Venezuela’s Oil Exports Are Falling Even Faster Than Expected

A delay in port repairs following a tanker collision is putting additional pressure on already pressured Venezuelan crude oil exports, Reuters quoted anonymous sources close to PDVSA as saying this week. It seems that Venezuela’s woes are only multiplying as time goes by, although news from official Caracas sources seems more upbeat. Oil, however, appears at the forefront of Venezuela’s plight. A dock at Venezuela’s biggest oil port, Jose, was closed in late August after a tanker collided with it. At the time, Reuters reported that the repairs would delay the delivery of 5 million barrels of crude, destined for Rosneft, which, according to the news outlet, could put a strain on relations between the Russian company and PDVSA, which have a money-for-oil agreement. This is only the latest in PDVSA’s troubles with its oil exports. Besides a steady decline in production, ...

Half Humanity Is Middle Class

The research classifies middle class people as people with discretionary income to spend on large consumer items such as refrigerators, washing machines or motorcycles, if they pay for entertainment, if they go on family holidays and if they have enough resources to withstand an economic shock, like illness. By this measure, 3.6 billion people are middle class. By contrast, 3.1 billion people are economically vulnerable (living on $1.90 to $11 a day) and another 630 million are poor (living on under $1.90 a day). 200 million people are rich, defined as living on $110 a day or more.. The researchers found that one person escapes extreme poverty every second, and five people a second are becoming middle class. By 2030, the researchers forecast that the number classed as rich will have grown to 300 million and the middle class will have expanded by 1.7 billion ...

$100/b darlings of US oil could lead way for crude

The oil world seems ready, or even desperate, to take $100/b crude to the party. But while the dirty markets are still hunting for their bow ties, some US refined products are already bouncing across that dance floor. Low-RVP San Francisco 84-octane gasoline blendstock was assessed up $1.76/b at $1.0109/b Tuesday — its first day over the $100/b threshold since August 11, 2015. Los Angeles blendstock summited $100/b Monday. Of course, that’s the price on the Kinder Morgan pipeline. You’ll pay a lot more at the pump in Petaluma. The magic number in cents/gal for $100/b gasoline is 238. Low-octane fuel in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle was seen nearing that threshold Tuesday afternoon. One grade of product that’s far more like crude, the refinery feedstock vacuum gasoil, is on track to summit $100/b some time later this month. VGO at 20-25 API has a density lower ...

Saudi Arabia to invest $20 billion in spare oil production capacity

Saudi Arabia will invest $20 billion in the next few years to maintain and expand its spare oil production capacity, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said on Thursday. Saudi Arabia’s oil production capacity stands at 12 million barrels per day. Reuters

Sir David Attenborough: ‘Population growth has to come to an end’

BBC Newsnight gets to the bottom of some important issues with Sir David Attenborough starting with the ultimate question: Did he watch Love Island? BBC

How to keep the spectre of peak oil supply at bay

The warning signs are there – the industry isn’t finding enough oil. Guyana is one of the very few giant oil discoveries made during the downturn. Fact is, we need more Guyanas, a lot more, and we need them soon. Without them, the oil market is in danger of tightening in the not too distant future. We need more Guyanas, a lot more, and we need them soon. The risk is laid bare by our oil supply analysts, Dougie Thyne and Matt Deane. They've refreshed our forecasts for the sources of oil supply to meet global oil demand through to 2040. The starting point is our database of projects onstream and under development. We layer on risked assumptions for the following: Future reserves growth for conventional field and unconventional oil plays Production forecasts for pre-FID projects and pre-drill tight oil Volumes from other ...

Too much oil? Texas boom outpaces supply, transport networks

The west Texas drillers that drove the shale revolution have overwhelmed the region’s infrastructure with oil production -driving up costs, depressing regional oil prices and slowing the pace of growth. The U.S. government continues to forecast the country’s oil output rising to fresh record. But competition for limited resources in Texas is making it harder for shale producers to turn a profit and encouraging some to invest elsewhere. Texas is home to the Permian Basin, the largest U.S. oil field and the center of the country’s shale industry. In the past three years, production from the Permian has risen a whopping 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) to 3.43 million bpd. All that oil means pipelines from the shale patch are full, so producers are paying more to transport oil on trucks and rail cars. Shortages of labor, water and even the fuel ...

Trump Says Saudi King Wouldn’t Last ‘Two Weeks’ Without US Support

Trump says he told Saudi king that the US military is protecting him and the monarch would not last without US backing. Trump called King Salman on Saturday to discuss efforts to maintain supplies to ensure oil market stability [Pablo Martinez/AP Photo] US President Donald Trump said close ally Saudi Arabia and its king would not last "for two weeks" without US military support at a rally in Mississippi on Tuesday. "We protect Saudi Arabia. Would you say they're rich? And I love the king, King Salman. But I said 'King - we're protecting you - you might not be there for two weeks without us - you have to pay for your military,'" the president said to cheers at the rally. Trump did not say when he made those remarks to the Saudi monarch, but they come amid increasing oil prices in the ...

America and Russia, Part One: Stirrings in the Borderlands

To my mind, one of the main sources of collective stupidity in modern American society is our pervasive bad habit of short-term thinking. It’s embarrassingly rare for anyone in American public life to stop and say aloud, “Hold it. What’s going to happen if we keep on doing this for more than a few more years?” Now of course one of the reasons so few people do this is that those who do get shouted down as impractical dreamers, and the mere fact that the so-called dreamers are so often right, and the practical men of affairs who dismiss them are so often wrong, somehow never inspires the least willingness to rethink the matter. This has been on my mind more than usual of late, as the price of oil ratchets slowly upwards. It’s risen over the last few years from ...

Denmark to ban petrol and diesel car sales by 2030

Denmark announced on Tuesday (2 October) that it will ban the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines by 2030 and hopes to have one million electric and hybrid cars on the roads by then. In a speech to parliament, Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said that “diesel and petrol cars in Denmark must be the past. The future is green,” adding that all sales of new fossil-fuel-powered cars will cease in 2030. Rasmussen’s energy minister, Lars Chr. Lilleholt, announced the ban during the government’s climate council last week but did not mention a timeframe in any detail. “In just 12 years, we will prohibit the sale of new diesel and petrol cars. And in 17 years, every new car in Denmark must be an electric car or other forms of zero-emissions car,” Rasmussen said, implying that hybrids will be phased out ...

Predictions Of $100 Oil Are Just Clickbait For The Uninformed

As seems to happen every time the oil price ticks up over some new ...

Never Underestimate The Power Of Big Oil

I became a shareholder of Chevron CVX +0.28% Corp (NYSE:CVX) when it acquired ...

It’s The Oil, Stupid

Summary Rising crude prices have grabbed headlines of late and it's important to understand how ...

“We’re Our Own Worst Enemy” – Midstream Constraints Threatens Permian Shale Boom

The US now pumps a record 11 million barrels a day in oil, surpassing ...