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At this morning's press briefing, Kent Wells of BP reported that pressures have now reached 6,745 psi, and are building at about 2 psi per hour. BP is estimating ultimate pressure will be around 6,800 psi. While this is not as high as originally expected, there are several reasonable explanations for this lower pressure reading, including the possibility that the well is now somewhat depleted, and therefore has lower pressure. BP seems to be encouraged by the results. Mr. Wells said several times, "We are encouraged that we have integrity," and "We find no evidence of lack of integrity."

With all of our problems in the Gulf of Mexico, we think about importing more from elsewhere. Let's look at some graphs of net imports of crude oil and refined products, and of some US production amounts, to see what is happening now. Perhaps this will give us insight as to what to expect going forward, and how many options we really have with respect to oil imports. Figure 1. US net imports of oil and oil products, using an EIA chart As one can see, US net imports peaked in 2005, and have been declining ever since. The year...

Advocates of a smooth transition away from petroleum may be surprised by the consequences of huge swings in the cost of oil. I first proposed a "head-fake" in the price of oil in 2008. My thesis was that the oil exporting nations had become so dependent on revenues from oil that even as prices plummeted in global recession, they would have no choice financially and politically to pumping every barrel they could. This would increase supply even as demand fell, causing prices to crash. This dynamic would drive prices down to lows which are widely considered "impossible" in an era...

Energy Policy: To save the environment, a senator from Pennsylvania wants to shut off a major source of natural gas. Weren't the roads to the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon disasters paved with equally good intentions? Environmentalism did not cause the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, but it did help make it possible, just as 1989's Exxon Valdez disaster, which the Gulf Oil spill has now eclipsed, was also ironically made possible by a desire to protect the environment. The original plan when oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's North Slope was to build a pipeline directly to the...

The BP Spill: Tuesday on Capitol Hill, oil executives were subjected to the Senate's latest show trial. Senators did not say the accident in federal waters was a federal responsibility or that nature spills more oil every day. The morning hearing by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee chaired by Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and the afternoon session before California Sen. Barbara Boxer's Environmental and Public Works Committee prove White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's dictum that a good crisis is a terrible thing to waste — especially when your goal is exploiting the Deepwater Horizon disaster...

Media Bias: As the Gulf Coast faced ecological disaster, the president yukked it up with White House correspondents. His Saturday radio address didn't even mention the oil spill. President Bush, call your office. Rarely has media sycophancy been on such sharp display as in the largely indifferent response to President Obama's own indifference to the oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The coverage has been far different from that given to President Bush's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The White House announced Saturday morning that Obama would head to the Gulf Coast on Sunday, just a...

Energy: The administration has banned new offshore drilling until the Gulf oil spill is investigated. Was its heart in it anyway? It seems environmental concerns apply only to certain forms of energy. No one pays much attention to the aquatic "dead zones" that have appeared off our shores at the mouths of our rivers due to agricultural runoff created by mandates for corn-based ethanol. Ethanol is green energy, good energy — never mind that such biofuels drive up food prices, increase hunger around the world and damage the environment in their own way. The explosion that blew apart an oil...

The Imminent Crash Of The Oil Supply: What Is Going To Happen And How It Came To Pass That We Weren't Forewarned APRIL 23, 2010 in COMMENTARY By Nicholas C. Arguimbau (The Intelligence Daily) - Look at this graph and be afraid. It does not come from Earth First. It does not come from the Sierra Club. It was not drawn by Socialists or Nazis or Osama Bin Laden or anyone from Goldman-Sachs. If you are a Republican Tea-Partier, rest assured it does not come from a progressive Democrat. And vice versa. It was drawn by the United States Department...

Energy: As the administration loosens restrictions on domestic energy development and offshore drilling, a reviled company develops technology to unlock America's vast shale resources. Drill, baby, drill. We have been among President Obama's harshest critics when it comes to the administration's overly restrictive energy policy, so we were pleasantly surprised to see him announce on Wednesday some light at the end of the pipeline. Some light, for many restrictions will remain in an energy policy best termed schizophrenic. Speaking at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., Obama announced the welcome news that his administration will let lease sales go...

Economic success, growth, and an affluent (happy) consumer lifestyle directly depend on an abundance of inexpensive energy. Conversely, the quantity and type of energy consumed can have a very adverse effect on the surrounding environment and world ecological balance. It then follows that politics, the subject of governing civilized societies, is also directly dependent on the common denominator of energy, just at a time that we are facing the imminent and terminal decline of our prime energy source, oil, and ultimately all finite fossil fuels. Yet, the advocates of different positions, for instance, climate change (man made or not), or...

Back in the days when US oil demand controlled the price of oil, a massive recession in the United States would have sent oil to 12.00 dollars a barrel. That era, which ended last decade, was defined by ongoing spare capacity in OPEC, low-cost oil in Non-OPEC, and nascent demand for oil in the developing world. That was then, and this is now. And so it’s rather quaint that the energy analysts from that previous era still gather each week on American financial TV, to discuss the inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma. Inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma? The US has been removing...

If I may, I would like to rebut or add a little objectivity to the flood of “Peak Oil” articles circulating around. When I see another crisis looming in the balance, and dramatized articles that warn of the “Dangers of Peak Oil,” I must question the validity or how this will effect the world, the USA, and you and I personally, and if indeed a crisis is at hand. As for world oil, if you ask the right questions, there are several new technologies/methods/alternatives and new finds that can easily supply enough hydrocarbon fuel for the next century or more....

When oil crossed $120 a barrel for the first time in May 2008, oil cornucopians knew they were in trouble. Prices had quadrupled in just five years, yet had failed to bring new production online. Regular crude had flatlined around 74 million barrels per day (mbpd). The case for peak oil was looking stronger with every new uptick in crude futures. The following month, prominent peak oil critic and cornucopian Daniel Yergin of IHS-CERA changed his stance: The peak oil threat would be neutralized by peak demand. Gasoline consumption had peaked in the U.S. and Europe, he argued, due to...

VENUSTIANO CARRANZA, Mexico — To the Mexican people, one of the great achievements in their history was the day their president kicked out foreign oil companies in 1938. Thus, they celebrate March 18 as a civic holiday. Yet today, that 72-year-old act has put Mexico in a straitjacket, one that threatens both the welfare of the country and the oil supply of the United States. The national oil company created after the 1938 seizure, Pemex, is entering a period of turmoil. Oil production in its aging fields is sagging so rapidly that Mexico, long one of the world’s top oil-exporting...

Last month, I explained in an article how and why the world is approaching a worldwide peak in oil production sometime in the next decade. Although there are large implications throughout the economy, I want to say upfront that I do not think this will bring on Armageddon. Oil prices that are significantly higher than earlier in our lifetimes will bring about great change, yet I firmly believe that our economy has the ability to successfully adapt. Despite the strong headwind oil scarcity will create, I am still an optimist. I have structured this article by segmenting the "winners" and...

Energy The administration asked for public comments on a plan to expand offshore drilling. When they came in 2-to-1 in favor, the Interior Department sat on the news. Time for a "Texas tea" party? When you ask for public comment on a major policy issue, at some point you should make the results public, not hide them until you can figure out a way to spin the public reaction to support a conclusion you've already drawn. On its last business day in office, the Bush administration published a proposed draft of a five-year plan to lease areas in the Atlantic...

American Grain Harvest Impact On Agri-Food Prices Commodities / Agricultural Commodities Feb 01, 2010 - 01:48 PM By: Ned_W_Schmidt The North American Agri-Food harvest is either complete, or almost complete. We say that as much of the corn crop remains still in the field due to being wet, frozen, or covered with snow and ice. For all the best efforts of those involved in the Global Warming Scam, the winter of 2009-10 has been far more powerful than their now clearly questionable documentation would have suggested. Despite the weather, the North American 2009 harvest appears to have been good, with...

Oil use in rich industrialised countries will never return to 2006 and 2007 levels because of more fuel efficiency and the use of alternatives, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency said on Thursday. The bold prediction, while made previously by some analysts, is significant because the IEA advises 28 countries on energy policy and its oil demand forecasts are closely watched by traders and policymakers. "When we look at the OECD countries -- the U.S., Europe and Japan -- I think the level of demand that we have seen in 2006 and 2007, we will never see again,"...

The economy has about six months to live. Especially the part that consists of swapping paper certificates. That’s the buzz I’ve gotten the first two weeks of 2010, and forgive me for not presenting a sheaf of charts and graphs to make the case. Just about everybody else yakking about these thing on the Web provides plenty of statistical analysis: Mish, The Automatic Earth, Chris Martenson, Zero Hedge, The Baseline Scenario… They’re all well worth visiting. Bank bonus numbers are due out any day now. The revolt that I expected around the release of these numbers may come from a...

John Kilduff: Oil To $100 In The Next Six Months Graham Winfrey Jan. 12, 2010, 1:45 PM Last week, we reported that former CIBC World Markets Inc. chief economist, Jeff Rubin had predicted the price of oil to reach $100 by the end of 2010. On Monday, CNBC contributor John Kilduff sliced Rubin's prediction in half, claiming that oil will hit $100 a barrel in the next six months, thanks in part to a humming Chinese economy, Business And Media reports. When Kudlow asked whether the U.S. should look to windmills in the Nantucket sound to provide a new power...