Motley Fool: Why Oil Prices Will Rise Again

Back in July, around the time the oil price peaked, common consensus went
along the lines of ...
The world is running out of oil.
World demand for oil is high and only going to get higher still in the years and decades ahead.
Most of the world's cheap oil has already been discovered.
Oil exploration companies increasingly have to drill for oil in more and more
difficult places. This adds to the cost of exploration and in the event of a
discovery, the cost of extraction. Either the price of oil stays high and goes
even higher, so that it makes these new discoveries economical for the oil
companies, or the oil stays in the ground. Given the increasing demand and the
world's complete reliance on the naturally depleting natural resource called
oil, it has to come out of the ground.
Oil was seen as a natural hedge for the falling U.S. dollar.

Click the subject line for the link to the Motley Fool article

OPEC Calls Emergency Meeting

IHT: OPEC calls emergency meeting as oil prices fall

Oil prices dropped below $70 a barrel for the first time in 14 months Thursday, prompting the OPEC cartel to call for an emergency meeting next week to establish some stability in prices that have plummeted recently after rising for months.

Oil prices have tumbled by nearly $40 a barrel in just three weeks as indications grow that demand for energy will slow along with weakening economies around the world. As recently as July, oil was trading at a record of $145 a barrel.

The decline in oil prices could provide a form of stimulus to the global economy as consumers pay less to fill up their tanks. If oil prices stay at current levels, American consumers would have $250 billion more, over a year, to save or spend elsewhere, according to Lawrence Goldstein, an energy economist. Some analysts expect oil prices to keep declining, perhaps to as low as $50 a barrel in coming months.

All worries about oil going to $25 is misplaced. While it is true that the price of oil has collapsed more than 50%, it is still higher than where it was just 14 months ago. Just for comparison try the Dow or S&P at multiyear lows.

Oil price still don't reflect a global depression. While a serious global slowdown is on the cards, it will come nowhere close to a depression. Money printing is rampant, the deleveraging will pass and inflation will be sticky.

Many alternative energy startups will go bust, oil sands and deep sea drilling would become unprofitable. Which means there will be severe limitation on future supplies at lower prices, which is price supportive.

At some point all those Asian countries with dollar reserves are likely to use it to stimulate their economies and that is dollar negative. Once the warp speed deleveraging is close to over, the dollar rally will be over as well.

Middle East Oil Consumption and Exports

CIBC world markets chief economist Jeff Rubin discusses with Erin Burnett and Larry Kudlow of CNBC.

Matt Simmons on Bloomberg

Simmons discusses Saudi Arabia, Gas prices, Oil prices, Peak Oil etc.

Global oil production peaked last year - Boone Pickens

Oil continues to rise

Oil price - Outlook

Outlook for crude oil

Oil Reaches Record High, Closes above $80

Peak Oil Linkfest - 07/28/07

Oil Rises on Signs U.S. Gasoline Supplies Dropped a Fourth Week

Crude oil in New York rose to the highest close since Aug. 15 on speculation that U.S. gasoline supplies declined for a fourth week.

Gasoline supplies fell 2.3 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 24, according to the median of responses by 10 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. The crude-oil market often follows gasoline during the summer. Prices were down earlier on speculation that subprime-mortgage losses in the U.S. will spread through the economy, reducing growth and demand for fuels.


The Gasoline Crisis in Iran

In late June 2007, the Iranian government launched a comprehensive gasoline rationing policy, necessitated, in part, by the growing demand for gasoline in Iran's domestic market that could not be met by its oil production infrastructure.

Although Iran is among the world's major exporters of crude oil, it has limited processing and refining facilities, and thus must import most of its refined oil for domestic use. There has been no significant investment in developing its oil refining facilities since the Shah's era, and Iran depends entirely on imported gasoline.


Tomgram: Dilip Hiro, America on the Downward Slope

Pick up the paper any day and you'll find tiny straws in the wind (or headlines inside the fold) reflecting the seeping away of American power. The President of the planet's "sole superpower" and his top diplomats and commanders have been denouncing Iran for months as the evil hand behind American disaster in Iraq as well as Afghanistan.


Energy Report is Handgrenade in Bubblewrap

The working draft of the National Petroleum Council’s forecast of global oil and gas trends runs to nearly 500 pages. Weighing as much as the chunk of foam that brought down the Space Shuttle Columbia, this curious document reads like a hand grenade encased in Bubble Wrap. Since its release, the report (and a more digestible 40-page executive summary) has received 750,000 hits. (www.npc.org.).

Facing the Hard Truths About Energy is perplexing, even schizophrenic. In maddening fashion, it blends numerous cautions about the “accumulating risks” to global oil and gas production with repeated, rosy reassurances that we “aren’t running out,” as if anyone said we were.


The last straw? Alongside debt, rising food prices threaten industrial growth

Just when the world economy seemed to have found immunity to rising world fuel prices, the rising world grain price may be the shock that finally ends its long upturn, as costlier food baskets eat into household budgets.

A surge in world oil prices - to over $70 per barrel this month, almost double the level of two years ago – has not caused a return to the production downturns and price rises (‘stagflation’) that followed previous petroleum shocks in 1973 and 1979. The global economy continues to grow strongly, with emerging markets expanding fast and a pick-up in the EU offsetting signs of slowdown in the US. Relocation of industrial production, and a widening range of services, to low-cost countries is suppressing northern hemisphere inflation rates. Among the biggest of the emerging markets, Russia’s boom is being fed by oil, China’s is still largely powered by coal, Brazil is rapidly substituting its fossil energy needs from biofuel, and India’s rising exports and capital inflows have stopped its growth being checked by rising oil demand.


Meat prices set to soar as production costs mount: analyst

The price of meat may soon increase as production costs mount and demand outstrips supply, a British analyst said Tuesday.

Richard Crane, a London-based analyst with the consulting firm Deloitte, said beef, pork and poultry producers are struggling with rising feed costs. Grain prices reached an unprecedented peak of $7.44 U.S. a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade market last week after climbing steadily for months.


How Weak Dollar Affects OPEC

When oil price spikes have occurred in the past, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has quickly increased supply, taking advantage of the high U.S. dollar selling price, but also thereby eventually driving down the oil price, making Americans and everyone else who uses oil happy.

But now, even with oil prices nearing a record high, opec is not stepping up production. Why?


OPEC has set unofficial target price of 70 usd per barrel for oil - IEA

OPEC has set an unofficial target oil price of around 70 usd per barrel, which could weigh on growth, said Claude Mandil, director general of the International Energy Agency, in an interview with the Arab Oil & Gas monthly.

'The market has become aware' that OPEC 'has set an implicit new objective of keeping prices at or around 70 usd per barrel and that the organisation is trying to defend this level,' said Mandil.


July oil output drops at Mexico's Cantarell field

Crude oil output dropped in July at Mexico's aging Cantarell offshore field, according to data published on the energy ministry's Web site on Monday. Cantarell, closely watched by the oil industry after sharp dips in output in recent months, produced an average of 1.526 million barrels per day versus 1.570 million bpd in June.

The figure meant Cantarell accounted for just 48.2 per cent of Mexico's overall crude oil output last month, continuing a steady decline over the past year at the field, which once produced around 60 per cent of the country's oil.


The end of oil is not a possibility but a certainty

Regardless of how long you've been alive, whether you're 16 or 60, it's never been a problem to get gasoline. The ability to fill our gas tanks has often felt as guaranteed to Americans as free speech and free press. However, the privilege of gas may become a thing of the past quicker than we may think.

There is one fact often overlooked when dealing with the issue of oil and that is this: We cannot make a finite resource infinite.


How Corn Ethanol Could Pollute the Bay

Despite rising food prices, it seems that nearly everyone is turning to corn-based ethanol as their choice for alternative fuel. Hidden behind these headlines, though, is an equally important but less visible cost: water pollution.

Corn is a "leaky" crop, losing more nitrogen per acre than most other crops. In the Washington region, much of this excess nitrogen ends up polluting the Chesapeake Bay and robbing fish, crabs and oysters of oxygen.

Peak oil Linkfest - 07/13/07

President: Iran not to halt uranium enrichment work

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the West should not expect his country to suspend uranium enrichment. He made the comment as a delegation from the UN nuclear watchdog arrives in Tehran.


Reader Mail: Peak Oil, Global Economy Shifts Away From US Towards Asia

Some questions about Peak Oil from a reader. And by the way, while we don’t always have space to publish your questions and comments in the e-mail edition of the Daily Reckoning, there is plenty of room in the comments section under any post on the website. You can respond directly to other readers, too. Here’s a question:


Play peak oil before you live it

On April 30, 2007, an oil crisis shook the world. Supply chains were interrupted, and in the ensuing weeks the price of gas pushed higher and higher, peaking around $7 per gallon. The American economy sputtered to a halt as shortages spread -- Detroit's car factories cited lack of demand and shut down for the duration, trucking fleets scrambled for fuel to move their cargo, supermarkets jacked up their prices, and commuters bitched and moaned and grudgingly changed their lifestyles. Looting broke out, along with the occasional riot.


IEA boss denies and confirms peak oil in same breath

It seems that the International Energy Agency, the intergovernmental energy watchdog, has been going in overdrive lately. First, we had the interview of its chief economist warning us that we were going toward a wall without Iraqi oil, then the recent publication of their yearly outlook report predicting shortages within 5 years, and now we have another disquieting interview in Le Monde, the big French daily, with Claude Mandil, the head of the Agency, who pulls no punches, despite an apparent denial of "peak oil". Follow me below the fold for a translation.


OPEC says no plans for increased production; crude prices continue upward

Light, sweet crude for August delivery was up 99 cents a barrel to trade at $73.55 midday on the Nymex. London Brent crude made its way above $76 a barrel before settling at $75.44 a barrel – up $1.36.


Why does Kuwait keep its oil reserves secret?

Kuwait's Acting Oil Minister Mohammad Al-Olaim has reaffirmed the oil reserves at 100 billion barrels under the pressure from the members of parliament.

Some lawmakers had threatened not to pass this year's budget, which is with a projected deficit of around 10.3 billion U.S. dollars, if the oil sector didn't tell them the truth about the country's oil reserves.


Global Warming May Spawn Floods of Beaches and Cities

Global warming may spawn more flooding at northeastern U.S. beaches and cities and disrupt the ski industry unless heat-trapping emissions are curbed, scientists said in a report.


'Swindle' director hits back at critics

THE director of a controversial documentary about global warming airing on ABC television tonight says he's been vilified for challenging popular theory.

Briton Martin Durkin directed The Great Global Warming Swindle, which seeks to debunk the idea that climate change is being caused by human activity.


The Peak Oil Crisis: A Tale of Two Reports

In the last few days, two important reports on the prospects for world oil production were “released.” While these reports reach diametrically opposite conclusions, each of them, in its own way, is likely to make a contribution to the debate over just when the economic troubles occasioned by the peaking of world oil production will occur.


Platts Survey: OPEC Oil Output Up Slightly in June, Well Above Target

The 10 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) bound by the group's crude oil output agreements boosted production by 40,000 barrels per day (b/d) to 26.6 million b/d in June, from a revised May level of 26.56 million b/d, a Platts survey showed July 11. This is well above the 25.8 million b/d production target set in February by the so-called OPEC-10.


Net Oil Exports and the "Iron Triangle"

As Matt Simmons pointed out several years ago, the critical problem with post-peak exporting regions is that we would have two exponential functions (declining production and generally increasing consumption) working against net exports. From the point of view of importers, it is quite likely that we are facing a crash in oil supplies. In my opinion, what I have described as the “Iron Triangle” is doing everything possible to keep this message from reaching consumers.


U.K. Parliament Members Form `Peak Oil' Study Group

The U.K. parliament formed a group to study peak oil, the theory that world oil production is approaching its zenith, as British lawmakers face up to the country's future as an energy importer.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas, which held its first meeting June 26, comprises 32 members of the House of Commons, or lower chamber, and seven from the House of Lords, or upper chamber.


Ethanol Boondoggle: Your Taxes at Work

In recent years, the price of gasoline has soared as the supply of crude oil has risen in response to unprecedented global demand. But never fear, Uncle Sam is here! Citing the need to decrease our country’s dependence on foreign and potentially unreliable sources of energy, Congress, encouraged by President Bush, has passed laws mandating that ever-greater quantities of corn-based ethanol (CBE) be produced, and subsidizing this production with tens of billions of dollars. Could it be that our leaders are finally demonstrating bipartisan unity for the good of the country? Well, “unity,” yes, “good,” no.


The Coming Conflict in the Arctic

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush spent most of their time at the “lobster summit” at Kennebunkport, Maine, discussing how to prevent the growing tensions between their two countries from getting out of hand.

The media and international affairs experts have been portraying missile defense in Europe and the final status of Kosovo as the two most contentious issues between Russia and the United States, with mutual recriminations over “democracy standards” providing the background for the much anticipated onset of a new Cold War. But while this may well be true for today, the stage has been quietly set for a much more serious confrontation in the non-too-distant future between Russia and the United States – along with Canada, Norway and Denmark.


Climate Expert Questions Gore's Global Warming Campaign

This past weekend concerts took place around the world to focus attention on the problem of global warming, which former U.S. Vice President Al Gore says is the greatest single threat facing humankind today. Most of the world's scientists agree that it is a problem and that it is largely caused by human use of fossil fuels, which produce so-called greenhouse gases that trap the Earth's heat. Al Gore and scientists who wrote the United Nations report on climate change say the debate is over and the time has come to act. But some prominent climate scientists are objecting to that, claiming that the debate has yet to even begin. VOA's Greg Flakus recently spoke to one of them and filed this report from Fort Collins, Colorado.


The biofuel myths

The term "biofuels" suggests renewable abundance: clean, green, sustainable assurance about technology and progress. This pure image allows industry, politicians, the World Bank, the United Nations and even the International Panel on Climate Change to present fuels made from corn, sugarcane, soy and other crops as the next step in a smooth transition from peak oil to a yet-to-be-defined renewable fuel economy.


Kuwait and IEA Show Declining Oil Production Future

Crude oil prices could reach levels of US$100 per barrel or more if some of the latest production factors in the news become reality.

Not only has the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), the energy watchdog of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, warned in its latest medium-term oil market report that a market crunch is looming over around 2012, but some OPEC producers are breaking even more negative news. After a short analysis hype in the beginning of 2006, analysts have been forgetting to cover OPEC countries currently battling reserve issues.


Peak Oil Now?

Demand for oil is continuing to grow, and threatens to burn up excess oil capacity by 2012, according to a new report released today by the International Energy Agency.

Excess capacity in OPEC is forecast to drop by 2 million gallons per day by 2009, and to virtually zero out by 2012. It won’t take until 2012 — or 2009 for that matter — for the cost of that tight supply to ripple through the economy straight down to the American homeowner and car driver.

Peak Oil Linkfest - 07/08/07

Around the Markets: Biofuel demand gives lift to commodities

Sugar, corn, wheat and cotton may be among the best commodity investments in the next one to three years, driven by biofuel demand and rising incomes in China and India, according to UBS, the world's largest money manager.

"Investors can expect to see a 6 to 10 percent plus return per year on those investments," Stuart Fox, UBS's head of commodities in Asia Pacific, said by phone from Hong Kong. His energy and commodities traders and sales team in Asia has more than tripled to 16 people in the past 12 months.


Green facade: Why the state's eco-friendly cars aren't doing the job

During the past two years, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration sunk more than $17 million into a state fleet of cars and trucks designed to be environmentally friendly.

So far, the 1,138 "flex-fuel" vehicles have traveled a collective 10 million miles and burned more than 413,202 gallons of gas.


Real Alternative Energy Sources

If Congress is going to subsidize energy to free us from dependence on foreign oil, it should — at the very least — spend our hard-earned taxpayer dollars on something that will work.

The unfortunate truth is that neither ethanol nor any other so-called renewable alternative energy now being discussed on Capitol Hill is likely to make any significant contribution to our energy needs.


Marchetti's Curves

This is a brief account of the Energy Susbstitution Model developed by Cesare Marchetti in the 1970s at IIASA. Using data from the latest BP Statistical Review the evolution of the energy market is compared with the model to understand why the Hubbert Peak of fossils fuels represents a problem today.


World 'building up risks over energy supplies'

The world is not running out of crude oil and natural gas but there are 'accumulating risks' to securing global supplies through 2030, a high-level board of US oil company executives found in a report.Those risks include "political hurdles, infrastructure requirements and availability of trained workforce," according to the study by the US National Petroleum Council, conducted at the behest of US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman.

The NPC, whose members include executives of big oil companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron, will present the study at its July 18 meeting.


Oil hits 10-month high near $75 on Nigeria, demand

Oil surged over 2 percent to nearly $75 a barrel on Thursday on strong demand and as fresh violence in Nigeria spurred supply concerns.

London crude rebounded after slipping from earlier highs on U.S. government data that showed crude supplies rising and refiners ramping up gasoline output to meet summer holiday driving demand.


Is Fear About Climate Change Causing a Nuclear Renaissance?

Some prominent environmentalists are urging that we reconsider nuclear power. But they have been met with resistance from many who believe nuclear power never will be a solution to global warming.

Sitting in the belly of the beast -- Dominion's 2,000-megawatt Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford, Connecticut -- the company's chief nuclear officer, Dave Christian, seems an unlikely environmentalist. But he says concern about climate change is what got him involved in the peaceful pursuit of the atom in the first place.


IAEA: Iran Slowing Expansion of Nuclear Enrichment Capabilities

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran has slowed the expansion of its nuclear enrichment capabilities.

In Vienna Monday, Mohamed ElBaradei said IAEA inspectors have seen a slowing in the installation of centrifuges that enrich uranium at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility.


Opec has little power to ease oil price – Algeria

Algeria’s Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil said yesterday there was “not much” Opec could do to bring down high oil prices as global crude stocks were already sufficient.

“There is plenty of stocks. It’s a problem with capacity and refining,” Khelil said ahead of a gas pipeline conference in Brussels. “Even if it (Opec) increases production, it’s just going to increase stocks and not have any effect because prices are drawn by petroleum product prices.”


World facing oil ‘supply crunch’ as demand soars, agency warns

The world faces an energy squeeze as soaring demand for fuel exceeds the rate of growth in the supply of crude oil, the West’s leading energy forecaster has predicted.

In a gloomy appraisal of the global oil balance, the International Energy Agency yesterday predicted a world of increasing market tightness beyond 2010. The world faces a “supply crunch” by 2012, according to the agency’s Medium-Term Oil Market Report, with weak increases in oil output from nonOpec countries colliding with strong demand and diminished spare capacity within the cartel of oil producers.


Exploding a fair few wordy myths

AFTER recent comments from Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, debate is raging over whether America and Australia went to war in Iraq because of oil.

This is absurd. Nobody was more surprised to discover that Iraq had oil than the Allies. Goodness, with all that fuel around, it was just as well that those weapons of mass destruction were only prevented from exploding by the fact that they didn't exist. Otherwise, the whole country could have gone up in flames. Oh, wait a minute … Anyway, here are some ideas that should probably be blown up.


Iran's oil output to fall without investment - report

Iran's oil production capacity will fall by five percent a year without new investment, a senior oil official was quoted on Sunday as saying by the Iran's student news agency ISNA.

Iranian officials have previously put production capacity at a little more than 4 million barrels per day (bpd), with actual output -- limited to a quota set by the oil cartel OPEC -- running at a little below 4 million bpd.


Corn ethanol could be a dead end

As the nation fights to lower its dependence on foreign oil and Colorado works toward a new energy economy, the buzz word in energy circles is “ethanol,” and using it to power cars, trucks and electricity has become a hot topic.

But as the conversation continues, ethanol experts and politicians are beginning to agree that corn-based ethanol may not be the magic energy solution many have come to see it as.


Can I diet my way to a lighter eco footprint?

Lose weight and save the planet. It has all the hallmarks of a zeitgeist diet book and perhaps a TV series in which I will travel around putting punters on scales, measuring out their porridge for the day, and perhaps changing their light bulbs. But there is some validity to the idea that you can simultaneously shrink your waistline and your carbon footprint.

An extra 100lb of weight carried in your car, for example, reduces fuel economy by around 2 per cent. Even Richard Branson recently signed up to losing a stone before he takes an inaugural flight on one of the superlight carbon-fibre Boeing jets he has bought in order to save an extra 36lb of CO2. Given that his fleet allegedly produces 7.4m tonnes of CO2 a year, that's not a hugely rewarding diet


Will the coming oil crisis be the end of suburbia?

Three years ago, when I started to teach Introduction to Sociology for Lamar Community College, my brother sent me the DVD, “The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream,” concerning the “coming oil crisis."

I showed it to my class to help the students better understand “social change” and what would happen to society during such a crisis. They hadn’t even heard that we were going to face such a crisis. It’s no surprise, most Americans hadn’t heard of it either; that was three years ago.


Peak Oil Passnotes: $80 Oil Beckons

The price of a barrel Brent crude is working its way back up to its records of $78.64 set last August 7. A steady and sure combination of factors has pushed it over $75 per barrel.

But when it pushes up against levels of $78 per barrel, which way is it going to go then?


Academic challenges global warming theory

An Australian academic has spoken out against the popular view that global warming is caused by greenhouse gas emissions. He believes that global warming and climate change are caused by cycles in the sun's electro-magnetic radiation. He says scientists are taking a narrow view and politicians are making policy with the wrong information.

Emeritus Professor Lance Endersbee AO is a former Dean of Engineering and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Monash University. He told Tom Harwood, ABC Western Queensland's Morning Program producer that the world has been warming naturally due to increased magnetic radiation from the sun.


Ethanol, Corn, Milk, Prices Increase

It appears that oil and gasoline aren't the only things that are going up in price these days. Milk, everyones favorite beverage, has gone up in price once again.From $3.80 to almost $5.00 a gallon. But milk however, isn't the only thing that will be on the rise. Other dairy products such as butter, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream will too.


Sugar, Grains, Cotton May Be Best Commodity Buys, UBS Forecasts

Sugar, corn, wheat and cotton may be among the best commodity investments in the next one to three years driven by biofuel demand and rising incomes in China and India, according to UBS AG, the world's largest money manager.

``Investors can expect to see a 6 to 10 percent plus return per year on those investments,'' Stuart Fox, UBS's head of commodities in Asia Pacific, said by phone from Hong Kong. His energy and commodities traders and sales team in Asia has more than tripled to 16 people in the past 12 months.


North Sea is running too dry to meet target

The energy industry warned yesterday that government targets of keeping Britain's oil and gas production at 3m barrels a day by 2010 look like being missed. North Sea competitiveness is falling and financial backers are losing confidence in the wake of tax increases introduced 18 months ago.

Civil servants have been working with oil companies to find ways to boost output offshore, but the 2007 Economic Report issued by the industry organisation Oil & Gas UK says the goal looks like being missed after five years of rising hopes.

Energy Briefs - Peak Oil Review

• Venezuelan President Chavez said last week that an unnamed US oil company has abandoned its oil wells in Venezuela and left.
• Increasing numbers of diesel vehicles has forced oil-exporting Qatar to begin importing diesel fuel. There are now about 500,000 vehicles in the country. Some 84,000 vehicles were imported last year as compared to 26,000 in 2005 and 18,000 in 2004.
• Norway announced that its crude-oil production fell 7.4 percent in May from a month earlier, and that gas production is also falling. The Norwegians are developing new gas fields in the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea and eventually will become the world's second-largest gas exporter.
• Natural gas prices surged in New York to a six-month high as the second named tropical storm of the year focused trader concerns on possible supply disruptions this hurricane season, spurring buyers to move gas into storage.
• Changing climate will mean increasing drought in the American Southwest — a region where water already is in tight supply — according to a new study issued by Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. [Ed. note: this could hurt plans to establish viable water-intensive production of oil from oil shale deposits in dry NW Colorado/SW Wyoming and NE Utah.)
• China will put climate change at the heart of its economic and energy policies but without committing itself to "quantified emissions-reduction targets," according to Beijing’s first comprehensive policy document on the issue.
• Azerbaijan is richer in oil and gas than previously reported, according to President Ilham Aliyev. He said studies show reserves at Azerbaijan's oil and gas fields are twice the size estimated when the country signed a series of development contracts with Western companies in the 1990s. Azerbaijan is a partner in projects to deliver Caspian Sea energy reserves to the West via oil and gas pipelines to Turkey.
• Bill Holbrook, spokesman for the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, said the industry has built the equivalent of one large-scale refinery in each of the past 14 years in the form of expansions, and that "basically every major company is contemplating an expansion at a facility somewhere."
• Higher US demand for electricity forecast for this summer will shrink the cushion of surplus power needed to avoid blackouts to 16.5 percent from 17.4 percent a year ago, said the North American Electric Reliability Corp., which oversees the power grid.
• Last week, General Motors announced its selection of battery makers to develop and test battery packs for use in its proposed electric vehicles. Manufacturers say that they've overcome the performance and cost limitations that have been an obstacle to electric vehicles in the past.
• Uranium prices may reach $200 a pound within the next two years. Prices have jumped 12-fold since early 2003, due to shortage, concerns over future production and a lack of investment in new mines.
• Starting last week, Iranian drivers can only buy gasoline using special electronic cards, as part of a plan to ration fuel and cut surging consumption. The government has already increased the price of gasoline 25 percent to 11 US cents a liter.
• High gasoline prices have spurred automakers to make plans to introduce tiny cars into the U.S. market, beginning early next year, when Mercedes plans to begin selling tiny, two-seater Smart models. General Motors unveiled three small Chevrolet concept cars aimed at young car buyers in urban markets. However, research from consulting firm CSM Worldwide shows that American consumers are not very big on very small cars,
• According to the International Energy Agency, by 2015 demand for Opec oil will likely be 38.8 million b/d, up from about 31 million b/d today, while biofuels would provide just 3m b/d.
• A study from the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center concludes that while enacting policies to subsidize the production of coal-to-liquids transportation fuel would enhance national security by lowering oil imports, encouraging plug-in hybrids powered by coal-generated electricity is a less costly policy that also reduces oil imports and does more to lower greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).
• Back in 2004, leaders of Venezuela’s national oil company said they planned to produce over 5 million barrels per day by 2009 and that they would spend $37 billion to achieve that objective. Half way there—at a time when production should have reached over 4 million b/d—Venezuelan production is well below 3 million b/d and dropping, according to Petrolemworld News.

U.S. Report Predicts Peak Oil by 2040

Many analysts say peak oil production will occur before 2040; some say it’s already happened. Even some big oil producers say peak production will happen prior to 2050. Now, a U.S. report confirms the validity of Hubbert’s theory.

In 1956, American geophysicist Marion King Hubbert created a method of modelling a peak rate of production given an assumed ultimate recovery volume.

Breaking the addiction to cheap oil

M. King Hubbert started a debate about energy nearly half a century ago that still rages today.

Hubbert worked as a geophysicist for Shell Oil for more than 20 years starting in 1943 as part of a distinguished career. Of his many notable contributions to his field of study, he is best remembered for the Hubbert Peak Theory, more commonly referred to today as Peak Oil.

Oilfield Technology and the Race Against Peak Oil

Since the advent of the oil business, scientists and engineers have developed a series of very remarkable technologies. Oilfield technology tends to compound at a steady rate, extending the boundary of what was long considered the absolute limit of exploration and production. Oil and gas resources once thought completely out of reach have now arrived in the fuel tanks and furnaces of consumers around the world.

IEA says OPEC has tightened supplies too much

Crude oil prices were up on Thursday as continuing refinery problems, including a new shutdown at a Citgo refinery in Louisiana, mean less gasoline available for drivers as the summer driving season nears in the United States. In addition, the International Energy Agency has said that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has tightened supplies too much, threatening that global supplies will be insufficient for the next few months.

Platts Survey: OPEC Oil Output Falls 80,000 b/d in March, But Still Above Target

The 10 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) bound by the group's output agreements produced an average 26.54 million barrels per day (b/d) in March, a Platts survey showed April 11. This is down 80,000 b/d from February's 26.62 million b/d but still 740,000 b/d above the group's 25.8 million b/d
production target.

The missing link in Mexico's declining oil production

The missing link in Mexico's declining oil production

In a miraculous feat of journalistic legerdemain this morning, a lengthy, detailed front-page article in the Wall Street Journal reports on declining production at Mexico's giant Cantarell oil field, without once ever mentioning the words "peak oil."

The politics and reality of the peak oil scare

Peak Oil Theory has been around since the 1970s. Some think we have already reached 'peak oil', others think it will happen with the next twenty-five years. The theory argues that when we reach 'peak oil' the rate at which we extract oil from the earth (measured in millions of barrels per day) will reach a maximum and thereafter will start to drop.

As the rate at which we use oil is currently close to the rate at which we extract it, the point of peak oil will coincide or be closely followed by the world consuming more oil than it is producing. As oil reserves are very limited, within months there simply will not be enough oil available.

Energy meeting, film draw big crowd

A large group gathered at the Carrboro Century Center on Thursday night to talk about the future of oil, gas prices and the impact on local communities.

The public meeting began with a new film by local filmmaker Jim McQuaid.

Experts: Energy security fears overblown

U.S. fears over energy security are overblown and global oil supplies are not endangered, a report released Thursday says.

"Each of (the) fears about oil supplies is exaggerated, and none should be a focus of U.S. foreign or military policy," write professors Eugene Gholz and Daryl G. Press in the policy analysis from the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington.

Oil production will peak soon, we can react now

Today's American lifestyle requires high quantities of oil. Almost everything we use in our daily lives uses oil. Purdue and other schools throughout the state, country, and world around us use oil as fuel to heat and cool buildings. In the past decades oil use has sky-rocketed to its current rate of 84.5 million barrels per day and is estimated to rise to 86 million this year and to 100 million by year 2010.

These ideas come back to the concept of Peak Oil: That at a point in our near future, the production of oil will peak. After the "peak," prices for most goods we use on a daily basis will begin to climb. Sky-rocketing prices will hurt our economy and could send us into an economic depression.

“The Secret”: Creating a culture of cheerfulness As Rome burns

A friend recently asked me what I knew about The Secret, and I had to confess, absolutely nothing. A couple of days later, another friend asked the same question, so I decided I’d better investigate this supposedly revolutionary new book and DVD that have taken the country by storm. As I did so, I discovered that nothing about The Secret is revolutionary or new but rather a glitzy, 21st century redux of what has come to be called in metaphysical circles “New Thought.”

Post-oil scaleback

The Government Accountability Office generally doesn't go too far out on a limb when it comes to predictions. So when the nonpartisan GAO issues a report stating that worldwide crude oil production will eventually dwindle to nothing and that the United States has no strategy at all to deal with that scenario, it's worth paying attention to.