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Burgan oil field has entered depletion phase

nanoAdmin — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 02:04:00 +0000

New T-shirt
Originally uploaded by heyrog.

Kuwait’s Burgan oil field, the second largest oil field in the world has entered its depletion phase. I wonder when Ghawar will start to decline…

oil, peakoil, energy, petroleum, kuwait

King Hubbert’s Birthday

nanoAdmin — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 02:50:00 +0000

Projected Peak Oil Scenario
Originally uploaded by heyrog.

M. King Hubbert was born Oct 5th, 1903.
Ron Schuler’s Parlour Tricks: M. King Hubbert

New oil shale technology from Shell: In-situ Conversion Process

nanoAdmin — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 19:47:00 +0000

We’ll see if this pans out: Rocky Mountain News: Shell’s ingenious approach to oil shale is pretty slick. If it does work out to be economical at $30/barrel and has an EROEI of about 3.5 then we might be ok after all. However, this columnist doesn’t mention rates or scaling all that much. She says that it takes about eight months or so to go from normal ground to when the oil starts to come up and that it dried up, and pretty quickly too, about a year later.

I really hope they can get this to scale and produce at a fast enough rate as it does look a lot more promising than other oil shale recovery methods.

Also, here’s some testimony that Terry O’Connor of Shell gave before Congress a few months ago regarding In-situ Conversion Process: Committee on Resources-Index

Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy

nanoAdmin — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 05:23:00 +0000

I recently got this book: Amazon.com: Books: Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, but I haven’t had time to read it and it’s very technical. I think heatkernel has read some of it … Continue reading →

When is the planet going to run out of oil?

nanoAdmin — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 18:47:00 +0000

Ask Yahoo gets into the peak oil debate. Lots of nice links too: When is the planet going to run out of oil?

Hubbert’s Peak spinoff blog

nanoAdmin — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 07:19:00 +0000

There’ve been a fair number of posts on this blog about the so-called End of Suburbia, oil prognostication, oil books, energy in general, and energy geopolitics. I also have a bunch more to say about all these things, so I decided to make a spinoff blog, Hubbert’s Peak. Think of it as The Facts of Life while this blog is more like Diff’rent Strokes. Right now, it’s more or less a link dump, but it should get better with time. Also, it’s a team blog, just like this one (ostensibly at least). So, let me know if you’d like to join. Peace.

Putin hints at China alliance for Yukos oil

nanoAdmin — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 06:28:00 +0000

FT.com / Home UK – Putin hints at China alliance for Yukos oil
updated: working link:
Putin hints at China alliance for Yukos oil

Also, check out this nytimes article about how China is going after Alberta oil sands.

China in Line as U.S. Rival for Canada Oil

updated, working link:
LP: China in Line as U.S. Rival for Canada Oil

The End of Suburbia

nanoAdmin — Tue, 28 Sep 2004 06:38:00 +0000

If you can possibly make it to this documentary, I would definitely do so. It goes along nicely with The Corporation, a film I mentioned in another post. The reason is that so much of what the modern corporation has done to transform the world in the past century has been enabled by the availability of cheap energy in the form of light sweet crude. The End of Suburbia very clearly lays out the case that the past 50 years in particular have been a one-time “party” fueled by the bubble of cheap petrolium. This “party” is coming to an end in the near future, not because oil itself will run out, but because its production will peak while demand continues to grow unabated. For example, the whole current system of production of consumer goods in mass quantities in China, followed by their transport across the ocean in petrolium-powered container ships and distribution by gas-guzzling big rigs, on roads built by gas-powered heavy equipment, is predicated upon this supply. Not to mention the system of production of food for billions of people (a bloated, unsustainably large population) in which petrolium-based fertilizers and pesticides take the place of human labor. The film is also good at rebutting the polyanna-ish assurances that the free market will compensate and take care of our energy problems. In the case of power generation in North America, the free market’s response to growing demand and decreasing output from coal and nuclear has been to build more natural gas fueled plants. The problem is natural gas almost has to be produced on the same continent on which it is used, because of the difficulties of transport. And North America is certainly going to run out of Nat. gas way before the rest of the world. I can’t summarize everything here, just advise you to check it out if you can (see the web page linked above for where it’s playing). Then start preparing yourself for life in the post Hubbert’s Peak age.