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An energy revolution is unfolding in the United States -- but unlike most past or promised revolutions, this one is not confined to a single fuel or technology. After falling for more than two straight decades after 1985, U.S. crude oil production has now risen for four consecutive years, and in 2012, it posted its largest one-year increase since the dawn of the oil industry more than 150 years ago. Meanwhile, in 2011, natural gas surpassed coal as the United States' biggest source of domestically produced energy, thanks to surging output and plunging prices. And all this growth in U.S....

While Texas and North Dakota's boom in oil production have been well-publicized, five other western U.S. states made a notable contribution to the growth in U.S. oil production since 2010, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported Tuesday. Onshore oil production, including crude oil and lease condensate, grew by over 2 million barrels of oil per day (bopd), or 64 percent, in the U.S. Lower 48 from February 2010 to February 2013. Production in the Williston Basin in North Dakota and Texas' Eagle Ford play and Permian Basin outpaced other regions. However, gains in other Lower 48 states added up...

Flame-resistant overalls are the latest reason to be optimistic about America’s future. The US shale boom is creating plenty of new jobs in the oil and gas industry, but it’s having a number of knock-on effects as well. Energy-intensive industries have been bolstered by the influx of cheap natural gas, for example. And a new sector has appeared to help support the rapidly growing number of oil and gas workers in America. Firms that feed, house, and, as the the WSJ reports, clothe these workers are capitalizing on this energy revolution, too. Back in 2010, a spate of refinery accidents...

How long will the shale boom last? ODNR official sees ‘beginning of a historic era’ for oil and gas; other observers aren’t sure By Dan Gearino and Spencer Hunt Friday May 17, 2013 3:32 AM Oil and gas companies nearly doubled their production from Ohio’s Utica shale last year, part of an energy surge that is still in its early stages and whose potential is far from clear. The companies extracted 635,896 barrels of oil and 12.8 billion cubic feet of gas from the Utica in 2012, which is a year-over-year increase of 93 percent and 87 percent, respectively, according...

It’s Not The End Of OPEC…But Might As Well Be Matt InsleyMay 17, 2013If you could safely turn $8 dollars into $40, would you? What about turning $800 into $4,000? Same question, right? If you answered yes to those questions, which I’m sure you did, then you’re already onboard with half of today’s energy story. That is, most American shale oil wells are set to payout at the odds above. You see, the average shale oil well costs anywhere from $5-10 million to drill, complete and put into production – let’s call that $8 million in total upfront cost. Once...

EOG Resources, the company with the most acreage in the Eagle Ford Shale, reported its first-quarter earnings recently. And basically, EOG is making a lot of money in South Texas. Mark Papa, CEO and board chairman of EOG, said the Eagle Ford continues to surprise “in an upside manner.” EOG’s U.S. crude oil production increased 24,200 barrels per day over the fourth quarter of 2012, mostly thanks to the Eagle Ford. The company is getting a rate of return on its South Texas wells greater than 100 percent. During the first three months of the year, EOG completed 27 “monster...

The surge in oil production in the U.S. and Canada and shrinking oil consumption in the developed world is transforming the global oil market. The threat of chronic oil shortages is all but gone, U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil will continue to dwindle, and oil will increasingly flow to the developing economies of Asia, according to a five-year outlook published Tuesday by... International Energy Agency. The changes will have ‘‘significant consequences for the global economy and oil security,’’ the IEA says. The report paints a picture of a world with plenty of oil to meet modestly growing demand. Where...

A steeper-than-expected rise in US shale oil reserves is about to change the global balance of power between new and existing producers, a report says. Over the next five years, the US will account for a third of new oil supplies, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The US will change from the world's leading importer of oil to a net exporter. Demand for oil from Middle-East oil producers is set to slow as a result. "North America has set off a supply shock that is sending ripples throughout the world," said IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven....

Shale oil production could revolutionize global energy markets, reducing oil prices and bolstering the economy globally, but its impact will vary on a country-by-country basis. After witnessing the impact that the U.S. shale boom has had worldwide, PwC decided to examine how the development of shale oil worldwide might impact oil prices and the economy worldwide, said Adam Lyons, director of PwC and co-author of PwC's global report, "Shale Oil – the Next Energy Revolution". "Shale oil is on the same journey as shale gas," said Lyons, who discussed the study's findings at a World Affairs Council event on the...

Following up on last week’s piece detailing the reasons why the Shale oil and natural gas boom has taken place in Texas, but not in other states like California and New York, we’ve seen quite a bit of interesting, related news pieces over the last several days. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal published a very informative op/ed in its Review & Outlook section, titled “A Tale of Two Oil States”, which made more detailed comparisons between the economic performance between Texas and California, and the ways in which each state’s policy decisions related to shale development have affected that...

Leading oil industry groups said Thursday federal land managers are blocking new energy development and job creation by postponing all oil and gas lease auctions on prime public lands in California until October. Officials with the American Petroleum Institute, the largest lobbying group for the oil and gas industry, said the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s recent announcement that it will temporarily put off energy leasing in the state will prevent economic growth. “We now know that California holds a vast amount of oil and natural gas resources, especially in the Monterey Shale located in the central part of the...

Have environmentalists already won the war over fracking in California? It’s starting to look that way. A trio of bills swiftly moving through the state’s legislature would ban hydraulic fracturing, also called fracking, until the practice is deemed safe. The bills are among nine pieces of legislation currently under consideration that would effectively restrict drilling in the Monterey Shale, a geological formation that holds an estimated 15.4 billion barrels of oil, the largest such reserve in the US. Unreachable by conventional drilling, the Monterey Shale has come into play with advances in fracking, which injects chemical-laced water into wells under...

News that Talisman Energy Inc. is pulling out of exploration for shale gas in Poland is a blow to the country’s hopes that its deposits of the hydrocarbon will soon cut its dependence on Russian supplies and support the weakening economy. Canada’s Talisman said Wednesday it had not found enough gas to warrant further expensive exploration or extraction procedures. It will sell its Polish interests to a European company, San Leon Energy, and focus on easier-to-get deposits in North and South America, Southeast Asia and the North Sea. The company’s retreat — the second by a major company in less...

The shale revolution hit America and the world with such speed and suddenness that it surprised almost everyone—investors, businessmen, economists and politicians. Soon the implications of this dramatic development seeped into the national consciousness and spread optimism that the United States could ride it to a wave of prosperity. And the new techniques for extracting "unconventional" oil and gas from shale rock, which America possesses in such abundance, do indeed pose prospects for an economic boom. They also pose prospects for changes in the defense posture of many nations. Anything of value that a nation possesses must be protected, and...

In a clunky op-ed in the Sunday New York Times called “The Dark Side of Energy Independence,” Benjamin Alter and Edward Fishman, staffers at Foreign Affairs, see all sorts of negative geopolitical effects resulting from an American oil industry that has become so good at extracting fossil fuels that we’re set to enjoy energy independence from the the rest of the world. In their eyes, America won’t get to enjoy this energy independence at all. Rather we will suffer the consequences of it. “That’s because America’s oil and gas bonanza will drive down global energy prices, undercutting the foundations of...

Full Title: The meteoric rise in Texas oil output continues and is one of the most remarkable energy success stories in US history The Energy Information Administration released new US crude oil production data today for the month of February by state, and one of the highlights of the monthly update is that oil output in America’s No. 1 oil-producing state – Texas – continues its phenomenal, meteoric rise. Here are some details of oil output in “Saudi Texas”: 1. Texas produced an average of 2.295 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in February, which is the highest...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government has doubled to 7.4 billion barrels its estimate of how much oil might be found and tapped in the booming area of the Dakotas and Montana "These world-class formations contain even more energy resource potential than previously understood, which is important information as we continue to reduce our nation's dependence on foreign sources of oil," Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said Tuesday, April 30, in a conference call. The region already is helping to drive the nation's dramatic shift into a role as the world's leading oil producer. The surge comes primarily because of the Three...

The climate is changing. Coal will one day be used up. We want to live in a clean environment. But the fact is that the imperatives of economic development often pose environmental challenges. Despite this, environmental protection remains important because we need jobs, security, better education and good quality of life. Natural resources are not our property – we took out a loan from future generations – and we should use resources sparingly and think about how our children will heat their houses and cook their food in 20 – 30 years. The rush for cheap, reliable, clean energy resources...

SWEETWATER — About a year ago, talk began circulating in this West Texas town about a huge oil-producing formation called the Cline Shale, east of the traditional drilling areas around Midland. Then the oilmen and their rigs arrived. Now homes and hotels are sprouting, “help wanted” signs have multiplied, and a major drilling company has cleared land to build an office and equipment yard. “It is coming, and it is big,” said Greg Wortham, the mayor of Sweetwater, who also serves as executive director of the Cline Shale Alliance, a new economic development group. The Cline Shale, thousands of feet...

A week after the Boston Marathon bombing, Conservative London Mayor Boris Johnson wrote a shameless puff-piece celebrating the glories of "sensuous" camel racing in the Gulf emirates in the London Telegraph. Gulf Arabs, including the Saudi Arabians, are huge terrorist enablers, big European spenders, London party animals, media investors, sexual abusers, wife beaters, Euro-American arms purchasers, Shari'ah imperialists, massive London vote buyers and powerful political meddlers. Boris Johnson, who is not a stupid man, is also aware of a slew of London Jihad bombings starting in 2007, both successful ones and a reported sixteen fizzled plots. He knows exactly who...

The share of shale oil in the total global production will reach 9 percent by 2020, BP Senior Economist Lev Freinkman says. Freinkman said while presenting BP's "Energy Outlook by 2030" in Baku on Wednesday that the growth in production volume will account for shale oil which will be produced in the United States. As early as this year, the U.S. will take the lead in the world in terms of production and will retain its position in the next decade. As for shale gas production, Freinkman said that by 2030 the share of shale gas in total global production...

Encana Corp. Tuesday announced positive results from its San Juan Basin oil exploration, saying the testing had “reached commerciality” with production expected to exceed 1,700 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The Canadian company said it may add a rig by year’s end to the two now operating in the basin, according to the Farmington Daily News.

Good news on natural gas is bad news for a Democratic party full of environmental true-believers Much has been said recently about the deep tensions within the Republican party. Far less has been said about a sharp division arising inside the Democratic party. That latter tension was front and center recently when former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Daily News drawing on his experience overseeing extensive natural gas development in Pennsylvania. “If we choose to embrace natural gas, it will help us get past a number of significant economic and environmental challenges,” Rendell wrote....

Cheap natural gas has split the climate debate into two camps. One celebrates the development, emphasizing that natural gas cuts emissions when it replaces coal, and arguing that abundant gas reduces emissions as a result. The other bemoans the news, noting that inexpensive natural gas makes it tougher for zero-carbon energy to compete and arguing that this will ultimately result in higher, not lower, emissions. Which view is right? Exploring a set of simulations just released as part of the Annual Energy Outlook published by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) provides some neat insight. For the first time, the EIA...

At the latest Casey Research conference, respected investment analyst Porter Stansberry stood at the podium and predicted that the price of oil will fall below US$40 per barrel within the next 12 months. From my perspective, the pressures at play in the oil market are all pushing prices in the opposite direction: up. Global supplies are tightening, costs are rising, and demand is not falling.

Some claim that the U.S. has hundreds of billions or even trillions of barrels of oil waiting to be produced if bureaucrats will simply stop blocking development. But the Green River formation is the source of talk of those enormous oil resources — larger than those of Saudi Arabia —. The energy requirements — plus the fact that oil shale production requires a lot of water in a very dry environment — have kept oil shale commercialization out of reach for over 100 years. It is not at all clear that even at $100 oil the shale in the Green...

To John LaRue, the renaissance in U.S. manufacturing is no dream. It’s already here. As executive director of the Port of Corpus Christi, Texas, his business is booming and he has aggressive plans to expand and take advantage of the trend. He expects the local economy to double maybe triple in size within a few years as U.S. industries flock to the area, joined by foreign companies as far afield as Italy, Austria and China, all racing to take advantage of the cheap and plentiful oil and natural gas. To Mr. LaRue, it all started with a major oil find...

A recent report confirms what you already knew: People in the oil and gas industry make more money than you, and Texas is producing lots more oil. The Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association’s “State of Energy Report” says the industry employs more than 971,000 people in the U.S., including about 379,800 in Texas. And 34,600 of those Texas jobs were added in the first half of 2012 alone. Other interesting information: The national average wage for oil and gas industry workers was $107,200 last year. The Texas average wage for oil and natural gas workers was $128,100 last...

The first signs are emerging that key Persian Gulf members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are adjusting their strategies to cope with the growing threat that North American shale oil is making to their long-term dominance in global energy markets. The OPEC moves lag behind other international players such as Statoil and Sinochem, who are staking out a major stake in the U.S. shale industry but provide the first insights on how major oil producers might respond over time to the possibility of a future supply glut: Integration through foreign investment. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)...

Europe is falling dangerously far behind the US in productivity growth and is blighted by crippling energy costs, the pan-EU industry federation has warned. “Europe doesn’t have an energy policy. It has a climate policy,” said Markus Beyrer, head of BusinessEurope. Mr Beyrer said the US is running away with the shale energy revolution, leaving Europe’s companies in the dust. Spot gas prices are now four to five times higher in Europe, with grim implications for the chemical industry. “Shale gas is a game-changer and we need to have a discussion based on the evidence, not based on risks,” Mr...

Fracking opponents in California have won what may be their first victory in court, with a federal magistrate’s ruling that federal authorities broke the law when they leased land in Monterey and Fresno counties to oil drillers without studying the possible risks of hydraulic fracturing. The decision, made public Sunday, will probably delay fracking on four sites leased by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in 2011. U.S. Magistrate Paul Grewal with the U.S. District Court in San Jose ruled that the bureau did not properly assess the threat that fracking could pose to water and wildlife before selling the...

In early 2013, Sinochem, a Chinese company, entered into a $1.7 billion joint venture with Pioneer Natural Resources to acquire a stake in the Wolfcamp Shale play in West Texas. This investment highlights a renewed trend toward foreign joint ventures. Since 2008, foreign companies have entered into 21 joint ventures with U.S. acreage holders and operators, investing more than $26 billion in tight oil and shale gas plays. Investment in shale plays in the United States totaled $133.7 billion between 2008 and 2012, as part of 73 deals. Joint ventures by foreign companies accounted for 20% of these investments. The...

Although he is famously averse to leaving New York State, Gov. Cuomo would be well advised to make a day trip 60 miles across the border to a booming city in Pennsylvania. Williamsport, a town of 30,000 people, is renowned as the site of the Little League World Series. More instructive to Cuomo as he dithers over approving fracking for natural gas in New York is how stunningly the industry has improved the area’s fortunes. Once plagued by a shrinking population and economy — like much of upstate New York — Williamsport now boasts the third-fastest-growing metropolitan economy in the...

A firm called East Resources Inc. was among the first to drill into the Marcellus Shale, a rock layer found to be rich in natural gas. As the small wildcatter drilled, starting in 2008, regulators repeatedly cited it for spills or other environmental infractions, almost two for every shale well it drilled. In 2010 Royal Dutch Shell PLC bought East Resources. The first thing the oil giant did was shut down the rigs for two weeks and retrain the workers. Since taking over, Shell has averaged less than one violation for every four wells. A similar pattern is showing up...

Such is the impact of the shale gas revolution in the United States that it's quite possible that babies born today will no longer play with plastic dolls and cars made in China. It's almost become a fait accompli that China is the world's factory, but the early warning signs that this may be changing are starting to show. The advent of cheap natural gas in the U.S. is threatening to displace expensive naphtha in the production of petrochemicals, the key building blocks for plastics, synthetic fibres and solvents and cleaners. While the shale gas boom is certainly no longer...

Royal Dutch Shell PLC said Tuesday it has received approval from the Chinese government for the company's first shale-gas production-sharing contract in China, a significant milestone as the country looks to tap potentially massive unconventional gas reserves and achieve ambitious shale-gas production targets. Li Lusha, a spokeswoman for Shell, said the Chinese government has approved the Anglo-Dutch company's plan to explore, develop and produce shale gas with partner China National Petroleum Corp. in the Fushun-Yongchuan block in the Sichuan Basin. Word of the government's approval comes more than a year after Shell and state-oil giant CNPC said they reached a...

FARMINGTON, N.M. (AP) — The oil and gas industry is getting excited about a potential boom in northwestern New Mexico.

Preliminary results from Mancos shale wells in northwestern New Mexico are boosting industry excitement about a new oil and gas boom in the region.

Shell has committed to spending $1 bln/yr to develop Chinese shale China has approved a production-sharing contract with Royal Dutch Shell for the Fushun shale gas block in the southwestern province of Sichuan, with the global oil firm preparing to step up drilling activities in the country. The government nod comes a year after Shell first inked the contract to develop the shale gas block with the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). The contract is the first of its kind to be approved by China, Shell spokeswoman Li Lusha said on the sidelines of a conference in Beijing. Shell has...

Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. has rolled out two key numbers: 85 and 75. Réal Cusson, the company’s senior vice president of marketing, on Wednesday told investors where the price of oil must trade in order for energy companies to make a go of it in the oil sands and shale gas formations. In the oil sands, Mr. Cusson said companies will flirt with trouble if the price of crude dips to $85 (U.S.) per barrel as expansion spreads in northern Alberta. “The economic reality is something we’ll have to adjust to. If oil goes down to $85, and there’s no...

ARMINGTON – The San Juan Basin could be headed toward a renaissance in natural-gas and oil drilling if rosy expectations touted by industry officials at Monday’s San Juan Basin Energy Conference hold true. “In the southern part of the basin, the Mancos play has the potential to revitalize declining San Juan Basin oil production and also has a tremendous amount of future gas production in the northern part of the basin,” said Ron Broadhead, a principal petroleum geologist with the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources.

WILLISTON, N.D. — — He dropped out of north suburban Richmond-Burton Community High School, and a few years later Andy Turco found himself staining decks in the summer, plowing snow in the winter and going without work for a month or two in between. Nearly homeless, he saw himself on a dead-end path. Then he talked to a buddy working here, in a barren corner of North Dakota, where an ugly-sounding word — fracking — has driven oil from the ground and pushed unemployment down to 0.7 percent. That's right: seven-tenths of one percent. Turco sold his car, hopped in...

Facts and anecdotes about the oil boom in Texas, especially in the Eagle Ford Shale and Permian Basin areas...1. The first Eagle Ford well was drilled in 2008 when 26 drilling permits were issued and the area produced only 358 barrels per day that first year. In 2012, Eagle Ford oil output rose to more than 352,000 barrels a day, as the number of drilling permits surged to 4,143. 2. Eagle Ford Shale could provide as many as 900,000 barrels per day by 2016. The Permian Basin, deep in west Texas, may reach 1 million barrels daily. By 2020, Texas’...

The oil industry is increasing spending on research that it hopes will make it cheaper and easier to coax more crude and natural gas from shale formations and deep-sea oil fields, extending and accelerating the U.S. energy boom. The largest oil-field-service firms--Schlumberger Ltd., Halliburton Co. and Baker Hughes Inc.--raised their research and development budgets by 24% from 2010 to a combined $2.1 billion in 2012. In recent years, these companies, which provide a range of services for energy exploration, have become the primary R&D engines of the oil industry, surpassing spending by oil-and-gas companies such as Chevron Corp. and Royal...

As the Cline is roughly 9,800 square miles in size, this works out to estimated reserves in excess of 30 billion barrels. These reserves could easily eclipse the Bakken (4.3 billion barrels according to conservative government estimates) and the Eagle Ford (3 billion barrels).

On the same day the Independent Democrat Caucus in New York announced another piece of proposed legislation to delay development of the Marcellus Shale in New York, two representatives from a premiere energy conference in New Mexico heralded success on the radio and praise for energy operators.

Oil prices are likely to rise sharply from 2015, surpassing $150 a barrel in 2019 and 2020, Bernstein Research said. The 180-page report from Bernstein estimates Brent will rise from an average $113 in 2015 to $158 in 2020, with U.S. crude priced at a $5 discount. While U.S. shale oil and Canadian oil sands have reinvigorated the North American oil industry, new supplies are too small to meet emerging market demand growth. By 2015, shale oil is forecast to constitute just 3.2 pct of global supply, up from 1.5 pct now. The cost of production will support prices. Bernstein...

A year ago, the shutdown of several refineries serving the Northeast and the possibility they would not reopen threatened to boost New England’s already­ high gasoline prices by as much as 15 cents a gallon. But an influxof cheaper crude oil extracted from shale rock formations in the United States has helped save most of those facilities and stabilized gas ­prices. The revival of the East Coast refineries is another example of how the controversial drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is changing the energy equation for the region, nation, and world. Just as fracking opened vast reserves...

North America has become the fastest growing oil and gas region in the world. Production of shale oil and gas and oil sands resources are increasing year after year as new infrastructures are developed, new extraction technologies are used and more resources are found. The surging supply growth could change North America into the new Middle East by 2020 according to a GPS report produced by Citigroup (NYSE: C). If accurate, the energy industry would generate benefits from exploitation of oil and ensure endless economic wealth for the country. As a matter of fact, crude oil is off its all-time...

Global shale oil production has the potential to reach up to 14 million barrels per day by 2035, or 12 percent of the world’s total oil supply, according to a new report from accountants PwC released Thursday. PwC’s report – 'Shale oil: the next energy revolution' – stated that the firm estimates the increase could reduce oil prices in 2035 to between 25 percent and 40 percent (or between $83 and $100 per barrel in real terms) relative to the current baseline EIA projection of $133 per barrel in 2035. The firm said that the potential emergence of shale oil...