Free Republic

The Bible’s book of Galatians, VI teaches, «as you sow, so shall you reap». And for Saudi Arabia, which has overtly and covertly supported rebellions in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Ethiopia, Philippines, and Lebanon that have led to civil wars and inter-religious strife, the day of reckoning may soon be at hand. The present Saudi king, Salman bin Abdul Aziz, is the last of the sons of the first Saudi king, Abdul Aziz al Saud, who will ever sit on the Saudi throne. After Salman dies, Saudi leadership will pass to a new generation of Saudi royals. But not all...

With the deal now done, we seem to be witnessing history in the making. But remember: history always repeats itself. When two agreements were signed in the early 2000s, both collapsed due to the inability of OPEC members to adhere to their commitments. Hence, the chance of the deal dying an early death is all too real. One of the factors that will bridle prices in the near future is the rate at which global stockpiles will deplete. My previous article explored the different factors that may spur U.S. Shale production. On the 10th of December, OPEC successfully convinced the...

U.S. crude oil production is not expected to rise much next year from the current levels of around 8.6 million bpd, energy mogul Harold Hamm said at the S&P Global Platts Global Energy Outlook Forum on Thursday. If the United States were to go all out with oil production, it could probably double to 20 million barrels per day, according to Hamm, but that it would be “foolish for us to do that” precisely because it would create an oversupply. Hamm called the OPEC deal that lifted prices wise on their part, but that OPEC’s previous attempt to out-stay and...

Peter Kearl is co-founder and CTO of Qmast which is a Colorado-based company pioneering the use of the microwave technology to recover oil. Oil giants BP and ConocoPhillips are pouring resources into developing similar extraction techniques, which can be far less water- and energy-intensive than fracking. There is more than 4.285 trillion barrels of oil barrels of oil in the Green River Formation (2011 U.S. Geological Survey of resource in-place). Using oil shale cutoffs of potentially viable (15 gallons per ton) and high grade (25 gallons per ton), it is estimated that between 353 billion and 1.146 trillion barrels of...

County officials in western Colorado have regularly lambasted Planning 2.0 and this week, Garfield County joined in with five other counties in the western United States considering suing to halt the rule, which they have criticized as a central-planning measure. The BLM this month announced that the rule was final and on Monday, Garfield County agreed to spend as much as $40,000 with the Texas-based property-rights organization, the American Stewards of Liberty, to halt it. While Garfield County is taking an active role, Mesa County officials are looking to Congress and a Republican administration under President-elect Donald Trump to deal...

“Ending wars is very simple if you surrender.” – PJ O’Rourke The new OPEC deal to cut oil output – the cartel’s first since 2008 – amounts to nothing less than Saudi Arabia’s surrender to the power of American shale. It has come about due to Riyadh’s belated, horrified understanding that it has utterly lost control over the energy market, running through its capital reserves in the process. Rather than young, feckless Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman using Saudi Arabia’s John D Rockefeller strategy to permanently drive U.S. shale out of the energy market, the exact opposite result has...

Don’t look now, but an American shale rebound is already underway. Operators have been steadily putting more oil rigs into operation for months now, and we’ve been seeing signs that the industry has been ready to stop a slide in output and start ramping up total U.S. production for months now. This week, as Reuters reports, the U.S. saw its rig count rise yet again.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has refused to grant a permit to Energy Transfer Partners for the construction of the hotly contested section of the Dakota Access oil pipeline that would have passed through Standing Rock Sioux lands. Hundreds of protesters who have been camping at the construction site for months now have celebrated the decision as a victory. The decision to withhold the permit was made by the Assistant Secretary of Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy, who said she made it because there were alternatives to this specific route of the Dakota Access section that could be discussed with...

Oil prices surged more than 8 percent on Wednesday as OPEC shocked the world and reached an agreement to cut production. If OPEC members succeed in implementing the deal, set to take effect in January, it could erase the global surplus in an instant. “The sentiment generally is optimistic and positive," Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Khalid al-Falih said before the final meeting on Wednesday. “Any production-restraint agreement has to be distributed in an equitable way. We are getting close.” Oil prices skyrocketed on his comments and on the news that a deal was within reach. Still, there was a lot...

Smart energy policy could give the next President his best prospect for spurring growth in manufacturing jobs—and thus delivering on the promises his voters think matter most. Pundits are terrible at predicting presidencies; remember the hymns to the greatness of the Second Lincoln, the New Roosevelt, and the Democratic Reagan that wafted to the heavens during the Obama transition. And the pundits were even worse at predicting Trump’s fate during the election; how many times did they predict his demise? But now, as convinced as ever of his incompetence and their infallibility, the punditocracy is telling us why the Trump...

Defying all odds, OPEC provisionally reached the much-hyped agreement to cut output in a bid to boost oil prices. According to an OPEC delegate quoted by Bloomberg News, the ministerial meeting in Vienna has just reached a deal to cut output by 1.2 million barrels per day to 32.5 million barrels per day. But there’s a catch. According to a ZeroHedge tweet, it looks like the OPEC deal would be conditional on a subsequent deal with non-OPEC producers in December to agree on a 600,000-bpd cut. If this is indeed the case, the oil production cut saga and drama will...

The CPEC is apparently becoming a new association (like BRICS), as many countries are showing interest in being part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. With ambitions to even become a new union (like European Union, but not limited only to Europe), the CPEC, co-created by Pakistan and China, has already attracted big international players such as Russia, the U.K. and France. The $51 billion project has been all over the news lately, not only because it’s a game-changer for China, Pakistan and Asia as a whole, but also because there’s a theory that India could start a military conflict over...

Just about everyone right now wants to know where President-elect Donald Trump stands on Iran, and what fate lies ahead for the nuclear deal and the easing of sanctions that have energy companies’ mouths watering—not the least of them oilfield services giant Schlumberger, which has just hedged its bets that sanctions are history despite heavy rhetoric to the contrary. Schlumberger has signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Iranian South Oil Company for the development of oilfields in Iran’s southern Khouzestan province, making it the second Western energy major to return to Iran after the lifting of most sanctions....

Native Americans protesting the construction of the 1,200-mile Dakota Access oil pipeline: quit throwing rocks at police; stop setting cars ablaze; discard your “Children Don’t Drink Oil” signs—and join your fellow brothers and sisters in making America great again. “We don’t have weapons. … We are looking out for … the children who are not even born yet,” Standing Rock Sioux chairman David Archambault II said to defend his 10,000-member tribe’s use of violence, aggression and disorderly conduct to protest the construction of the $3.7 billion Dakota Access pipeline. No weapons? “A line of sheriff’s officers retreated in the face...

North Dakota officials are encouraging hundreds of Dakota Access oil pipeline protesters to respect a directive to leave a sprawling, months-old encampment on federal land. According to Standing Rock Sioux tribal leader Dave Archambault, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sent him a letter Friday that said all federal lands north of the Cannonball River will be closed to public access Dec. 5 for “safety concerns,” including the oncoming winter and the increasingly contentious clashes between protesters and police. The Oceti Sakowin camp is on Corps land in southern North Dakota and is where the vast majority of the several...

This week almost 50 million Americans will take planes, trains, automobiles (and even boats) to travel miles from home for Thanksgiving festivities according to AAA. The auto club sees more than a million extra travelers leaving home this year between now and the end of the month. Thanksgiving is traditionally of as a time for turkey and dinner with family, but given these statistics perhaps it ought to be thought of as a time for travel. After all, the first Thanksgiving was really about travel as well with Europeans having just finished the perilous journey across thousands of miles of...

The American Indian tribe arguing the Dakota Access Pipeline would leak oil in its water source finalized a years-long plan to move its water source 70 miles downstream of the project. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe orchestrated a months-long battle against the pipeline due in large part to worries about contamination of their primary water source. The decision to plant a water treatment plant several miles downwind of the pipeline’s location, environmental analysts argue, may dispel concerns associated with the project. The relocation was years in the making. Standing Rock currently gets its water 20 miles away from the so-called...

When a massive country de-nationalizes its entire energy sector and opens its oil and gas doors for the first time ever to foreign companies, the opportunities are staggering. Welcome to the ‘new’ Mexico, and welcome to the early stages of an oil and gas game that will be bigger—from an investor’s perspective—than anything in history. Mexico’s move to implement historic energy reform legislation in December 2013, and follow-up legislation in 2014 that further solidified the comprehensive de-nationalization, provides an unprecedented opportunity for oil companies looking to tap into Mexico’s huge energy potential.

This isn’t really the same as prying the W’s off the keyboards in the Oval Office, but Barack Obama seems determined to leave some unpleasant going away presents for his successor on the domestic energy front. Before leaving office, the President has modified the agreement for future oil exploration leases to eliminate nearly all Arctic sites. Needless to say, the energy industry isn’t exactly ecstatic over this. (Politico) President Barack Obama is throwing up roadblocks to Donald Trump’s pledges to expand offshore drilling, with a new plan that will declare parts of the Arctic off-limits. Obama’s Interior Department on Friday...

Is this to be our future? Last week’s elections will soon end autocratic rule via executive fiat, the war on coal and hydrocarbons, IRS agents targeting opposition groups, government SWAT teams invading businesses and homes, and numerous other Abuses and Usurpations.In its place we’re getting leftist anarchy and riots – with mindless, incoherent radicals smashing Portland storefronts, beating a Chicago motorist, and pummeling a ninth grade Woodside, CA Trump supporter.Amid it all, the epitome of nihilist, watermelon environmentalist, criminal, sore-loser fury is raging south of Bismarck, North Dakota, where thousands of “peaceful protesters” are camping illegally on federal and private...