peak Archive

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  The big Oil Crunch within five years

  
  
  
  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 and [...] read more
  November 4, 2008 10:54 am - 46 Comments
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  IEA´s unnaproved draft oil report

  
  
  
  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

  
  
  
  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

  
  
  
  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, it [...] read more
  September 23, 2008 10:51 am - No Comments
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  Oil dips below $100

  
  
  
  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 price [...] read more
  September 15, 2008 10:13 am - 14 Comments
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  Oil drops a dime, Matthew Simmons says ‘just wait’

  
  
  
  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

  
  
  
  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

  
  
  
  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

  
  
  
  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

  
  
  
  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