Welcome to the ODAC Newsletter, a weekly roundup from the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, the UK registered charity dedicated to raising awareness of peak oil.
Another week, another ‘giant’ oil find, leading to predictable claims that ‘peak oil theory’ is toast. Shame nobody bothered to put the numbers in context, but then that’s what ODAC is for. BG Group’s discovery of up to 2bn barrels of oil equivalent in deepwater offshore Brazil amounts to less than a month’s global consumption.
What’s more, the underlying assumption in the press reporting is that such discoveries mean a genuine increase the world’s oil resource, whereas they actually represent a book-keeping exercise, in which resources are shifted from the “yet-to-find” category to the “reserves” category. Continuing oil discoveries are to be expected, but they do not increase the size of the global resource nor extend how long it is expected to last.
According to the IEA, global daily oil demand is showing signs of increase as government stimulus packages pump life back into economies around the world. While consumption is still down on 2008 the IEA is now predicting an increase of 500 million barrels per day over their previous estimate. Meanwhile IHS CERA predicts global demand will top 2007 levels by 2012 with growth coming from the developing nations. OPEC left output unchanged and prices firmed to over $70/barrel.
In the UK this week the talk was less about oil finds and more about a potential new source of income from the depleted oil fields of the North Sea. The area is seen as an ideal storage reservoir for CO2 captured during carbon capture and storage, but the technology might not be commercially viable for decades. Perhaps more could be achieved more quickly if other companies followed the lead of Ramco Energy which announced this week that it is swapping oil exploration for off-shore wind.
Oil
BG’s Brazilian oil find will ‘dwarf’ BP’s strike in the US Gulf Coast
The potential of Brazil to become one of the biggest oil producers in the world was highlighted today when BG – the former exploration arm of British Gas – reported a “supergiant” field with up to two billion barrels of recoverable reserves.
The Guara discovery builds on a series of other major successes in very deep waters off Brazil and dwarfs rival strikes such as Tiber in the US Gulf which was announced with great fanfare by BP last week…
IEA sees higher global oil use as economy recovers
Global oil demand will be almost 0.5 million barrels per day (bpd) higher than previously forecast this year and next on stronger-than-expected U.S. and Chinese fuel consumption, the International Energy Agency said.
The IEA, adviser to 28 industrialised economies, said on Thursday world oil consumption would average 84.4 million bpd in 2009 — down 2.2 percent from 2008 due to the economic downturn…
IHS CERA: World oil demand set to rise next year
World oil demand is set to grow next year for the first time since 2007 and is expected to reach pre-recession levels by 2012, IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates said in its quarterly World Oil Watch report.
IHS CERA expects oil demand growth to rise by 900,000 b/d in 2010 and resume its 2007 high of 86.5 million b/d by 2012, which would mark a 5-year turnaround…
OPEC members voice fears over slow recovery
Top oil-producing countries expressed “grave concern” that a recovery from the economic downturn crippling energy demand will be slow and uncertain, as they held their output steady on Thursday.
“Since the market remains oversupplied and given the downside risks associated with the extremely fragile recovery, the conference once again agreed to leave current production levels unchanged for the time being,” said the closing statement by OPEC…
Total Says 2014/2015 Hydrocarbon Demand Could Outstrip Supply
Total SA Chief Executive Officer Christophe de Margerie said there could be a new oil crisis when demand for oil and natural gas outstrips supply around 2014 or 2015, Le Parisien reported, citing an interview.
He said oil prices could rise above last year’s record as demand rises and that the company won’t pull out of Myanmar, the newspaper reported.
Crude Oil Trades Near $71 as Dollar Pares Losses, Equities Drop
Crude oil traded little changed near $71 a barrel as the dollar pared losses against the euro, reducing the appeal of commodities while OPEC ministers gathered in Vienna to decide crude output levels.
Oil gained as much as 5.5 percent yesterday as the U.S. currency dropped to the lowest level this year and on speculation that inflation will accelerate. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries should maintain existing output quotas and improve compliance when it meets today, the group’s production-monitoring committee recommended late yesterday…
Putin Blinking on Exports Signals Lower Oil for OPEC
Russia is surpassing Saudi Arabia in oil exports for the first time since the Soviet Union’s collapse as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin exploits OPEC production cuts to gain market share.
Exports of crude and refined products from Russia rose to about 7.4 million barrels a day in the second quarter, according to Energy Ministry data. Saudi shipments fell to about 7 million barrels a day, International Energy Agency estimates of output and domestic demand showed…
CNPC boosts war chest with $30bn loan
China National Petroleum Corp, the country’s largest oil and gas producer and supplier, said on Wednesday it had received a $30bn loan from a state-owned bank in a big boost to its war chest for securing overseas resources.
CNPC, parent of PetroChina, said that China Development Bank had agreed to provide the five-year loan at a discounted interest rate, which would be used to fund its “go global” strategy…
Debate about peak oil is misleading
Flying across the Gwahar oil field in Saudi Arabia is a startling reminder of just how vast and impressive the oil industry is. Wells are dotted everywhere, huge pipes run across the desert and towers belch fire as the excess gas is flamed off. Gwahar is the largest oil field in the world and seen at sunset from above, it looks beautiful.
The enormity of an operation such as Gwahar can make us complacent about the scarcity of the world’s supplies of oil but, as we all know, this is a finite resource and it will not last for ever. Dubai is already moving to a non-oil economy and many other countries [the UK not least] will have to do the same in the coming years…
The writer is a Business Correspondent of The Times of London
The Stonewalling of Peak Oil
Robert Hirsch on the deliberate avoidance by the U.S. government to talk about peak oil. Originally published on ASPO-USA.
Question: What have been your primary areas of focus during your energy career?
Hirsch: I started out in nuclear power. Then I did fusion research and later managed the government fusion program. I spent a lot of time with renewables over the years, including managing the federal renewables program. From there I went to the oil industry where I managed long range refining research and then synthetic fuels. Later I managed upstream research and development—exploration and production of oil and gas. Still later, I spent time in the electric power industry—all aspects of electric power. And then I got into energy studies and have been doing them for a number of years with Rand, SAIC, and now MISI. That’s it from the work standpoint; from another standpoint I’ve been involved with the National Academies [of Science] in energy studies since 1979 and have been involved in almost every aspect of energy through the Academies, either as a committee participant or as Chairman of their Board on Energy and Environmental Systems…
Nuclear
UK taxpayer may be forced to take on nuclear risk after insurers refuse to offer cover
Taxpayers could be forced to provide commercial insurance cover to the nuclear industry to safeguard plans being considered by ministers to build a fleet of new reactors in Britain.
Private insurers are refusing to offer energy companies full coverage against the risk of a Chernobyl-style nuclear accident, forcing the Government to consider stepping in itself to act as an “insurer of last resort”…
Renewables
US and China to unveil joint plan to ‘take over’ cleantech market
A joint US-China plan to “take over the world” in low-carbon technology will be revealed tomorrow at a meeting of Davos’s World Economic Forum in Dalian.
The sweeping initiative to secure the opportunities arising from tackling climate change is based on top-level business collaboration between the two superpowers, with some deals already done. One obstacle, however, will be growing trade friction over clean technology…
Mongolia poised to become a world leader in solar power
It is better known for yurts and yaks but now the rolling steppes of Mongolia are to become the scene for a cutting-edge green energy project.
Chinese officials have signed a deal with America’s First Solar, the world’s largest manufacturer of solar cells, to convert a remote desert area of inner Mongolia into a giant power station…
Breezy forecast for offshore wind
Is there a long-term future for Britain’s offshore oil industry? The answer is blowing in the wind – at least if energy explorer Ramco is to be believed.
The oil and gas firm is planning to sell off its hydrocarbon business and focus solely on the nascent offshore wind industry, renaming itself SeaEnergy…
Floating challenge for offshore wind turbine
Heading offshore in the Rygercruise catamaran, it is a journey into uncharted territory.
Not in terms of sea charts – the Norwegian energy giant StatoilHydro knows these waters well, having spent the past 30 years drilling for oil and gas here – but in terms of technology.
Statoil has constructed the world’s first full-scale floating wind turbine a couple of hours by catamaran from the oil town Stavanger, in the hope that one day vast wind farms could be constructed far offshore in water depths of up to 700m…
UK
Call to switch oil for carbon in North Sea
Britain could earn billions of pounds a year and sustain tens of thousands of jobs by selling space deep under the North Sea for storing carbon dioxide captured from European power station emissions, geologists told the British Science Festival in Guildford on Tuesday…
UK offshore industry urged to look to renewables
With the UK continental shelf ageing and production settling into decline, the oil and gas industry needs to look to new opportunities in the renewables and carbon capture and storage sectors for future growth, delegates heard at Aberdeen’s Offshore Europe 2009 conference which opened Tuesday.
Danish energy and climate change minister Connie Hedegaard urged oil and gas companies attending to seize the vast business opportunities being offered. “If you don’t, others will,” she warned…
Late payers put squeeze on E.ON’s profitability
One of Britain’s biggest energy suppliers is facing a mountain of bad debt as its industrial customers put off paying their electricity and gas bills to solve cashflow problems.
E.ON said that its bad debts in the UK were running at the level of “hundreds of millions of pounds”, a burden that the utility argues must be taken into account by Ofgem in its investigation into current retail energy pricing…
Climate
EU sets out €15bn climate aid plan
The European Union is to offer a modest €15bn a year to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate change, setting the stage for a fight before an international conference in Copenhagen in December…
Transport
£875 million EU loan boost for London’s Crossrail
London’s Crossrail project – currently the largest construction scheme in Europe – has been given an £875 million loan from the European Investment Bank.
The EIB, the EU’s own long-term lending arm which backs major public projects benefiting the European economy, described the ambitious rail network expansion as a boost for London as a “world city”…
Madrid reverses the chargers with electric car plan
The rise of the mobile phone has left the streets of Madrid littered with increasingly redundant telephone booths. But these underused installations are now set to play a key role in Spain’s electric car revolution under government plans to make them part of a network of electric charging stations for vehicles.
Some 30 telephone boxes have been earmarked to form part of a test network of 546 state-subsidised recharging points in Madrid, Barcelona and Seville…
Electric cars : Charge!
GREENS may not like it, but once people have enough to eat and somewhere tolerable to live, their thoughts turn to buying a car. The number of cars in the rich world will grow only slowly in the years ahead, but car ownership elsewhere is about to go into overdrive. Over the next 40 years the global fleet of passenger cars is expected to quadruple to nearly 3 billion. China, which will soon overtake America as the world’s biggest car market, could have as many cars on its roads in 2050 as are on the planet today; India’s fleet may have multiplied 50-fold. Forecasts of this kind led Carlos Ghosn, boss of the Renault-Nissan alliance, to declare 18 months ago that if the industry did not get on with producing cars with very low or zero emissions, the world would “explode”…
