Group items tagged

The world's leading energy companies won rights to develop two major oil fields in Iraq at an auction on Friday. Royal Dutch Shell and Malaysia's Petronas were awarded the contract to exploit the Majnoon oil field in southern Iraq, one of the world's largest untapped oil fields with more than 12 billion barrels of proven reserves. They accepted a fee of 1.39 U.S. dollars per barrel.

The world's leading energy companies won rights to develop two major oil fields in Iraq at an auction on Friday. Royal Dutch Shell and Malaysia's Petronas were awarded the contract to exploit the Majnoon oil field in southern Iraq, one of the world's largest untapped oil fields with more than 12 billion barrels of proven reserves. They accepted a fee of 1.39 U.S. dollars per barrel.

Lights have been turned back on for about 28,600 Ameren Illinois Utilities (AIU) customers in Southern Illinois, while more than 1,400 field and support personnel continue to repair the extensive damage caused by Friday's inland hurricane. Throughout the day, field crews have encountered major unexpected damage to the AIU electrical distribution system in and around Carbondale. As a result, the AIU Emergency Operations Center is sending additional field personnel and specialized equipment to help overcome the enormous damage caused by the exceptionally violent spring storm. At 5:20 p.m. today, about 40,200 AIU customers are still without electric service, down from the peak outage count of 68,800 customers. The Ameren Illinois Utilities now anticipate the majority of all customers will have their lights back on by late Tuesday night. However, the unexpected severity of the damage in Carbondale means that service in and around that city may not be fully restored until Thursday.

The forthcoming IEA report continues to generate plenty of advance press. It seems some of the production decline numbers that generated so much initial chatter are actually for already declining fields - not ones growing or holding steady, so they don't really mean all that much (its the average across all fields that really counts, which may still be around the 4.5% figure CERA predicts). MSN - IEA sees oil above $100, recognizes supply limit. The world will have to live with the risk of an energy supply crunch and an oil price well above $100 a barrel in the years to come, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday. Massive investment of more than $26 trillion will be needed in the next 20 years to offset the impact of falling supply at aging oilfields and ensure the world has enough energy, the IEA said. "There remains a real risk that under-investment will cause an oil supply crunch (by 2015)," the IEA said in an executive summary of the World Energy Outlook (WEO) to be released in full next week. "The gap now evident between what is currently being built and what will be needed to keep pace with demand is set to widen sharply after 2010."

While UCG may lose out to CSM in Queensland's coal fields, the unhealthy Chinese interest in coal to liquids (and plastics) continues unabated, with their latest move being an interest in taking Linc Energy's UCG technology to the Chinese coal fields - Linc inks UCG deal in China. Linc Energy Ltd has signed a deal with Xinwen Mining Group to develop underground coal gasification (UCG) and gas to liquids (GTL) projects in China. The Queensland-based group has signed a letter of intent with Xinwen, the same company which agreed to acquire a package of Linc's Australian coal exploration permits for $1.5 billion.

In 2000 a Saudi oil geologist named Sadad I. Al Husseini made a startling discovery. Husseini, then head of exploration and production for the state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco, had long been skeptical of the oil industry's upbeat forecasts for future production. Since the mid-1990s he had been studying data from the 250 or so major oil fields that produce most of the world's oil. He looked at how much crude remained in each one and how rapidly it was being depleted, then added all the new fields that oil companies hoped to bring on line in coming decades. When he tallied the numbers, Husseini says he realized that many oil experts "were either misreading the global reserves and oil-production data or obfuscating it."

There will be blood. History of the Yates Field oilfield in Iraan Texas.

Seemingly out of concern that competitive renewable energy will damage Big Oil's bottom line, the Texas Railroad Commission wants to block transmission lines that would put affordable energy from west Texas wind farms on an even playing field with the historical titans of Texas energy - oil and gas companies. A new investment in these transmission lines would save ratepayers $2 billion a year, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 16 percent and create more than $5 billion in economic development benefits for Texas. Ratepayers, companies and organizations with an interest in seeing the further development of renewable energy and green jobs should contact the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) and tell them to deny the Railroad Commission's request to intervene. The Texas Legislature authorized these transmission lines in 2008 to address the lack of available transmission lines to deliver wind energy from the panhandle and west Texas to the major metropolitan areas in central Texas where demand is higher. This renewable energy helps reduce costs for ratepayers by providing abundant and inexpensive clean energy that helps offset the volatile price of natural gas.

Seemingly out of concern that competitive renewable energy will damage Big Oil's bottom line, the Texas Railroad Commission wants to block transmission lines that would put affordable energy from west Texas wind farms on an even playing field with the historical titans of Texas energy - oil and gas companies. A new investment in these transmission lines would save ratepayers $2 billion a year, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 16 percent and create more than $5 billion in economic development benefits for Texas. Ratepayers, companies and organizations with an interest in seeing the further development of renewable energy and green jobs should contact the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) and tell them to deny the Railroad Commission's request to intervene. The Texas Legislature authorized these transmission lines in 2008 to address the lack of available transmission lines to deliver wind energy from the panhandle and west Texas to the major metropolitan areas in central Texas where demand is higher. This renewable energy helps reduce costs for ratepayers by providing abundant and inexpensive clean energy that helps offset the volatile price of natural gas.

26,400 turbines to wean Britain off its carbon habit Revolutionary plans for a massive expansion of offshore wind farms have been unveiled in a £100bn project designed to usher in a new era of green energy for Britain. A quarter of the country's electricity needs would be met through wind power by 2020 under the strategy, with the construction of 6,400 turbines within nine sites dotted around the coast. The programme amounts to the biggest energy supply shake-up since the discovery of the North Sea oil and gas fields more than 40 years ago.

26,400 turbines to wean Britain off its carbon habit Revolutionary plans for a massive expansion of offshore wind farms have been unveiled in a £100bn project designed to usher in a new era of green energy for Britain. A quarter of the country's electricity needs would be met through wind power by 2020 under the strategy, with the construction of 6,400 turbines within nine sites dotted around the coast. The programme amounts to the biggest energy supply shake-up since the discovery of the North Sea oil and gas fields more than 40 years ago.

History of the Yates Field. Much like the story of "There Will Be Blood". Iraan Texas

The Times has an update on the efforts of western oil majors to secure Iraq's oil, noting "The big players have been shut out since nationalisation in 1972. Now they see their chance to get in" - Oil giants are itching to invade Iraq. Yet since the Iraqi government nationalised the industry in 1972, oil's main players have been shut out. Years of war and violence have kept them at bay. That may be about to change. In October the Baghdad government kicked off a round of bidding to allow international oil companies to exploit eight of the country's largest oil and gasfields. BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil and Gazprom are among the 35 companies that have put concerns about security to one side and thrown their hats in the ring. The deals would pave the way for the first significant foreign investment in the country's biggest fields in more than three decades. Some side deals have already been signed - last month Shell announced a $4 billion (£2.7 billion) gas joint venture with the Iraqi government and opened a permanent office in the country.

The Times reports that China is struggling with mass layoffs of workers and the worst drought in years - China declares an emergency amid worst drought in 50 years. The worst drought in half a century has parched fields across eight provinces in northern China and left nearly four million people without proper drinking water. Not a drop of rain has fallen on Beijing for more than 100 days, the longest dry spell for 38 years in a city known for its arid climate. The Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters described the drought as a phenomenon "rarely seen in history" as the Government declared a state of emergency. President Hu Jintao said that all efforts must be made to save the summer grain harvest.

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil - Alan Greenspan (2007) The Guardian had an interesting article recently on the auction of 40 billion barrels of Iraqi oil reserves. The biggest ever sale of oil assets will take place today, when the Iraqi government puts 40bn barrels of recoverable reserves up for offer in London. BP, Shell and ExxonMobil are all expected to attend a meeting at the Park Lane Hotel in Mayfair with the Iraqi oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani. Access is being given to eight fields, representing about 40% of the Middle Eastern nation's reserves, at a time when the country remains under occupation by US and British forces. Two smaller agreements have already been signed with Shell and the China National Petroleum Corporation, but today's sale will ignite arguments over whether the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was a "war for oil" that is now to be consummated by western multinationals seizing control of strategic Iraqi reserves.

Many local authorities use commingling - which sounds like more fun than it is, all it means is that co-mingled collections are the ones where previously separated waste is crushed together in the back of a dustcart. Once this happens, it's almost impossible to separate the recycled materials again, so what happens to the waste? Often it's taken to Materials Recovery Facilities where large amounts of energy are used to try and separate the waste again. Or it's shipped to India and spread out in fields where people then try to hand pick it back to the original categories. But it's also often just … dumped in landfill. Precisely what we were told recycling was going to stop in the first place.

Advanced drilling techniques that blast millions of gallons of water into 400-million-year-old shale formations a mile underground are opening up "unconventional" gas fields touted as a key to the nation's energy future. These deposits, where natural gas is so tightly locked in deep rocks that it's costly and complicated to extract, include the Barnett shale in Texas, the Fayetteville of Arkansas, and the Haynesville of Louisiana. But the mother lode is the Marcellus shale underlying the Appalachians.

On Wednesday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) defended Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's "experience" in "the field of national security" by asserting that "she knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America." McCain's claim to Palin's expertise was undercut the next day, however, when Palin severely overstated Alaska's energy production in an interview with ABC News's Charlie Gibson. Challenged by Gibson on her "national security credentials," Palin cited her experience as the governor of a "state that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy" as a credential that she "brings to the table":

Brazil will use revenue from newly discovered offshore oil fields to eradicate poverty, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has vowed. In a TV address, President Lula said Brazil would not squander the money but invest in technology and education.

Since the beginning of the modern oil age in 1859, pessimists have warned that the oil wells would soon dry up or that oil production would peak and not be able to keep up with ever-increasing demand. Again and again, the pessimists have been proven wrong, often embarrassingly so, as science and technology have allowed more oil to be extracted from existing fields and from deposits in more challenging locations such as the Arctic and the deepest waters of the continental shelf. Indeed, oil production rates have increased, on average, by about 1.1 million barrels per day per year over the past 10 years.

The world's largest solar photovoltaic farm is strangely beautiful. Fields lined with solar panels tilting sunward seem almost like a massive environmental art project-one with an empowering message to the world. We can find ways to run the world predominantly on clean energy if we choose to. It's already beginning. By 2020, Portugal plans to generate over a third of its energy from renewables, with that percentage increasing every year.

Oil megaprojects are large oil field projects to bring a significant amount of new oil production capacity to market. Tabulations of oil megaprojects are used in an attempt to forecast whether future global oil supply will be adequate to meet demand for oil, or whether the world is reaching Peak Oil. As such, oil megaproject analysis has been controversial. This approach to oil forecasting is also known as the "bottom-up" approach, in that it relies on building a detailed model of where and when new oil production capacity will come on line.

The BusinessWeek story cited below, along with King Abdullah's April announcement that they will not be opening new fields, provides evidence that we are near - or perhaps even at - Peak Oil. 1. It may be political peaking;: perhaps the Saudi's could invest to increase production, but choose not to (an obviously sensible decision). 2. It may be geological peaking, if the Saudi's are unable to increase production. But whether geological or political peaking, the long-discussed event may be starting now.