Welcome to the ODAC Newsletter, a weekly roundup from the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre at nef dedicated to raising awareness of peak oil.
The end of the US election season and a return of the incumbent Barack Obama saw oil markets turn their attention back to the economy. Despite much talk of upside the picture remains bleak with the US showing a huge deficit, and the EU still unresolved on how to deal with its highly indebted members. Oil prices showed their steepest decline of the year on Wednesday before recovering slightly to around $107/barrel for Brent.
OPEC acknowledged both the growing impact of shale oil, and the depressed global economy in their 2012 outlook. The group forecast a significant impact for shale in the coming years, but expects only modest shale growth from 2020 with the "best shale oil plays tapped first". It expects the oil to continue to come at a high price though remaining around $100/barrel — of course many OPEC nations require a high price to balance their national budgets. In Iraq, the other great hope for new oil, the lack of an oil policy was in focus again this week as Exxon announced plans to pull out of its $50 billion West Qurna project. Exxon is moving ahead with deals under more favourable terms in Iraq’s Kurdish region. Such developments must call into question the IEA’s recent projections for Iraqi oil production growth.
In the UK negotiations on the energy bill continue both behind the scenes and in the newspapers. A group of 20 Conservative MPs wrote to the Prime Minister outlining their concern that the government is putting renewables investment at risk. Renewable, nuclear and CCS business leaders combined forces in a letter to Ed Davey in support of a decarbonisation target in the energy bill. Meanwhile a new report from the London School of Economics in association with Npower Energy and the economy: The 2030 outlook for UK businesses recommends that businesses focus on energy efficiency and self-generation since energy is likely to expensive in any event.
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Oil
Shale oil will change global supply, Opec admits
In its annual world oil outlook report, Opec – whose 12 members include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Venezuela – said: "Shale oil represents a large change to the supply picture."
While in previous reports "no significant shale oil contribution to liquids supply was envisaged," this year "a rise in the importance of shale oil is expected", Opec said…
Iraq says Exxon to quit oilfield, ends Turkey TPAO deal
Exxon Mobil has informed the Iraqi government it wants to pull out of a $50 billion oil project, and Baghdad expelled Turkey’s state oil operator from another contract on Wednesday, both signals of trouble in Iraq’s petroleum policy.
"Exxon has stated in its letter that it has started discussions with some international oil companies to sell its stake," Abdul-Mahdy al-Ameedi, director of Iraq’s contracts directorate, told reporters…
Iraq’s oil: The Kurdish opening
IRAQ is blessed with abundant oil that is cheap to extract and close to newly built export terminals. Production has hit a three-decade high and continues to rise steadily. By 2035, predicts the International Energy Agency (IEA), an advocate for rich-world consumers, Iraqi output could more than double, to 8.3m barrels per day (b/d).
But Western oil firms are increasingly reluctant to play a part in this boom. ExxonMobil appears keen to sell its stake in West Qurna, one of the giant fields in southern Iraq that will provide much of the production growth. Royal Dutch Shell and BP are both still working in the south, but unhappily so. Suffocating bureaucracy and onerous contract terms make life difficult. Heavier-than-expected costs and delays to infrastructure undercut profits…
Oil lobby and Koch-backed groups spent $270m on anti-Obama ads
The oil and coal lobby and groups backed by the conservative billionaire Koch brothers spent $270m on television ads in the final weeks of the election, attacking Barack Obama and Democratic candidates for Congress.
It turns out not to have been a very good investment, according to the Centre for American Progress Action Fund, which tracked the funding…
Oil Fluctuates After Rebounding From Lowest Level in Four Months
Oil fluctuated in New York after rebounding from the lowest level in four months as reports signaled an economic recovery in China, the world’s second biggest crude consumer.
Futures were little changed after rising 0.8 percent yesterday. China processed 9.44 million barrels a day of crude in October, near the record of 9.47 million in September, data from the National Statistics Bureau showed today. Industrial output and retail sales beat economists’ estimates. Prices are set to snap three weeks of losses even after slumping 4.8 percent, the most this year, on Nov. 7…
Rio Says World Cup a Bust as Congress Strips State of Taxes
Rio de Janeiro state said it may not be ready to host the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games after Brazil’s Congress voted to strip 6 percent of the state’s annual budget.
Legislators passed a bill yesterday that would cost Rio 4 billion reais ($2 billion) next year by redistributing oil royalties, according to Governor Sergio Cabral. The lower house of Congress voted 286-124 to give non-producing states and towns a bigger share of offshore oil revenue, which amounted to 24.2 billion reais in 2011…
Italy looks to boost crude oil production by 150% in energy policy shakeup
The view from the terrace behind the town hall in Corleto Perticara is as grand as any in Tuscany, taking in the majestic Sauro river valley and a line of towering hills that shepherd the river out to sea. But where a visitor might dream of building an idyllic second home, Rosaria Vicino, the town’s mayor, is picturing the line of well-head pumpjacks that will soon pepper the undulating slopes beyond the Sauro.
In May, Mario Monti’s non-party government in Rome gave the go-ahead for the development of the so-called Tempa Rossa field, whose 200m barrels of heavy, sulphurous petroleum lie within Vicino’s comune (borough). The French company Total has a 75% stake in Tempa Rossa. Shell has the remaining 25% interest in a field whose production capacity is expected to reach 50,000 barrels a day (b/d)…
Nuclear
Government ‘prepared to walk away’ from EDF nuclear talks
Britain will walk away from talks with French giant EDF Energy over its planned UK nuclear plant if the burden for the consumer is too high, says John Hayes, the energy minister.
Britain is prepared to walk away from talks with French giant EDF Energy over its planned UK nuclear plant if the burden for the consumer is too high, said John Hayes, the energy minister…
Sellafield audit shows safety costs spiralling
The projected cost of safely storing radioactive material at Britain’s largest nuclear site in Sellafield has increased by more than £900m in 10 months, the National Audit Office says in a report released on Wednesday.
Plans to replace the ageing nuclear waste facilities in Cumbria have suffered severe delays, auditors said. Twelve out of 14 of the major projects launched last year to build facilities to store material safely are over budget, they have concluded…
Renewables
Onshore wind farm costs plummet by over a third
The cost of operating and maintaining wind farms is falling by an average of 11 per cent a year, according to new global figures from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).
The research firm yesterday released the first issue of its Wind Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Price Index, based on confidential cost data from 38 large wind farm operators around the world. It found that average operations and maintenance costs fell from €30,900 per MW in 2008 to €19,200 this year, a drop of 38 per cent over the period or 11 per cent a year…
Government causes wind farm ‘investment freeze’
The three largest manufacturers of turbines have received only one order for UK offshore wind farms between them, reports the Financial Times.
Keith MacLean of SSE, which is developing offshore farms off the UK coast, told the newspaper that the Government’s attempts to change low-carbon energy subsidies had caused an "unnecessary investment freeze"…
MPs haul Severn Barrage scheme out of cold storage
MPs are to investigate the feasibility of generating tidal power from a giant barrier across the Severn Estuary, confirming the controversial plan is firmly back on the political agenda.
The influential Energy and Climate Change Committee is calling for views on a proposed barrage that would run from Cardiff to Weston-super-Mare, a proposal that was named as the best value for money project considered by a 2010 feasibility study despite its estimated £34bn price tag…
Exclusive: Newport community solar project raises £50,000 in one week
The UK’s latest community energy initiative has revealed it has raised £50,000 in just one week, after publishing proposals for a £1m solar project in Newport, South Wales.
Generation Community launched last month with plans for a range of community-backed solar PV, wind, and combined heat and power (CHP) projects across the country…
Report: Returns from solar soar as panel costs fall
The average annual returns households can expect to generate from domestic solar panels has increased by around £100 since May this year, according to new research from the Energy Saving Trust (EST).
The Trust today revealed its latest assessment of the domestic solar market shows that the average combined savings on energy bills and income from feed-in tariff incentives generated by well-located domestic rooftop solar installations has risen from £540 a year in May to £635 a year at the start of this month…
Windfarms: is community ownership the way ahead?
"I can’t single-handedly build a new Jerusalem," said John Hayes, the Tory energy minister, last week, "but I can protect our green and pleasant land." What was he on about? Windfarms. He wants them stopped because he says locals don’t like them.
But that isn’t always the case. Take Samsø, a pretty island off the coast of Denmark. In the late 90s, Samsø’s 4,000 elderly farmers were famous for their early crop of new potatoes. Smothering their isolated Eden with windmills was far from a priority…
Biofuels
Ethanol Going Ugly Turns Bush Plan Into Obama Test
U.S. ethanol production is headed for the first decline in 16 years, jeopardizing the nation’s drive to boost alternative fuels, as higher costs and lower demand close plants.
Shrinking distilling margins have resulted in a 14 percent drop in output this year to 827,000 barrels a day, or 12.7 billion gallons annually, Energy Department data show, 500 million gallons short of the amount refiners are mandated to use under a 2007 law that calls for escalating consumption of the biofuel. That would be the first yearly decrease since 1996…
UK
UK energy sector requires £330bn to achieve carbon targets, says LSE report
The urgent need for up to £330bn of investment in the UK’s energy infrastructure to ensure a secure energy supply, meet carbon emissions reduction targets and protect the UK economy by 2030, is highlighted in a new report from The London School of Economics and Political Science released today.
The npower Future Report – ‘Energy and the economy: The 2030 outlook for UK businesses’ – reflects upon the need for a balanced focus on economic growth and investment in the energy infrastructure to deliver a low carbon and strong UK economy. It also calls on businesses to act now to ensure they are protected for the future…
Landlords poised to flick switch on £100m energy efficiency scheme
The first Green Deal contract for private sector landlords is set to go live this week, with a view to upgrading 10,000 of the UK’s draughtiest properties over the next five years as part of an initiative worth up to £100m.
The scheme agreed by the Residential Landlords Association (RLA) and Cornish company Enact Energy seeks to target Britain’s 1.4 million private landlords, who are widely thought to oversee some of the least energy efficient buildings in the UK…
Opower turns customers on to energy efficiency
How do you sell something when many of your target customers do not understand what it is? That is the challenge faced by the smart meter industry as it digests the results of a recent Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) report that found five per cent of 2,400 UK householders claim to have a smart meter, even though the figure is probably closer to two per cent.
Add in the headline-inspired fears over data privacy that means Google’s top search answer for the words "pitchfork wielding mob" is a disastrous smart meter rollout in California, and you can see why the government’s plans for a universal roll-out of domestic smart meters still faces considerable challenges…
Cameron set to defend coalition’s position on green economic growth
David Cameron is poised to defend the green economy after a group of more than 20 Conservative MPs expressed their concern on the issue in a letter to Downing Street.
Peter Aldous, the Conservative MP for Waveney, who organised the letter to Cameron, said investment from overseas was vital to rejuvenating UK infrastructure. He said: "It is vital the government works to encourage and incentivise investment from emerging markets in order for offshore energy to flourish and for our country to be a world leader in renewable energy." The letter comes as Cameron pushes for new Middle Eastern investment in Britain’s energy production including cash for windfarms…
Industry letter calls for decarbonisation target in energy bill
New jobs and financial investment in the energy sector are at risk if the government does not ensure its imminent energy bill supports low-carbon power, an unusual coalition of the trade bodies representing the renewable energy, nuclear power and carbon capture industries has warned.
The letter to the energy and climate secretary, Ed Davey, strongly backs the call from the government’s climate advisers, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), to include a reference in the bill for the power sector to be almost entirely decarbonised by 2030…
Huge scale of UK’s ‘dash for gas’ revealed
The amount of power expected to be generated from gas by 2030 has quadrupled in the last year, according to official projections that will infuriate green campaigners who are demanding greater use of renewable energy sources.
They claim that the statistics, buried in recently published government documents, will leave the country unable to meet its carbon emission targets. The figures will reinforce the sense that chancellor George Osborne is winning his battle to downgrade the role of green energy in favour of a dash for gas…
Economy
European companies announce 10,000 job losses
Leading European companies announced job losses totalling more than 10,000 on Wednesday, underlining the scale of problems facing the continent’s manufacturers.
Vestas, the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer, said 2,000 jobs would be cut after it posted an almost doubling of pre-tax losses in the face of falling prices and fierce competition from China…
