Global energy investment fell by 12% in 2016, the second consecutive year of decline, as increased spending on energy efficiency and electricity networks was more than offset by a continued drop in upstream oil and gas spending, according to the International Energy Agency’s annual World Energy Investmentreport.
Global energy investment amounted to USD 1.7 trillion in 2016, or 2.2% of global GDP. For the first time, spending on the electricity sector around the world exceeded the combined spending on oil, gas and coal supply. The share of clean-energy spending reached 43% of total supply investment, a record high.
Hubbert’s fame in peak oil circles comes primarily from the assertion that he accurately predicted the 1970 U.S. peak. Because of this prediction, Hubbert is widely-regarded among peak oil adherents as a visionary. He has been called an oracle and a prophet. A recently published article — What Hubbert And Pickens Got Right About Oil, And What’s Next — recounts the uncanny accuracy of his prediction.
Source: Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels by M. King Hubbert
But now, just as shale gas prices are finally rebounding from last year’s all-time-lows, the United States’ two biggest shale gas deposits are producing record amounts of fuel, threatening to push gas prices back down. As the Appalachian Marcellus shale basin and the Texas-based Permian basin rush to conquer a market share, the U.S. gas glut shows no signs of stopping.
Methane emissions influence but do not undermine the environmental case for gas. If the industry can build on the progress to date and deliver a clearer picture on the level of emissions and actions to address them, the arguments for gas displacing coal in power generation and oil products in transport become much stronger.
“End-Coal” Global Coal Tracker does a magnificent job of showing how essential coal is around the world, and which countries are pathetically backwards in developing new coal plants. It’s probably not what the “CoalSwarm” team was hoping to achieve, but this map is a real asset to those of us who want to show how tiny Australia’s coal fired assets are compared to the rest of the world
The study found that dispersants broke up the oil into tiny droplets, making them less buoyant and unable to float to the surface. This meant that the oil formed a layer deep below the surface of the water, making it easier for microbes that live in the deep ocean to eat it. However, scientists weren’t able to measure the exact amount of oil eliminated by the microbes.
Due largely to these oil-eating bacteria, the Gulf of Mexico recovered from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill faster than scientists thought possible and has returned to pre-spill levels of environmental health.
For the past two years, U. Alberta geophysicist Mirko Van der Baan and his team have been poring over 30 to 50 years of earthquake rates from six of the top hydrocarbon-producing states in the United States and the top three provinces by output in Canada: North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, West Virginia, Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan.
With only one exception, the scientists found no province- or state-wide correlation between increased hydrocarbon production and seismicity. They also discovered that human-induced seismicity is less likely in areas that have fewer natural earthquakes.
Norway on Wednesday proposed to open up a record number of blocks in the Barents Sea to oil exploration despite protests from environmentalists and others fearing possible damage to the Arctic region.
The Norwegian oil and energy ministry offered oil companies 93 blocks in the Barents Sea and nine others in the Norwegian Sea, all located beyond the Arctic Circle.
Petroleum, natural gas, coal, renewable energy, and nuclear electric power are primary energy sources. Electricity is a secondary energy source that is generated from primary energy sources.
The speed and scale at which U.S. shale production has bounced back from the slump in 2015/16 has confounded OPEC and all the other major forecasters.
The oil market is on an unsustainable course with output from U.S. shale and other non-OPEC sources 010increasing rapidly, while OPEC and its allies trim production to reduce inventories and prop up prices.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects non-OPEC output will increase by 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2018 (“Oil Market Report”, IEA, June 2017).
If that proves correct, non-OPEC suppliers will capture all the increase in demand next year, because the IEA predicts consumption will increase by only 1.4 million bpd.
Dès 1742, dans la région de Pechelbronn en Alsace, des tarières (outils permettant de percer le sol) étaient destinées à localiser les filons de sable bitumineux. L’huile était séparée du sable par lessivage à l’eau bouillante, puis distillée pour obtenir des produits pharmaceutiques, de l’huile pour lampe, de la graisse et de la poix.
C’est en 1778 que Peter Pond a localisé les premières sources de bitume dans la région d’Athabasca, mais c’est Robert Fitzsimmons, un entrepreneur, qui est le premier à avoir séparé le bitume du sable et qui l’a utilisé pour recouvrir les routes et les toitures. Si les Amérindiens ont depuis des siècles utilisé ce bitume pour calfater des embarcations, les sables bitumineux n’ont vraiment attiré l’attention de l’industrie pétrolière qu’après les chocs pétroliers.
Les États-Unis sont restés les premiers producteurs mondiaux de gaz naturel et d’hydrocarbures liquides en 2016 selon un article publié hier par l’EIA américaine. État des lieux.
La reprise de la hausse de production américaine d’hydrocarbures liquides est, selon IFP Énergies nouvelles, due pour moitié au pétrole de schiste mais aussi à une augmentation de la production des liquides de gaz naturel et de celle de pétrole issu de gisements offshore (fruit des investissements décidés entre 2010 et 2014 lorsque les cours du pétrole étaient au plus haut).
Some wars are fought on the sidelines. They too are full of ideas, intrigue and bravado. Some backfire thoroughly. The Saudis took a brunt of it in their war with shale.
In the US, after the peak oil production of early seventies, the oil industry went into a limbo. It even looked like the US would be an importer of oil forever. Yet, thing did change.
by Collin Eaton, May 27, 2017 in Houston Chronicle
Drillers have mastered feat of pumping more at less cost
On a drilling rig towering above quiet cattle farms in Southeast Texas, Eric Williams perched inside the cabin of the 16-story machine, twisting a pair of joysticks to guide a gigantic wrench roaring into action, drowning out every sound as it reached for a 1,500-pound pipe emerging from the earth – pipe that soon will feed oil into a second shale boom.
U.S. oil production continues to rise relentlessly, frustrating efforts by OPEC and non-OPEC oil exporters to rebalance the global market and secure an increase in the price of crude.
After a devastating slump in 2015 and 2016, the U.S. oil industry has returned to strong growth, with drilling and output rising rapidly
Russian energy major Rosneft and the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq have signed a number of oil exploration and production agreements. It is the biggest deal made by a Russian company so far at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF 2017).
In the western United States 160,000 abandoned mines contaminate soils in the region. Researchers hope to solve this problem with biochar, a charcoal-like substance that can reduce the toxic consequences of mining for metals.
If you’re in the energy business, here is a new manual for you that lays out the essentials of what energy is and how it shapes geopolitics today. Professor and long-time European Commission official Samuele Furfari has condensed his 39 years of experience in the energy sector into a two-volume tome of more than 1,250 pages that goes right from the fundamentals of physics through Britain’s rule of the Middle East to modern day realities such as “Rosatom, the undisputed nuclear leader”, “Biofuels, a subsidised reality”, smart cities and the latest gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean. Energy Post spoke with the author about his new book.
The fuel-hungry country has been pursuing the energy source, located at the bottom of oceans and in polar regions, for nearly two decades. China’s minister of land and resources, Jiang Daming, said Thursday that the successful collection of the frozen fuel was “a major breakthrough that may lead to a global energy revolution,” according to state media.
Experts agree that flammable ice could be a game changer for the energy industry, similar to the U.S. shale boom. But they caution that big barriers — both technological and environmental — need to be cleared to build an industry around the frozen fuel, which is also known as gas hydrate.
The United States has a broader array of energy options than China does. However, China is innovating and investing heavily in what it has, and some of the transformations it is achieving already are truly impressive.
China’s leaders have made a strategic choice about the direction of the country: They are aiming to shift from an economy based on heavy, polluting industries to one driven by technology and innovation. The political will for this upgrade has roots in both international geostrategic ambitions and domestic popular grievances about lagging standards of living—and it is beginning to bear fruit. In the process, however, vested interests and technical stumbling blocks have wasted resources and acted as a ballast against Chinese progress. China has the potential to do much more, and the international community should push it to achieve that potential.
OPEC said that one producer in particular is to blame: The U.S., where shale producers have continued to ramp up their drilling despite lower crude prices.
by Olivier Appert, Président du Conseil Français de l’Energie
in Connaissance des Energies, 10 mai 2017
Depuis la découverte du colonel Drake en 1859, le pétrole a joué de façon continue un rôle majeur dans la politique économique américaine et sur le plan international, il a été un outil clé du leadership américain. Au fil du temps, cette politique a dû composer avec une modification des rapports de force sur le marché pétrolier. La révolution récente des hydrocarbures non conventionnels a été un game changer majeur.Au fond, la politique pétrolière du nouveau président américain n’est qu’un retour aux sources.
La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse
