International news for oil and gas professionals
The Obama administration and the Department of Defense (DOD) are under the delusion that energy fuel supplies for US armed forces are subject to the whims of potentially hostile governments.
The biggest change in OGJ's latest Midyear Forecast, p. 28, is the surge in the use of natural gas, especially as it cuts into the use of coal for electric power generation in the US.
Ten years ago, analysts ran fevers over expectations about global oil consumption. A forecast would appear from, say, the US Energy Information Administration indicating oil demand in 2020 at 119.6 million b/d, and many of them would pop their safety valves.
Because its biggest energy problem is price rather than supply, the US military should concentrate on lowering consumption rather than developing renewable sources.
The price of crude has fallen more than $35/bbl this year and could go even lower in the current environment of severe risk aversion and macroeconomic pessimism, said analysts with Barclays Commodities Research.
Total US energy demand in 2012 will decline for the second consecutive year as economic sluggishness and high unemployment continue to reduce energy consumption and stimulate energy-use efficiency.
Sagging crude oil prices have joined anemic natural gas prices to cloud the outlook for US and Canada drilling in the rest of 2012.
Global ethylene production capacity moved ahead in 2011 but much more slowly than the record-setting pace for 2010, according to Oil & Gas Journal's latest survey of the industry.
Governments that implement overly stringent policies for the development of natural gas resources, including shale gas and coal-seam methane, could hinder economic growth and risk seeing their economies go "backwards," ExxonMobil Corp. Chief Executive Rex Tillerson warned recently.
The US House approved a sweeping energy legislative package that supporters said would facilitate development of more domestic oil and gas, and opponents said would seriously gut environmental protections.
Global crude oil production capacity is likely to climb to 110 million b/d by 2020 from 93 million b/d currently in the largest single-decade increase since the 1980s, a former senior Eni executive forecasts in a recent study.
Statoil plans to boost its US and Canada production to 500,000 boe/d by 2020 compared with its current 149,000 boe /d, and the company continues shifting its focus from natural gas toward more liquids-rich plays, executives told investors in New York on June 20.
The US Department of the Interior announced June 22 that it would accept comments on its proposed onshore hydraulic fracturing regulations for another 60 days.
Encana Corp. plans to invest an additional $600 million yet this year in numerous oil and liquids-rich natural gas plays, and it also expects to increase total liquids production for the year to 30,000 b/d.
The US Environmental Protection Agency has overestimated methane emissions from unconventional natural gas well operations, including well completions and hydraulic fracturing, in its latest greenhouse gases emissions inventory, two trade associations said.
Production of crude oil will more than double to 6.2 million b/d by 2030, largely from oil sands, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
How can a 1,000 b/d oil discovery be surrounded by dusters? That is the question anyone involved with Nevada's Sans Spring field has likely asked themselves.
Every 2 years, Oil & Gas Journal conducts a survey of carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery activity, including providing detailed field by field reports of performance and oil production.
Statoil conducted a commercial assay of Grane crude oil from a sample taken Mar. 18, 2012.
Nelson-Farrar indexes for finished steels changed drastically during 2008-11 . Generally speaking, the alloy steels changed less than carbon steel products.
Pipe diameter seems to have no influence on black powder particles' velocity distribution in natural gas transmission pipelines operating at 10 m/sec and 20 m/sec, and there will be little, if any, particle-size segregation.
Two new field-verified calculation methods can provide efficient simulation tools for both pipeline design and operation analysis in assessing likely damage from dislodging a stuck pig or hydrate plug.
