Peak oil – Jan 18

January 18, 2013

Exxon, Shell, BP, Total: Do the oil emporers have no clothes?
Matthieu Auzanneau, The Oil Man blog, Le Monde blogs
French original
Quatre des principales compagnies pétrolières internationales font face à un déclin de leurs productions globales de brut, en dépit de profits sans précédent. Peuvent-elles inverser la tendance ?

La compagnie pétrolière américaine ExxonMobil, première entreprise de la planète selon le magazine Forbes, connaît depuis 2007 un net recul de sa production, après plus d’un siècle d’expansion ininterrompue.

En 2011, les extractions de pétrole d’ExxonMobil ont atteint 2,312 millions de barils par jour (Mb/j), en chute de 4,5 % par rapport à 2010 et de 11,6 % par rapport à 2007, d’après les données disponibles dans le dernier rapport annuel du groupe….

English summary (this is a slighty edited google translation)
Four major international oil companies are facing a decline in their global production of crude oil, despite unprecedented profits. Can they reverse the trend?

U.S. oil company ExxonMobil , the largest company in the world according to the magazine Forbes , has since 2007 asharp decline in production after more than a century of uninterrupted growth.

In 2011, ExxonMobil oil extraction reached 2.312 million barrels per day (Mb/d), down 4.5% compared to 2010 and 11.6% compared to 2007, according to the data available in the latest annual report of the group…
(8 January 2013)
See the complete article in French at Oil Man. Bloggers and journalists, please cite that URL and give proper attribution. Matthieu Auzanneau is an independent journalists and needs recognition tand support to continue with his work.

If you can do an English translation for this article, you might contact Matthieu via his blog, Oil Man. Note that parts of the article are translated into French from the English original of the IEA WEO 2012.


Peak oil theories ‘increasingly groundless’, says BP chief

Fiona Harvey, The Guardian
Warnings that the world is headed for "peak oil" – when oil supplies decline after reaching the highest rates of extraction – appear "increasingly groundless", BP’s chief executive said on Wednesday.

Bob Dudley’s remarks came as the company published a study predicting oil production will increase substantially, and that unconventional and high-carbon oil will make up all of the increase in global oil supply to the end of this decade, with the explosive growth of shale oil in the US behind much of the growth.

As a result, the oil and gas company forecasts that carbon dioxide emissions will rise by more than a quarter by 2030 – a disaster, according to scientists, because if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change then studies suggest emissions must peak in the next three years or so…
(16 January 2013)


At Algerian Oil and Gas Fields Once Thought Safe, New Fears and Precautions

Clifford Krauss, New York Times
The rich oil and gas fields of the Algerian Sahara have always posed a challenge for global oil companies and their field workers. One of the most inhospitable environments on the face of the earth, the stony lands bake at 120 degrees in summer and chill to well below freezing in the winter. In spring and fall they are whipped by vicious sandstorms.

But at least the remote production sites were considered safe — until now…

…Only a handful of companies acknowledged that they were removing personnel, but local oil executives said foreign oil service companies were in the process of quietly removing several hundred workers until they were confident that the security situation was stable…
(17 January 2013)


Oil markets tighten on Saudi cut, China demand-IEA

Dmitry Zhdannikov and Christopher Johnson, Reuters
World oil markets are tightening as Chinese fuel demand increases and OPEC supplies fall, draining inventories, the West’s energy agency said on Friday, in a trend that could put extra upward pressure on prices.

The International Energy Agency, which advises the industrialised nations on energy policies, has in the past few months described the oil markets as very well supplied.

It said it had now a more "sobering, ‘morning after’ view" although it was too early to become seriously concerned or declare a return to the bull market.

It steeply raised 2013 global oil demand forecasts despite concerns about the health of the world economy…
(18 January 2013)

Image credit: Oil well pump jacks – Richard Masoner/flickr

 


Tags: Industry, peak oil