nearly 12 [million barrels per day]. The largest increments of new OPEC supply will come from [natural gas liquids] as well as conventional crude in Iraq and Saudi Arabia.”

It appears to me Saudi Arabia's recent increase was largely the result of them dipping into spare capacity. If so, this does not seem like very corny news to me. It looks more like we should be concerned.

Saudi Arabia appears to have been building crude oil inventories in lower domestic demand months in a scramble to offset the risks of “limited” effective spare production capacity, Goldman Sachs said on Wednesday.

In a note to clients, Goldman Sachs cited a crude oil inventory build of 35.4 million barrels in the period December-February, based on numbers from the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI).

The reason the increased production was not pooled into exports, Goldman Sachs analysts argue, is grounded in an anticipation of “a substantial increase” in demand that cannot be covered by “simply raising production levels”.

The logic behind the build-up in stocks, which amount to 390,000 barrels per day (bpd) in that period, is not the possibility of shortages resulting from escalating tensions with Iran. Rather, it is primarily in preparation for the strains of peak domestic demand that the summer heat brings to the Kingdom.

In the past, oil-fired power generation often took its toll on Saudi Arabia’s export volumes. The situation has become more pronounced than it has been due to what Goldman Sachs analysts describe as a market that has remained “very tight, despite the return of Libyan crude oil production”.

"This is consistent with our view that Saudi crude oil production is unlikely to be sustained over 10.5 million b/d in the near future,” the note said.

In November 2011, production reached the highest level in 30 years, hitting 10.047 million bpd. Since then, it has hovered just below the 10 million bpd mark, according to JODI.

Saudi Arabia Builds Up Crude Inventories: Goldman

[Rune]

Shale Gas Gaining Global Credence As An Energy Answer

There are at least 250 years of shale gas supply to be tapped into for the U.K., according to International Energy Agency estimates.

"Shale gas is a product that can free us from the constraints of imported gas, and has the potential to challenge the worldwide demand on oil and hence will eventually drive costs of oil down," according to an editorial in This Is Cornwall. In the U.K., shale gas is being hoisted as a solution to provide cheaper electricity and enable more secure energy.

Shale gas can fill the widening energy gap

The first thing that makes this discovery great is that the shale gas is right here, in the UK, so we can employ British people and control the whole industry. But its implications are far wider reaching than that. Shale gas is a product that can free us from the constraints of imported gas, and has the potential to challenge the worldwide demand on oil and hence will eventually drive costs of oil down.

Shale gas can provide us with cheaper electricity, making the UK more inviting to industries which have moved out because it is too expensive here, and it is also an industry that can stand on its own two feet without the need for the subsidies that are currently driving household bills through the roof. It will also give us far more energy security than wind energy because we will not have to rely on the imports that are involved with wind generators. The International Energy Agency estimates that there is at least 250 years supply of shale gas to be tapped into.

Shell bullish on China shale gas

LONDON, April 26 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell gave a bullish outlook for the development of shale gas in China on Thursday, saying the Anglo-Dutch oil major's drilling there suggested vast resources could be unlocked at a relatively low cost.

Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry said Shell had not yet determined the cost of producing shale gas in China but that it would probably be within the $2 to $6 per million British thermal units (Btu) seen in North America, a level that would be competitive with alternative gas sources.

Saudia Arabia will be forced to cope with low cost shale gas. The KSA is not going to matter quite so much and certainly will not be a swing producer.

The major point is that OPEC will lose quite a bit of political/economic power in the years ahead because unfathomably enormous, exploitable shale deposits are spread over vast geographical areas rather than concentrated mostly in the Middle East.

[kublikhan]

Yeah, Saudi spare capacity is shrinking. It was over 3 mb/d back at the start of 2011. It is now below 2 mb/d. The last time spare capacity was this low was in 2008.

Saudi Arabia ramped up production by 150k barrels/day, according to estimates from the International Energy Agency, to a 3-decade-high of 10m barrels/day in February. Remaining effective spare capacity stood at 1.88m barrels/day. This constitutes a buffer of only 2% of global supply, levels not seen since 2008.

We doubt that Saudi Arabia’s latest efforts to calm the oil market will alone be enough to cool sentiment or bring oil prices down to the Kingdom’s desired USD 100/barrel level, as OPEC’s effective spare capacity will quickly fall below the comfortable threshold of 3% of global supply.

Saudi Arabia’s efforts to calm the oil market unlikely to succeed alone

Saudi Arabia crude production capacity

Saudia Arabia will be forced to cope with low cost shale gas. The KSA is not going to matter quite so much and certainly will not be a swing producer.

The major point is that OPEC will lose quite a bit of political/economic power in the years ahead because unfathomably enormous, exploitable shale deposits are spread over vast geographical areas rather than concentrated mostly in the Middle East.

Shale gas is great for freeing countries from importing natural gas and coal, but it's application is mostly for electricity production. Oil is still the preferred energy source in the transportation sector. The IEA is predicting natural gas passing coal as the world's number 2 energy source by 2025, but oil is still number one. That means lots of petrodollars still flowing from oil importers to to oil exporters. BTW, Saudi Arabia is looking to increase it's natural gas production as well to cope with growing domestic demand for electricity and preserve more oil for export.