Guest post by David Middleton
If Alexandria Occasional Cortex and the rest of the Green New Deal nitwits only had the mental capacity to understand Amin H. Nasser’s 2018 CERA presentation…
“Lifting the hood on the real future facing the petroleum industry”
HOUSTON, Texas, U.S., March 06, 2018
Remarks by Amin H. Nasser, Saudi Aramco President & CEO
Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen, and thank you Dan [Yergin] for that kind introduction.
Like all CEOs, I receive many invitations to address conferences.
Naturally, the first thing I ask is: “How will this help Saudi Aramco?”
The second is: “How will this help our industry?”
And the third is: “Will Dan Yergin be involved?!”
So CERA Week in Houston really hits the trifecta!!!
[…]
Future Role of Oil
Let me now turn to the energy transition underway.
I am increasingly worried that it is being portrayed in ways that seriously threaten future energy security and the transition itself.
In particular, the future role of oil is widely misunderstood, and I want to tell the real, compelling story today.
Future Role of Oil: Transport
The hot topic in energy transition is the future role of oil in transport.At the heart of it is the light duty road passenger vehicles segment that accounts for about 20% of global oil demand today.
Many wrongly believe that it is a simple matter of electric vehicles quickly and smoothly replacing the internal combustion engine.
Nor is it an “either/or” future, but far more complex.
[…]
Summary of Real Energy Transition
My friends, this is the complex reality of the energy transition:
- alternatives will not be ready to shoulder the burden of supplying adequate and affordable energy for some time;
- penetration by alternatives will vary greatly between the developing and developed world;
- there will be fierce competition among various technologies.
- By contrast, there will be continued healthy demand for oil in most existing sectors;
- investment in R&D and innovation by individual companies will further lighten the carbon footprint of proven energy sources and technologies, boosted by collaborative efforts such as the 1 billion dollars of climate-related investments through the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative;
- and we will see many non-combustible and new uses of oil.
In other words, I am not losing any sleep over ‘peak oil demandʼ or ‘stranded resourcesʼ.
Oil and gas will continue to play a major role in a world where all energy sources will be required for the foreseeable future.
Call to Action: Getting the Industry Ready for that Future
But is the world ready for continued growth in oil and gas demand?
Frankly, that readiness is weakening day by day – fueled by irrational hopes of rapid switching, and a lack of realism about the valuable, long-term contribution our industry will make.
So as an industry, we need to move people from fasting on hope to feasting on reality.
We need to massively raise our game, and make a compelling case about oil’s true role in the energy transition.
In particular, I believe we need bold action now in four key areas to ensure that those growing calls on our industry continue to be met.
First, we need to expand exploration.
Last year, only 7 billion barrels equivalent of oil and gas combined were discovered, which is among the lowest on record.
Second, we must not only meet the growth in oil demand but also offset a large natural decline in developed oil fields.
Even conservative estimates suggest about 20 million barrels per day of new capacity is required over the next five years.
Third, our industry needs more than 20 trillion dollars over the next quarter century to meet rising demand for oil and gas (including in ageing infrastructure).
That is virtually the size of the U.S. economy!
And we have already lost 1 trillion dollars of investments since the downturn.
This staggering amount will only come if investors are convinced that oil will be allowed to compete on a level playing field, that oil is worth so much more, and that oil is here for the foreseeable future.
That is why we must push back on the idea that the world can do without proven and reliable sources.
We must challenge mistaken assumptions about the speed with which alternatives will penetrate markets.
And leave people in no doubt that misplaced notions of ‘peak oil demandʼ and ‘stranded resourcesʼ are direct threats to an orderly energy transition and energy security.
We also need an environment that encourages long-term investments, as we are seeing here in the United States, and in Saudi Arabia with our ambitious Vision 2030.
Fourth, we need to intensify our efforts to both enhance current technologies as well as create new, game-changing ones.
That requires us to devote more resources to longer term research, particularly low-to-no carbon products.
And it means regulators must be policy holistic and technology agnostic – let the market decide.
[…]
Basically it boils down to this…
Neither regulatory malfeasance, nor greenie-weenie unicorn wishes nor dimwitted fossil fuel divestment protests will bring down the oil industry or fossil fuels in general. The world will need petroleum, natural gas and coal well-into the 21st century. Misguided efforts to deny access to capital and resources now, will only increase the cost to energy consumers later.
On another note, DeGolyer and MacNaughton (D&M) recently completed their comprehensive audit of Saudi Aramco’s proved oil & gas reserves and actually increased them…
Wednesday 1440/5/3 – 2019/01/09
Independent certification of the Kingdom’s oil and gas reserves within the Saudi Aramco’s concession area results in upward revision of the Kingdom’s overall reserves, and confirms highest standard of governance
Riyadh, January 9, 2019, SPA — Today, the Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources of Saudi Arabia has announced an upward revision to the Kingdom’s proven oil and gas reserves, following an independent certification of oil and gas reserves in Saudi Aramco’s concession area conducted by leading consultants DeGolyer and MacNaughton (D&M).
The Kingdom previously announced that oil and gas reserves as of 31 December 2017 were 266.3 billion barrels of oil and 307.9 trillion standard cubic feet of gas respectively. Of these, the estimated proven oil and gas reserves in Saudi Aramco’s concession area were 260.9 billion barrels of oil and 302.3 trillion standard cubic feet of gas. Following the certification, Saudi Aramco’s concession area oil reserves at year-end 2017 would have been 2.2 billion barrels higher or 263.1 billion barrels of oil and 319.5 trillion standard cubic feet of gas.
In addition to Saudi Aramco concession area reserves, the Kingdom also owns half of the oil reserves in the Partitioned Zone jointly owned by Saudi Arabia and the State of Kuwait. The Kingdom’s share of the Partitioned Zone oil reserves (onshore and offshore combined) is 5.4 billion barrels and the corresponding gas reserves is 5.6 TCF.
So, including the D&M revision of oil reserves in the Saudi Aramco’s concession area, the Kingdom’s total proven oil and gas reserves as of year-end 2017 would have been about 268.5 billion barrels of oil and 325.1 trillion standard cubic feet of gas, respectively.
[…]
D&M is one of the most highly respected independent consulting firms engaged in resource and reserve evaluation. All publicly traded oil companies are required to have their proved reserves audited by companies like D&M.
On another Aramco note, they expect to pump the last barrel of crude oil ever produced on Earth…
Saudi Arabia: We’ll Pump The World’s Very Last Barrel Of Oil
By Tsvetana Paraskova – Jan 23, 2019, 6:00 PM CST
Saudi Arabia isn’t buying the peak oil demand narrative.
OPEC’s largest producer continues to expect global oil demand to keep rising at least by 2040 and sees itself as the oil producer best equipped to continue meeting that demand, thanks to its very low production costs.
Saudi Arabia will be the one to pump the last barrel of oil in the world, but it doesn’t see the ‘last barrel of oil’ being pumped for decades and decades to come.
“I don’t see peak [oil] demand happening in 10 years or even by 2040,” Amin Nasser, president and chief executive officer of Saudi oil giant Saudi Aramco told CNN Business’ Emerging Markets Editor John Defterios on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
“There will continue to be growth in oil demand … We are the lowest cost producer and the last barrel will come from the region,” Nasser told CNN.
[…]
Saudi Aramco’s cost of production is just $4 a barrel, al-Falih later said in a news conference, as carried by Reuters.
Saudi Arabia may need oil prices higher than $80 a barrel to balance its budget because most of the income comes from oil. Yet, the Kingdom has what is probably the world’s lowest cost of pumping one barrel of oil.
[…]
While Mr Nasser may not be “losing any sleep over ‘peak oil demandʼ or ‘stranded resourcesʼ”, he might want to do something about that G&A problem… $4/bbl lifting cost and $76/bbl overhead… 😉
Excellent real world perspectives from Mr. Nasser. On a level playing field, petroleum oil will remain a major contributor to both energy and non-energy related products. The same is also true for coal!
Rigged markets result from the anti-competitive tools of the ‘green’ socialists.
And wind and solar, being the least reliable and most expensive alternative energy sources will fade to their real best uses. Wind and solar are best for the end user, or those far from the grid, or sailboats on anchor. Electric cars have utility as fleets of taxis in inner cities, with low charge vehicles switched out for charged vehicles it a few minutes. And for old ladies who only go to the grocery store and never go far, they will be fine. For all other uses, we need vehicles with longer range, as higher energy density and faster refills.
A realistic presentation.
I wrote this similar thought recently:
https://www.facebook.com/willis.eschenbach/posts/10157112839686096
Fossil fuels comprise fully 85% of global primary energy, unchanged in decades, and unlikely to change much in the foreseeable future. AOC wants to ban fossil fuels – do that now and ~everyone in the developed world will be dead in a month. If you believe AOC’s warmist BS then we are finished either way, through global warming or energy starvation. Like most Marxists, AOC is delusional – just ignore her lunatic rants – the beauty and wonder of life will continue to unfold as it should.
I’ll be hornswoggled.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe this is the first time a reserve study of Saud reserves has been publicly released since ARAMCO was nationalized in the ’70s.
Is Matt Simmons rolling over in his grave?
I may have been too harsh on Mr. Simmons in the past. I have never read Twilight in the Desert; but based on how it’s been described in comments in other posts, I assumed he was a crackpot. But, I dug up some of his presentations and they really aren’t bad. He urged Aramco to be more transparent and highlighted some of the problems he saw with Ghawar and other Saudi fields. There was really nothing that negative.
I’m not a geologist. I was, once upon a time, one of those exceedingly dangerous persons who played at “geologist wannabe.”
I read the book and thought it worthwhile reading (if for no other reason than its detailed information on and examination of Saud fields). As you know, it created a sensation when it was published in 2005.
As that’s now 14 years ago, my memory is a bit rusty but I believe Simmons’ main case was based on apparently reliable reports of a rising “water cut” at Ghawar.
Simmons was, of course, that most dangerous of all amateur geologists— a Wall Street would-be geologist. I cannot recall whether he had an actual training, degree or background in the field and I cannot quickly locate his résumé or c.v. He did have an M.B.A. from Harvard (that, of course, hardly qualifies him to evaluate reserves). I don’t think he was a “crackpot” but he most assuredly was a promoter and a Wall Street I.B. (a species where anything said or written should never be accepted at face value).
Ghawar’s Arab-D formation is a very strong, very efficient water-drive reservoir. They will very likely produce over 80% of the oil in place. It will still be producing 1 million bbl/d when the water cut reaches 90%… And it’s maybe up to 40% now.
Interesting. Thanks.
Simmons sold a helluva lot of books. He probably made more money selling books than he did from the I.B. business.
Can’t stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen.
What do the unicorn promoters say?
“What do the unicorn promoters say?”
…..Unicorn farts are the Green Energy Wave of the future ?
Well, well. Reality based statements about reality. Accusatory Occasional-Cortex will have to have this “interpreted” down to her 4th grade educational level so she can understand what her advisors are telling her to say about it.
You should probably leave Ocasio-Cortex out of it, she is only a 29 year old drink server, part-time bartender. Mere mention demeans your case.
She has inserted herself into the situation, and I highly enjoy kicking her in her oversized, horse looking, fecal stained teeth.
It’s “Anoxia Occasional Cortex”, I think. Needs some “O’s”.
She clearly needs something. I will just leave it at that. 😉
They have the mental capacity. I am reminded of an Upton Sinclair quote:
They have an agenda and anything that doesn’t support that will be studiously ignored.
The reason they won’t understand is that they are too busy playing with their mental blocks. They aren’t stupid but they may be crazy.
While I’m dredging up my favorite quotes:
The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the left, as a group, is psychotic.
It’s definitely some form of mental illness or deficiency.
“It’s definitely some form of mental illness or deficiency.” – David Middleton
^^ THIS! ^^
I have known leftists are psychologically damaged since the mid 1970s. What took you so long?
He should be careful what he says, otherwise the Stochastic Cortex will be “running a train” over his “penetration by alternatives”.
More seriously, in some ways I’m surprised that he even gives this stuff the time of day. Saudi Aramco will still dominate because of their size and very low cost of production compared to other players in the market. Any real problems will be down to political instability and the budget deficit of the Saudi Government.
The world market for the lowest cost oil is probably not going to disappear for a century at least. There is currently no such thing as an “energy transition”. Nor will there be until we see massive roll-out of nuclear power, which has been delayed many decades by environmentalists, many of whom still haven’t recognized the Hobson’s choice that lies in front of them.
…and the massive infrastructure up grade it’s going to take…and forcing every person, business, etc to buy new cars
Saudi Aramco is trying to market the diminishing oil in public stocks before the balloon of the never depleting saudi oil reserve is blowing empty.
DeGolyer & McNaughton is a trustworthy and reliable firm of petroleum reserve engineers.
You may count me among those who never thought a proper reserve study of Saudi Aramco reserves would ever see the light of day (i.e., would be made public). I’m still in the camp who will only believe a Saudi Aramco IPO when I see it.
I was also surprised that Aramco did this. They had to have their reserves audited if they were serious about an IPO… That’s why I thought the IPO would never happen.
There’s actually enough information that was made public about Ghawar back before Saudi Arabia took full control of Aramco, that you can estimate the ultimate recovery (EUR)… And it’s fracking YUGE.
http://www.gregcroft.com/ghawar.ivnu
Euan Mears did an estimate of remaining reserves based on cumulative production numbers and reservoir estimates in 1980, that’s about 110 Bbbl remaining from 267 Bbbl EUR
http://euanmearns.com/the-aramco-ipo-and-the-black-art-of-estimating-oil-reserves/
I’ll have to dig up my spreadsheet. I think I had about 50% of the EUR remaining… meaning we’re at “Peak Ghawar.”
“….we need to move people from fasting on hope to feasting on reality……” Enough said.
We’ve seen off the fascists, the Marxists, and all of the other challengers to The Enlightenment. I have no doubt that we will see this bunch off as well. More good people will arise as the fight intensifies and the stakes become clear. Look at we’ve accomplished with the odds stacked against us. The best is yet to come.
We won’t lose because we can’t lose.
From an oil industry insider some years ago: “they find it, plug the well and wait for a price spike”.
Field development operations can’t be conducted in accordance with price volatility. The time scales are not even remotely similar. They make discoveries that aren’t economic and wait for higher prices to develop them; but that’s not something that can be done on the spur of the moment.
Like everyone else, they spend more money on exploration and production operations when prices are high and spend less, while trying to maximize production, while prices are low.
The main difference between OPEC and private sector oil companies is that they will actively cut or increase production in order to try to influence prices. They can only increase production to lower prices when they have excess production capacity. When they cut production to try to drive up prices, Aramco pretty well has to take most of the hit because the other OPEC members cheat like Democrats in elections.
G&A at $76/bbl will not go away as that is the well from which top executives draw.
“they spend more money on exploration… when prices are high and spend less… when prices are low…”
You got that right. A Geology joke that was popular in Houston in the mid to late 80’s (when the price of oil crashed) went like this:
What’s the difference between Pizza Hut and Exxon these days?
Pizza Hut is still hiring Geologists with Master’s Degrees.
Ghawar Field is off the charts astonishing. The biggest field I ever looked at in the U.S was Yates Field in west Texas, a supergiant of a couple of billion barrels (IIRC) and was the monster discovery that made the Ohio Oil Company (later called Marathon). You could comfortably fit 100 Yates Fields inside Ghawar and still have plenty of room to spare. To think that the Saudi royal family could blow through the kind of cash flow that Ghawar spins off is just as astonishing.
The Permian Basin is often referred to as if it was a single oil field… With such extensive continuous resources, maybe it should be. But Ghawar is basically a single structure with most of the production from a single reservoir… it’s mind boggling.
DM, am admittedly not the oil geology expert you are. But have studied this for many years at many different datascales.
Conventional oil (specific definition API>10, field porosity >4%, field permeability >10 millidarcies) did in fact peak ~2007-8. Proven by the massive 2007 IES major field decline survey. So that prediction by
Now we are left to quibble about as yet undiscovered conventional, plus unconventional oil TRR.
The as yet undiscovered conventional can be statistically addressed in at least two ways: creaming curves by basin, and logit transforms. Both say that about 75% of all oil to ever be discovered already has been. It is, after all, a finite fossil furl resource (abiotic oil being junk science—albeit small amounts of abiogenic methane DO exist.)
Now, w can quibble about unconventional TRR. Granted, that has been improving. For oil, from about 1.5% max when I last looked up the data to maybe a future 4% with present Permian basin hype. Now look at permian basin decline curves, and get to anything beyond 4% TRR.
In which case, given the newest TRR estimates for Permian’s prolific Wolfcamp shale and adjacent layers the global peak in all oil (NOT gas) production is still about 2025.
Note again, as I showed in Arts of Truth, the correct peak production probability function is not Hubbert’s logistic, but rather a long tailed gamma. Meaning no immenent crisis, only a long slow but very high painful rise in oil prices post ~2025?
Rud,
I’ve been patiently waiting for that “long slow but very high painful rise in oil prices” since 1986… 😉
Andy May very aptly defined “unconventional” as whatever it takes to fix failed peak oil predictions.
Most oil fields exhibit long-tailed gamma production curves and in reality, global oil production will probably also follow a long tailed gamma. But Hubbert’s logistic function is a very simple way of expressing it. Regarding what’s left to be discovered and/or accessed…
[…]
[…]
Eyeballing Mr. Clemente’s bar chart, I get the following…
This would suggest a total recoverable resource of 7.1 trillion barrels, of which, only about 1.2 trillion barrels have been produced. Hubbert’s 1956 Peak Oil calculation assumed a global recoverable resource of only 1.25 trillion barrels. The world has already produced Hubbert’s total recoverable resource and proved oil reserves stood at 1.7 trillion barrels at the end of 2017. Add in 1.4 trillion barrels of technically recoverable conventional and 2.8 trillion barrels of technically recoverable unconventional resources and it’s easy to see that Peak Oil is both real and irrelevant.
The other issue in the Middle East is pure politics as it affects the oil industry. As Saudi Arabia and Iran are the two largest players, who are religious and political rivals, some of the policies of Saudi Arabia will be aimed at affecting Iran economically as a political goal. Taking only economics into account misses that factor.
Are U.S. gas prices a leading indicator of the economy, or a follower, or neither ?
They have been pretty static and low for a couple of years now.
Both and/or neither.
Thanks for clearing that up.
It’s important to start with knowing what it is that I don’t know… 😉
This is a serious question. I know there are many who are ready to give derogatory responses to what they do not believe. Maybe such are justified for this topic, but any comment itself, without supporting evidence, is without value. This is only tangentially related to the main topic of this blog article but here is more related to my question than most places I might find to post.
The main business of someone I have known since birth is recording and producing audio and video, usually of music concerts and other entertainment occasions. He frequently has requests to do more work than he could accept. In his part of the world people want his services because they are pleased with his results. He is of above average intelligence and very competent with what he usually undertakes. He has always seemed very honest and concerned with results rather than appearances.
That is background to put the question into perspective. He has been asked to go into the field to document some citizen investigations of the new oil pipeline over which there was all the conflict in the Dakotas not so long ago. My question deals with what he reports finding. I don’t see him making up, or repeating things to fit an agenda. I would tend to take what he claims to be seeing and experiencing on his word but this seems very much in conflict with official rhetoric.
To wit:
There have already been many leaks from the new pipeline. Farmers have lost the use of their pastures and planting fields and water supplies, in some cases leading to the collapse of their entire likelihood. In many places the pipeline is barely under the surface rather than at the depth regulations demand and thus more easily damage by accident (or obviously by intent but I don’t know anything about the incident of that.) Accidents or simple failures seem to be pretty common for something claimed to be very safe.
The documentation project involves visiting and filming sites and recording interviews with local inhabitants. This is not his project, he is simply, as a service, recording the evidence discovered. There are apparently few or no government or other independent inspectors with jurisdiction over the pipeline. The pipeline company is self governing in regard to meeting regulations or cleaning up spills and they do what is cheap and convenient for them, then lie about the situation. Spills are often simply covered over with sand and soil until they are not visible unless one tries to walk or drive over them. The land and/or water supply is now unfit for anything.
The documentation will eventually be available, I would guess on YouTube and probably elsewhere, but I haven’t seen anything yet, only heard a little of the tale. I know that many things can be faked but his normal work doesn’t involve changing the material beyond replacing bad takes (for work done in a studio), editing noise out of the performance, EQing for the best sound, and such standard practices of the music industry. Most of his work is with live concerts and often involves making material available immediately (i.e. without time for any editing) so concerts goers can purchase souvenirs on the way out. Also, faking a lot of material, in many different locations, would seem to be a very involved and very expensive undertaking. This is a low budget project.
Does anyone have anything other than personal opinions or official information releases to offer as evidence for or against such practices? I know that lying and misdirecting are common with many activists, as well as all politicians and many bureaucrats, but I find it hard to believe that he has taken up such practices. It is not his undertaking, he is simply there to document what is found.
Andy,
If farmers are losing their land, pasture, and water, where are the law suits? The US is a litigious country with lawyers lining up to take cases like that to court for a percentage of the take. These are the kind of court cases that make CNN. So where’s the court cases and headlines? Water sources poisoned? How is it that this is confined to farms without affecting local communities? Anything in the news about entire communities being shuttered because their water supply was destroyed? The press is all over even a hint of a large corporation screwing up that bad but they just don’t report in the Dakotas? Speaking of the Dakotas, how is it that there are federal (EPA for example) and state and local regulations all over the country that inspect and tightly control pipelines suddenly leaving just one pipeline in the Dakotas unregulated? Oil spills that can be exposed simply by walking or driving over them? In the age of cell phones and the internet and eco warriors falling all over themselves trying to stop every pipeline, but THIS pipeline in particular, how is it that such an obvious mess is not ALREADY on the internet? A pipeline with multiple leaks big enough to poison entire farms and entire water supplies is being covered up? Oil is over $50 per barrel, oil companies spend the money to find it, drill it, pump it… and then let large quantities of it just leak out?
Stop and think for a moment. If any of your claims had a shadow of substance, it would be all over the international news, you don’t need some fancy editing suite to get a spill on the news that can be exposed by simply walking or driving on it. Couple of phone calls and large vans with three letter names like CNN, NBC, CBS, FOX will be on site with very expensive editing suites and they’ll put it out there for the public in minutes. If your friend is telling the truth by the way, then s/he is probably committing a criminal act by not immediately reporting such things.
You don’t need a fancy editing suite and a lot of time to expose the truth. The fancy editing suite and lots of time is only required when you are building a false narrative.
Get a grip.
Shipping oil via pipelines is the safest way to ship oil by far. Shipping oil by train is much, much more dangerous. When Obama rejected the Keystone pipeline, crude oil that would have been safely transported through the Keystone pipeline was instead carried by oil trains, and the railroad owned by Warren Buffett (BNSF) was the biggest winner by far (as he was a large contributor to Obama’s campaign). Obama cited “protecting the environment” in his decision, but the truth of the matter is that oil trains have been one unmitigated environmental disaster after another. Here’s a partial list of derailments that spilled oil that would have, and should have been transported safely through the Keystone pipeline:
July 2013, Lac-Megantic, Quebec: Sixty-three tank cars derail and spill more than 1.3 million gallons of oil. Forty-seven people are killed and 30 buildings are destroyed.
December 2013, Casselton, ND: An oil train derailment spills 400,000 gallons of oil, most of which burns.
February 2015, Beckley, W.Va.: An oil train hauling North Dakota crude derails destroying a house and forcing the evacuation of two towns.
Feb. 2015, Gogama, Ontario: 29 cars carrying crude oil derail and spill oil.
March 2015, Gogama, Ontario: 39 tanker cars loaded with crude oil derail and catch fire. The fire burns for five days, and the spilled oil eventually reaches Kazaway Lake.
March 2015, Galena, IL.: A BNSF Railway train loaded with crude oil derails and catches fire.
June 3, 2016, Columbia River Gorge: An oil train with 96 tank cars derails and spills 42,000 gallons of oil into the Columbia River.
June 2018, Doon, Ia.: An oil train derails spilling 230,000 gallons of crude oil spill into the Rock River, forcing nearby residents to evacuate.
Louis Hooffstetter,
Thank you very much. Let me add another one that was closer to home for me . Hopefully you and others keep track.
April 2014, Lynchburg, Virginia: Train derailment spills crude oil into James River. Several CSX tanker cars carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire along the James River in downtown Lynchburg, Va., leading to the evacuation of nearby buildings, but no injuries. The city said there was no impact on the drinking water for its 77,000 residents due to spillage into the James River.
(My comment: It’s ok because it went into the river).
Shipping oil via pipelines is the safest way to transport oil by far. Shipping oil by train is much, much more dangerous. When Obama rejected the Keystone pipeline, crude oil that would have been safely transported through the Keystone pipeline was instead carried by oil trains, and the railroad owned by Warren Buffett (BNSF) was the biggest winner by far (as he was a large contributor to Obama’s campaign). Obama cited “protecting the environment” in his decision, but the truth of the matter is that oil trains have been one unmitigated environmental disaster after another. Here’s a partial list of derailments that spilled oil that would have, and should have been transported safely through the Keystone pipeline:
July 2013, Lac-Megantic, Quebec: Sixty-three tank cars derail and spill more than 1.3 million gallons of oil. Forty-seven people are killed and 30 buildings are destroyed.
December 2013, Casselton, ND: An oil train derailment spills 400,000 gallons of oil, most of which burns.
February 2015, Beckley, W.Va.: An oil train hauling North Dakota crude derails destroying a house and forcing the evacuation of two towns.
Feb. 2015, Gogama, Ontario: 29 cars carrying crude oil derail and spill oil.
March 2015, Gogama, Ontario: 39 tanker cars loaded with crude oil derail and catch fire. The fire burns for five days, and the spilled oil eventually reaches Kazaway Lake.
March 2015, Galena, IL.: A BNSF Railway train loaded with crude oil derails and catches fire.
June 3, 2016, Columbia River Gorge: An oil train with 96 tank cars derails and spills 42,000 gallons of oil into the Columbia River.
June 2018, Doon, Ia.: An oil train derails spilling 230,000 gallons of crude oil spill into the Rock River and forcing nearby residents to evacuate.
I know those arguments (against the possibility); they are reasonable sounding. I think I explained in enough detail why I put this question up asking for EVIDENCE, one way or the other, rather than opinions or arguments, so I won’t go into that again. I’ve read a bit from both sides and saw earlier videos of spill sites. NEITHER SIDE, in anything I saw, did anything more convincing than point fingers at the other side. It seemed ridiculous that the side claiming that such spills happen did not have independent certified chemical analysis of at least some of the sites they were filming.
I also know the argument that oil pipe lines are safer than trains or trucks. I also understand that oil pipelines ultimately add significantly less overhead to the cost per quantity of oil.
There exist web sites that list pipeline spills. They have many, probably hundreds of entries. As I recall when I looked at them some time ago, their information on each only included some info such as the location, the ownership, the date the pipeline was built, and the volume of oil involved in each spill. The site also listed gas pipeline breaks, which often resulted in fires or explosions.
I didn’t have the interest to do the obvious and try to track down local newspaper stories or other such evidence from the time they supposedly happened. No references for such were provided if I recall correctly. One thing I did gather from reading through parts of the lists was that all the pipelines themselves that I saw listed were quite old, which does not speak to modern materials, construction, or monitoring.
Regardless, as I already wrote, I explained my reason for asking and what I wanted, if it exists. As the old saying goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Does anyone know of a hedge or mutual fund that is investing in conventional energy (petroleum), nuclear, and viable alternatives other than solar and wind, and shorting the green rent-seeking Solyndras of the world ( and perhaps Tesla)? Or a stock analyst that focuses on those industries? If there isnt a fund like that, there should be! Thanks!
Currently I use only natural oil in my diesel car. Future brings synthetic hydrocarbons. I can switch to natural gas by a few thousand euro changes to my car. End of natural gas in Russia will not happen in my lifetime. Nuclear power is the best for industrial and home usage. Coal reserves do not end either and you can make oil from coal.
Light electric city cars could be families’ second and third cars. Standard replaceable batteries are a mandate for all successful electric cars. Price of an electric car with just 20 kWh of batteries and spaces for 100 kWh add-on batteries is lower than price of current cars. Then you rent batteries when needed. When your car gets old, you replace your original 20 kWh battery.
And the unbelievably silly Synod of the Church of England is disinvesting in fossil fuels as a virtue signal until oil companies conform to the Paris Agreement but does not say what this means. So ignorant, so unreal, renouncing voting rights- jump in and pick up the stock, chaps.
Just doing an expensive update to my 12 year old diesel RAV4. New Geolanders, new exhaust, injectors etc. May even get some cosmetics done on the scratched fenders and minor dents. Can’t afford £30,000 for a new hybrid RAV4. Even if I could they are too low slung and heavy. Don’t see one reversing up a muddy field to collect firewood from the copse that I own. Obviously I want to burn more firewood and less coal to save the planet for the Cortez family. I don’t see any of my contempories getting rid of their diesels unless the Politicians try to ban diesel. Then we will be getting rid of the Politicians instead.
Just for the enlightenment of the crowd:
Definition of copse. : a thicket, grove, or growth of small trees. — called also coppice.
==========
My work is done here.
Louis Hooffstetter: “Shipping oil via pipelines is the safest way to transport oil by far. Shipping oil by train is much, much more dangerous.”
If we look twenty years into the future, here in America we are likely to see that renewable energy mandates will continue to force baseload coal and nuclear generation off the grid, with our coal plants being shuttered at a somewhat faster rate than our nuclear plants.
Assuming that green energy advocates will be controlling America’s public policy decisions well into the future, it is predictable that gas-fired generation capacity will by necessity become the primary means of backing up wind and solar as our variable energy output, grid firming power resource.
Assuming as well that green energy advocates succeed in preventing the construction of additional pipeline capacity, the alternative is to ship liquefied natural gas by rail to LNG-powered gas turbine peaker plants located near every large urban community, possibly to hundreds if not thousands of these gas-fired peaker plants.
So a further question arises: Where does the LNG burned in all these peaker plants come from?
Does it come from new LNG conversion plants built here in America? Or does it come from Russia, or from the Middle East, or from Africa, or from Asia — anywhere the LNG conversion plants can be built without risking the opposition of green energy public policy advocates?
Wherever it comes from, the LNG will probably be shipped by rail, and the energy-consuming public will have to accept the dangers of rail transport if they still want to see the lights come on when they throw the switch.
I know it is wrong but the best thing that could possibly happen to the U.S. is a widespread electricity blackout arising from the insane attempt to mandate intermittent, unreliable generating capacity as baseload— and the sooner, the better.
I am convinced that is the only way the general public will ever comprehend the delusion of attempting to power a modern economy with pinwheels and sunshine.
I’m not sure I’ve got enough ammo, for that scenario.
I do. Got generators, too. NG/LP fired. And access to lots of both.
John, what is more likely to happen is that the grid in a major service region will gradually become less and less reliable in a series of ever more serious outage events as market penetration of the renewables gradually increases.
In the early stages of that series of outage events, over a period of possibly four or five years, the claim will be made that it wasn’t the wind and solar facilities themselves that were directly at issue, it will be claimed that the reliability issues were caused by the lack of a smart grid control infrastructure.
But as the seriousness and frequency of the outages escalate, those who manage the grid in their major service region will have no other choice but to quickly add gas-fired peakers to handle the inevitable shortfalls, paying whatever the peak power generators are allowed to charge for their gas-fired variable energy resources (VERs).
The fuel needs of these LNG-powered peakers are likely to be serviced by rail transport simply because the peakers can be quickly installed wherever they are needed and where rail service is readily available.
A point will come where the total LNG gas-fired peaker capacity equals or exceeds the total nameplate capacity of the wind and solar facilities located in that service region. Energy customers will then have to pay whatever it costs to manage and maintain a dual VER grid system. Paying the costs of an increasingly frequent number of LNG rail transport accidents will be part of the total bill.
My expectation is that the US Northeast and California are where this trend towards the expedited installation of LNG-fired peakers, done in response to an increasingly unreliable grid, begins to be seen in earnest.
Renewables are a mental retard’s pipedream. Out here in the real world they are an abject failure, propped up by stealing tax payers money.
Doesn’t seem to have had much effect in Australia.
Saudis seem to be taking the position that they will be the last one standing.
However MBS has made some interesting comments about their view of production declines elsewhere.
Saudi Arabia Calls The End Of Russia’s Oil Prowess
Saudi Arabia has not only called the end of Russia’s prominence as a global oil behemoth, but anticipates that Russia’s oil exports “will have declined heavily if not disappeared” within the next 19 years, Mohammed bin Salman said in a recent interview with Bloomberg
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Saudi-Arabia-Calls-The-End-Of-Russias-Oil-Prowess.html
But we believe that the other side will be a lot of producers disappearing. So for example we believe that China will be decreased sharply if not disappeared after five years from today. And other countries will continue every day to disappear as countries producing oil. Nineteen years from today, Russia will have declined heavily if not disappeared with 10 million barrels. So comparing the rise of the demand for oil and the disappearing supplier, Saudi Arabia needs to supply more in the future. So we don’t believe that there is any risk in that area for Saudi Arabia
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-05/saudi-crown-prince-discusses-trump-aramco-arrests-transcript
The very clear signal from Saudi Arabia is that they have absolutely no intention of leaving their oil and gas reserves in the ground to save the planet from catastrophic global warming. Neither are the other Gulf States or Russia. Also many non-western countries have no intention of leaving huge coal reserves in the ground.
How large are these reserves in relation to the alarmists policy ambitions?
McGlade and Ekins 2015 (The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2°C) estimate that the proven global reserves of oil, gas and coal would produce about 2900 GtCO2e. They further estimate that the “non-reserve resources” of fossil fuels represent a further 8000 GtCO2e of emissions. This compares with the 1000 GtCO2e of emissions to reach the magical 2°C of warming.
On October 2017, following McGlade and Ekins 2015, I estimated the potential emissions from the proven reserves by major country. Whilst Saudi Arabia might have the second largest proven reserves of oil, it has less than 5% of proven emissions in the ground.
https://manicbeancounter.com/2017/11/22/the-supply-side-of-climate-mitigation-is-toothless/
I suppose Peak Oil is going to be a big surprise for most people when it happens, since nearly nobody expects it.
Yet the mathematics that the article presents should raise more than an eyebrow. 20 new million barrels of oil needed every day is a conservative estimate. Only 7 billion barrels found last year. That would not be enough for one year of conservative estimate, but according to David “~66% of the oil in a reservoir is frequently left behind because it’s too expensive or difficult to extract.”
Houston, we have a problem.
Since peak oil is a lie you keep spewing no one will be harmed by it. Except you. Telling lies over and over f**ks up your brain. Oh, already has. Never mind.
In a pressure-depletion oil reservoir, the default primary recovery rate is 20%. 2 out of 10 barrels of original oil in place (OOIP) are recovered without enhanced oil recovery (EOR). In a water-drive reservoir, the primary recovery rate is 40-50% of the OOIP. EOR can kick the recovery rate for water-drive reservoirs up to 80% and push 50% for pressure-depletion reservoirs.
EOR tends to be expensive and is currently only justifiable for very large oil fields. Of course that’s just with current technology and oil prices.
While peak oil is a very real thing, continued demand for oil, continued improvements in technology and human innovation make peak oil a very irrelevant thing.
“alternative will not be ready to shoulder the burden of providing adequate and affordable energy for some time;”
_________________________________________________
the oil industry needed a 100 years to develop a global gas station network.
The new women environment ministers demand that charging stations for electromobility be available worldwide within 10 years.
And are offended if they do not get it. Can’t get it.