Free Republic

“How much more productive can these new wells get?” I asked my host who had kindly invited me on a field trip to some of western Canada’s most prolific oil fields. Looking down the aisle of bobbing pump jacks, seven in a row on one side of the immaculate gravel pad, the veteran oil executive replied, “We can get up to 1,000 barrels a day out of some of the new ones, but that’s not a limit; we’re improving the economics and productivity with each new well.” Impressive I thought, subconsciously nodding my head in sync with the leading pump...

The fate of the European Union’s global warming commitments negotiated as part of the Paris Protocol may be in jeopardy as result of Brexit. The U.S. on the other hand, should take a page out of the U.K.’s playbook and not only withdraw from the Paris agreement, but also withdraw participation from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change altogether. ... countries made individual commitments to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, largely centered on shifting away from affordable natural resources such as coal, oil, and natural gas, and toward more expensive, intermittent, subsidy-dependent renewables. ... The...

Why would Qatar want to become involved in Syria where they have very few investments? This is the question the analyst Felix Imonti poses in an article recently published by specialized website 'Oilprice.com' and by Joshua Landis' Syria Comment. The kingdom, Imonti explains, ''is a geographic prisoner in a small enclave on the Persian Gulf coast. It relies upon the export of LNG, because it is restricted by Saudi Arabia from building pipelines to distant markets. In 2009, the proposal of a pipeline to Europe through Saudi Arabia and Turkey to the Nabucco pipeline was considered, but Saudi Arabia is...

t’s a tough business right now for oil and gas companies, with some companies faring better than others with most majors releasing in-the-red second quarter financials, but business mogul T. Boone Pickens has made a bold and heavy return to the energy market, upping his stake in energy holdings by more than a third in the second quarter, according to data tallied by Bloomberg. The value of BP Capital Fund Advisors LLC’s energy stock holdings increased by $55 million to $218 million. BP Capital Fund Advisors added stakes to eight energy-related companies at a time when oil prices were painstakingly...

The Kingdom is struggling with weak GDP growth, higher fees and taxes, and an economy that is unable to pay the dues to its workers, leaving thousands of workers from South Asia with an uncertain future. When a nation is unable to provide food to its migrant workers, it says a lot about their financial condition. The oil price crash has forced the oil-rich Kingdom to introduce austerity measures, and delay payments to already cash-strapped contractors.

The recent spate of ISIS-inspired terror attacks in Turkey and subsequent attempted coup, combined with foreign fighters’ incessant attempts to enter ISIS’s shrinking territory have kept Turkey’s border with Syria, once dubbed a “jihadist highway”, at the forefront of regional security issues. Has Ankara responded adequately to the international community’s demands to bring its 911-kilometer border with Assad’s regime under control, or are smuggling and border crossings by militants a continuing threat? Gasoline smuggling Earlier this year, gasoline smuggling from Turkey to Syria received international attention after Russia accused the Turkish government of facilitating contraband routes across the Syrian border....

A group of gunmen blew up a bomb at the Bai Hassan oil field in Iraq’s northern province of Kirkuk on Wednesday, China’s news agency Xinhua reported, citing a provincial police chief. So far no group has claimed responsibility for the attack. The Kurdish military forces, the Peshmerga, arrived at the scene after the militants had fled and found another two bombs at other installations in the oil field, but managed to defuse them. Last week, ISIS fighters killed five people in an attack on Bai Hassan, and attempted to take down a gas compression station nearby as well, where...

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly defended an embattled banker during an official visit to Bangladesh while Clinton Foundation officials tried to steer money from an Abu Dhabi oil company into the banker’s coffers. A Daily Caller News Foundation investigation traced the convoluted payment by TAQA — formally known as the the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company — to Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank. Yunus is a long-time friend and Clinton Foundation donor. The oil company deal eventually put as much as $500,000 into President Bill Clinton’s pockets via a speaking fee he got in Scotland. The complicated set of international...

The Swiss Supreme Court in Lausanne has ordered the Israel-controlled Trans-Asiatic Oil Company to pay a debt of $1.2 billion to Iran's national Oil Company. According to Global Arbitration Review, which published the Swiss court’s ruling, Iran’s oil company has been removed from the sanctions regime, so there is no legal obstacle to paying it any money. On June 27, the court directed Trans-Asiatic to pay the Iranians 250,000 Swiss francs (about 1 million shekels, or $260,000) of the monies that have been deposited with the court, and another 200,000 francs in court costs. Trans-Asiatic appealed, and lost, saddling the...

An arbitration court has ordered Israeli-held Trans-Asiatic Oil (TAO) to pay US$1.2 billion to Iran for oil that the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) had delivered to Israel before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the online edition of Israel’s Haaretz reported on Monday. Lausanne-based Swiss Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Iran in the case which Israel had appealed. In May 2015, Israel said it was refusing to comply with an order by a Swiss court that it pay US$1.1 billion to NIOC. The complex dispute stems from 1968, when Shah Reza Pahlavi ruled Iran. The Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Co....

Saudi Arabia knew that North American shale production could potentially torpedo their hold on the energy market via oil. So, they decided to trounce the natural gas market by opening the floodgates with petroleum. It didn’t work. The Telegraph now reports that shale production has cut prices so low that they can produce at prices that are lower that what’s required to keep Saudi Arabia’s socioeconomic fabric healthy: Opec's worst fears are coming true. Twenty months after Saudi Arabia took the fateful decision to flood world markets with oil, it has still failed to break the back of the US shale...

Summer driving season: it’s the season to be traveling, what with long weekends, annual leaves and short getaways from the banalities of everyday life at the office. The summer season in the Northern Hemisphere is when demand for crude oil invariably picks up, because fuel consumption increases. In Europe, there’s greater hunger for diesel and in the U.S. there’s a pickup in gasoline demand. Usually. This year’s driving season, however, is shaping up to be a very disappointing exception to the usual seasonal patterns in fuel demand. People are not traveling now as much as analysts expected back in May....

Recent Iraqi military gains over the Islamic State have dried up oil revenues for the terrorist organization by up to 90 percent, according to a report by Iraqi News on Tuesday. Security sources from the ministry of oil said ISIS had been smuggling at least 50 vehicles full of oil everyday from oilfields in Qayyarah and Najma. The two sites stand south of Mosul—the largest ISIS stronghold and the third largest city in Iraq by population. But new offensives against the terrorist organization have reduced the smuggling rate to five vehicles a day. ISIS’ prices for the smuggled oil, which...

This wasn’t supposed to happen. The price of oil was supposed to start going back up, and this would have brought much needed relief to economically-depressed areas of North America that are heavily dependent on the energy industry. Instead, the price of oil is crashing again, and that is really bad news for a U.S. economy that is already mired in the worst “recovery” since 1949. On Monday, U.S. oil was down almost four percent, and for a brief time it actually fell below 40 dollars a barrel. Overall, the price of oil has fallen a staggering 21 percent since...

The Saudi-led Gulf states have certainly succeeded in killing off a string of global mega-projects in deep waters. Investment in upstream exploration from 2014 to 2020 will be $1.8 trillion less than previously assumed, according to consultants IHS. But this is a bitter victory at best. North America's hydraulic trackers are cutting costs so fast that most can now produce at prices far below levels needed to fund the Saudi welfare state and its military machine, or to cover Opec budget deficits. Scott Sheffield, the outgoing chief of Pioneer Natural Resources, threw down the gauntlet last week - with some...

A new week, a new month, a new sell-off. Crude prices are charging lower to start the week as a plethora of bearish indicators emerge to encourage crude lower. Hark, here are five things to consider in the oil market today.

Remember the Keystone XL Pipeline project? Remember what a cause célèbre it was for both the left and right? What the heck ever happened to it? Have you wondered that?Well, in short it was killed pretty much for good, or at least the foreseeable future – both here in the USSA and now in Canada. As you are no doubt aware, it was Obama who, with the left in the federal and various state legislatures – and with some help from Choo-choo Warren Buffet who owns most of the rail cars now hauling crude down south, vetoed the pipeline. And...

ExxonMobil reported on Friday earnings of US$1.7 billion for the second quarter, a 59-percent tumble on the year, amid sharply lower commodity prices and weaker refining margins. Earnings per share assuming dilution fell to US$0.41 from US$1.00 for the second quarter last year, missing Thomson Reuters’ analyst expectations of US$0.64 earnings per share. Upstream earnings plummeted by US$1.7 billion, to US$294 million in the second quarter of 2016, and the U.S. upstream segment posted a loss of US$514 million, swelled from a loss of US$47 million in the second quarter of 2015. Non-U.S. upstream earnings tumbled by US$1.3 billion, to...

Wholesale gasoline in California became the cheapest in the country this week, but that change has largely gone unseen at the pump, where consumers are still paying the highest prices in the continental United States to fill up their cars. Ample inventories along with relatively stable refinery operations and imports has driven down the spot value of gasoline in Los Angeles at the wholesale level by more than 60 cents since mid-June. However, that has not translated to similarly lower retail fuel prices for consumers because of peculiarities in California's market. The declines in the state's retail gasoline market over...

U.S. oil production peaked at over 9.6 million barrels per day in June, 2015: Based on Core Labs' prediction above, U.S. oil production will fall to under 8.3 million barrels per day before the end of this year and will continue fall to under 7.5 million barrels per day sometime in 2017 before it stabilizes. The only thing that will stop U.S. oil production from falling is a sharp increase in oil prices. In my opinion, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) must move firmly over $60/bbl before we will see the increase in capital expenditures necessary to stabilize U.S. oil production....