DrumBeat: July 31, 2006
Posted by threadbot on July 31, 2006 - 9:30am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Serious spill on large Russian export pipeline
Natural Resources Ministry warns of 'environmental catastrophe'MOSCOW - A serious oil spill has occurred on one of Russia’s largest export pipelines near the border with Ukraine and Belarus, the Natural Resources Ministry said Monday, warning it could cause an environmental disaster.
The ministry said that oil from the pipeline had contaminated local water sources and forests in the western province of Byransk, adding that the spill affected an area of nearly 4 square miles.
Coal May Surpass Oil as Better Bet on Demand for Cheaper Fuel
A thirsty world is running dry: Australia could be the OPEC of uranium.
Scouring Scum and Tar from the Bottom of the Pit
Faced with the undeniable reality of “Hubbard’s Peak” in global conventional oil supplies, the world’s largest multinational energy corporations are now hell-bent on squeezing oil out of tar in northern Alberta, like junkies desperately conniving for one last giant fix in a futile attempt to quench America’s insatiable “addiction to oil” (described so eloquently by President George Bush II).
Nigeria cuts daily crude output by 26 percent
LAGOS, 07/31 - The crude production in Nigeria has been cut by 675,000 barrels per day (bpd), or 26 percent of the country `s normal daily output, local leading daily This Day reported on Monday."The cut is a result of recent militant attacks in the Niger Delta and a pipeline leak there last week, " the report said.
Royal Dutch Shell, which produces half of Nigeria`s oil, said last Tuesday a leak of an oil pipeline in south Nigeria had cut output there by 180,000 bpd. As a result of the leak whose reason remains unclear, the contracts of Shell might not be honored in July and August.
Sri Lanka: Energy crisis: Have we woken up from a long slumber?
Coal to fuel India's economic growth
A combination of triple scourges this winter: Along with Peak Oil, Peak Grain and Peak Water the world enters crisis overload
While Lebanon burns, the Saudis feign impotence
"For the Saudis, the Lebanese and Palestinians are ‘throw away’ people. All this nonsense about Arab solidarity is merely a circus act to shore up the legitimacy of the kleptocrats in the Gulf."...Here we are at peak oil. Petro dollars are flowing by the tens of billions into Gulf coffers. And Saudi Arabia drops its last fig leaf and demonstrates to one and all that it has struck an alliance of convenience with Israel and given the IDF a green light to ravage Lebanon and Gaza.
On the face of it, it doesn’t make much sense. The one Arab country that has the leverage to shelter the region from American financed Israeli brutality decides to publicly turn on its own people. To make partial amends, King Abdallah has offered to compensate the Lebanese for some of the damage inflicted by the Israeli war machine. Unfortunately, for all their wealth, the Saudis have yet to perfect a way to bring back the dead or reattach missing Lebanese limbs.
Petrologistcs reports that Saudi oil production has probably fallen below 9.0 mbpd. Let's assume 8.9.
The peak Saudi crude + condensate production last year was 9.6 mbpd (EIA). Using 8.9 as a current estimate suggests a decline in Saudi production of about 7%, while oil prices are up by 15% to 30%. During prior oil price spikes, the Saudis have tended to increase production, to bring the price back down.
Based on the HL method, Saudi Arabia last year was at the same point at which the prior swing producer, Texas, started a so far irreversible decline in production.
Background information: http://www.energybulletin.net/16459.html
Perhaps this is the cause of the production drop?
Q: How can you tell that the Saudis are lying?
A: Their lips are moving.
Observation:
I remain intrigued by the comments by an energy consultant--recommended by Saudi Aramco--at a recent Peak Oil debate. He said that major oil exporters would soon start cutting back on oil exports--to prolong the life of the fields.
Prediction:
A news release from the Saudis saying that their production is down because of field maintenance, and that the results of new wells will soon carry them to new production highs.
That's what they said! But only the really credulous believes it. There is a huge market for heavy oil. The Saudis could sell all their heavy oil by just lowering the price slightly. Well, that is, if they had any spare heavy crude.
Check this one out concerning the Saudi's cutting back on production:
http://tinyurl.com/enmzw
I don't know what you mean by "first class citizen". Perhaps you mean the royal family, of which there are a two or three thousand. Perhaps they get some kind of stipend but the average citizen does not.
When I was there the government did give a newly married couple a small grant of land to build a house. I don't know if that practice has stopped or not.
Saudi Arabia is a highly stratified society. The royal family is at the top, and then there are those that are friends of the royal family and those that are friends of these people and so on down. It is called "wasta". If you have wasta then you get promoted in your job, you never have to pay a traffic ticket and so on. If you do not have wasta then you are S.O.L. There are degrees of wasta. Some have lots of it, like the royal family, some have less and some have only a tiny bit while others have none. How high you rise in your job depends entirely on how much wasta you have and absolutely nothing else. But there is no "official" wasta. It is all under the table.
The Sunnis are also a rung above the Shiites. A Sunni will always have more wasta than a Shiite. Well, that is in ARAMCO and most of the rest of the country. In some towns where the Shiites are in the majority, they would have more "local" wasta than a Sunni. But there is no hard line between "first class" and "second class" citizens although there is a strong, but graduated class structure.
Am I correct in that the amount has been decreasing, causing unrest?
"The level of corruption in the House of Sa'ud is staggering. While they impose strict Wahhabi law on their subjects, with public beatings for alcohol consumption and amputations for thievery, the thousands of princes have siphoned off billions of dollars from the public treasury, wining and dining all over Europe and America, building lavish palaces and gambling away their stipends. A minor scandal ensued in Washington when some of the Saudi entourage's slaves tried to escape from a hotel suite by jumping out of windows. Meanwhile the standard of living for ordinary Saudi citizens has fallen dramatically over the past two decades, while annual budget deficits are soaring from the family's high living and the extraordinary level of military spending."
Thousands of princed spending away, and standard of living for the middle class joe going down.
Saudi has one of the highest unemployment rates in the Middle East. They have over five million expats in Saudi and about 5 million unemployed Saudis. But don't get the wrong idea, only a few thousand expats have a really good job making lots of money. The vast majority or expats from third world countries doing things that the Saudis consider "below" them. They will starve before they will do menial labor.
Reminds me of that great P J O'Rourke quote; from 1st Gulf War:
"The heaviest thing you will ever see a Saudi lifting is money..."
I came across that googling after reading your post. Don't know if it's true. I found it highly disturbing.
If I ever have kids I'm adhereing to the Hulk Hogan school of parenting. (Sidenote: he tossed some punkass pop star boy band member out of his house for being disrespectful to him. Didn't see it but the image is damn funny.)
Kuwait has a kind of "class system" ... depending on proving your blood line from the original bedouin tribes (pre 1920) Only 1st class males were allowed to vote until recently.
When zI lived there (1991-99)... All males were guaranteed A "desk job" in a ministry... there are numerous state gifts... upon coming of age, upon marriage; also housing loans (which tend to be "forgotten" after the first few repayments) etc... as well as free health care & education; and of course, no income tax!!
I'm not sure how these differ for each "class"...
The point is, the gravy train is starting to show signs of coming to an end in these countries, and in many cases there's been quite a drop in the standard of living. This breeds a lot of anger.
We've yet to see real signs of this in the US, but it's coming for us too. Timothy McVeigh probably would never have bombed if he'd had a good job to come home to, or college that didn't cost an arm and a leg. We've so far seen a slow rot in the standard of living for the US working class, and it's bred some anger. When things start dropping like a rock, it's going to get very interesting.
Yet, I have a feeling the good ol' boys will be much more open to ideas like permaculture than is often thought.
This string is such a textbook example of the point I was making the other day, and got a bit of kicking around for...
http://www.theoildrum.com/comments/2006/7/30/9302/31161/161#161
We have no idea what the helll's going on....
Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
(P.S. Are we now to understand all that heavy sour crude in the Middle East, which for decades they could barely give away as garbage, has now somehow dissappeared too?)
SA reached into its spare capacity and complied and we all knew it would likely be for a short duration as it coincided with falling demand in the usa and china. But, not that they indicate supply will be dampened, in part due to a 2006Q2 surplus of 1.8-mbd on the global scene. As we see in the nuance of the sub-thread, the reduced or perceived reduction is now being treated as a sign of post peak. Complete and utter balderdash.
Saudi did not increase production after Ivan. They did increase production in March of 2005 by 100,000 barrels per day. They kept this production level for six months then reduced their production by 100,000 barrels per day in October, immediately after Katrina and Rita.
You should check your facts before spouting off Freddy. Check out the facts at:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ipsr/t11a.xls
IEA states that SA extracted 8.75-mbd in 2004. They ramped up to 9.26-mbd in 2005Q3; held at 9.27-mbd thru 2006Q1 and drifted down to 9.01-mbd in 2006Q2 with surplus demand of 1.8-mbd at hand.
It is clear why Aramco ramped up and why they softened. Think what u want about an SA peak. I am confident that announced capacity developments are under way and that the IEA Medium Term Outlook is on target. We can compare notes in 2011.
Yeah! So, DON'T REPLY TO FREDDY.
On the larger scale, 'cuz SA represents 80% by your figures, whereas your HL forecasts global URR of 2.2351, Laherrere's longtime HL work indicates that we are in a new paradigm leading to 3.1-Tb.
With respect, how do u reconcile.
Freddy,
I asume that you are asking me. For SA, I assume that you mean 0.1863 Tb, or 186.3 Gb. I further assume that you are referencing this article: http://www.energybulletin.net/16459.html
There was no data fitting. I asked Khebab to do HL plots of: Texas; Lower 48; SA and the world. Note the strong linear pattern present in all four plots. I noted that SA, in 2005, was at about the same point at which Texas peaked. I knew that the world, in 2005, was close to the same point at the Lower 48 peaked.
So, I asked Khebab to generate production profiles lining up SA with the known Texas peak and the world up with the known Lower 48 peak.
I had nothing to do with picking the technical parameters for the HL plots, and anyone that has studied Khebab's work knows that he is an objective scientist.
What we know is that SA and world oil crude + condensate production are both down since December (EIA). We also know that all of the world's four largest producing oil fields are almost certainly declining--I find this hard to reconcile with a projection of rising oil production.
Everyone has their pet peeves and fav's. The merging of the models is for the most part due to wrongful assumptions or missed data being corrected. In your case we may be comparing apples and oranges. The all liquids data seems to preserve the depletion rate better. I'll watch your stuff more carefully so we can adjust for the differences in components. Thanx again.
Everyone has their pet peeves and fav's
Like I said.....here's mine...
http://www.theoildrum.com/comments/2006/7/30/9302/31161/161#
Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
It seems to me that we have a basic perception problem in the United States which is exaberated by the advertising in the MSM.
No one can deny that the American lifestyle is very wasteful of energy and money. Yet who is perceived to be more wealthy, the family with big SUVs who commute an hour plus each way to work and jet ski's and 4 wheelers sitting unused in the garage of the McMansion, or the family that works from a home office and a couple of hours a day of free time and who rides bikes and uses public transportation, renting a car or truck if necessary and living in a cultural center with museums, parks, art galleries, live music and dance?
Are we fucking nuts? I buy oil leases from folks and can judge fairly well who has more real wealth-their main shared charicteristic is they spend less than they produce and ake the time to enjoy their lives. And, what is the use of money if you don't have the time to enjoy the money. Whose opinion give a person status? My own self-image and that of people who think and create, or the mavens of the consumerist society?
Somehow abandoning individual ownership of cars is seen as a decrease in wealth. Even going back to one car per family instead of one car per adult is viewed as impoverishment. Yet any realistic view of the cost of autos is $1,000 dollars a month per car. The environmental degradation from breathing pollution and global warming is directly tied to the number of cars. The greenspace we could gain by not having a paved road to each home is considered impoverishment.
Enough ranting. I need to go to work in the sacred quest to find more fossil fuels. But as individuals take a look at West Texas's Economise, Localise, Produce. I swear it will make you wealthier.
Also, one is a '85 4x4 samurai (we live in the sticks), a '86 toyota pick up (we haul lots of compost and building materials), and a '91 nissan (for occasional trips with family).
I'd put our total costs at maybe $3,000/year, total (just a guess).
OTher than that, you're right on. We live in a 250 ft2 energy efficient adobe we built ourselves, have a large orchard/garden, and live cheaply enough our fixed income plus our produce sustains us.
And yes, those idiots with long commutes and tons of expensive toys, up to their eyeballs in debt, and in for a long squeeze and an eventual rude awakening.
Now I live in the city and I am largely car-free. I love it. When the phone rings, my worst fear is that it is a telemarketer.
Would it be possible to change to such that dont require car commuting? USA seem to in large parts be like Sweden, a country with lots of free space.
You could perhaps enjoy it in other ways then with a suburbia? Like taking your old SUV down from the blocks in your apartment complex garage, inflate the tires and change the oil, fill it with family and friends and burn a large ammount of E85 while traveling to the Suburbia park where you relive the Good Old Days for a week? The budget concious then bicycle between the attractions such as beach party, drive in fried chicken land, outdoor movies and the mini disneyland. You like packaging things, right?
My claims to status are based on who I know (name dropping), education, skills (cooking, sailing, flying, fencing, tennis, fixing things), and boldness: For example, in a social situation I always try to strike up a conversation with or ask to dance the very most attractive unattached woman. (Believe it or not, strikingly beautiful women are often starved for conversation because they scare off most men. Some regard this as a major affliction and reason why they need psychotherapy.)
When I was younger, much of my status was connected to my ownership of a small single-cylinder two-stroke motorcycle, and then to a brand new $1,500 VW Beetle in which I gave my carless friends rides to and from airports, etc.
Most of the people I know own large boats. Why? I own two small boats, one eleven feet long, the other fourteen (plus bowsprit, a wooden gaff-rigged sloop, a San Francisco Bay Pelican that I'm restoring using no technology later than that available in 1900).
Oh, one thing I forgot: As a grandparent I am champion bragger than mine are the prettiest girls, smartest kids, most darling and precocious, etc., etc., and this seems to be a major status symbol for people my age.
I think it is sustainable to have material things as status symbols if they have a long life lenght, dont need too be fed with large ammounts of energy all the time and have other productive uses.
There is a local culture of having old and large, often US cars as status symbols. Once or twise per week during summers those people get togeather in some scenic town or place and are social while being customers for coffe houses, bars and dancing places. Its also popular for vacation traveling. Those cars are not used year around, manny are a generation or two old and they will last for manny more if they are sold between people who take care of them as hobbies and status symbols.
Can't say that we are the norm but it's funny that you guys are collecting American cars while we are collecting Swedish cars.
It's a lucky person who can be gregarious and sober at the same time. But even so, suburbs are so isolated that you have no idea where to go to be social except possibly a church. And those who need ethanol to be social are S.O.L. in the suburbs. It's like prohibition by proxy.