Energy companies

Climate change activists are foolish from a rhetorical point of view to respond to every discrete piece of disinformation spread by the fossil fuel lobby and its legion of paid publicists and unpaid dupes. Instead, these activists need to focus on the overwhelming case for human-induced climate change and advance that as succinctly and clearly as they can.

OPEC ministers meeting in Vienna this week caused no surprises in deciding to keep production quotas unchanged. Saudi oil minister Ali Al-Naimi described current prices as "beautiful". Indeed as the group met the oil price rose to $82/barrel, close to its 2010 high despite only 53% compliance by OPEC to its quotas and low US demand.

Just days before French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged attendees at a Paris energy conference to buy more nuclear power plants, a very different nuclear power conference was held in Potsdam, Germany. The Brookings Institution and the Global Public Policy Institute convened 35 people from governments, academia, think tanks, and industry to consider nuclear power's future. Craig Severance offers his own insights, and his conference presentation on why new nuclear power should undergo a rigorous business oriented "Due Diligence" process.

What do you do if you're an energy consultancy that finds itself on the wrong side of the peak oil argument just as much of the oil industry and the rest of the world embraces the idea? The solution devised by eternal optimists IHS CERA, hosting a conference in Houston this week, is to sidestep this embarrassing development by simply rebranding the problem: 'peak demand'.

-US EPA chief concerned about gas drilling fluids
-Europe the new frontier in shale gas rush
-The true cost of shale gas production
-The Natural Gas Shopping Spree Quickens

As Iraqi’s prepare to go to the polls on Sunday the country has been subjected to a month of increased violence including a string of blasts in Baghdad on Thursday targeting early voters which killed at least 14 people. The election, which will decide the next chapter of Iraq’s future, is being keenly watched by the oil industry...

The world is heading for a renewed oil crunch as soon as 2013 due to shrinking production capacity and growing demand in the emerging markets, according to reports from two investment banks. Both BofA Merril Lynch and Barclays Capital conclude non OPEC production is close to peak, meaning a shift back to reliance on OPEC for new capacity...

Oil supply optimists claim that new technology combined with private development of the world's remaining oil resources--most of which are now under the control of government-owned companies--would vastly increase global oil production and put off any decline for decades. Texas oilman Jeffrey Brown isn't buying it, and he cites the history of oil production in Texas and the North Sea to explain why.

The mood amongst oil company executives meeting in London this week for the Petroleum Week conference was largely bullish, with global oil demand expected to recover this year as the world economy crawls out of recession. But the production side of the equation is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive...

President Obama has issued marching orders for the rapid national adoption of "clean coal" technology. Last week, shortly after his budget address, he ordered a high-level task force to deliver a plan within 180 days determining how "to overcome barriers to the widespread, cost-effective deployment of CCS within 10 years, with the goal of bringing 5 to 10 commercial demonstration projects on line by 2016."

The report is what it set out to be: a well-timed wake-up call to British industry and government. ... the high profile of the companies and individuals involved is a marker of the increasingly widespread, if overdue, recognition of the UK energy dilemma.

In a busy week for energy policy, UK energy watchdog Ofgem finally acknowledged what has been obvious for years: that liberalized markets cannot deliver energy security in the era of carbon reduction and resource depletion.

The fact that nobody from ASPO was invited to discuss energy security in Davos shows that they are not interested in anyone bearing unpleasant news... Institutions and oil companies are assembling an explanation for Peak Oil that says that the resources exist but that the will to invest is lacking.

-Windfarm boost for north-east industry
-China Leading Global Race to Make Clean Energy
-Government to reward renewable energy homes with higher feed-in tariffs
-IMF plans $100bn injection into economy to fund energy efficiency
-Wind Power Grows 39% for the Year
-Powering a Green Planet: Sustainable Energy, Made Interactive

At the moment it seems like everyone wants a piece of Angola. The queue of prominent visitors is long with the USA’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at its head. Where it smells of oil one can also find China ... The international oil companies are trying to maximize oil flows from Angola’s deep water fields where production is very expensive. This means that production from these fields will lie on a plateau for some years before the usual very rapid decline begins. If we look into the future this will mean that Angola will reach Peak Oil before 2030. According to Colin Campbell they will reach peak production in about 10 years.