ISIL retaliates against locals by torching oil wells

Ayad leans against the black wall of a partially destroyed home, gripping an AK-47 in his hands. He takes a deep breath and sprints across the road, between puddles of spilled oil, towards another house that he imagines is full of fighters. Ayad is followed by five fellow soldiers. Ahead of them, tongues of fire […]

Kunstler: Halloween Nation

What was with James Comey’s Friday letter to congress? It looks to me like the FBI Director had to go nuclear against his parent agency, the Department of Justice, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch, his boss, in particular. Why? Because the Attorney General refused to pursue the Clinton email case when more evidence turned up […]

Obama May Be The Most Pro-Oil President In US History

Despite nearly eight years of anti-oil rhetoric, President Barack Obama may be the most pro-oil president in U.S. history. Chief among the reasons supporting this claim are that, under Obama’s tenure in office: the 40-year oil export ban was lifted, shale production increased dramatically (up 400 percent since 2008) and oil and natural gas production are […]

Could Venezuela Become The Next Syria?

Speaking of poor policymaking, hyperinflation and violence – Venezuela is sliding closer and closer to the brink of collapse, with some sobering consequences. This was among the topics of conversation this week at the Mining & Investment Latin America Summit in Lima, Peru. While there, I had dinner with a couple of Canadian lawyers who […]

Batteries upend Peak Oil debate

If “peak oil” conjures up thoughts of when oil output will reach its maximum then you’re way behind the times. Now it’s all about demand. And rather than a debate about the geology, it’s about technology, and when batteries will force consumption of oil – or at least oil used for transport fuels – into […]

OPEC Officials Yet To Agree On How To Implement Supply Cut

OPEC officials meeting in Vienna to work out the details of their plan to reduce oil production failed to reach agreement after hours of talks on Friday, amid objections by Iran which has been reluctant to even freeze its output, OPEC sources said. The High Level Committee of experts will meet again in Vienna on […]

Exxon Warns on Reserves as it Posts Lower Profit

Oil producer to examine whether assets in an area devastated by low prices and environmental concerns should be written down Exxon Mobil Corp. warned that it may be forced to eliminate almost 20% of its future oil and gas prospects, yielding to the sharp decline in global energy prices. Under investigation by the U.S. Securities […]

What does the future hold for oil markets?

For the past 37 years I have been involved in the oil and gas industry, a business as challenging as any in terms of politics, geography, economics and location – the industry is present in every part of the globe and every climate. The past 21 of those years have presented unique challenges and, as […]

GDP – A Grossly Defective Product

GDP – The Problem Paul Wallace recently penned for Reuters an interesting article entitled: “GDP Is A Grossly Defective Product.” In the article he states: “Yet despite its theoretical appeal, GDP is, in practice, a fallible measure – and increasingly becoming one that could be described as a grossly defective product.   For one thing, the […]

Venezuela is a full-blown dictatorship

All this year, as they trudged through an unprecedented economic implosion, Venezuelans have been gearing up for what was meant to be the defining political event of the year: a referendum on whether to recall our increasingly loathed authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro. The tense buildup suddenly ended Thursday as five separate (and supposedly independent, but c’mon […]

Saudi Arabia, Gulf OPEC ready to cut oil output by 4 percent

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf OPEC allies are willing to cut 4 percent from their peak oil output, energy ministers from the Gulf countries told their Russian counterpart this week, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The offer was made at a closed-door meeting in Riyadh, where the ministers met on Sunday. But Russian […]

Another failure of scientific peer-review: a wrong paper on the energy return of photovoltaic energy manages to get published

Theoretically, whatever is published in a scientific journal should go through a rigorous review process that ensures that it is correct and reliable. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. If you follow the debate on renewable energy, you know how important is the question of the energy return (or EROEI) of the various sources. An […]

How Researchers Could Miss the Real Energy Story

I have been telling a fairly different energy story from most energy researchers. How could I possibly be correct? What have other researchers been missing? The “standard” approach is to start from the amount of resources that we have of a particular type, for example, oil in the ground, and see how far these resources will […]

Here’s why the Age of Oil could end in 15 years – and what that means

Someday soon, we’ll run out of oil… and civilisation as we know it will come to an end. As fossil fuels become increasingly scarce, we should prepare for a world of $200 oil, 50 percent annual inflation, and global resource wars. At least this was the future suggested by “Peak Oil”, a theory that for […]

Would the US ever attend an OPEC meeting?

The recent invitation by OPEC for US officials to join in production freeze talks is clearly a nod to the production powerhouse Americas has become as a result of the shale revolution. But it wasn’t always that way. Just ask former US Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, who, 16 years ago, was the point person in […]

Trump and Clinton on energy

Energy independence has been a goal of every president since Richard Nixon, but it remains elusive. Still, an ongoing drilling boom has lowered dependence on imports of fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas. In 2015, the U.S. relied on net imports for about 24 percent of petroleum use, the lowest level since 1970. […]

Is the collapse of productivity in the developed world really so close at hand?

The developed world may be facing another Malthusian moment. The first came at the end of the 18th century, when Thomas Malthus predicted dire consequences for humanity if population trends continued on their trajectory. But along came something no one predicted: technology that helped humans use resources more efficiently and get more from the land […]

Revisiting Peak Oil

When I started writing this column years ago, it was intended to be a voice for the Transition Vashon group.  We were espousing the need to plan for decreasing energy use due to the dangers of CO2 concentration and consequent global warming, and the arrival of peak oil.  Peak oil is the point at which […]

Is ISIS Giving Up On Oil?

Since the Iraqi army drove out Islamic State forces from the oil-rich towns of Shargat and Qayyarah last month, ISIS has lost its ability to produce oil and profit from crude oil sales on the black market—but ISIS is proving to be highly adaptable, and able to find new markets quickly; this time in agriculture. […]

Offshore Production Nearly 30% of Global Crude Oil Output in 2015

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on Rystad Energy   Global offshore oil production in 2015 was at the highest level since 2010, and accounted for nearly 30% of total global crude oil production. Offshore oil production increased in both 2014 and 2015, reversing consecutive annual declines from 2010 to 2013. Production from onshore tight […]

How Automated Garbage Segregation Can Increase Generation Of Refuse-Derived Fuel

Creating public awareness about the need to sort trash into recyclables and non-recyclables can be a never-ending process. For one, our cities are getting increasingly globalized and there is a constant influx of people from outside who may not be aware of the local sorting processes. More importantly, any policy that requires collaboration among thousands […]

World oil demand to drop by 7% by 2035

Oil consumption will stand at 87 million barrels per day by 2035, or 7 percent less than the current figures in the baseline scenario, according to the study conducted by Moscow-based VYGON Consulting company. VYGON Consulting said that the total world oil demand will reach its peak by 2023, as it will increase by 3.3 […]

Kunstler: Slouching Towards Election Day

It’s getting hard to give a shit about this election, though you might still care about this country. The damage has been done to the two long-reigning political parties and perhaps that’s a good thing. They deserved to be dragged into the gutter and now they can either go through a severe rehab or be […]

Six Things To Consider About Inflation

As an economic term, “inflation” is shorthand for “inflation of the money supply.” The general public, however, usually takes it to mean “rising prices” which is not surprising since one of the common effects of an increase in the money supply is higher prices. However, supporters of government policy often say, “If quantitative easing (QE) […]

Fighting Rages on Yemen-Saudi Border

Fighting in Yemen, with government forces and their Saudi-led allies battling Houthi rebels backed by Iran, raged from Friday into Saturday on the Saudi-Yemen border, despite a 72-hour cease-fire that ended late Saturday. Witnesses reported Saudi-led coalition airstrikes on Houthi missile launchers east of the capital, Sana’a. All parties had agreed to honor the U.N.-backed […]

Gail Tverberg: Why There’s No Economically Sustainable Price For Oil Anymore

Actuary Gail Tverberg returns to provide an update on where we are in the global energy story. Her outlook is not rosy: she doesn’t not see a path for society to transition to an affordable, plentiful substitute to petroleum as a transportation fuel. The physics as well as the funding do not pencil out, at […]

Venezuelan Oil Is Largely Staying in Ground or Going Up in Smoke

PUNTA DE MATA, Venezuela—This fading oil town has an eerie glow at night, illuminated by dozens of oil wells burning off precious oil and gas for lack of functioning equipment to process it. Every month, Punta de Mata’s smoke columns grow higher, a staggering waste at a time when Venezuela, the holder of the world’s largest oil reserves, desperately needs […]

Idle Workers, Inevitable Cuts: Ministers Grade the Saudi Economy

Top officials discussed subsidy, salary reductions on TV show Ministers differ on government’s use of oil-boom proceeds Saudis who switched on a popular talk show last week to listen to officials explain why state employees had their take-home pay cut were in for a shock. Within minutes of the start of MBC1’s “Al Thamena” program, […]

Shadows on the Cave Wall

Nearly everyone thinks of the United States of America as a place, a physical location, some place you can live, visit, touch and see. And nearly everyone is wrong. The United States of America is an ideology, a thought meme, a belief, a political religion, a concept and an idea. I am reminded of this […]

Wind Energy Could Supply 20% Of Global Electricity By 2030

The Global Wind Energy Council released its biennial Global Wind Energy Outlook today, outlining scenarios where wind could supply 20% of global electricity by 2030. The report looks at four scenarios exploring the future of the wind industry out to 2020, 2030 and 2050. “Now that the Paris Agreement is coming into force, countries need […]

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