Category: quotes

“Shale companies have attracted huge amounts of capital from Wall Street over the past decade. So far, investors have largely lost money. Since 2008, an index of US oil and gas companies has fallen 43%, while the S&P 500 index has more than doubled in that time, including dividends. The 29 companies in the Journal’s analysis have spent $112 billion more in cash than they generated from operations in the last 10 years, according to data from FactSet, a financial-information firm.”

Bradley Olson, Rebecca Elliott and Christopher M. Matthews, The Wall Street Journal (1/2/19)

“Some geologists harbor doubts about ANWR’s prospective resources. ‘I don’t see (in the refuge’s geology) what I hear in the political talk,’ about the refuge’s potential, said Richard Garrard, an Alaskan-based exploration geologist. said. Geologically, the region is an extension of the Brooks Range, which is to the south. ‘How many oil fields have been discovered in the Brooks Range? None.’”

From S&P Global Platts

[about proposed seismic testing off the east US coast] “Almost every single one of those states is pretty adamant about not wanting that activity off their shore. The administration is pushing through the industry agenda on expanded oil and gas leasing despite all evidence that other stakeholders have other viewpoints about the appropriateness and the scope of that activity.”

Elizabeth Klein, deputy director, State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, NYU School of Law

“Last week’s meeting reminded us that the Big Three of oil – Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United States – whose total liquids production now comprises about 40 percent of the global total, are the dominant players.”

International Energy Agency (12/14)

“As a matter of our policy, we want to end all of those subsidies [for electric vehicles]. And by the way, other subsidies that were imposed during the Obama administration, we are ending, whether it’s for renewables and so forth…It’s just all going to end in the near future. I don’t know whether it will end in 2020 or 2021.”

Larry Kudlow, White House economic advisor

“Total US oil reserves in 2017 exceeded a … 47-year-old record, highlighting the importance of crude oil development in shales and low permeability plays, mainly in the Southwest.”

US EIA

“In my 36 years in this [petroleum] business, I have never seen such a wide differential in sentiment between Canada and the US. I’ve never seen more frustration among our customers and our competitors and in our peer-group companies than right now.”

Kevin Neveu, chief executive officer of the oilfield-service company Precision Drilling Corp.

“The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid…With continued growth in [greenhouse gas] emissions at historic rates, annual losses in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century – more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of many US states,”

The Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume II, compiled through combined efforts of 13 US government agencies

“It is likely that in the coming years world oil production will decline (at around 5 percent per year) and that LTO [light tight oil] will decline more sharply. This will come as a shock because it is contrary to the official forecasts, which see oil production rising up to 2040.”

Jean Laherrère, retired geologist-geophysicist involved in oil and gas exploration worldwide; from “Thoughts on the Future of World Oil Production,” 11/18

“US crude oil production reached 11.3 million barrels per day (b/d) in August 2018, up from 10.9 million b/d in July. This is the firded the Russian Ministry of Energy’s estimated August production of 11.2 million b/d, making the United States the leading crude oil producer in the world.”
US EIA monthly report

“We thought that we got away with not a lot of warming in both the ocean and the atmosphere for the amount of CO2 that we emitted. But we were wrong. The planet warmed more than we thought. It was hidden from us just because we didn’t sample it right. But it was there. It was in the ocean already.”
Laure Resplandy, Princeton University research team leader

“To outward appearances, the US oil and gas industry is in the midst of a decade-long boom. [However] America’s fracking boom has been a world-class [financial] bust …. Even after two and a half years of rising oil prices and growing expectations for improved financial results, a review of 33 publicly traded oil and gas fracking companies shows the companies posting $3.9 billion in negative free cash flows through June.”

Report from Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, and the Sightline Institute