Surging shale production is poised to continue pushing U.S. oil output to more than 10 million barrels per day – toppling a record set in 1970 and crossing a threshold few could have imagined even a decade ago. The U.S. government forecasts that the nation’s production will climb to 11 million barrels a day by late 2019, a level that would rival Russia, the world’s top producer.
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New technology, new fields
The next phase of shale output growth depends on techniques to squeeze more oil from each well. Companies are now putting sensors on drill bits to more precisely access oil deposits, using artificial intelligence and remote operators to get the most out of equipment and trained engineers.
HOUSTON — A substantial rise in oil prices in recent months has led to a resurgence in American oil production, enabling the country to challenge the dominance of Saudi Arabia and dampen price pressures at the pump.
The success has come in the face of efforts by Saudi Arabia and its oil allies to undercut the shale drilling spree in the United States. Those strategies backfired and ultimately ended up benefiting the oil industry.
Overcoming three years of slumping prices proved the resiliency of the shale boom. Energy companies and their financial backers were able to weather market turmoil — and the maneuvers of the global oil cartel — by adjusting exploration and extraction techniques.
Quartz.com here presents an interesting chart which tells us the green energy revolution of the past 30 years has resulted in practically nothing. It’s been a flop. Fossil fuels remain as wildly popular as ever.
by Jillian Ambrose, January 9, 2018, in TheTelegraph Business
Cuadrilla will be allowed to test wells in the Sussex countryside until 2021 to see whether the fossil fuel flows from underground limestone rock could be a commercial source of homegrown energy.
The unanimous approval of the county council does not include permission to use the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, but is nonetheless likely to reignite local opposition.
The world has nothing to worry about reserves. After 40 years of fearing energy shortages, we now live with abundance. Guard against false narratives, not scarce resources says Samuele Furfari, Professor at Université libre de Bruxelles.
The geopolitical risks to the United States’ oil supply are the lowest since the early 1970s, due to fracking, climate action and a more diverse global supply, according to a new paper. America’s energy prosperity contrasts with a more fraught period for energy-exporting countries where geopolitical challenges have been compounded by fiscal stress and rising domestic energy demand, the authors said.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke today announced the next step for responsibly developing the National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program (National OCS Program) for 2019-2024, which proposes to make over 90 percent of the total OCS acreage and more than 98 percent of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources in federal offshore areas available to consider for future exploration and development. By comparison, the current program puts 94 percent of the OCS off limits. In addition, the program proposes the largest number of lease sales in U.S. history.
by Thomas Heath, December 31, 2017 in Washington Post
U.S. crude oil production is flirting with record highs heading into the new year, thanks to the technological nimbleness of shale oil drillers .
The current abundance has erased memories of 1973 gas lines, which raised pump prices dramatically, traumatizing the United States and reordering its economy. In the decades since, presidents and politicians have made pronouncements calling for U.S. energy independence.
Activity in Pennsylvania’s gas fields slowed in recent years amid low prices, but operators ramped up drilling in 2017, and they’re expecting to drill even more in the new year.
Greens who celebrated China’s switch to gas are now worried the plans seem to be in disarray, as rushed conversions trigger a gas supply crisis. But behind the scenes, China is pursuing a gas production plan so carbon intensive, even Chinese greens are openly criticising central government policy.
Selon les prévisions annoncées dans l’édition d’octobre du Commodity Markets Outlook, les prix des produits énergétiques (pétrole, gaz naturel et charbon) progresseront seulement de 4 % en 2018, après l’envolée de 28 % de cette année.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) reports that about 100 GW of new coal-fired power generation capacity is expected to come online in Southeast Asia by 2040, more than doubling the region’s current coal power capacity. Global coal-fired generation capacity to grow by nearly 50% over today’s levels.
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Southeast Asian demand for oil will keep growing until at least 2040 as emerging nations there rely on the fossil fuel to transport their rapidly growing populations, ship goods and make plastics, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday.
Oil usage in the region will expand to around 6.6 million barrels per day by 2040 from 4.7 million bpd now, with the number of road vehicles increasing by two-thirds to around 62 million, the agency said in a report. It did not make any forecasts beyond 2040.
Les émissions américaines de CO2 liées à l’énergie ont baissé de 1,7% en 2016. Elles ont toutefois encore atteint près de 5,2 milliards de tonnes l’an dernier, ce qui fait toujours des États-Unis le 2e émetteur mondial après la Chine.
L’OPEP (Organisation des Pays Exportateurs de Pétrole), dénommée OPEC en anglais (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), est une organisation intergouvernementale fondée à l’issue de la conférence de Bagdad le 14 septembre 1960 par le Venezuela, l’Irak, l’Arabie saoudite, le Koweït et l’Iran.
by Nicole Jacobs, October 3, 2017 in ClimateChangeDispatch
The report, which bases its CO2 emissions estimates off International Energy Agency (IEA) and BP data through 2016, found the global CO2 levels essentially remained flat in 2015 and 2016. As BP noted earlier this year, the global trend is “well below the 10-year average growth of 1.6% and a third consecutive year of below-average growth” and that “during 2014-16, average emissions growth has been the lowest over any three-year period since 1981-83.”
Les énergies fossiles toujours omniprésentes dans le mix mondial
La consommation mondiale d’énergie primaire a encore reposé à 81,4% sur les énergies fossiles en 2015 selon les dernières données de l’AIE. En 1973, cette part atteignait 86,7% (dont 46,2% pour le seul pétrole) et les énergies décarbonées ont ainsi légèrement progressé dans le mix énergétique mondial.
Notons que les productions mondiales de gaz naturel et de charbon ont respectivement triplé et plus que doublé depuis 1973. Les émissions mondiales de CO2 relatives à la combustion d’énergie ont pour leur part doublé durant cette période.
Energy researchers at IHS Markit have completed the first, three-year phase of a massive Permian Basin research project that models and interprets the giant basin’s key geologic characteristics to better estimate its remaining hydrocarbon potential, and initial results indicate the giant basin still holds an estimated 60 billion to 70 billion barrels of technically recoverable resources.
To conduct this new analysis, researchers used the IHS Markit historical well and production database that includes more than 440,000 Permian Basin wells, and a new proprietary software tool that, for the first time, enables them to leverage interpreted formation ‘tops’ data to identify accurate formations for completion intervals on hundreds of thousands of wells
Les gisements sont des zones généralement profondes où l’on trouve de grandes quantités de charbon. Il faut forer des puits pour y accéder et extraire le minerai. Lorsque les réserves de charbon sont relativement proches de la surface de la terre, une exploitation à ciel ouvert peut être mise en place. Il existe également des gisements de charbon sous les océans, pour le moment inexploités.
by Sebastien Laye, September 18, 2017 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
Those voices are the impetus behind what Subramanian calls a “green and clean coal coalition” spanning both the developed and developing worlds. Emerging markets in Asia and Africa will continue to build new coal-fired power stations for at least the next two decades. In that timeframe, coal-fired solutions are indispensable to meeting their demands for electrification and growth. As clean coal solutions emerge, new plants in the developing world can and should be far cleaner than previous generations of coal-fired plants in Europe and America.
Après avoir vu leur production tripler entre 2010 et 2014, les « light tight oil » américains (LTO), fréquemment appelés « pétroles de schiste », ont fait preuve d’une résilience étonnante lors de la chute des prix. Ils surprennent aujourd’hui à nouveau les marchés et pourraient contrarier la stratégie de l’OPEP.
Dans cette étude publiée par le Centre Énergie de l’Ifri, Sylvie Cornot-Gandolphe (voir le .pdf ci-dessous) présente les grands changements du secteur des LTO américains au cours des dernières années en expliquant leur résilience lors de la chute des cours et leurs perspectives de croissance.
La consommation mondiale d’énergie pourrait augmenter de 28% entre 2015 et 2040 selon les dernières prévisions de l’EIA (agence américaine d’information sur l’énergie) présentées hier. Le mix énergétique mondial devrait pour sa part rester très largement dominé par les énergies fossiles dans les décennies à venir.
World energy consumption is projected to rise to 736 quadrillion btu (quads) in 2040 from 575 quads in 2015, an increase of 28%, according to the latest International Energy Outlook 2017 (IEO2017) from the US Energy Information Administration.
Most of this growth is expected to come from countries that are not in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and especially in countries where demand is driven by strong economic growth, particularly in Asia. Non-OECD Asia, which includes China and India, accounts for more than 60% of the world’s total increase in energy consumption from 2015 through 2040.
While the United States gears up for what is expected to be a record-breaking production year in 2018, the rest of the world remains far away from catching up to America’s runaway shale success. But while the U.S. may be the only country producing commercially significant volumes of shale today, it’s not the only one with sizable shale reserves—according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Argentina, Algeria, and China all have more shale gas than the United States, and Russia has nearly as much tight oil
La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse
