To pardon the pun, but the tide is turning. Soon everything could be back to normal. There is an aggressive lobbying campaign by the oil industry to overturn Obama’s offshore drilling moratorium, despite the fact that opposition of offshore drilling continues to rise. Part of the industry campaign is to argue that support for offshore … Read More
oil industry outlook
IEA Says BP Spill is a “Game Changer”
The last 24 hours of news reporting of BP’s oil spill in the UK has shifted from the devastation being wrought on the Gulf of Mexico into one where politicians and businessmen are lambasting President Obama for his “anti-British” rhetoric. A British backlash has begun. True this morning the BBC leads with the news that … Read More
US Military Warns Of “Severe Energy Crunch”
The United States Joint Forces Command goes by the slogan “Ready for today. Preparing for tomorrow”. But the military planners are certainly getting worried about tomorrow. They argue that “Fossil fuels will very likely remain the predominant energy source going forward,” but then warn that “a severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion … Read More
Has BP Backed A $7 Billion Wrong Horse?
Just days after outlining its business strategy BP is offering a massive $7 billion in cash to buy Devon Energy’s deepwater assets. In a broad-ranging deal, BP will pay Devon Energy $7 billion for assets in Brazil, Azerbaijan and the US deepwater Gulf of Mexico. Interestingly the deal also involves extraction of the oil sands. … Read More
Peter Voser Has A Gas Problem
Pardon the title, but the Wall Street Journal has an extremely interesting interview with the top dog at Shell, Peter Voser. He admits that Shell is fast becoming a gas company rather than an oil company. “Shell started quite a while back, actually, to put a lot of emphasis on gas” says Voser. “And by … Read More
BP looks to Iraq and long-term to the Arctic
The headlines from BP’s Strategy presentation yesterday are all about how chief executive Tony Hayward promised to boost annual profits by $3bn over the next two or three years. In a frank admission, Hayward said that BP’s financial importance over the last few years had not been acceptable and had “some catching up to do.”
Is an “Oil-Less Recovery” On its Way?
We are getting really mixed messages over what will come first: peak oil or peak supply. First of this week was BP saying global peak oil demand will happen sometime between 2020 and 2030. Then we had the UK Industry Task-Force on Peak Oil and Energy Security which published a report entitled “The Oil Crunch … Read More
Peak Oil More an “Immediate Threat” Than Climate Change
BP may think that a demand crunch will happen before a supply crunch. But others disagree. Today, six UK leading companies have launched the second report of the UK Industry Task-Force on Peak Oil and Energy Security. The report, entitled “The Oil Crunch – a wake-up call for the UK economy”, argues that oil shortages, … Read More
BP: Peak Demand Will Happen Before Peak Supply
Various blogs on the site over the last few months have warned about what peaking global demand will do for the oil industry. Last August in the blog “What About the Demand-Side Warning?” we quoted Lorne Stockman, the author of report on how reducing oil demand might affect the tar sands.
Shell’s “Strategic Shift” Away From Tar Sands
For a company that prides itself on long-term planning, Shell sometimes seems to be a company that could not plan its way out of a paper bag. Just over a decade ago it made a big song and dance about moving into renewables, only to beat a humiliating retreat a decade later. For the last … Read More