IIRC Iran exports crude oil for refining across the Gulf and then imports the products, presumably at a premium. It will be interesting to see if new refineries are added.
IIRC Iran exports crude oil for refining across the Gulf and then imports the products, presumably at a premium. It will be interesting to see if new refineries are added.
davidbfpo
GCC energy consumption
Chatham House has come out with another excellent examination of energy consumption within Persian Gulf countries.
"The six GCC countries - Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE and Bahrain - now consume more primary energy than the whole of Africa. Yet they have just one twentieth of that continent’s population. Energy intensity in the region is high and rising....
Almost 100% of energy in the region is produced from oil and gas without carbon dioxide abatement, and water security is increasingly dependent on energy-driven desalination. If the region’s fuel demand were to continue rising as it has over the last decade, it would double by 2024. This is a deeply undesirable prospect for both the national security of each state and the global environment."
http://www.chathamhouse.org/publicat...rs/view/193884
USDA report on Climate Change
In February USDA released a major analysis, "Climate Change and Agriculture in the United States: Effects and Adaptation" (193 pgs) but I only discovered it now.
http://www.usda.gov/oce/climate_chan...griculture.htm
Here in southeastern Ontario the weather has been relatively normal so far this year (unlike last year with its super-warm March which caused premature budding of fruit trees, then a summer drought followed by Sandy's spin-off).
It sounds like the Arctic has seen a return to more normal ice retreat as well:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Nigerian oil theft
Chatham House released a rather detailed (85 pgs) examination of oil theft in Nigeria, which has now reached industrial proportions (at least 100,000 bpd):
http://www.chathamhouse.org/publicat...rs/view/194254
The short video (3 min) is worth watching: the analyst (Christina Katsouris?) provides a thoughtful summary.
Peak LTO, Peak Oil
Ron Patterson started his own website prior to the closing of The Oil Drum, where Ron was one of the mainstay contributors. His postings were detailed and always sourced from EIA, BP, IEA, etc.
Dave Hughes is a veteran geoscientist, now retired from the Geological Survey of Canada where he was a leading analyst re. coal and unconventional gas. He is also a meticulous researcher who is careful in his assertions.
In yesterday's posting, Ron uses Dave's forecast re. US light tight oil (LTO) to conclude that the global peak in oil production will occur "no later than 2015." Ron is not prone to making predictions (he usually simply posts the data and offers his analysis) so I'm not sure what prompted him to do so this time.
In any event, Ron's prediction is quite in line with what the Joint Operating Environment said in 2008 (and again in 2010).
http://peakoilbarrel.com/world-oil-production-peak/
Rick,Originally Posted by Rick M
The JOE's source for their information was the IEA report, this is what IEA is saying now.
http://www.iea.org/aboutus/faqs/oil/
Bold highlights are mineWhat is peak oil?
Peak oil can mean different things to different people. Some see it as the potential result of economies maturing and deploying more energy-efficient and diverse fuel technologies, meaning that year-on-year growth in world oil demand may level off. Others see it as the maximum possible annual rate of extraction of conventional crude oil, due either to physical resource constraints or above-ground political, economic or logistical factors. While others insist that since the definition of what constitutes conventional oil is constantly changing, total producible liquid fuels is what should be looked at.
Where does the IEA stand in the peak oil argument?
Our analysis suggests there are ample physical oil and liquid fuel resources for the foreseeable future. However, the rate at which new supplies can be developed and the break-even prices for those new supplies are changing. Global oil production levels are also dependent on the production policy of OPEC, which holds between one and six million barrels per day of spare capacity in reserve. Declining oil production in any given year can occur for one of several reasons unrelated to peak production, including OPEC production decisions, unplanned field stoppages and the impact of earlier investment decisions by the oil industry. A combination of sustained high prices and energy policies aimed at greater end-use efficiency and diversification in energy supplies might actually mean that peak oil demand occurs in the future before the resource base is anything like exhausted.
To me it seems the analysis is constantly adjusted based on new technologies and new oil field discoveries. None the less energy security will remain a principle security concern for most, if not all countries.
"what IEA is saying now"
Thanks for your reply, Bill.
What the IEA says is sometimes inconsistent, even contradictory. Some of the strongest warning about PO and future oil supply have been oral statement by Fatih Birol, but usually they are not repeated/supported in formal IEA memos or documents.
In any even, a few lines of this year's WEO are quite striking and certainly warrant further analysis:
[The IEA sees] "oil output (excluding NGLs) dropping from 74 mb/d in 2012 to less than 13 mb/d in 2035, half of which would be from large onshore fields in the Middle East where decline rate are lowest."
Conventional, pump-able petroleum has been the mainstay of mankind's liquid fuel supply for over 150 years. To learn that even the IEA (which is traditionally overly optimistic in its prognoses) sees conventional oil supply shrinking to a mere 13 mbpd in 22 years' time ought to have alarm bells ringing.....
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