ODAC
News
Wednesday
09 May
The Oil
Depletion Analysis Centre
1/
IEA and EIA Forecast UK To Be Net Oil Importer for 2007
(ODAC, Wed 09 May)
2/ Automobile
Manufacturing in Russia Up 15.6% to 372,000 in 1Q07 (FC
Novosti, Mon 07 May)
3/
Silence on geothermal deafening (Toronto
Star, Mon 07 May)
4/ Peak Oil or
Dependence on Russian Gas – Which is more important for Turkish Public?
(Turkish Weekly, Mon 07 May)
5/ Nuclear power no
cure for global warming (Arabian
Business [Reuters], Thu 03 May)
6/ Green groups
dismayed as flights soar to record high
(The Independent, Wed 09 May)
7/
Taiwan, not Texas, may squeeze summer gasoline (Reuters, Wed 09
May)
8/
Infrastructure projects in UAE exceed $300b (Khaleej Times, Wed 09
May)
9/ U.S.’s thirst for
liquid natural gas growing (MSNBC, Tue
08 May)
10/ Exxon Mobil Says Peak Oil
Unlikely in the Next 25 Years – Feedback
(Dr Mamdouh Salameh, Mon 07 May)
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1/
IEA
and EIA Forecast
Comment:
Posted on the ODAC Bulletin Board today.
Article:
Forecasts from both the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the US
Energy Information Administration (EIA) suggest that the
Data released yesterday, 8th May, shows
that the EIA still forecasts the UK to be a significant oil importer this year,
and considerably more so next year - see North Sea Oil Supply (Change from Previous
Year). This graph shows that in 2007, the
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2/
Automobile
Manufacturing in
http://www.fcinfo.ru/themes/basic/materials-rfcm-index.asp?folder=3352
Comment:
Growth in Russian car / lorry manufacture continues at about 15%, while Russian
oil production growth is about 2%.
Article:
The production of automobiles in
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3/
Silence
on geothermal deafening
(Toronto Star, Mon 07 May)
http://www.thestar.com/columnists/article/211080
Comment:
We do not hear / read much about geothermal energy, as the article
states.
Article:
Three months ago, the Toronto Star ran a lengthy story about an oil-industry
consortium that is quietly exploring the use of geothermal heat as an
alternative to using natural gas in the oil sands.
Today,
natural gas is burned to produce the hot steam that's needed to extract bitumen
from the tar sands.
Replacing
much of this natural gas with clean, emission-free heat under the Earth's crust,
a completely feasible option according to a recent research report out of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, would go an enormous way toward achieving
a halt, and eventually a decline, in
The
problem is, nobody is making noise about it. Not
When the
Harper government released its much-anticipated "green plan" in late April,
there was no mention of geothermal in the oil sands. Gary Lunn, federal minister
of Natural Resources Canada, has never publicly touted the
option.
The
situation is perplexing, to say the least.
On the
other hand, Lunn has been quite vocal in pushing nuclear power and its potential
as a source of energy in the oil sands.
... But it
would be, at best, eight years before a nuclear plant is built in
... Talk
of putting nukes in the oil sands may, however, be overblown. Only a couple of
oil sand developers, Husky Energy Inc. and
In March,
a natural resources parliamentary committee advised in a report that any
decision to put a nuclear plant in the oil sands should be put on hold until the
impact can be assessed and other options are
studied.
Meanwhile,
major players in the sands – Shell Canada, Suncor Energy and Nexen, to name a
few – are doing just that. As members of the GeoPower In The Oil Sands
consortium, they are doing their homework, consulting with geologists and
engineers, analyzing the business case in a quiet effort to understand
geothermal's potential.
... In
other words, like a nuclear plant, a geothermal setup would cost a lot upfront
but would pay off over 20 or 30 years because of lower operating costs. The only
difference is that geothermal doesn't require a fuel like uranium, which is
skyrocketing in price.
... This
is all good news. So why does nuclear keep capturing the headlines? Perhaps it's
because the geothermal industry doesn't have a public relations machine behind
it that's subsidized by the federal government.
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4/
Peak
Oil or Dependence on Russian Gas – Which is more important for Turkish
Public?
(Turkish Weekly, Mon 07 May)
http://www.turkishweekly.net/comments.php?id=2596
Comment:
Not an easy read, but something that all natural gas-dependent countries should
be thinking about. Natural gas shortages at the global level are on the way. LNG supplies are forecast to double between now and
2010, but demand will more than double. If you have not listened to the Wood Mackenzie video on future LNG
supplies (13.5 mins), it is recommended you do so. WM are just the latest in a
long list of consultancies painting a bleak forecast for future LNG supplies. In
Article:
... The same can be said for peak oil. Peak oil is a hot subject, but hardly any
Turkish energy discussion involves it. It is more about market, sales, new
investments, doomed scenarios regarding the energy dependency to regional
countries. But in
There may
be several reasons for that including the long history of oil, developments and
intellectual accumulation over the years with experience in the
As an
example, Turkish roads have much smaller, European/Japanese style, an[d]
increasingly diesel-powered [engine] cars. SUVs? What are they? [The author is
making the point SUVs hardly exist in
... And
how about the prices? The prices are nearly three times of the
... So, it
will not be wrong to say that,
Is this an
answer to why peak oil is not much debated in
The
answers to this questions is not easy. On important thing is the decrease in oil
consumption growth does not necessarily diminished the energy imports.
...
Therefore,
it is not a big suprise to see anyone discussing about peak oil in
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5/
Nuclear
power no cure for global warming (Arabian Business [Reuters],
Thu 03 May)
Comment:
It is not surprising that Greenpeace should be warning about nuclear energy, but
the
Article:
The [Greenpeace] report pointed to current construction of a new generator in
Similarly,
the Council on Foreign Relations, a
"Given the
current U.S. energy sources and patterns of use, nuclear energy alone does not
provide a solution for at least the next few decades for significantly reducing
the U.S. contribution to global warming," wrote Charles Ferguson, the council's
science and technology fellow.
To hold
global carbon dioxide emissions at year 2000's levels, the world would need
between 1,900 and 3,300 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2050,
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6/
Green
groups dismayed as flights soar to record high (The
Independent, Wed 09 May)
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2524436.ece
Comment:
Very impressive growth rates. They can’t go on much
longer.
Article:
Aviation growth is soaring to an all-time high, raising the prospect of a huge
increase in the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.
For the
first time, more than 2.5 million commercial flights will be made around the
world in a single month, with 2.51 million scheduled for May, says the flight
information company OAG. This beats the previous record of 2.49 million flights
last August.
The figure
marks year-on-year global growth in flight numbers of 5 per cent, which
translates as an extra 114,000 flights and 17.7 million extra passenger seats
compared with May last year.
The growth
rate, green campaigners said yesterday, would considerably outstrip any
improvements the airlines could make in engine fuel efficiency or traffic
management to bring down emissions. Aviation is the fastest-growing source of
carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, and also the origin of other
greenhouse gases including nitrous oxide and water
vapour.
The new
figures highlight not only the remorseless upward trend in global aviation, now
greatly boosted by the cheap flights sector, but also astonishing increases in
some individual countries.
Flights to
and from Russia are up by 16 per cent since this time last year, while flight
numbers to and from the two new EU member states, Romania and Bulgaria, are up
by 14 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. Flights in and out of
...
executive director of Greenpeace. "If Gordon Brown becomes prime minister he
should tax aviation fuel and call a halt to airport
expansion."
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7/
http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSSP15612820070509
Comment:
More info on why gasoline / petrol prices may go much higher this summer.
According to this Platts podcast (3.5 mins ,
item 6b in Monday’s ODAC News), the problem is a shortage of naphtha which is one of several components of gasoline
/ petrol. European-manufactured naphtha is being exported to
Article:
If U.S. gasoline prices rally further this summer, traders will have as much
cause to blame a new petrochemical plant in Taiwan as any refinery in
Texas.
Analysts
have expected
But some
are drawing a link between the tightening market for Asian naphtha -- which has
rebounded to near the unexpected record highs of March -- and
The
... Driven
by margins, companies that run reformers -- refining units that can transform
aromatic naphtha into either gasoline blendstock or a petrochemical feed -- have
maximized the latter.
"It looks
like more than two-thirds of
With
regional reforming capacity estimated at around 2.5 million bpd, that one-third
swing may have cut out as much as 800,000 bpd in gasoline blendstock output,
Troner estimated.
...
Analysts warned that the renewed surge in naphtha values to near record-high
premium of more than $200 a tonne to Brent crude could stymie further flows, and
keep pulling until the next tranche of new Asian refining capacity in late 2008
or 2009.
... "The
Quicker
economic growth outside the
"Gasoline
prices will likely have to spike further to invite more supply or moderate
demand growth," it said.
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8/
Infrastructure
projects in UAE exceed $300b (Khaleej Times, Wed 09
May)
Comment:
An ODAC News reader writes:
“From
another article I cannot fined I read the AGCC [GCC?] now consumes 17% of its oil
extraction domestically with consumption increasing 5% per annum in recent years
and 9% for electricity use. All these mega projects and increasing populations
will almost certainally accelerate this leaving less and less for exports
(though products may increase).”
Article:
... "Although most of these expenditures are in the hydrocarbon sector, well
over $100 billion is in power generation, with the GCC's annual average power
consumption growing by 9 per cent per annum, more than three times the global
average. More than $50 billion of the GCC's capital projects are in the
industrial sector," said Morse in his report entitled "Beyond petrodollars:
Globalisation and sustainable development in the
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9/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18556688/
Comment:
Nothing in the article about tight LNG supplies
ahead.
Article:
... Energy companies have proposed 35 new
The
majority of the projects are proposed for the Northeast, which has seen huge
price increases for heating oil and public distrust of nuclear power;
... In
1999, gas traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange at an average price of
$2.35 per million British thermal units. Last year, the price averaged $9.20. In
between, there were price spikes as high as $20.
The
At the
same time, gas supplies are getting tighter.
In the
Gulf of Mexico, production has declined by more than 4 billion cubic feet per
day since 2001, while production in the
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10/
Exxon
Mobil Says Peak Oil Unlikely in the Next 25 Years –
Feedback (Dr Mamdouh Salameh, Mon 07
May)
Background:
Monday’s item 3 was:
Exxon Mobil Says Peak Oil Unlikely in the Next 25 Years (Daily Reckoning, Thu 03
May)
http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/exxon-mobil-peak-oil/2007/05/03/
Dr Mamdouh
Salameh sent the following comment in response to
Exxon
Mobil’s position peak oil.
Feedback: The
governments of the major oil-consuming countries as well as Exxon Mobil and the
other multi-national oil companies and some international organizations such as
the International Energy Agency (IEA) are in a state of denial about the reality
and implications of peak oil.
Global
conventional oil production peaked in 2006. However, my own research indicates
that the peak may have already been reached in 2004 if we factor in what I
describe as “OPEC’s inflated proven oil reserves”. My research indicates that
OPEC’s proven oil reserves are overstated by some 300 billion barrels (bb). The current price fluctuations for crude
oil are a manifestation of the peak.
A peak in
oil production would manifest itself by rapidly escalating prices, a slowdown in
production, a growing supply deficit, declining discovery rate of new oil and
also a declining Energy Return on Investment ratio. All these characteristics
exist today.
A delay or
even a reversal of the peaking of conventional oil production could have been
achieved by two pivotal factors: New major crude oil discoveries and an
improvement in oil recovery rates. However, world oil discovery peaked in 1962
and production of conventional oil peaked in 2006. This means that sizeable
reserves could only be added through a major improvement of the oil recovery
rates.
And
despite the great technological strides by the oil industry, the average global
oil recovery rate has been stuck at 32% of the oil in place since the early
1990s. However, rates of 50% and even 55% have been achieved in the North Sea
and also in the most recently-developed, state-of-the-art “Shaybah oilfield” in
Peak oil
is not only a reality but is already impacting on oil prices, the world economy
and the global energy security. The almost quadrupling of oil prices since 2002
is not an anomaly but a picture of the future. With the peaking of global
conventional oil production, geopolitics and market economics will result in
even more significant price increases and security risks. Oil wars are certainly
not out of the question. Moreover, the days of inexpensive, convenient and
abundant energy sources are quickly drawing to a
close.
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