An Opportunity in Energy Policy
A Letter to the President-elect By John Langhus and Steve Andrews [ full-length version of this article in PDF ] Dear President-elect Obama, We believe that no other challenge we currently face will be adequately addressed unless we are successful in tackling our energy challenges. Based on recognition
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Prices and Production
Oil prices started out last week by falling to $61, the lowest since May 2007. By the end of the week, however, prices recovered due to stronger equity markets, climbing above $70 a barrel on Thursday and closing at $67.81 on Friday. A new report that the US GDP
More Project Delays
Low oil prices and lack of credit are taking a heavy toll on the possibility that new oil production will offset much of the decline from existing oil fields. Last week there was a steady stream of reports concerning delays or cancellations of new oil exploration and production projects.
Russia
Developments in Russia were much in the news last week. In London the former chief of the TNK-BP consortium said that Russian appears to have reached its peak in August and is now going into a gentle decline. This view was backed up by the CEO of Russia’s Lukoil who
The leak
Last week the Financial Times published excerpts from a leaked copy of the IEA’s World Energy Outlook that will be released to the public on November 12th. Although the IEA still refuses to embrace the idea that there will be geological constraints on world oil production in the near future, it acknowledges that production from mature oil fields is declining rapidly and that investment in new
A report from Britain
Last week a report from the Peal Oil Group, a recently established industrial taskforce, received broad attention in Britain where it was run in at least 130 newspapers. The report warns that the declining availability of oil will hit the UK earlier than generally expected, possibly as early as 2011. In a Guardian OpEd discussing the report, the Group’s Chairman, Jeremy Leggett, said “Today,
Briefs - November 3, 2008
China‘s crude oil imports in September were 10% higher than in Sept. 2007. (10/27, #13) VeraSun Energy, the second- largest US ethanol producer by capacity, sought bankruptcy protection after racking up losses on hedges for corn. There are 178 ethanol distilleries in the US, with the capacity to produce 718,000 barrels of ethanol per day (11/1, #14) PFC estimates that Saudi Arabian production
Quote of the Week
“With crude oil now down at $70 per barrel and natural gas trading at $6.50 per million BTU, the case can be made that the market is fast destroying the very incentive producers need to keep drilling and extracting.” –Â Brian Smyth’s newsletter for Hubbert Partners Peak LLC
China’s Oil Reserve Forecast and Analysis Based on Peak Oil Models
By Lianyong Feng, Junchen Li and Xiongqi Pang In order to forecast future oil production it is necessary to know the size of reserves and to use models. We use two peak oil models-the Hu-Chen-Zhang model, usually called HCZ model, and the Hubbert model-which have been used commonly for forecasting in China and the world, to forecast China’s oil Ultimate Recovery (URR). The former appears to
