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DrumBeat: March 22, 2007
Posted by Leanan on March 22, 2007 - 8:38am
Topic: Miscellaneous
What has happened to our 'cheap' gasoline? - Less than two years after Katrina, consumption hasn't changed
We Americans need to bite the bullet, and start rearranging our lives and our infrastructure to be able to live with, and make our economy progress with, high cost gasoline.
U.K.: £11bn fall in oil forecasts forces borrowing
Gordon Brown yesterday slashed by a further £11bn his estimates of total North Sea revenues in the next five years - forcing up overall government borrowing projections which would otherwise have remained almost unchanged.
Global boom in coal power – and emissions
So what does the future hold? An acceleration of the buildup, according to a Monitor analysis of power-industry data. Despite Kyoto limits on greenhouse gases, the analysis shows that nations will add enough coal-fired capacity in the next five years to create an extra 1.2 billion tons of CO2 per year.Those accelerating the buildup are not the usual suspects.
Lester Brown: Ethanol drives up world food prices
If you think you are spending more each week at the supermarket, you may be right. The escalating share of the US grain harvest going to ethanol distilleries is driving up food prices worldwide.
Mumbai, Lagging Shanghai, Faces First Power Cuts in a Century
Mumbai, India's commercial capital, may have its first daily blackouts in a century next month because the government failed to plan for soaring demand.
China's economy seen hurt if oil prices above 80 usd/barrel
The vice-director of the State Council's State Energy Office, Xu Dingming, told reporters at an industry conference that China and India are the two largest oil consumption countries in the world and higher oil prices will hurt the countries' economies.
Here's the next big competition coming down the road: a $25 million dollar prize to the builder of the first commercially-viable 100 mile per gallon car.
The Saab Biofuel Budget Report 2007 contains Saab Great Britain’s recommendations for how the UK Government can support its emerging biofuels industry, with the primary aim of reducing road transport emissions. Other advantages include ensuring security of energy supply and diversifying the rural economy.
India looks big on alternative energy
Imagine running your computer on a solar energy backup for five hours a day! It's possible, says an expert who sees India as a promising destination for alternative sources of power.
Biofuels launch biotech's 'third wave' to help meet increasing demand for energy
Thousands of corporate executives and scientists gather this weekend in Orlando, Fla. for an industry trade show specifically aimed at touting biotechnology's so-called third wave, industrial applications. The word on everyone's lips: ethanol.
Denmark leads the way in green energy — to a point
Viewed from the United States or Asia, Denmark is an environmental role model. The country is "what a global warming solution looks like," wrote Frances Beinecke, the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, in a letter to the group last autumn. About one-fifth of the country's electricity comes from wind, which wind experts say is the highest proportion of any country.But a closer look shows that Denmark is a far cry from a clean-energy paradise.
Energy crisis demands immediate attention
James R. Schlesinger, a leading expert in the energy field and the first U.S. Secretary of Energy, spoke yesterday evening at the Lyric about the nation’s energy crisis. Schlesinger is also currently co-chairing a study for the Department of Defense energy strategy. He articulated that consumption of oil as an energy source in today’s society is a serious problem that will not disappear in the near future, but rather demand immediate attention.
US trying to block Iran energy deals
Emboldened by the perception that Russia is hardening its stance toward Iran, Washington is increasing its efforts to put more economic pressure on Tehran.
Russia, Kazakhstan plan nuclear venture
Russia is piecing together a new company to own nuclear-energy assets based on a revival of Soviet-era ties with Kazakhstan and other neighboring states, officials said. Vladimir Putin and Nursultan Nazarbayev, the presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan, met on Monday to discuss pooling newly formed ventures in uranium mining, enrichment, reactor construction and logistics into a trans-national holding, said Vladimir Servetnik, deputy chief executive officer of Tenex, Russia’s state-owned atomic fuel trader.
Asian buyer confirms rare S. African coal purchase
A North Asian company has bought South African coal for the first time in about three years, despite the long shipping distance, to compensate for tight local supplies, a source at the buyer's company said on Thursday.
Nepal: Petroleum shortage continues
Petroleum shortage has continued in the capital city and major urban centers since the past few days due to lack of fuel supply. The transportation of the fuel has been halted due to the growing unrest in the Terai region.
Philippines: DOE asks SC to reconsider oil depot closure
Currently, the Pandacan oil depot supplies 50percent of power generation, 73percent aviation fuel, 70percent of the shipping industries' needs, 90 percent lubricants and 25percent of chemical to the entire country.
Japan’s Cosmo consider other currencies for Iran crude
Japanese refiner Cosmo Oil is considering switching payment for its term purchases of Iranian crude away from the US dollar as early as April, when it finalizes contract terms for the next fiscal year, a senior company source said Tuesday.The source said Cosmo had been contacted by Tehran some six months ago about paying in alternative currencies such as the yen or euro. Other Japanese refiners have talked about the possibility of using other currencies to pay for Iranian crude, which would still be officially priced in dollars.
Norwegian Statoil reports risks in Iran and Venezuela
Norwegian state oil firm Statoil said it could face penalties from the United States in connection with the company's operations in Iran and is risking losing 171 million barr
Asian oil addiction growing fast
The demand for oil in Asia will nearly double over the next 25 years and will account for 85 per cent of the increased demand in 2007, a Bangkok energy conference heard.
Valley College Plants Seeds of Energy Independence
Following its certification as the district's first college with a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-accredited building, Valley has a plan in the works to have a one-megawatt photovoltaic farm, which uses an array of solar cells, known as photovoltaic cells, to convert sunlight into energy.
Uganda: Govt Proposes 14 Dam Sites
Southern Ocean current faces slowdown threat
The impact of global warming on the vast Southern Ocean around Antarctica is starting to pose a threat to ocean currents that distribute heat around the world, Australian scientists say, citing new deep-water data.Melting ice-sheets and glaciers in Antarctica are releasing fresh water, interfering with the formation of dense "bottom water," which sinks 4-5 kilometers to the ocean floor and helps drive the world's ocean circulation system.
Plumbing, pipe-fitting, and peak oil: this Mechanical Contracting Workshop has a session on peak oil.
James McGarvey, executive director of the New York State Weatherization Directors' Association, will address the opening session March 29 on "‘Peak Oil': Myth or Reality?" He will cover what the U.S. Department of Energy's Hirsch Report, U.S. Army Corps' Energy Study and other reports have to say on the topic.
Al Gore's testimony to the House - Grist live-blogs it.
Critics Slam Gore over Global Warming Testimony
This is the same Al Gore who's global warming documentary drew vast media attention and the same losing Democratic presidential candidate who was recently called a hypocrite over his zinc mine which is under investigation for numerous environmental pollution violations.
Mexico swims in oil, but long-standing nationalism inhibits its extraction. Now its oil revenues are running low, while emigrant remittances soar. What's wrong with this picture?
Pemex Oil Output Edges Up in February
Crude oil production at Mexican state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, edged up in February to 3.15 million barrels a day from 3.14 million barrels a day in January, while natural gas output reached a record 5.8 billion cubic feet a day, according to data released Wednesday.
Tom Whipple - The Peak Oil Crisis: Situations To Watch
Evidence is mounting that oil prices will soon climb to new, perhaps unaffordable for many, highs. Some think “soon” is three, four, or five years away. Others think “soon” may be as close as three, four, five, or six months. It is this latter scenario in which oil and gasoline prices reach new highs before the year is out that we look at today.
Richard Heinberg's Museletter #179: Burning the Furniture
A soon-to-be-released study by the Energy Watch Group in Germany on the future of global coal supplies has implications so surprising and far-reaching that energy policymakers may take years to digest it. This essay is intended to help speed that process. The report’s central conclusion is that minable global coal reserves are much smaller than is commonly thought, and that a peak in world coal production is likely within only ten to fifteen years.
Nuclear plans may stall on uranium shortage
Growing global competition for scarce enriched uranium threatens to derail a much-heralded nuclear renaissance in the United States and around the world, says an industry researcher from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.In a report released yesterday, MIT researcher Thomas Neff said there has been 20 years of under-investment in uranium production and enrichment, resulting in a tightening of supply that has driven prices up eightfold.
Leftist Brazilian President Silva slammed for calling ethanol producers 'heroes'
Brazil's booming alternative ethanol fuel industry is attracting praise and investment from around the world, but President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was roundly criticized at home Wednesday for calling well-off ethanol producers "national and world heroes."Less than two weeks after Silva forged an ethanol "alliance" with U.S. President George W. Bush, activists said they were upset that Brazil's first working-class leader appeared to praise producers they blame for pocketing huge profits while legions of cane-cutting farm workers stay poor.
Hydrogen cars face technological hurdles
BMW, Toyota, Honda, GM, DaimlerChrysler and Volkswagen have hydrogen-powered vehicles on display at the conference, but all have similar technological challenges, including costs that range up to a million dollars a piece and limited range on a hydrogen fill-up.
China's Feb. Coal Imports Rise 51 Percent to 3.9 Million Tons
China's imports of coal jumped 51 percent from a year earlier in February as energy demand increased in the world's fastest-growing major economy.Coal imports climbed to 3.9 million metric tons, the Customs General Administration of China said in Beijing today. Imports in the first two months of the year surged 66 percent to 8.6 million tons.
UK Offshore Operators: Treasury Turns 'Blind Eye' to Industry
Responding to Wednesday's Budget statement by UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, the UK Offshore Operators Association (UKOOA), the representative body for North Sea production companies, accused the Treasury of turning a blind eye to the urgent needs of the UK's offshore oil and gas industry where production is being undermined by high costs and punitive tax.
Pemex Seeks Multiple Alliances for Deep-Water Oil
Petroleos Mexicanos, the third- biggest oil supplier to the U.S., needs to enter alliances with several companies to help it develop deep-water oil fields, said Mexico Energy Minister Georgina Kessel.
Police hold French oil firm CEO for questioning
The new CEO of French oil giant Total SA was being held for questioning Wednesday in an investigation into the group's activities in Iran, the latest legal challenge for the company and its embattled chief.
High gas prices not slowing RV industry
The recreational vehicle industry has been reporting record sales for the past five years, despite rising costs at the pump. Insiders credit a growing number of baby boomers who want the gas-guzzling vehicles for retirement and younger families opting for vacations closer to home for offsetting any potential losses because of soaring fuel costs.
New carbon-dioxide tracking developed
With concern growing about global warming, researchers said Wednesday they have developed a new system to track carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Being able to determine where and when this major greenhouse gas increases or decreases should help in projecting future climate change and evaluating efforts to reduce releases of carbon. "This is a pretty exciting opportunity," said Richard Spinrad, head of research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Water scarcity: Global warming to deepen thirst for blue gold
Fresh water, the stuff of life, is set to become even more precious as global warming begins to bite, experts warned ahead of World Water Day on Thursday.
Could the Robert Heinberg rumour be true?
"At the ASPO conference a well-connected industry insider who wishes not to be directly quoted told me that his own sources inside Saudi Arabia insist that production from Ghawar is now down to less than three million barrels per day, and that the Saudis are maintaining total production at only slowly dwindling levels by producing other fields at maximum rates. This, if true, would be a bombshell: most estimates give production from Ghawar at 5.5 Mb/d."
http://www.rense.com/general73/to9p.htm
http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1080
Hmmm...good time to repost these two reports. It's getting harder and harder to brush them off as "incorrect" isn't it?
(Sorry Dragonfly for cutting in).
Cid - It's 'Richard' Heinberg, not Robert.
Opps! I know that! Silly me.
A CEO of an Australian listed oil/gas company recently claimed to me that his friend within the Saudi oil industry have told him Saudi Arabia is producing "flat out".
A bit third hand I know.
Heinberg's piece in todays drumbeat if true could have an even bigger impact than Ghawar's decline:
Link to projected coal production:
http://www.richardheinberg.com/files/possiblecoalproduction.gif
If this is accurate global warming will soon be a non-issue.
Heinberg's article struck me as crucially important as well. If we are in fact going to be facing an across-the-board fossil fuel crisis in the near future, we'd best be ready to make some hard decisions on adaptation, curtailment and substitution. We probably won't but it would be nice if we had good data just in case someone decided to do something sensible.
On that note, if all FF's start to decline, the pressure on biofuels is going to become enormous. Just for shits and grins, the other day I did a calculation: if we took all the world's vegetable food crops and turned them into fuel, how much oil equivalent would we end up with? Here's the quote from the biofuels article on my web site:
Wow.
Interesting piece of work, Glider.
Once we get the tree huggers and duck lovers out of the way, we should be able to increase that total to 10%.
Mmmm.
Fill'er up, please..
I'll have the Fois Gras with Maple Syrup glaze..
"Music to drown by. Now I know I'm in First Class"
- Tommy .. Titanic
Well done! Amazing what nonsense can be dispelled with some scribbling on the back of an envelope.
Now the job is to get that news out there, so the propagandists get sneers and jeers when they try to push these lies onto the public. The sooner we can eliminate the credibility of the non-options, the sooner we can get policy aligned with the things we have to do.
I suspect the enthusiam for biofuels has more to do with the fortunes which could be made than the potential for a solution. It may only end up being 1% of our fuel supply - but wouldn't you like to get your hands on the revenue from that one percent?
You could say the same about CTL - it may not sense from a global perspective, but a million barrels a day multiplied by $50 a barrel is nothing to sneeze at. Who will be the first CTL billionaire?
You could probably make a lot more money from building the energy systems to make biofuels into viable replacements instead of niche products with petroleum, but the visionaries behind these seem to be keeping quiet. I probably would too, in their position; the less attention you attract, the further you can get before the people whose interests would be threatened start to attack you.
Though not in any sense a disagreement, I would like to point out that rapeseed oil can be poured directly into a diesel motor, at least when it is warm enough outside. This isn't exactly happening where I live in Germany (yet), but a lot of the small tractors here which are decades old won't have any problem, at least in the summer. And yes, there are a number of places which can press the oil locally. As a matter of fact, there is a dealer on the B3 parallel to the A5 Autobahn who can sell you a thousand liters to store at home, since such 'refined' oil is safe to handle - he uses the same plastic/metal enclosed containers that are common for wine or milk. (If we buy a diesel, I have thought about buying one or two to keep around the house in the garage.)
In other words, at least in terms diesel substitutes on farms, it is possible to imagine a fairly simple system, thus increasing the amount of energy available within a somewhat closed system.
I realize that this point doesn't apply to an agricultural production system which is no longer local, as in the U.S., but there is reason to believe that efficiency can be improved by removing the 'refining' step of biodiesel (at least for rapeseed) - especially when you look at some of the interesting work being done to modify a diesel's fuel system to allow it to burn straight plant oil efficiently, even in winter.
Obviously, this only replaces oil in a limited context, but considering the amount of energy currently used to get refined oil products to a farm, this is likely not a trivial gain. Equally obviously, this scenario only allows for farming to continue using mechanical means - it doesn't help with food distribution much, unless you have a decent electricified rail/barge network in place to move bulk amounts of grains.
Heinberg's article definitely sounds like it could be big news. I was curious about the role of Illinois coal. So I googled "Illinois Coal Production" and found this enlightening article from Southern Illinois University - Carbondale,
http://www.siu.edu/~perspect/05_sp/coal1.html.
Its subheadline is this:
"Illinois coal is well suited to new, cleaner energy systems on the horizon. Reducing global warming and developing a hydrogen economy may depend on these technologies, which are being researched intensively at SIUC."
Apparently Illinois coal production fell by 50% becasue it is higher in sulphur than Wyoming coal and difficult to scrub. The hope is that with coal gasification and IGCC, this will not be a problem and will in fact lead to industrial sulphur production. The whole article is a fascinating look at carbon dioxide sequestration, coal bed methane, efficient coal recovery, and other issues related to 21st century coal use.
I think this deserves a closer look, and frankly, it disturbs me a little bit that someone as high profile in our community as Heinberg would just accept the 50% decline in Illinois coal as a sign of a limited supply without apparently doing much checking into it.
Jeff,
I think you are right. Coal production in the US had a false peak. It began dropping in the US in the late 90's bc/ of regulations favoring the use of NG and discouraging coal enacted in the 80's. The vast majority of electricity plants built in the last couple decades burn NG. The NG frenzy peaked a few years ago. In 2000, 95% of all new electric plants were NG burning. This changed demand dynamics and thus a false peak in coal.
In my backyard, Appalachian Ohio coal "peaked" a while back bc/ of strict regulations on sulfur. Now that coal has increased in value, old mines that had been boarded up for 25 years are reopening and Ohio has increased coal production by over 10% in the last 3 years. It is now economic to mine the dirty coal, and just spend more on scrubbing.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/entertainment/472879/mining_rebounds_in_ohi...
Heinberg says: "all nations with significant coal resources (excepting India and Australia) that have made the effort to update their reserves estimates have reported substantial downward resource revisions."
And then lists several countries that have had to downgrade coal reserves substantially. Note, however, none of those are the top 6 countries that possess 90% of the world's coal reserves.
Heinberg claims that US coal production peaked in 1998. This is already old data. There was indeed a peak in 1998, but US coal production surpassed the '98 peak in 2005, and then 2006 topped 2005.
http://www.commodities-now.com/content/market-news/market-news-200701094...
I think we'll have to read the Energy Watch Group's report closely. I hope it doesn't give us a false impression of coal- at least for the US. It is proabably inevitable that we will use coal to help the transition during the backside of the PO slope but this is enormously problematic due to environmental impacts of mining and CO2 production, even if we do scrub out the sulfur and heavy metals.
Hallelujah!!
Thank you the oil drum.
It is a shame it has come to this but Aramco is a secretive bunch.
Here is the cross section from the Ain Dar SPE paper- note the dimensional arrows. Below is the Ain Dar structure from Greg Croft.com. Note the Water oil contact data.
Where are these cross sections on the Northern Anticline??
According to the SPE paper, these graphs show "simulation results on water evolution at the eastern and western flank of Ain Dar".
The first paragraph of the paper states "this paper presents a study on a six-year water management strategy in North Ain Dar". I guesss we can narrow those graphs down to the east and west flanks of the northern part of Ain Dar.
If you look at Figures 3,4 and 5 in the report, the shape of the reservoir and the progress of the flood front topography strongly suggest that we are looking at the top half of the Ain Dar structure you have shown above, which I believe is also known as Fazran.
If everyone is really serious about this...
We need an advanced imaged analyst to look at the thickness of the reservoir through the various hatched vertical lines... compare that to the average thickness recorded (the top of the structure appears to be the thickest to me)... than with some estimate of thickness we can relate that to the distance above the original WOC. Which puts us into position on this structure and tells us how much reservoir remains above us.
Roughly I get about 2.3 ratio of height above oil water contact to reservoir thickness on the West Side.
http://www.gregcroft.com/ghawar.ivnu
This link shows the original OWC for all Ain Dar to be 6430 to 6665 feet subsea. Average net thickness of reservoir is 204 feet. Unfortunately, that is the average for the entire AD structure, not the northern part, so probably not really of much use...
I don't understand your conclusion.
I'm guessing that it basically means the reservoir is 2 parts oil and 3 parts water or 60% depleted ?
a.) Is this correct ?
b.) How does it compare to other fields ?
c.) This would be a 60% depleted based on something like OIP so the real depletion (URR) would be higher say 70% ?
Your going right over my head with half your posts I've very interested in what you have to say but I don't have the expertise to understand your comments much less the data.
If your willing to give a little bit of a tutorial if just in your comments it would be invaluable.
I am sorry but it is hard to understand sometimes what is so hard to understand about stuff you've been doing for 25 years.
The frustrating thing is like with "Twilight" you see misdirected efforts and a lot of time gets wasted and the right questions never get asked.
The SPE has been way too silent on this issue since that is where the expertise lies in forecasting future world production and reserves.
The above cross sections are "slices" across a structure. Aramco says nothing about "where" these slices are on this structure. I provided a picture of this structure.
Now it is interesting that Aramco doesn't tell you where they are- that is so guys like me cannot reverse engineer it.
Because if I knew where they were I can see the water depth on the x-section and I could figure out how much water free reservoir exists above the slice shown. Then I could planimeter that area to get the acreage. Then I could calculate the remaining reserves of that area and compare it to the 13.9 billion barrels claimed by Saleri at this point in time at the 2005 CSIS presentation.
If we accept the original water oil contact is what the greg croft website shows, we see that water oil contact on the 1940 cross section. If we have some relative vertical scale to determine the height of the reservoir above that level, we can place the cross section on the structure. The only relative vertical scale we have is the reservoir thickness, which averages 204'.
Now, let's say that the height above the oil water contact is 2.3 times the thickness at the crest, and let's say the thickness at the crest is 240' (i have a decent reason for this). Then the top of that structure on that Western xsection is 2.3*240= 550' above the original WOC. The original WOC on the West Side is -6430' subsea . So the top of that Western cross section is -5880' ss.
The last contour (the closed tight little one) is -5750' ss. The one beyond it is -6000' ss. So you can get an idea of how much relative area is left uninvaded by water from this.
On second thought maybe I don't want to know.
Ouch ...
The fact that critical information you need is missing is interesting in and of itself. Generally this happens when its not good news. Or is this common in the industry ?
We can only hope they have a lot of bypassed oil they can hit.
But with the way they did the water drive I doubt it.
So I really am puzzled how they are able to keep production rates up now ?
All I can guess is that they really used to have a lot of spare capacity thats been brought online recently. Otherwise I'd say production should have started declining overall two years ago. I don't quite understand how they have produced what they have to date much less more except that they did have close to 2mbpd of spare capacity in 2002-2004.
Agreed. A cursory reading suggests this is important stuff.
I wonder if HO would explain/ elaborate on this material in laymen terms?
I have a question too. Can you (Fractional_Flow) or anyone else offer insight on what the variable being plotted is in this picture of 'Ain Dar and Shedgum:
Click to get it bigger. This is from Figure 12 of Hussein et al. International Petroleum Technology Conference Paper #10395, November 2005.
The variable appears to go from 0 (blue) to 1500.0 (red), so it's hard to see how it can be water saturation. The paper itself doesn't say (making only a casual passing reference to this figure being a visualization of a full field model of 'Ain Dar and Shedgum).
I think the label might be "PermK MD", suggesting this is a visualization of the permeability in millidarcies. Presumably, this is permeability at the top of the reservoir and the red (and black) areas are the famous SuperK channels? Greg Croft says average K of 619 MD for 'Ain Dar, and 639 MD for Shedgum, so the greenish color would be about right for most of it. Can anyone confirm this interpretation?
After staring at the bumps for a while, here's where I think those cross sections are (roughly, no way to be exact):
It seems to me the implication is that there was only a thin (1-2 simulation layers) layer of moderately dry (w_c ~ 0.2) oil left throughout the crest of North Ain Dar as of simulated year 2004. Given that in 1990, there were still 9-11 layers under most of the crest, it seems like the flood (green) moves up a layer about every 1.5 years. If we assume that "2004" is "2004.0", this implies that there being no red left would have occurred over the mid 2005 - end 2006 timeframe.
Which would be interesting timing:
North 'Ain Dar is not big enough (about 500kbpd in 2003) for even a large change of production to explain this. If one could make the case that the same thing was happening in the same general timeframe across all of 'Ain Dar/Shedgum, however, it would get even more interesting.
Thanks stuart.
Interesting graphic.
Looks like Perm MD on the label to me as well.
Could be any layer in the model.
Euan posted this graph yesterday:
It is from Energy Files, and is supposedly based on the Saudis' own projections. If I'm reading it correctly...even the Saudis think Ghawar is at peak.
And look at how they predict they can increase production. "Other," "Yet to find," etc. Unless the yet to find includes another Ghawar, it ain't looking good.
Great graphic man. Thanks to you and Euan I missed it.
OK so Abqaiq and Ghawar together start at 5.5 MMBOPD in 2010 and end up at 1 mmBOPD in 2050.
So
D= -1/t ln(qi/qf)= -1/40 * ln (5.5/1)= -4.3%/year (note this is half the rate we have heard)
(exponential decline rate).
and
Np= (qi-qf)*365/D
Np= (5.5-1.0)*365 (1e06)/.043
Np= 38 Bbbls (cumulative prod to 2050).
Saleri said Ghawar was 48% depleted at 55 billion barrels (1/1/04) ... leaving 60 Bbbls for Ghawar alone (not including Abqaiq.
That graphic also shows Safaniya, the world's largest offshore field, in substantial decline. This is as significant as Cantarell.
Yeah. That's pretty interesting in light of the fact that in 2004, it was only 26% depleted:
Oh, what a tangled web we weave...