Fossil Fuel Production Is Reaching Limits in a Strange Way

Strangely enough, the limit we seem to be reaching with respect to fossil fuel extraction comes from low prices. At low prices, the extraction of oil, coal, and natural gas becomes unprofitable. Producers go bankrupt, or they voluntarily cut back production in an attempt to force prices higher. As the result of these forces, production […]

The most important variable affecting global oil supply

The single most important variable affecting global oil supply is arguably Iraq’s oil production. Iraq is OPEC’s largest offender in terms of production quota non-compliance since May, over producing far more than any other single country. If Iraq complies with its quota going forward, it will reinforce the power of OPEC+ and contribute to Saudi […]

U.S. Oil Production Set To Decline More From Here On Out

Summary Real-time US oil production reading indicates ~10.783 mb/d into October. With September US oil production now set at ~11 mb/d average, the implied decline rate between August and September excluding shut-ins is around ~500k b/d. Consensus has US oil production flat around ~11 mb/d for the next year. This will prove to be too […]

Unwinding the Opec+ deal will be difficult

It has taken 60 years for Opec linchpin Saudi Arabia to find a non-Opec partner that it could see itself settling down with. The original Opec+ agreement led by Riyadh and Moscow in 2016 was very much a marriage of convenience, and the commitment from the producer group’s leaders was decidedly one-sided. Saudi Arabia was […]

EIA Reports Massive Draw On Supplies

The impact of Hurricane Laura’s production shutdown is now being felt. Earlier this morning, the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) reported a massive -9.362 million barrel decline in oil stocks on hand. Much of the downturn may be attributed to last week’s Category 4 storm that ceased production in the Gulf Coast region.   However, […]

Saudi Cutting Oil Deliveries to US

Saudi Arabia is continuing to divert its oil away from America’s shores. The kingdom last month loaded about 5.6 million barrels a day on to tankers, a small increase from July, vessel-tracking information compiled by Bloomberg show. Within that, an ever-smaller share went to the U.S., and cargo data show that deliveries in the week […]

Srait of Hormuz: the world’s most important oil artery

The U.S. military on Wednesday said Iranian forces briefly boarded a Liberian-flagged oil near the Strait of Hormuz, heightening tensions in the world’s busiest oil waterway. Sources said the Iranian action was retaliation against the Greek owner of some of the vessels that were carrying fuel to Venezuela. The cargoes are covered by a U.S. […]

1MM+ US GOM Barrels Shut In Due to Storms

More than one million barrels of oil per day have been shut in on the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, as of August 23, as Hurricane Marco and Tropical Storm Laura make their way to the region, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has revealed. According to the latest information from the BSEE, 114 […]

Is US Shale Poised For A Comeback?

It’s been a brutal year for shale. While the sector was already faltering, spurring countless headlines about the death of shale over the past year or so, the novel coronavirus has dealt the sector what many see as its death blow. As the bottom fell out of oil demand, compounded by a spat between the […]

Non-OPEC Oil Production Collapses In April

Summary Non-OPEC production dropped slowly from a high of 52,646 kb/d in December 2019 to 52,255 kb/d in March 2020. In April, that changed when we saw the first big drop in output from the Non-OPEC countries. Since the current EIA data is two months delayed, May is the second month that shows the combined […]

Permian Drillers Bounce Back

Explorers in the world’s biggest shale patch are roaring back, putting an additional 10 rigs to work this week for the biggest jump in activity since a price crash triggered an unprecedented collapse in drilling. Drillers in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico led the rest of the nation in expanding the […]

Saudi Oil Prince Gets Results

The Saudi royal running the kingdom’s oil policy is achieving something his predecessor never did: bringing the quota cheats of OPEC+ to heel. Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman has done this through an unusual method. The cartel has instructed members who failed to deliver their agreed share of oil-production cuts — like Iraq and Nigeria — […]

US Shale Production Levels Out for Now

US shale production levels out for now, after months of losses and declines from the drilling rig count drop. Rare earth metal prices continue rising. Rhodium heading towards record high price again.

Venezuela Oil Production Close to Zero

Venezuela could soon be producing close to zero barrels of oil, a new analysis by IHS Markit has revealed. The country’s crude oil production is currently between around 100,000 to 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) and falling, according to the company, which highlighted that Venezuela’s output was around 650,000 bpd a year ago and had […]

US 2020 coal production to fall 28.8% on year to 57-year low

The US is expected to produce 502.2 million st of coal in 2020, the US Energy Information Administration said Aug. 11, raising its estimate from a month ago by roughly 900,000 st, or 0.2%. Such a 2020 production total would be 28.8% lower than the 705.3 million st produced in 2019, while 2021 production is […]

Saudi Arabia Turns Off America’s Oil Taps Again

For the second time in three years, Saudi Arabia is slashing the volume of crude it’s sending to America in an attempt to force down stockpiles in the world’s most visible oil market and thereby hasten the rebalancing of supply and demand. Weekly U.S. oil inventory data — usually published on a Wednesday and covering the period […]

India plans to fell ancient forest to create 40 new coalfields

Over the past decade, Umeshwar Singh Amra has witnessed his homeland descend into a battleground. The war being waged in Hasdeo Arand, a rich and biodiverse Indian forest, has pitted indigenous people, ancient trees, elephants and sloths against the might of bulldozers, trucks and hydraulic jacks, fighting with a single purpose: the extraction of coal. […]

The Responsiblity of Influence

I do not pretest to be anybody other than a dumbass roughneck who has drilled and completed LOTS of wells with his own money. I don’t have a college degree nor initials to put after my name, but after 45 years I do understand well economics and how to manage oil and gas production. My counterpart’s […]

OPEC+ Prepares to Pump More Oil

From quiet skies over Europe to sparse traffic in America’s biggest cities, a recovery in global oil demand is faltering amid the resurgence in coronavirus. That poses a particularly delicate challenge for the OPEC cartel and its partners, who next week plan to resume some of the crude output halted during the depths of the pandemic. While […]

US GoM 2019 Summary: Part III – Production

Overall Annual Production US Gulf of Mexico C&C production has had a series of peaks; firstly two from shallow oil, the middle acceleration probably caused by the mid seventies oil shock; followed by deep oil development and finally by ultra deep oil, with a dip in the middle from the Deep Horizon drilling hiatus. Most […]

It’s All Downhill From Here: US Oil Production Peak Already in the Rear-view Mirror

It’s a shame that the drive for U.S  Energy Independence only lasted for about a year.  Even worse, U.S. Shale Oil Industry responsible for the country’s energy independence is now in serious trouble as the companies have cut drilling by 75% while they are drowning in debt up to the eyeballs.  This is a “No-Win” […]

Frac is Back

U.S. fracking is set for its first monthly rise this year, according to a new Rystad Energy analysis. The independent energy research company outlined that new fracking operations in the country are on track to grow above 400 wells in July, after dropping to a bottom of 325 wells in June. The business said its […]

Bakken Will Never Be The Same Again

Summary Since 2017, Bakken has surprised to the upside. But with DAPL stuck in legal court battles and uncertainty around takeaway capacity continuing, Bakken’s production base will fall. Lower completion activity for 2021 and beyond will result in lower projections of ~250k b/d. With the rest of the US shale oil basins wounded, Permian will […]

Shale CEO: U.S. Has Passed Peak Oil

Crude oil production has already peaked in the United States, according to a leading independent oil producer in the U.S. shale patch. Chief executive of Parsley Energy Matt Gallagher said that the peak production that the United States hit back in March—13.1 million bpd on average—represented shale’s glory days, ne’er to be repeated, according to […]

Saudi oil market share set to hit highest since 1980s

Saudi Arabia‘s share of the oil market is set to rise this decade to its highest since the 1980s as investment in production elsewhere dries up in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, J.P. Morgan said in a report. Oil prices have plunged more than 40 per cent this year after an unprecedented collapse in […]

World’s Biggest Oil Importer Is Running Out Of Storage

When the bottom fell out of international crude oil markets earlier this year, global oil storage was at a premium. In the United States, finding sufficient crude oil storage became such a challenge that the West Texas Intermediate crude benchmark plummeted below zero on April 20, ending the day at -$37.63 per barrel, meaning that […]

BP and Shell will keep (some of) it in the ground

One of the biggest liabilities on the world’s climate balance sheet right now is all of the oil, gas, and coal sitting in the ground, discovered, but not yet dug up. For more than a decade, environmentalists and scientists have argued that we’re going to need to practice some restraint and keep those fossil fuels […]

Saudi Arabia Eyes Total Dominance In Oil And Gas

Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz claimed last week that the Kingdom will be the world’s biggest hydrocarbon producer “even” in 2050. “I can assure that Saudi Arabia will not only be the last producer, but Saudi Arabia will produce every molecule of hydrocarbon and it will put it to good use … It will […]

Will US Shale Oil Production See A V-Shaped Recovery?

The news didn’t make much of a ripple when it came out, probably because crude prices were down anyway, though not by much. But for what it was worth, the latest weekly survey on the US oil rig count released by industry firm Baker Hughes on Friday showed a drop of just one unit. This […]

Non-OPEC W/O U.S. On Production Plateau

A post by Ovi at peakoilbarrel. This post updates Non-OPEC production to February 2020. However we are now in late June 2020 and the effects of the plunge in the price of WTI which began on January 6 and ended in the negative low of $-37.63/bbl on April 20 is showing up in plunging production […]

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