peak Archive

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  The big Oil Crunch within five years - by frog

  
  
  
  A report released last week says the crunch will be upon us very soon, and Shell oil agrees. From the Guardian: The report was issued today by the recently established UK industry taskforce on peak oil and energy security, a group of eight companies including transport firms Virgin, Stagecoach and FirstGroup, engineers Arup, architects Foster [...] read more
  November 4, 2008 10:54 am - 46 Comments
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  IEA´s unnaproved draft oil report - by frog

  
  
  
  For those who follow the oil game, the IEA´s announcement last May that their complete review of the world oil supply situation wouldn´t come out until the week after the US Presidential election came as no surprise. The last thing that any American administration would want to do is spook the markets just prior to [...] read more
  October 30, 2008 10:31 am - 17 Comments
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  Peak oil, subprime loans and poor oversight - by frog

  
  
  
  At the slimmest edge of his reasoning, I find myself agreeing with that great Kiwi free market apologist, Roger Kerr. Poor oversight has pumped billions of dollars into useless paper assets, primarily property. However, It is entirely disingenuous to blame the government for that. An oil price spike, one of the early symptoms of the [...] read more
  September 30, 2008 3:44 pm - 10 Comments
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  Oil spikes $25, then retreats - by frog

  
  
  
  Oil took a violent swing upwards at the close of business yesterday, as a collapsing US Dollar and an expiring long-term crude oil contract led the market to believe that one of the big fund managers was being caught short. To translate – the market smelled blood and everyone jumped in. Despite spiking to $130, [...] read more
  September 23, 2008 10:51 am - No Comments
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  Oil dips below $100 - by frog

  
  
  
  In a clear sign of relief that oil production and refining won’t be severely hampered by hurricane Ike’s devastation, oil has broken through the very important psychological floor, trading at $99.57 as I write. This is hugely important for global petrol prices. Unfortunately, New Zealand is not likely to benefit a great deal from the [...] read more
  September 15, 2008 10:13 am - 14 Comments
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  Oil drops a dime, Matthew Simmons says ‘just wait’ - by frog

  
  
  
  Since I have a habit of reporting whenever oil hits a new $10 level, I thought it only fair that I wade in and report when it has dropped as much. As I write, oil is sitting at US$130, and NZ oil companies have mercifully dropped petrol prices by 4 cents a litre. This is [...] read more
  July 18, 2008 12:37 pm - 8 Comments
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  AFS Trinity claim 150 mpg - by frog

  
  
  
  AFS Trinity Power Corporation claim to have developed a hybrid technology that gets 150 miles per gallon. That’s mighty impressive given that the US light vehicle fleet averages in the low 20s. What really presses my button about this particular claim is that they have done it with off-the-shelf parts. This means that the new [...] read more
  July 6, 2008 5:01 pm - 25 Comments
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  RBNZ keeps head in the sand - by frog

  
  
  
  You can tell a series has lost it’s punch when it takes me 4 days to get the post up about it. I simply cannot believe that the Reserve Bank has turned out yet another oil price forecast guaranteed to be a loser – like every single previous forecast of the last four years. The [...] read more
  June 11, 2008 9:28 am - 36 Comments
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  Treasury’s Oil BEFU - by frog

  
  
  
  I promised to follow up on last week’s Budget Economic Forecast Update, (BEFU), in order to compare it to my own predictions of what Treasury would predict. If you look at the chart from my post before Budget day, you will see that I predicted that Treasury would be lazy and just cut and paste [...] read more
  May 28, 2008 9:36 am - 26 Comments
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  Robert Hirsch forecasts US$12-15 per gallon - by frog

  
  
  
  Robert Hirsch, on of America’s key researchers on the impact of peak oil, says we will soon be seeing US$12 per gallon gasoline prices. That’s over US$3 per litre, or NZ$3.80 at our currently healthy exchange rate. He says that the plateau in production that is responsible for our current surge in prices has been [...] read more
  May 26, 2008 11:30 am - 44 Comments
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  Ken Deffeyes on Brisbane Radio - by frog

  
  
  
  For those who don’t know of him, Ken Deffeyes is Professor Emeritus at Princeton University and the author of many books and articles on Peak Oil. With the Aussies panicking as much as us Kiwis about the rocketing price of petrol, Brisbane’s Radio 4BC rang him up and asked him what was going on. The [...] read more
  May 24, 2008 12:16 pm - 48 Comments
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  Oil touches US$122 per barrel - by frog

  
  
  
  Not only did it break the $122 barrier, it threatened the $123 barrier as well. While my long term projections, updated to last night’s closing still show $100/bbl oil arriving permanently in July, that date has stopped swinging between July and August with price fluctuations. We are still well above the long term trend and [...] read more
  May 7, 2008 10:24 am - 36 Comments
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  Oil touches US$ 117 a barrel - by frog

  
  
  
  Will we touch US$120 before the end of the month? Perhaps. But only because US inventories are low going into the summer driving season and because OPEC is sitting on its hands and the Nigerians and Iraqis are having a field day blowing up pipelines. Trevor29 rightly points out that we are way above the [...] read more
  April 19, 2008 6:58 pm - 21 Comments
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  The Record Falls – Jan ’08 is the new world record for crude oil (plus condensate) production - by frog

  
  
  
  Nate Hagens over at The Oil Drum says: The EIA’s newest International Petroleum Monthly shows World C+C production for January was 74,466,000 barrels per day, eclipsing the heretofore peak of May 2005 by 168,000 barrels per day. (thanks to Ron Patterson for the heads up and to Khebab for the quick graphics). Fig 1.- World [...] read more
  April 14, 2008 10:04 am - 10 Comments
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  Peak Uranium - by frog

  
  
  
  Several times I have promised a post on Peak Uranium and haven’t delivered. It’s a complex subject because building nuclear reactors is such a slow moving thing and subject to so many economic and social factors. So Peak Uranium, in this context, is not as clean a concept as it is for say oil, where [...] read more
  March 23, 2008 1:59 pm - 46 Comments
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  Peak Everything, by Don Elder - by frog

  
  
  
  I have just finished reading Richard Heinberg‘s latest book, Peak Everything. It is a collection of essays that explore the causes and effects of many resource limits. In short, we’re in for a bumpy ride and I highly recommend the book. Today, for some reason I’ve already forgotten, I was reviewing the powerpoint of Don [...] read more
  March 20, 2008 4:02 pm - 59 Comments
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  Peak Oil and Food - by frog

  
  
  
  I’ve blogged on these topics many times before, and the relationship between the two. This week’s Peak Oil Review, published by ASPO-USA, states the relationship so clearly I won’t bother to do anything but quote it: US wheat inventories have now reached a 60-year low and wheat prices have risen by 50 percent in the [...] read more
  February 12, 2008 12:27 pm - 16 Comments