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Oil demand in the United States grew at the fastest pace in the world in 2013, outstripping China for the first time since 1999 as the globe's top economy reaped the benefits of a shale boom, oil company BP said on Monday. In its annual review of energy statistics unveiled in Moscow, BP also raised its global oil reserves estimate by 1.1 percent after revising U.S. reserves upwards by more than a quarter. Global natural gas reserves were cut for a second year as lower provisions for Russia and Qatar offset a significant uptick in U.S. estimates. BP also said...

The United States exported 268,000 barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil in April (the latest data available from the U.S. Census Bureau), the highest level of exports in 15 years. Exports have increased sharply since the start of 2013 and have exceeded 200,000 b/d in five of the past six months. The increase in crude exports is largely the result of rising U.S. crude production, which was 8.2 million b/d in March. To export crude oil from the United States, a company must obtain a license from the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the U.S. Department of...

At the 300-acre Southton Rail Yard, a truck maneuvers into a silo that holds 5,000 tons of sand for hydraulic fracturing. “Pull up about eight feet,” says Chris Colburn, the assistant yard manager at the rail site near Interstate 37 and Loop 410 in southern Bexar County. “Five, four, three, two, one,” Colburn says, counting down the feet as the truck rolls forward. “That will do, driver.” A chute drops down from the silo, letting sand pour into the truck. Colburn and other workers in an office trailer monitor screens that show everything from video to the climbing weight of...

Employment in Canada's oil sands sector expects to reach around 98,380 jobs over the next decade. More than 98,000 oil sands construction, maintenance and operations jobs will be generated over the next decade, according to a new report “the Oil Sands Construction, Maintenance and Operations Labour Demand Outlook to 2023”. “Accurate labor market information gives us a clear understanding of the workforce issues affecting oil sands development, and helps ensure that $172 billion in wages and salaries continues to generate economic benefits right across this country. This new information helps government and industry make the best possible decisions, and helps...

To grasp the difficulties Mexico faces in capitalizing on a North American shale boom, just wander into the dusty landscape due south of the U.S. border. On one side of the fence, thousands of wells work around the clock in Texas to produce record volumes of shale oil and gas, transforming towns like Carrizo Springs in a modern-day gold rush. On the other side, violent drug cartels roam above untapped shale riches, leaving behind a trail of blood. The relatively few conventional wells operated by state oil giant Pemex and its contractors close down overnight as a security precaution. But...

Though natural gas is abundant in the U.S., whether it can serve as a financially viable transportation fuel is a difficult question to answer. Commercial fleet operators from across the country this week are in Houston discussing the economics of natural gas, which often is touted as a less expensive, cleaner-burning alternative to gasoline. But industry officials at the Natural Gas Vehicles USA conference say despite their hopes for natural gas, converting fleets to run on the fuel isn’t always easy. Though the fuel has its advantages, the finances of making it work for fleets don’t always add up. “There...

Two companies have developed a new type of electric vehicle battery said to offer a 1,000 mile range, with prices and whole-life costs comparable to a conventional petrol or diesel engine. The joint project between metals specialist Alcoa and green technology company Phinergy has produced a demonstrator featuring an aluminium-air battery, designed as a range extender for the lithium-ion units used in most electric vehicles. Already used in military applications, the battery uses a reaction with air and water over 50 aluminium plates, each of which can drive a car for up to 20 miles. The unit is designed so...

When the history of the great recession is finally written, I suspect that America’s domestic energy revolution will be credited for pulling us out of it. As a country, primarily through the application of new extraction techniques and technologies that are unlocking heretofore inaccessible oceans of oil and natural gas, the United States of America is transforming itself into the dominant energy producer in the world. Within the next few years, America will not only become energy independent, but could also become the world’s largest energy exporter. Once again, American ingenuity has found a way to move our economy forward....

The energy industry was a major driver of economic growth in several of the nation’s fastest-growing states last year, including Texas and the Rocky Mountain region, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The national gross domestic product, a measure of economic activity, grew 1.8 percent in 2013. Meanwhile, several states with thriving oil and natural gas industries, including North Dakota and Texas, saw economic growth of more than 3.5 percent. Still, the industry couldn’t save some states from lackluster economic results. In the heart of the Marcellus Shale — a major natural gas production...

Iraq's Insurgency and the Threat to Oil Americans might have forgotten about the Iraq war, but they’re about to feel it at the gas pump. Oil markets are finally rattling after militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant took over a series of key Iraqi cities Tuesday and Wednesday, including the country's second largest, and reportedly surrounded Iraq's biggest oil refinery. The insurgent drive poses little immediate threat to oil production or exports from OPEC's second-largest producer, which explains why oil prices haven't exploded. But Iraq's disarray, coupled with a series of stubborn crude-supply outages in Libya,...

China is set to take more Iranian crude than it did before tough sanctions were put in place in early 2012, as Asia’s biggest refiner Sinopec Corp buys more oil from the Middle East nation, sources with direct knowledge of China’s buying strategy said. Western sanctions over the past few years had reduced Iran’s crude shipments to less than half and crippled its economy by choking the flow of petrodollars. Some of those measures were eased following a breakthrough diplomatic deal last November in return for Tehran curtailing its nuclear programme. Higher purchases by Chinese state refiner Sinopec mean Iran’s...

Houston-based pipeline company Enterprise Products Partners has signed a 30-year agreement with the Port of Houston Authority and will build its new ethane export facility at the Houston Ship Channel, company and port officials said Thursday. The company first announced plans for the project in April but didn’t say exactly where the facility would be located. The company said it expects the ship channel facility to be online by the third quarter of 2016. It said it already has contracts in place for some ethane customers and is in talks with others for the remaining capacity. The facility will have...

n June 11, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) reaffirmed the group's crude oil production target of 30 million barrels per day (bbl/d) that has been in place since December 2011. This target is slightly above the 29.8-million-bbl/d call on OPEC crude oil and global stocks during 2014 presented in the June Short-Term Energy Outlook (Figure 1). The expected 2014 average call on OPEC and global stocks is 0.3 million bbl/d lower than in 2013, with an additional 0.2-million-bbl/d decline during 2015 to an average of 29.6 million bbl/d. Growing non-OPEC supply, particularly from continuing tight oil production...

State-of-the-art American fracking technology is coming to China's vast shale deposits as a result of a joint venture between FTS International and Sinopec announced on Tuesday. SinoFTS, as the joint venture will be called, marks an important milestone on the road to exporting the North American shale revolution around the world. FTSI, formerly known as Frac Tech, was one of the first providers more than a decade ago of hydraulic fracturing equipment and services in the Texas Barnett shale, the first shale basin to be developed in the United States. Since then, the company has grown into the largest supplier...

A Vancouver-based company said on Tuesday it was planning to build a C$10 billion oil refinery on the north-west coast of British Columbia that could eventually process up to 1 million barrels per day of oil sands bitumen. Pacific Energy Future Corp, which was set up in January, is looking at three potential building sites in Prince Rupert, BC. The project is the second new refinery proposed for Canada's west coast to process the large quantities of crude oil coming out of Alberta's oil sands and export the refined products. Pacific Energy Future Corp Executive Chairman Samer Salameh said the...

As onshore crude oil production in the United States increased over the past few years, producers have increasingly moved crude oil out of production areas by rail. Producers in North Dakota, in particular, have used rail to ship crude oil to refineries and midstream companies at newly built unloading terminals on the East Coast and West Coast. The number of rail carloads of crude oil began rising in 2012, as production in the Bakken Shale and other shale plays grew. According to the North Dakota Pipeline Authority, Bakken rail outflow capacity totaled 965,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) at the end...

Full Title: The Keystone Pipeline Is Just One Of Canada's Oil Export Options, And Maybe Not Even The Most Important As the U.S. debates whether to relax a decades-old ban on oil exports and a political battle in the U.S. delays and threatens to reject Canada’s plans to ship oil south through the Keystone XL pipeline, Canada is looking to export significant amounts of oil overseas. The oil shale boom in the U.S. has shrunk American demand for oil imports as Canada’s rich oil sands continue producing oil, leaving the country with too much oil and not enough buyers. About...

The oil giant is spending billions to tap new oil fields in deepwater far offshore. Take an up-close look at how it’s done. “You saw Jack? What was it like?” Jason Morehouse, 35, is wearing navy-blue coveralls. Around six feet tall, he has a buzzcut under his hardhat and a thick goatee that extends about two inches below his chin. At the moment he’s giving me a tour of Tahiti—not the Polynesian island, but a $2.7 billion Chevron oil production platform about 190 miles south of New Orleans. Tahiti sits in more than 4,000 feet of water and is a...

U.S. crude oil production has grown rapidly in recent years, primarily from light, sweet crude (a characteristic of crude quality, as measured by API gravity and sulfur content) from tight resource formations. Roughly 96% of the 1.8-million-barrel per day (bbl/d) growth in production from 2011 to 2013 consisted of light sweet grades with API gravity of 40 or above and sulfur content of 0.3% or less. EIA's new forecast of U.S. crude production by quality indicates that the U.S. supply of light, sweet crude will continue to outpace that of medium and heavy crude through 2015. More than 60% of...

The United States produced enough energy to satisfy 84 percent of its needs in 2013, a rapid climb from its historic low in 2005, according to a report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The nation produced 81.7 quadrillion British thermal units of energy last year and consumed 97.5 quadrillion, the highest ratio since 1987. The nation’s energy output rose rose 18 percent from 2005 to 2013, as a surge in oil and gas production offset declines in coal. Meanwhile , total energy Americans used fell 2.7 percent during that period. The nation’s ability to meet its own energy needs...