ODAC News – Fri 16 Mar
1/ Oil
companies running hard to stand still
(The Age [
2/ Wasteful Britons cause green risk by
dumping 6.7m tonnes of food a year
(The Times, Fri 16 Mar)
3/ An ODAC News reader from the
3a/ And from that (virtual) farm he made a pile,
e-i-e-i-o [Magus Linklater] (The Times,
Wed 14 Mar)
3b/ Fiddling while
4/ BLOOD AND OIL
(The Economist, Thu 15 Mar)
5/ The Big Crew Change: Turnover in the
Oil Workforce (The Oil Drum:
6/ Gazprom Ponders New Forms
of Work with Foreigners
(FC Novosti, Fri 16 Mar)
7/ Russians Prefer Foreign Cars
(FC Novosti, Fri 16 Mar)
1 ton of crude = approx 7.3 barrels of oil (6.6-8.0
bbl. of crude oil with 7.333 bbl. taken as average)
100 million tonnes/year = 2 million barrels/day
(approx)
mbd OR mn b/d OR Mb/d = million barrels per day
mn cf/d OR Mcf/d = million cubic
feet per day
Quotations from articles are now always in this type
of chevron: <<>>
If an ODAC comment is within an article, it will begin
with: ODAC:
where appropriate for clarification.
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1/ Oil
companies running hard to stand still (The Age [
Phil Hart of ASPO-Australia is doing a sterling job of
getting the message out. A link to the side of the article shows that The Age
also published last week’s New York Times anti-Peak Oil article (see
“Here's the drill: new oil to come from old ground”):
<<DURING a previous oil price crisis in the
United States, a jovial service station attendant may have remarked to
customers that "We've run out of $2 gas, but we've got plenty of $5
gas". Attendants on the trading floors might today observe that we've got
plenty of $80 (
Last Friday, the US Energy Information Administration
released oil production data to the end of last year. Crude oil production was
nearly 200,000 barrels a day lower than in 2005. Total liquid supply was flat.
That's gripping news and should be enough to rattle any economist's confidence.
Despite a calm hurricane season, record prices and a
forecast consensus from energy agencies that supply would continue to grow, oil
production stalled last year. Were the oil companies not trying hard enough?
Chris Skrebowski, editor of the British oil industry
journal Petroleum Review, would not agree. He has just published his annual Megaprojects report. The numbers show the global oil
industry implemented oilfield projects providing an extra 3.2 million barrels a
day to the market last year.
This is a historically high level of activity. So why
was production flat, and even falling in many countries? The answer begins with
"d" and gets to the heart of the debate about when global oil
production will finally peak and begin its terminal decline: depletion.
... The oil industry is running hard but only just
managing to stand still. The size of discoveries in the new frontiers is
falling. Depletion, the rate production is declining in existing oil provinces,
meanwhile, increases.
In just a few years, the scales that are now finely
balanced between new production coming on stream and declines in mature regions
may lean more heavily on the side of depletion. Peak oil would then be behind
us and our economies will be forced to survive with less oil each year.
What then for oil prices? Supply can no longer
increase to meet rising expectations. Increasing oil prices over the past five
years, and the subsequent fall in vulnerable housing markets, have pushed the
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2/
Wasteful Britons cause green risk by dumping 6.7m tonnes of food a year
(The Times, Fri 16 Mar)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1523876.ece
“Britons throw away a third of the food they buy
, unnecessarily harming the environment, according to a new report”
– in other words, we could theoretically lose one third of our food say
as a result of Peak Oil, and still have a severe obesity problem. On the other
hand, it points out just how much energy and resources we waste unnecessarily,
and the huge savings we can make should we ever get our collective act
together:
<<Britons waste up to 6.7 million tonnes of food
a year which unnecessarily harms the environment, according to a report due to
be published today.
The study by Wrap, the government's waste body, is
likely to lay the blame with shoppers for buying too much food, failing to
store it properly and allowing it to go out of date.
It estimates that the average household throws away
almost a third of all the food it buys, hurting their pockets as well as the
planet...>>
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3/ An
ODAC News reader from the
<< I see peak oil is at last making its way into
comment about climate change. Magus Linklater in the Times of
Wednesday about the future for farming wrote: ' As oil production peaks
and reducing carbon emissions becomes a key target in the battle against global
warming, the demand will be for more local production rather than the long
distance trade in cheap food from abroad.' He quotes a recent Soil
Association conference in support of his views. [ODAC – that is the Soil
Assoc annual Conf in Cardiff Jan 25th focusing on Peak Oil. There
were over 800 attendees, including ODAC. There is a write-up on the ODAC
Bulletin Board.]
On Tuesday there was a letter from John Busby of Bury
St Edmunds about 'the absurdity of the Tory proposal to "ration" air
travel. Any such restriction will soon be overtaken by the event of oil
depletion.' 'Cameron and Miliband need to temper their enthusiasm for
carbon reduction with the reality of resource depletion.' >>
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3a/ And from
that (virtual) farm he made a pile, e-i-e-i-o [Magus
Linklater] (The Times, Wed 14
Mar)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/magnus_linklater/article1511790.ece
The section on peaking oil production and localising
food sources is the last section of the article. As a general rule, it is ok
for columnists to discuss oil and gas depletion issues, but not editorials.
Let’s hope we read more from Magnus:
<<… And yet, as most experts who have
looked at the future of farming agree, this is the very reverse of what is
needed. As oil production peaks, and reducing carbon emissions becomes a key
target in the battle against global warming, the demand will be for more local
production rather than the long-distance trade in cheap food from abroad that
keeps our superstores supplied at present. Neither Gordon Brown nor David
Cameron mentioned it when they unveiled their separate green policies this week,
but encouraging “localisation” — smaller units, less trucking
of long-distance food, more self-sufficiency in farm production — is
vital to a successful rural economy and essential if carbon emission targets
are to be met.
A recent conference held by the Soil Association heard
from a range of experts, all of whom emphasised the dangers for
Two things are needed to make sense of all this. The
first is to press on with reform of the CAP, which everyone agrees is holding
farming back. The second is solid, down-to-earth advice from experts who know
how farming works, and can see how it might develop over the next few decades.
Both mean long-term thinking and both are needed badly, and needed now, before
the desiccated decision-making that currently passes for rural policy reduces
our farming industry to a piece of slick accountancy. >>
3b/ Fiddling
while
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/debate/letters/article1505396.ece
It is the second letter down. John Busby is author of
the Busby Report.
<< The absurdity of the Tory proposal to
“ration” air travel is that any such restriction on aviation fuel
consumption will soon be overtaken by the event of oil depletion
(“Growing costs ‘put Shetland oilfield plans in
jeopardy’,” Business, March 12 ). This reports aligns you with the
often scorned “peak oilers” club in
heralding the rising costs of upstream oil production. Ominously, ExxonMobil,
Shell and BP have opted to buy back their shares rather than increase
exploration and development expenditure to augment their falling
“booked” oil reserves. For nonOpec
companies the peak in oil production was passed in 2005.
Without the burden of taxation, jet fuel costs will
rise considerably and will be of insufficient quantity to fuel the expansion in
air travel envisaged by the Department of Transport. The first to suffer will
be the aircraft builders. As runways revert to parking lots for aircraft with
empty tanks, orders for new planes will be cancelled.
Miliband and Cameron need to temper their enthusiasm
for carbon reduction with the reality of resource depletion. The emptying of
the world’s fuel tank will bring the reduction in emissions they seek and
climate change will stall. The change in lifestyle they want us to embrace will
be forced on us rather than coerced by taxation. >>
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4/
BLOOD AND OIL (The
Economist, Thu 15 Mar)
http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8861488
<<Elections could further destabilise the
violent, oil-rich Delta region
THE seedy drinking-holes frequented by burly foreign
oilmen in
In the past year, attacks on oil facilities have
forced Nigeria to shut down a fifth of its production; over 100 foreign workers
have been kidnapped in the oil-producing Niger Delta region. Higher security
costs and a shrinking number of expatriates willing to take the risks of
working there have sharply slowed new investment. The Nigerian government has
lost billions of dollars in oil revenues. Now the multinational oil companies,
such as Royal Dutch Shell, that operate in
... The fear is that militants could work alone or
with MEND to disrupt elections in the Delta states and launch attacks on the
oil industry as a way of holding the PDP state and federal governments to
ransom. “Either bodies are going to pile up or we are going to see an oil
shock, or both,” says an oil-industry security official...>>
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5/ The
Big Crew Change: Turnover in the Oil
Workforce (The Oil Drum:
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/2369#more
<<The mainstay of the oil- and gas industry
workforce will retire in the coming ten years. While there is a fair amount of
thinking about how to fix this huge problem in the oil- and gas industry, this
factor is being ignored in the energy scenarios of the International Energy
Agency and Energy Information Administration. This posts looks at the numbers
and potential effect on oil production of the retirement in the oil-industry.
The retirement of the workforce in the industry is
normally referred to as “the big crew change”. People in this
sector normally retire at the age of 55. Since the average age of an employee
working at a major oil company or service company is 46 to 49 years old, there
will be a huge change in personnel in the coming ten years, hence the
“big crew change”. This age distribution is a result of the oil
crises in ‘70s and ‘80s as shown in chart 1 & 2 below. The
rising oil price led to a significant increase in the inflow of petroleum
geology students which waned as prices decreased...>>
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6/ Gazprom
Ponders New Forms of Work with Foreigners
(FC Novosti, Fri 16 Mar)
http://www.fcinfo.ru/themes/basic/materials-rfcm-index.asp?folder=3192
Looks like the
<<Russian energy giant Gazprom
has resumed talks with foreign concerns on the development of the Shtokman gas
condensate deposit. The monopoly should formulate new principles for
foreigners’ participation in the project within a month, but it is still
unprepared to admit them as subsoil users.
As a result, only three potential partners have
remained after US Chevron said it had no interest in the project. They are
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7/ Russians Prefer Foreign Cars
(FC Novosti, Fri 16 Mar)
http://www.fcinfo.ru/themes/basic/materials-rfcm-index.asp?folder=3308
<<Last year, Russians bought 2.06 mln cars, or 20% more than in 2005. Total revenues were $32
bln, up 45% year on year.
The difference between the quantitative and financial
growth shows that more Russians prefer to buy expensive, meaning foreign, cars,
both new imported cars and those assembled in
... Out of the 2.06 mln cars
sold on the Russian market last year, Russian-made automobiles accounted for
800,000 (about 40%). Imported foreign cars made up 720,000, foreign cars
assembled in
In other words, the lion’s share of the Russian
car market belongs to foreign cars, $27.2 bln, or 85%
of the market compared with 25% in 2002.
... Ford is the unquestionable leader on the Russian
market. Its sales went up 92% last year, to nearly 116,000. The former leader,
Hyundai, sold 100,700 cars (+15%). The third largest seller is
... the growing volume of the market (it is expected
to increase from 1.7 mln in 2005 to 2.7 mln in 2010)...>>
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