Posted on 02/20/2012 7:56:14 AM PST by thackney
The United States rapidly declining crude oil supply has made a stunning about-face, shredding federal oil projections and putting energy independence in sight of some analyst forecasts.
After declining to levels not seen since the 1940s, U.S. crude production began rising again in 2009. Drilling rigs have rushed into the nations oil fields, suggesting a surge in domestic crude is on the horizon.
The number of rigs in U.S. oil fields has more than quadrupled in the past three years to 1,272, according to the Baker Hughes rig count. Including those in natural gas fields, the United States now has more rigs at work than the entire rest of the world.
Its staggering, said Marshall Adkins, who directs energy research for the financial services firm Raymond James. If we continue growing anywhere near that pace and keep squeezing demand out of the system, that puts you in a world where we are not importing oil in 10 years.
There are doubts that energy independence is that close. But many say the booming shale oil fields in Texas and North Dakota and the growth of deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico will allow the nation to cut its reliance on oil imports significantly over the next couple of decades.
Last month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration upgraded its forecast of crude production in 2025 to 6.4 million barrels per day 1 million barrels more than were pumped in 2010.
Previously, the EIA had projected the U.S. would peak at 6 million barrels in 2022.
The growth that weve seen in shale, thats one of the biggest changes thats contributing to our outlook, said Dana Van-Wagener, a research analyst for the agency. Its evolving so quickly. We werent anticipating enough growth.
Crude prices stable
By the EIAs forecast, the United States will challenge Saudi Arabia as the worlds top oil producer when crude and other forms of liquid petroleum are included. But the U.S. is also the worlds top oil consumer, demanding nearly 20 million barrels a day. So even with an oil boom, the nation still falls far short of its energy demands.
The technology that fueled the national shale gas rush is moving into oil fields. The pairing of fossil fuel production techniques called horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing allowed companies to access previously hard-to-reach natural gas trapped in dense shale rock.
The rush has unleashed a flood of natural gas onto the U.S. market, causing price to dive and making some gas wells uneconomical. Companies have started to close natural gas wells and pull rigs out of gas fields.
Meanwhile, crude oil prices have remained high, with the domestic benchmark West Texas Intermediate price rising 93 cents to $103.24 on Friday.
Pumping crude out of shale rock is more expensive and difficult than getting at natural gas, said Eric Potter, program director for energy research at the University of Texas at Austins Bureau of Economic Geology.
Oil molecules are larger and harder to squeeze through the cracks created by hydraulic fracturing. But the high price of crude makes it worthwhile for many companies.
With natural gas prices being as low as they are, your company could go out of business if you dont manage this carefully, Potter said. People are moving quickly to get into these oil plays. Its a matter of their existence.
The Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, the Permian Basin in West Texas, and the Bakken Shale in North Dakota have been hubs of the domestic crude boom. They now make up about 40 percent of the nations land-based oil production, noted Adkins, the Raymond James analyst. He projects that proportion will grow to two-thirds by 2015.
Fields underestimated
Adkins says the Energy Information Administration is vastly underestimating the rapid growth of those oil fields. He believes that crude oil production in the United States will reach 9.1 million barrels by 2015, some 45 percent more than the EIAs forecast.
The reason for the varying projections about the nations crude potential is uncertainty about how much oil is underground and whether technological advances will make it reachable.
That also causes debate about future crude oil prices.
Adkins, for example, says the rising production will help reverse the surging price of oil, pushing it down to $90 per barrel next year.
Forecast: $4.09/gallon
Others, however, believe oil prices will continue to rise despite the growing supply coming out of U.S. oil fields. Domestic crude prices are closely tied to the world market.
That makes domestic prices susceptible to the global Brent crude benchmark price, which is on the rise due to foreign conflicts and rapidly growing energy demands in developing countries.
The EIA projects the average world oil price will reach about $145 per barrel in 2035, in current dollars, compared to the 2011 average of $93 per barrel. Meanwhile, the agency forecasts gasoline in America will rise to $4.09 per gallon.
As far as drilling and production, its going to be really good and robust, said Michelle Michot Foss, chief energy economist for the University of Texas Bureau of Economic Geology. But consumers will be upset because gasoline prices will continue to be high.
There is a huge amount of new drilling.
What has made the biggest new change is the use of steerable, horizontal drilling. Combined with hydraulic fracturing used for decades before, this made a drastic change in both production per well, and the ability to economically produced previously know thin layers.
It is there, it is only necessary to let the price to rise high enough to make recovery and reclamation economically feasible.
Very true, we would not be doing all this drilling into difficult formations with expensive horizontal methods at $20 oil.
Why arent we making oil out of organic trash? We already know how, and it has been done on a small scale at a turkey processing plant. And apparently at competitive price.
Is it competitive without tax payer subsidies?
“The United States rapidly declining crude oil supply has made a stunning about-face”
Pretty Sad when the very first sentence starts out by repeating the BIG LIE. There is more recoverable in California than most of Saudi Arabia, and in the US the amount of recoverable oil is Astronomical. 100% of all Oil Shortages is a result of Government and it started with Jimmy Carter when he created the Dept of Energy to lessen our dependence on foreign oil which at the time was 35% or so, now it is reversed and we only produce 30-35%. Funny how it all coincided with the Saudis throwing out the Brits who by the way Built the Entire Saudi Oil Fields and Infrastructure. The Enemy is our own Government and the Democrat Party as a Whole, with a Majority of Republicans willing to go along with the scam as long as they can make a few bucks in the process..
Sorry, not a lie. Oil supply is not measured by oil in the ground. That is reserves. Oil supply is oil being brought to the market. Regardless of it being constrained by economics, politics or available reserves, oil supply (domestic production) was declining for years.
The shortfall was made up by imports, which now has been declining. We still import too much, and far too much from hostile nations.
“Something smells fishy. I know for darn sure that the past three years have not been friendly to domestic oil production. Maybe these increased numbers are because Bush approved their use before they went online?”
No the timing is about right. It will be the next president who has to deal with the bad decissions being made now.
The number of rigs in U.S. oil fields has more than quadrupled in the past three years to 1,272, according to the Baker Hughes rig count. Including those in natural gas fields, the United States now has more rigs at work than the entire rest of the world.
You can bet this will be a big Obama talking point in the upcoming months.
"It's because of meeee ."
We have to push back at such announcements and point out to any media promoting Obama with data. Reality is that drilling and production has increased on private property while declining on federal land and water.
It probably either did not scale up well, or ran into reliability problems which priced it out of the market price of oil. Besides, except fo the DC area, there just ain't enough bird crap around to make any significant quantities of oil and the DC product is mostly hot air which makes it uneconomic to convert.
They require you to slow down to a sip huh? I imagine throws a lot of them off having run rich for all those years.
1. The price of oil is based on the international supply, not just our domestic supply.
2. The current rise in the price of oil is due to speculation by financial groups who are trying to corner the market.
The plant is in Carthage MO. They have a demonstrated capacity to turn organics into a distillable oil but are not making a profit.
They planned on getting free feedstock but the turkey plant found another buyer for their offal which forced the company to pay for feedstock by the ton, that and the did not qualify for the federal renewable energy funds. They say that they could have survived either of the events but combined, they cannot turn a profit.
I haven’t been down that way for a few years, I don’t know if the plant is still running. They kept it going as a demonstration plant and were trying to sell plants to Europe where they expected to be more profitable.
We have a winner! Give the man a cigar!
Which unfortunately plays even bigger for Obama. "I allowed private industry to do what it does best because I am a capitalist and I kept federal lands protected from those other greedy 1%'ers."
This is new supply via new technology making old fields productive, new ways of recovering oil from shale rock, tar sand, deep water etc. But it is more expensive to extract....the easy stuff is nearly gone. Because of the high cost of extraction and as an investor in the energy sector I expect the price of oil to remain at a high level for the foreseeable future.
Sat, this weekend, Ed Wallace of KLIF radio show, said in his Oil Report, that Wyoming oil is selling on spot market at $60 and that Chicago gasoline is 40 cents lower than long term gas prices due to local glut. These short term gluts in certain market areas are not showing up for the national price of oil.
And since we get far more oil from OPEC than Wyoming, a large impact from WY is more than offset by a much smaller price rise in the international oil market.
We do need more pipeline transportation in country to take domestically produced oil to existing refineries running on too much imported oil.
It is only a local glut because of the lack of infrastructure to deliver it to more markets. It doesn't affect the global market because it is physically separated by it. Oil is fungible, but only at market price less the cost of available transportation.
No thanks to BO.
thanks for helping me see the system. To bad our political folks don’t share it with their voters like you do wiht Freepers.
Newt for Energy --- would remove CAFE Standards on Autos; more
ACCEPTED BY RESIDENTS
The project (which has been planned since August 2005 under the Gorilla Project codename) has now reached the stage at which Union County, South Dakota residents voted by 58% to 42% to allow the 3,300 acres of former farmland just north of Elk Point to become the site for this oil mega-project. Hyperion will try to obtain options on land around the site for 20 square miles (18,00020,000 acres) to form a buffer and security zone.[snip]
The construction is expected to begin in 2010 and the four-year building period will create a further 4,500 jobs.
http://www.hydrocarbons-technology.com/projects/elkpointrefinery/
SD judge asked to throw out oil refinery permit
Jan 12, 2012 Opponents of a proposed $10 billion oil refinery urged a judge Thursday to strike down a state permit that would allow the project to be built in southeastern South Dakota. ... It would be the first new U.S. oil refinery built since 1976.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9S7P6403.htm
As an aside, we're still waiting, since 9/2000, for the "new" particle physics lab to be up and running in the former Homestake Mine
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