Archive for November, 2009
Hydraulic Fracturing (Hydrofracking): The Risks and Rewards of the Controversial Drilling Technique
Fracking—if you’re a Battlestar Galactica fan, “fracking” is a coarse term for an intimate activity, as well as being an all-purpose, heavy-duty swear word.
However, if you’re in the oil or gas industry, or just read the news relating to upstate New York and eastern Pennsylvania, fracking—or fracing, as it’s also spelled—means something very different: [...]
US Crude Oil Production at Highest Point in 5 Years
United States crude oil production for 2009 is on target to have its biggest one-year jump since 1970, according to a Platts analysis of industry data, reports MarketWatch. If the average production level recorded in the first ten months of the year—5.268 million barrels per day (bpd)—holds through December, this year’s output would show a [...]
Read More »Maine Proposal Would Require Heating Oil to Contain Biofuel by 2011
It looks like Maine is going to be the next state to mandate an increase in biofuel heating oil. The Bangor Daily News reported on Thursday on a proposal by State Representative Steve Butterfield, calling for all Maine heating oil to be at least 2 percent biofuel by 2011. Massachusetts already has similar legislation on [...]
Read More »Debt Crises in Dubai Strengthen Dollar, Push Down Oil Prices
Even a Middle Eastern nation without significant oil reserves can affect the price of oil. That’s what happened Friday, when a debt crisis in Dubai caused crude prices to fall to a six-week low, dropping more than $2 per barrel. As reported by Bloomberg.com, Dubai World, the nation’s massive government-owned investment company, sought to reschedule [...]
Read More »Fossil Fuel Subsidies: The Politics and Economics of Climate Change
When President Barack Obama spoke in front of the United Nations global warming summit and promised to “work with my colleagues at the G-20 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies so that we can better address our climate challenge,” his proposal was alternately applauded and condemned. “It’s a great idea,” said Frank O’Donnell, the [...]
Read More »Is the Oil Bubble Bursting? Fundamentals Finally Weighing Down Oil Prices
Will supply and demand finally bring down the price of oil?
That’s the question asked last Wednesday by Brad Zigler at Seeking Alpha, who suggests that the high supply and low demand of oil could cause the price of oil to fall over the next few weeks. After eclipsing the $80-per-barrel-mark earlier this year, the price [...]
Heating Oil Price Trend for November 30: -2¢
Oil prices dipped on Friday as the debt crisis in Dubai shook global stock markets and raised concerns that the global economy could be heading toward another meltdown rather than toward recovery. Though Dubai is a member of the oil-producing United Arab Emirates, oil’s decline is based on financial factors and not changes in supply. [...]
Read More »California Drafts Cap and Trade Proposal
Reuters reported that on Tuesday, California issued a draft of its proposed cap-and-trade legislation, believed to be the most ambitious use of the market to address climate change in the US. The draft rules kick off a comment period leading to official legislation being passed next fall.
Among the differences between California’s proposed plan and the [...]
Heating Oil Weekly Roundup: Fuel from CO2, Australia’s Climate Bill, and Climate Change Futures
Worried about carbon sequestration? Wish there was something you could do with carbon emissions besides store the stuff in the ground? How about putting it back in your car? Sandia National Laboratories built a machine that could let you do just that, reports Tyler Hamilton at Technology Review. Sandia’s prototype, the “sunshine to petrol” system, [...]
Read More »With Expensive Crude Oil and Low Product Demand, Analysts See Further Woes for Refiners
MarketWatch reported Monday that the analyst Jacques Rousseau has cut his earnings estimate for Valero Energy. The downgrade comes after the Texas-based company, one of the largest petroleum refiners in the country, shuttered its largest operation in Delaware City, laying off 550 staffers in the move.
Rousseau, who works for Soleil, is taking the tack that [...]
US and India Announce “Green Partnership” Ahead of Copenhagen
In the latest development in the international run-up to the Copenhagen climate conference, the U.S. and India have pledged to work together in the fight against climate change, according to Tuesday’s Guardian. The announcement was significant, as it sealed commitments from the world’s top three greenhouse gas emitters (China, the US, and India) to [...]
Read More »Profile of an Oil Producer: Iraq
History of Iraq’s Oil Industry
Discovery of oil in 1908 at Masjid-i Suleiman in Iran led to a subsequent search in Mesopotamia (later named Iraq by British mandate). When the Ottoman Empire (of which Mesopotamia had been a part since 1534) collapsed in the early 20th Century, Western powers jumped at the chance to [...]
FL Commissioner Says Offshore Drilling Not Worth It–Does Argument Apply to Rest of US?
Tuesday’s News-Press out of Fort Myers, FL carried an impassioned op-ed by county commissioner Adam Cummings against proposed oil and natural gas drilling off the Florida coast. The core of Cummings’ argument is not personal politics, but an analysis done by the Energy Information Administration on drilling in currently restricted areas of the Gulf of [...]
Read More »Heating Oil Price Trend for November 27: -5¢
NYMEX oil prices slipped on Wednesday, driven downward by falling US stock markets and a strengthening dollar. The trend continued in electronic trading over yesterday’s Thanksgiving holiday (US markets were closed), with the price of crude at one point falling to five percent below Wednesday’s close. Some analysts are seeing recent drops in [...]
Read More »How Many Thanksgiving Turkeys in a Barrel of Oil?
Today being Thanksgiving, we thought we’d give you the scoop on turkeys and oil. No, not deep-frying turkeys in oil, but how many turkeys equal a barrel of oil.
If you’ve ever eaten too much at Thanksgiving dinner—and who among us hasn’t?—at some point, as you roll yourself away from the dining room table, you’ve probably [...]
Oil Companies Compete to Win Nigerian Oil Licenses
Somehow, Nigeria’s oil industry has somehow become even more complicated.
The race to control the world’s oil resources has heated up as China has ambitiously entered the contest to win leases in Nigeria, putting Western firms on notice. And, at the same time, the Nigerian government has discussed imposing new taxes and fees on companies seeking [...]
The Secretary Strikes Back: Salazar Responds to Oil Industry Critics on Drilling Leases
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar unleashed a vehement attack on critics within the oil and gas industry, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. Salazar said that the Department’s “oil and gas leasing program is robust…[b]ut you wouldn’t know it if you listened to the untruths coming out of” the oil and gas industry. He went [...]
Read More »Kuwait May Follow Saudi Arabia To New Benchmark
In a relatively unsurprising turn reported by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Kuwait is seriously considering switching its benchmark for pricing oil from Platt’s West Texas Intermediate (WTI) to the London-based Argus Sour Crude Index (ASCI). The OPEC nation would be following in the footsteps of Saudi Arabia, which announced in late October that [...]
Read More »Biodiesel Industry Waits for Renewal of Federal Subsidy
Biodiesel. It’s one of the new hot green industries. Plants and fueling stations are springing up all across the country. Two years ago, Congress passed legislation to require the blending of 500 million gallons of biodiesel into the nation’s fuel supply in 2009, and doubling to 1 billion by 2012. It’s part of a law [...]
Read More »IEA Chief Presents Sobering View of Our Energy Future
Monday night at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Fatih Birol, Chief Economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA) presented the highlights of the recently released 2009 World Energy Outlook, which was recently completed. Yours truly was in attendance, and got the scoop just for you dear readers.
Mr. Birol knows his stuff- he [...]
