Free Republic

President-elect Donald Trump jeopardizes the global economy through his promises to block Middle East oil imports for the purpose of creating an energy independent United States, according to petrostate Saudi Arabia. Over the course of the two-year American election process, Republican nominee Trump promised on the campaign trail to divest U.S. interests from “our foes and the oil cartels,” referring mainly to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), of which the KSA is the largest producer and de facto leader. “At his heart President-elect Trump will see the benefits and I think the oil industry will also be advising...

The US Geological Survey said Tuesday that it assessed what could be the largest deposit of untapped oil ever discovered in America. An estimated average of 20 billion barrels of oil and 1.6 billion barrels of natural gas liquids are available for the taking in the Wolfcamp shale, which is in the Midland Basin portion of Texas' Permian Basin. Based on a West Texas Intermediate crude oil price of $45 per barrel, those deposits are worth about $900 billion. US oil exploration companies have flocked to the superrich Permian Basin in recent years and used shale-drilling technology to create an...

Sally Jewell, the U.S. interior secretary, just cancelled leases to drill for natural gas on federal land in Colorado, in a last-ditch effort to stop an energy boom bigger than Bakken Shale discovery in North Dakota. Jewell’s Bureau of Land Management claimed that the 25 “Mancos” energy drilling leases now being cancelled were just a non-performing portion of 65 leases on “lands managed by the White River National Forest” and “amount to less than ½ of 1 percent of the active leases on public lands in the state of Colorado.” But the 25 properties were “non-performing” only because they have...

Some OPEC members are saying OPEC will do whatever it takes to make all members join the production cut agreement that’s been chewed over since late September—willing or unwilling. According to a statement by Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, “There is sufficient will among OPEC countries to take the step we need to take in the month of November, (to reach) a forceful agreement to reduce production and construct new mechanisms to stabilize the market.” Maduro was speaking in a televised broadcast, following his meeting with OPEC secretary-general Mohammed Barkindo in Venezuela. Barkindo, for his part, was quoted by media as...

The U.S. Geological Survey says it has found the largest continuous oil and gas deposit ever discovered in the United States. On Tuesday, the USGS announced that a swath of West Texas known as the Wolfcamp shale contains 20 billion barrels of oil and 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That is nearly three times more petroleum than the agency found in North Dakota's Bakken shale in 2013. As NPR's Jeff Brady reported, the amount of oil in the Wolfcamp shale formation is nearly three times the amount of petroleum products used by the entire country in a year....

A vast field of shale rock in West Texas could yield 20 billion barrels of oil, making it the largest source of shale oil the U.S. Geological Survey has ever assessed, agency officials said. The Wolfcamp Shale geologic formation in the Midland area also contains an estimated 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 1.6 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, the agency said in a release. The discovery is nearly three times larger than the shale oil found in 2013 in the Bakken and Three Forks formations in the Dakotas and Montana, said Chris Schenk, a Denver-based research...

Drill, Baby Drill! American Made Energy Makes America Great Again Permian, ANWR, Prudhoe, Bakkan…. and so much more. NOW is the time to shut off the Saudi oil cartel flow valve and develop our own God-given natural resources. The only excuse not to become energy independent is a political excuse. The inherent link between energy and security, and energy and prosperity, is real and recognized by every American except sketchy politicians and deceived faux environmentalists. We have the resources, we have the technology, we have the manpower. America has the highest environmental and worker safety standards in the world… it’s...

Link only...Bloomie via Star Telegram$900 billion.

Tuesday the U.S. Geological Survey announced the largest ever assessment of “continuous oil” ever made in the United States. The Wolfcamp shale in the area of Midland, Texas is estimated to contain three times the oil and gas of the Bakken shale formation in Montana and North Dakota. From the USGS: The Wolfcamp shale in the Midland Basin portion of Texas’ Permian Basin province contains an estimated mean of 20 billion barrels of oil, 16 trillion cubic feet of associated natural gas, and 1.6 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, according to an assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey. This...

President-elect Donald Trump jeopardizes the global economy through his promises to block Middle East oil imports for the purpose of creating an energy independent United States, according to petrostate Saudi Arabia. Over the course of the two-year American election process, Republican nominee Trump promised on the campaign trail to divest U.S. interests from “our foes and the oil cartels,” referring mainly to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), of which the KSA is the largest producer and de facto leader. “At his heart President-elect Trump will see the benefits and I think the oil industry will also be advising...

Saudi Arabia has warned (Donald Trump) that the incoming US president will risk the health of his country’s economy if he acts on his election promises to block oil imports.In a sign of the difficulties Mr Trump faces over his campaign pledges to create “complete American energy independence” from “our foes and the oil cartels”, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister pointedly reminded the president-elect that the US “benefits more than anybody else from global free trade”, adding, “energy is the lifeblood of the global economy”.

Two of Donald Trump’s main pledges during the presidential race were building a wall along the border with Mexico, and making the U.S. energy-independent. Now that the election is over, these issues are coming to the fore. First, the president-elect said that the wall, which he mentioned on the campaign trail and in numerous debates, is still very much on the table, though what type of “wall” that may be is an unknow. Second, he said he planned to start deporting illegal aliens—those with criminal records—which could amount to as many as three million individuals. Despite “The Wall”, the deportation...

Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer is calling on President Obama to permanently ban offshore drilling in the Atlantic and Arctic using his executive authority. From Politico: NextGen and White House officials have discussed the possibility of Obama using his executive powers under a section of the law governing offshore drilling that allows him to “withdraw from disposition” any section of the Outer Continental Shelf that has not already been leased for oil or gas drilling… Steyer’s group says more permanent protections are available using section 12(a) of the OCS Lands Act. Similar to the Antiquities Act, which presidents can use to...

Just when western oil majors started resuming investments in Iran’s oil and gas after the lifting of the sanctions, the election victory of Donald Trump – who has spoken against the nuclear deal that led to lifting of said sanctions – may make international oil companies rethink their enthusiasm in bidding in Iran’s new oil and gas contract tenders. Last month, Iran invited international E&P companies to start pre-qualifying for bidding under the new petroleum contract models approved in September. But in March of this year, Trump said in a speech addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee: “My number-one...

Biofuels are often touted as an alternative to fossil fuels, but many depend on raw materials that would quickly become scarce if production were scaled up. As an alternative to these alternatives, the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has found a way to potentially produce 30 million barrels of biocrude oil per year from the 34 billion gal (128 billion liters) of raw sewage that Americans create every day. According to PNNL, the problem with using sewage as a source material for biocrude is it's too wet and requires drying before more conventional processes can handle...

After the API shocked markets by reporting a massive 9.3-million-barrel increase in U.S. inventories yesterday, the EIA added insult to injury, saying inventories instead went up by 14.4 million barrels in the week to October 28, reaching 482.6 million barrels. The silver lining is that the total is within the upper limit for the time of year, according to the EIA data. We suspect the markets won’t find much in the way of this silver. Last week, the authority reported a meager 600,000-barrel decline in crude oil stocks, which despite its meagre size, managed to sway the market, pushing up...

Investors may not realize it, but the Walking Dead is not the only zombie show running right now. The oil markets are at least as scary and have zombies that are much harder to kill than AMC’s popular program. While about 100 oil companies have gone bankrupt in 2015 and 2016, almost none of those companies have actually “died”. Instead, most of the firms are still pumping oil just as rapidly as before. That, in turn, has significant implications for investors in the market.

Fewer and fewer oil exploration and production companies are declaring bankruptcy. But more oilfield service companies are. So far this month, only one North American E&P firm filed for Chapter 11 protection, according to data released on Tuesday by the Dallas law firm Haynes & Boone. That’s down from two in September, three in August and four in July. But it’s been an especially tough few months for service companies. As crude prices began crashing in 2014, drillers started idling rigs. That led to fewer jobs for the companies that make their money helping producers pump oil and gas. Moreover,...

A typically low seasonal demand in Europe will lead to Iran exporting 1.89 million bpd of crude oil next month, the lowest level since July, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a source with knowledge of Iran’s tanker schedule. As a rule of thumb, Iranian crude oil exports usually hit low levels around the months of October and November due to the peak in refinery maintenance in Europe and Asia. This year around, however, the November exports to Asia will rise from October due to higher Chinese demand. This year, Iran has been rapidly bumping up oil production and exports after...

Despite indications that the Houston hemorrhage of oil and gas jobs has slowed down, the two-year old wave of advances in drilling and extraction technologies—pioneered by now-jobless engineers—will prevent rehiring from commencing any time soon. Last week—and for the first time in over a year—oilfield services company Halliburton reported a quarterly profit. The profit was small in size, but refreshingly hopeful for Houston’s long-ailing oil and gas job market. Months of job cuts and asset sales later, the company announced a slim $6 million profit and a stable global workforce at 50,000 employees. A full ten percent of the 3,500...