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Energy Post

The best thinkers on energy

US shale has a glaring problem

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With oil prices high and production booming, 2018 was supposed to be a year of profits for US shale oil and gas companies. A report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) and the Sightline Institute shows that hasn’t happened. As 3Q 2018 results start coming in, investors around the world should be considering if there is a fundamental problem with the fracking business model, says Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com. … [Read more...]

The US natural gas industry is leaking way more methane than previously thought

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How big is the methane problem? A five-year research effort shows it’s much bigger than has been assumed so far, write Anthony J Marchese and Dan Zimmerle of Colorado State Universtiy. They add that if the problem is not tackled, the climate benefits of gas will largely evaporate. Technology is not the bottleneck, though – the government will have to adopt the right regulations. Courtesy The Conversation. … [Read more...]

Why US shale will crash and UK will fail: a history of shale oil & gas production in pictures & charts

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With fracking about to recommence in the UK after 8 years, social entrepreneur and writer Jeremy Leggett reviews the short but troubled history of fracking in the U.S. In a devastating slide presentation, he pictures the shale gas industry as a dirty, multi-hundred-billion-dollar doomed-to-burst debt bubble. And he predicts a similar fiasco in the UK. Courtesy Future Today.  … [Read more...]

The Trump and Juncker Agreement: there may be more to it than meets the eye

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The agreement between Trump and Juncker to have Europe buy more U.S. LNG has been criticized because it contains few details and because “they can’t make it happen anyway”. However, according to Anna Mikulska of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, the two leaders could promote investment in infrastructure – and that could have a big impact on the market. Courtesy Kleinman Center for … [Read more...]

OPEC? NOPEC! What makes Putin’s vision of a Russian-US oil alliance a pipedream

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U.S. president Trump, who wants the U.S. to become a dominant oil and gas supplier to the world, regards Russia as “competitor”, though he sees that as “a compliment”. Russian president Putin has said he would like to “work together” with the U.S. to forge an OPEC-like alliance. Anna Mikulska, a fellow at the Baker Institute’s Center for Energy Studies and at the University of Pennsylvania's Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, explains why such an … [Read more...]

China’s growing oil demand creates a new geopolitical dilemma

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China has become the world’s largest oil importer, and despite establishing the largely successful yuan-denominated oil futures, Beijing will have to grapple with an overlooked geopolitical and economic consequence as it seeks to quench its thirst for oil and gas, writes Tim Daiss of Oilprice.com. The country, mighty as it is, will become more dependent on OPEC, Russia - and even the U.S. Article courtesy Oilprice.com. … [Read more...]

Donald Trump versus OPEC

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OPEC does have a role in today’s higher oil prices, but is this bad for the U.S., as Donald Trump is claiming? According to independent energy analyst Geoffrey Styles, in the new oil world, the U.S. economy may not be worse off with higher oil prices, even if consumers pay more at the pump.  … [Read more...]

Gas Geoeconomics in Europe: make Russia a “normal” gas supplier again

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To protect Europe from Russian gas coercion, the U.S. should take the unorthodox step of investing in European gas infrastructure, write Gabriel Collins and Anna Mikulska of the Baker Institute’s Center for Energy Studies.  Such a "geoeconomics-based strategy" would help blunt and deflect the Kremlin’s gas wedge. … [Read more...]

The secret of the great American fracking bubble

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While politicians and the mainstream media trumpet fracking as a great American energy revolution, it has in fact been a financial disaster, writes Justin Mikulka of DeSmog blog. The American shale oil and gas boom, he writes, may be "one of the largest money-losing endeavors in the nation's history". Courtesy DeSmog blog. … [Read more...]

Fracking may have political support, it still needs a ‘social licence’

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The UK government may be convinced that shale gas production is important to the country, it will need to convince the public too. Experience in Eastern Europe has shown that without a “social licence”, fracking will not get off the ground, writes Andreas Goldthau, Director of the Centre of International Public Policy in London and author of a new book on the politics of shale gas. … [Read more...]

The militarization of U.S. energy policy: Donald Trump enlists fossil fuels in the struggle for global dominance

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As the recently published National Security Strategy shows, Donald Trump has turned the expansion of the U.S. fossil fuel industry and its exports into a major component of American foreign and security policy, writes energy expert and author Michael T. Klare. In the view of the Trump administration, anyone that stands in the way of American exploitation of oil, gas and coal resources is viewed as an obstructer of the national interest, notes … [Read more...]

New NASA study underscores urgency of solving the global methane problem

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A new NASA study suggests methane emissions from fossil fuels may be responsible for half of the recent rise in global atmospheric methane concentrations, writes David Lyon of EDF Energy Exchange. He adds that reducing worldwide emissions of methane by the oil and gas industry would have no net cost and would have the same impact as closing all coal plants in China.  … [Read more...]

US shale oil: the limits to growth

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With technological progress slowing down and financiers becoming more reluctant to invest, estimates of future US shale oil production are becoming more conservative, writes geophysicist Jilles van den Beukel. By the early 2020s, the ability of US shale oil to provide a ceiling on oil prices will be significantly diminished.  … [Read more...]

For Total, the Age of Oil is not over yet

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The decision of the Maersk group to sell its oil and gas division is partly due to specific circumstances, but it is also a vote of no confidence in the future of the oil industry now that peak oil demand and US shale oil imply systematically lower profitability, writes geophysicist Jilles van den Beukel. But Total clearly feels there is still a future for low-cost conventional oil, particularly in politically stable countries like Denmark and … [Read more...]