Guest blog by S. A. Shelley If there is a poster child in the world for energy wealth, it’s Canada. Folks are dumbfounded by what the Europeans are achieving with renewable energy and decarbonizing, folks quake at the vast untapped oil and gas reserves of Russia, and folks are stunned at how technology and finance combined to bring about the prolific U.S. tight oil and gas production which is upheaving world energy markets. Wow, eh?
Instead, folks should be looking at Canada, that half frozen land of log drivers, curlers and exporter of Hollywood A-listers, and be awestruck by the energy resources that have somehow fallen under the Dominion of Canada.
Guest blog by S. A. Shelley In my previous two blogs I have offered views on oil supply and the (macro) social changes that are resulting in a slowdown of growth in oil demand. In this blog, I’ll look at some of the technological (micro) factors that that will contribute further to a drop in demand. This combination of oversupply and drop in demand will have significant and far-reaching impacts on oil companies, petro-nations, and all the companies and people who are a part of the industry.
Guest blog by S. A. Shelley Surf into any news or finance website and one can find almost everyone commenting about oil demand (see Reuters, OilPrice.com). It can be contradictory and confusing at times, especially when variables are changed and data is parsed in a myriad of ways. I will try to clarify things by separately looking at societal changes (this blog) and then technological changes (next blog). But there is one thing that I have to make clear right away: Oil demand is not going to zero any time soon. The end of the oil age is nigh upon us, but not quite yet, though there are foreboding changes in society (this blog) and technology (next blog) that will affect oil demand in the most unpleasant manner for producers.
Guest blog by S. A. Shelley Many readers are probably wondering what is happening with oil prices, especially with all the efforts by OPEC+ to curtail supply and all the efforts by various trade groups and governments (e.g., Denmark and China) to affect demand. Every year in January, big companies (BP, EXXON) and big organizations (OPEC, EIA, IEA, OECD) release their energy reports. I don’t have quite the scale or resources that they do, but I try my best. Back in 2016, when I wrote about oil demand peak, I included a chart of a possible oil price path for the next few years (Fig. 1). I was under on the demand and supply a bit, and relied upon the 2016 futures prices to guide my price thinking, but I was damn near bang on with the timing of the most recent collapse of oil prices, Q3 of 2018.
Revenue Trap: ” A focus on revenue at the expense of weakened strategy and reduced profits.”
Oil prices seeming to whipsaw back and forth, weekly, daily, even hourly is the result of many oil and options traders clearing trades at whatever slim profit they can eke out. Of course, multiply that slim profit by the huge volumes traded and well, Wall Street still makes a hefty profit whether oil is up or down.
Other folks are starting to talk about oil supply and demand hitting a new equilibrium, or that shale production has peaked. Fair enough. In fact, I agree that efforts to constrict oil supply are starting to have some effect. I doubt however that restricting oil supplies will be effective in the long run. OPEC claims that compliance with the production quotas is strong, but on the other hand, some OPEC members have recently vowed to opt out of the quotas and to even increase production. Don’t forget about some of the African members of OPEC who were free to pump and sell as much oil as they could. Continue reading It’s a Trap!→
Guest blog by S. A. Shelley Absolutely, the United States can become energy self-sufficient, but it is unlikely to become self-sufficient in oil production.
Since the end of last year and the beginning of this year, several governmental and intra- governmental bureaucracies, independent think-tanks of all sorts and large energy producing companies have issued annual energy outlooks in one form or another. I characterize them as “Business as Usual” (BP, Exxon, etc.), “Business is Changing” (Shell, Carbon Tracking Institute, etc.) and “Fanciful Delusion” (OPEC). In all forms these reports are interesting reading. Continue reading Can the United States become Energy Self-Sufficient?→
Guest blog by S. A. Shelley Imagine a future where your choices for purchasing a new car include numerous options for electric vehicles (EV’s) and internal combustion vehicles (ICV’s). But competing with the typical federal or state subsidies for the EV’s are hefty rebate checks from OPEC or Russia for purchasing a fossil fuel burning ICV. That may sound crazy, but in today’s age of large supplies of easily produced shale oil, inexpensive renewable energy options, and changing societal demographics, it’s only a matter of time before the current oil glut results (see EIA figure below) in stranded oil resources that are too expensive to produce for many of the suppliers, drastically reduced supply-side control from oil producers, and a critical need for oil suppliers such as OPEC to find creative ways to stimulate demand.
Guest blog by S. A. Shelley The concept of “peak oil”, i.e., the time when production of oil hits its maximum and then declines, has been postulated for decades, but, as time passes, industry experts push the peak oil date further and further into the future. However, the events of the past 2 years since the collapse of the price of oil raise an interesting question: “Did we experience peak oil in 2015, and nobody noticed?” As someone who’s had a career in the oil and gas industry and who observes and tries to understand both the successes and failures of that industry, I postulate that we might have passed such a crucial point in history. Continue reading Did the World Hit “Peak Oil” in 2015 and Nobody Noticed?→
Last month OWOE introduced a new tool that can be used to quickly design a floating platform for real world offshore wind and oil and gas production platforms and estimate its final cost.
A perfect example of the toxic nature of the energy dialogue in this country arose last week in Southern California. There has been a long running environmental disaster north of Los Angeles involving a methane gas leak from an injection well at the Southern California Gas storage facility near the town of Aliso Viejo and the community of Porter Ranch. Continue reading Toxic Nature of Energy Dialogue in the US→
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