1/5/2012 Newsfeed
Fracing (Fracking)
CDC Scientist: Tests needed on gas drilling impact (WSJ)
‘Frac Sand’ Mining Rush In Midwest Spurred By Natural Gas Fracking Boom (Huffington Post)
Oil Prices
Traders fear ‘tail risks’ in commodities by Javier Blas (FT)
Tail risk in crude oil, friend or foe? by Kris Rymer (Seeking Alpha)
Long-Term Perspective On Crude Oil And Natural Gas Markets by Jeremy Johnson (Seeking Alpha)
How Likely Is Another Oil Price Crash? (Seeking Alpha)
MENA and the Geopolitics of Oil
Iraq: Bombings in Baghdad and Nasiriya kill scores (BBC News)
Attacks on Shiites in Iraq Kill at Least 60 by Michael Schmidt (NYT and Truthout)
Arab monitors to stay in Syria despite “mistakes” (Reuters)
Arab League seeks UN help in Syria (Asharq Alawsat)
Oil Price Would Skyrocket if Iran Closed the Strait of Hormuz by Clifford Krauss (NYT)
EU, concerned by Iran’s nuclear program, aim for agreement on Iranian oil ban by end of month (WP)
How Serious Are Iran’s Threats? (CFR)
Obama’s Counterproductive New Iran Sanctions: How Washington is sliding toward regime change by Suzanne Maloney (Foreign Affairs)
Time to attack Iran by Matthew Kroenig (Foreign Affairs)
Tar Sands
PetroChina buys full stake in Canada oil sands project (LA Times)
Other
Oil industry launches big election PR campaign (Yahoo Finance)
Qatar’s next big purchase: a farming sector by Martina Fuchs (Reuters)
Water shortage in Beijing severe (China Daily)
Time to Stop Being Cynical About Corporate Money in Politics and Start Being Angry by Bill McKibben (Truthout)
1/4/2012 Newsfeed
Fracking
- What the frack? Is there really 100 years’ worth of natural gas beneath the United States? by Chris Nedler (Slate)
- Ohio suspends well operations after a series of quakes by Kim Palmer (Reuters)
- Ohio site of two earthquakes nearly identical by Henry Fountain (NYT)
- The French and Chinese are digging in your yard for natural gas by Shira Ovide (WSJ)
MENA Geopolitics
- Iran’s rhetoric sets diplomacy on edge by James Blitz and Najmeh Bozorgmehr (FT)
- Iranian currency plunges to record low by Najmeh Bozorgmehr (FT)
- Monitors raise heat on Damascus by Noah Browning and Borzou Daragahi (FT)
- Syrian rebels raise flag from the past by Borzou Daragahi (FT)
- Iran’s real weapon of mass destruction is oil prices by Daniel Fisher (Forbes)
Environmental
- Ecuador court holds up $18 billion Chevron ruling by Naomi Mapstone (FT)
- EU warns wasting environmental resources could spark new recession by Janez Potocnik (The Guardian)
- China and Vietnam dumping wind towers, U.S. claims (American Shipper)
- Airlines to hike prices to cover emissions (Seattle Times)
- Gulf lease sales will reduce U.S. oil dependence, agency says by Jim Snyder (Bloomberg)
- Oil industry: ‘Huge political consequences’ if pipeline rejected by Andrew Restuccia (The Hill)
- Protests resume against Peru gold mine project by Cesar Bareto (Yahoo Finance)
- Goldman Sachs is the federal government
- South China fuel oil imports plummet 51% on-month (Bunkerworld)
- Study to examine conversion of steamships to LNG (Bunkerworld)
- How Qatar and Russia just improved our LNG prospects by Kent Moors (Seeking Alpha)
- Trader reports problems meeting low sulfur regulations (Bunkerworld)
A guide to rendering the possible impossible
Step 1: Declare that the possible is impossible
Step 2: Repeat as necessary
(and that’s my shortest blog ever)
New Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico
Fellow Folders,
It looks like a new oil slick 100 miles long by 10 miles wide has developed in the Gulf. It is NOT thought to be related to the BP/Macondo/Deepwater Horizon oil spill that devastated the Gulf last year.
The new spill, as reported by The Examiner, is associated with the Matterhorn Seastar rig own by W&T Offshore, Inc. It is located 30 miles SE of the Mississippi delta in 2,789 feet of water.
More news will be rolling in. Keep an eye out.
As always, please remain mindful of the long term environmental, social, economic, and political impacts of consumption.
-DA
Oil Surpasses $100 on NYMEX
Today I awoke with an interesting gut feeling… that West Texas Intermediate – the benchmark crude stream traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange was going to break the $100 barrier. At 3:49 Eastern Standard Time, my premonition materialized.
This is a watershed moment for the psychology of the U.S. market, and portends bad things to come.
BTW, apologies to my loyal followers for my lack of posts over the last few weeks. I was lucky to find a great job, and my doctoral work needs to be completed expeditiously, so there won’t be any new posts for some time.
-DA
Update on the (un)economics of shale gas
Fellow Folders,
In April I wrote a quick post on the (un)economics of the much-hyped shale gas ‘revolution’. That post was inspired by comments made by long-time oil industry analyst Henry Groppe which were published in the Globe and Mail. In that post, I leaned on the insights of petroleum geologist and industry consultant Art Berman, who had been arguing eloquently and persistently that shale gas reserves are greatly overstated. The point that Art argued in his 2009 presentation at the annual ASPO-USA conference (.pdf), is that the production rates for conventional gas fields and shale gas fields are significantly different. Shale gas produces high volumes for short periods while conventional fields produce at relatively low rates but do so over a long period of time. The problem with the shale gas reserve estimate methodology is that the models which accurately predict conventional production rates are being applied to unconventional plays in order to forecast future production and estimate total reserves. As a consequence, high initial flows are forecasted to decline at much slower rates than a growing body of empirical evidence suggests will be the case. This misapplication of models has resulted in a situation where the “volume of commercially recoverable [natural gas] has probably been greatly over-estimated.”
In October, I attended the annual ASPO-USA conference where I had the opportunity to talk with Art and take in another of his excellent presentations on the subject of the Marcellus shale play. For the more technically inclined, you can download the presentation from here (.pdf).
According to Art Berman the economics of shale gas production have not improved and the conclusions he drew from other shale plays apply to the Marcellus. He makes numerous forceful points: Read more…
The Seventh Fold
