How Exporting U.S. Liquefied Natural Gas Will Transform the Politics of Global Energy

(Wall Street Journal) The U.S. energy trade has been in the news often recently, with questions such as whether industry will be allowed to send oil overseas or import it via a certain pipeline from Canada. Seemingly forgotten is the historic milestone that will occur early next year when a tanker for the first time ever sets sail from the U.S. lower 48 to deliver liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the global market.

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Bloomberg columnist on shale oil and prices

“The message from oil services firms is that shale drillers will not simply be able to turn the tap back on again once prices rise. Halliburton said on its earnings call last month that pressure pumping equipment currently sitting idle was being cannibalized for parts while the stuff still being used was being worked to its limits. And the falling backlog of uncompleted wells will also begin to make an impact.”

Liam Denning, Bloomberg View columnist

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Peak Oil Review – 16 Nov 2015

Crude oil prices fell by 8 percent in New York and London last week, closing at $40.74 and $43.61 respectively. Continued growth in global crude stocks and uncertain economic outlooks for China and the US are still seen as the cause of the price slump. Short covering by speculators who believed we had already reached the bottom of the slump and a strong US dollar contributed to the decline. On Friday the IEA reported that at the end of September global crude stocks were at a new high of at least 3 billion barrels and growing. The Agency is not able to track stocks in smaller countries so actual storage is somewhat higher.

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IEA expects world oil demand growth to slow in 2016

(Oil & Gas Journal) World oil demand growth is forecast to ease closer to a long-term trend of 1.2 million b/d in 2016 as supportive factors that have recently fueled consumption—such as post-recessionary bounces in some countries and sharply falling crude oil prices—are expected to fade, noted the International Energy Agency in its monthly Oil Market Report for November.

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An Oil-Soaked Globe as Production Keeps Climbing and Demand Falls

(NY Times) Houston— Such is the state of the oil industry these days that there is sometimes nowhere to put the oil. Off the coast of Texas, a line of roughly 40 tankers has formed, waiting to unload their crude or, in some cases, for a willing buyer to come along. Similar scenes are playing out off the coasts of Singapore and China and in the Persian Gulf.

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Oil Tankers Are Filling Up As Global Storage Space Runs Low

(oilprice.com) The rebound in oil prices is still not here, and new data suggests that it will take some more time before the markets start to balance out.

Global supplies are still too large to justify a significant rally in oil prices. The latest indicator that the glut of oil has yet to ease comes from the FT, which concludes that there is 100 million barrels of oil sitting in oil tankers. Oil has piled up in tankers that are floating at sea, as onshore storage space begins to dwindle.

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U.S. shale oil basins to decline

(UPI) Federal review expects most of the lucrative shale basins in the United States are expected to post declines in crude oil production. File photo by Gary C. Caskey/UPI WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 (UPI) — Only the Permian shale basin in the southern United States is expected to record a year-on-year increase in oil production, federal data show.

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Saudi Arabia will not stop pumping to boost oil prices

(CNBC) Saudi Arabia is determined to stick to its policy of pumping enough oil to protect its global market share, despite the financial pain inflicted on the kingdom’s economy.

Officials have told the Financial Times that the world’s largest exporter will produce enough oil to meet customer demand, indicating that the kingdom is in no mood to change tack ahead of the December 4 meeting in Vienna of the producers’ cartel OPEC.

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Why the oil sands no longer make economic sense

(Globe and Mail) Lost in the political fallout from President Barack Obama’s decision to once and for all reject Keystone XL is the fact that there is no longer an economic context for the pipeline. For that matter, the same can be said for any of the other proposed pipelines that would service the planned massive expansion of production from Alberta’s oil sands.

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UVA Professor on Exxon Mobil and Climate

Exxon Mobil and climate change spin: “This could open up years of litigation and settlements in the same way that tobacco litigation did, also spearheaded by attorneys general. In some ways, the theory is similar — that the public was misled about something dangerous to health. Whether the same smoking guns will emerge, we don’t know yet.”

Brandon L. Garrett, professor at the University of Virginia School of Law

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Peak Oil Review – 9 Nov 2015

After a bounce last Tuesday, oil prices continued to fall closing on Friday at $44.29 in New York and $47.42 in London, down 4.9 percent and 4.3 percent for the week respectively. While oversupply and weak demand remains the basis for the price decline, the jump in US employment with the prospects of higher interest rates and a stronger dollar helped with the decline on Friday. The Wall Street Journal’s Dollar index was recently at its highest level in 13 years against the euro, yen and other currencies.

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Only 1% of the Bakken Play Breaks Even at Current Oil Prices

(ArtBerman.com) Only 1% of the Bakken Play area is commercial at current oil prices. 4% of horizontal wells drilled since 2000 meet the EUR (estimated ultimate recovery) threshold needed to break even at current oil prices, drilling and completion, and operating costs.

The leading producing companies evaluated in this study are losing $11 to $38 on each barrel of oil that they produce, the very definition of waste.

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This Oil Bust Will Change The Energy Industry Forever

(FORBES) As an investor in start-up companies, I am always working to test my assumptions and update my understanding of where the energy sector is now, and the direction it is moving in towards the future. Some key questions for this dynamic year: Is the current oil crisis the marking of a step change towards a cleaner energy industry or merely history repeating itself? While today’s oil price at $45-50 per barrel is probably too low to be considered the new normal, what should we expect moving forward?

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