How Political Lunacy Sabotaged Australia’s Once Reliable & Affordable Power Supply

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March 26, 2017 at 09:15PM

Shell’s New Permian Shale Play Profitable At $20 A Barrel

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
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OPEC’s worries about the booming U.S. oil production have increased significantly with the big three oil companies’ interest in shale. 2017-19 is likely to see the largest increase in mega projects’ production in history.

Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc, and Chevron Corp., are planning $10 billion of investments in shale in 2017, a quantum jump compared to previous years. All the naysayers who doubted the longevity of the shale oil industry may have to modify their forecasts.

OPEC lost when they pumped at will as lower oil prices destroyed their finances, and now they are losing their hard-earned market share as a result of cutting production. Shell’s declaration that they can “make money in the Permian with oil at $40 a barrel, with new wells profitable at about $20 a barrel” is an indication that Shell is here to stay, whatever the price of oil.

The arrival of the big three oil companies with their loaded balance sheets is good news for the longevity of the shale industry.

The oil crash, which started in 2014, pushed more than 100 shale oil companies into bankruptcy, causing default on at least $70 billion of debt, according to The Economist. Even the ones that survived haven’t been very profitable, according to Bloomberg, which said that the top 60 listed E&P firms have “burned up cash for 34 of the last 40 quarters”.

Therefore, during the downturn, the smaller players had to slow down their operations, but this will not be the case with the big three.

“Big Oil is cash-flow positive, so they can take a longer-term view,’’ said Bryan Sheffield, the billionaire third-generation oilman who heads Parsley Energy Inc. “You’re going to see them investing more in shale,” reports Bloomberg.

The majors are attempting to further improve the economics of operation. Shell said that its cost per well has been reduced to $5.5 million, a 60 percent drop from 2013. Instead of drilling a single well per pad, which was the norm, Shell is now drilling five wells per pad, 20 feet apart, which saves money previously spent on moving rigs from site to site.

Shell is not the only one—Chevron expects its shale production to increase 30% every year for the next decade. Similarly, Exxon plans to allocate one-third of its drilling budget this year to shale, and it expects to quadruple its shale output by 2025.
Related: OPEC Out Of Moves As Goldman Sachs Expects Another Oil Glut In 2018
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A little known miner has gained access to the world’s most valuable copper land package which could soon turn this company into the next big thing for investors.

“The arrival of Big Oil is very significant for shale,” said Deborah Byers, U.S. energy leader at consultant Ernst & Young in Houston. “It marries a great geological resource with a very strong balance sheet.”

$30 billion has been spent on land acquisitions in the Permian basin since mid-2016, which is a favorite among oil companies.

Considering the new projects and the resurgent shale boom, Goldman Sachs expects oil output to increase by 1 million barrels a day year-on-year. The outcome is an oversupply in the next couple of years.

“2017-19 is likely to see the largest increase in mega projects’ production in history, as the record 2011-13 capex commitment yields fruit,” the U.S. investment bank said in a research note on Tuesday, reports Reuters.

Full post

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March 26, 2017 at 08:43PM

Another fat bear onshore in late winter, along Gulf of St. Lawrence north coast

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Another fat bear onshore in late winter, this time along the Quebec shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence (22 March 2017) – and this time, one of the witnesses to the sighting took some great photos. Courtesy CBC News (Polar bear makes rare appearance on Quebec’s Lower North Shore 24 March 2017).

Quotes, location map, and sea ice charts below.

Pakuashipi, Quebec is across the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence from Port au Choix, Newfoundland, a bit west of the main coastline in an area of many small islands (see the Google map and zoom in for the best view.

For context, note that sea ice extent two days before the sighting was fairly extensive although Labrador ice will likely start its retreat north soon:

Here’s a closer look, showing sea ice concentration for that week (20 March), according to the Canadian Ice Service:

Now, take a look below at what the CBC reported about the incident (read the whole thing here).

Note they quote a Quebec Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks statement that implies this incident should be blamed on global warming but makes no mention of the documented increase in population size of Davis Strait bears – which is the more likely reason more bears are showing up south of the Labrador border, where they’ve been rare to non-existent for decades – nor the fact that this bear was unusually fat for late March (in this region, harp seals are born as early as the first week in March and have been exceptionally abundant in recent years) [my bold]:

James McKinnon was out chopping wood on Wednesday [March 22], minding his own business.

The hunting and fishing guide, who lives in the remote village of Saint-Augustin on Quebec’s Lower North Shore, had no idea he was about to experience a once-in-a-decade moment.

“Some local guys said there was a polar bear on the island, only about a kilometre from the village,” he told CBC’s Breakaway.

…

The last time a polar bear was spotted in the area, a decade ago, it was found eating out of a dog’s food bowl and had to be shot for fear it would harm the locals.

McKinnon said a few volunteers on snowmobile kept the bear away from the mainland until conservation officers arrived.

In one moment captured by Pierre-Alexandre Defoy, a teacher in Pakuashipi, the polar bear is seen basking in the sunlight before bearing its teeth.

“He wasn’t angry, he just yawned,” Defoy said, adding that polar bear collapsed into a deep slumber five seconds later.

According to Quebec’s Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks, the bear most likely ended up in the area aboard a [sic] ice floe from Labrador.

With global warming and melting ice, this phenomenon could happen more and more often, especially in spring, the ministry said.  [SJC – except this incident did not take place in spring but in late winter]

The Ministry said it last received reports about polar bear sightings on the Lower North Shore in Vieux-Fort in 2012 and, before that, in Blanc-Sablon [at the Labrador border] in 2005.

As of noon Friday, McKinnon said Saint-Augustin’s polar bear had headed away from town and had travelled about 15 kilometres, heading north.

The best image of the bear’s body (below, taken by Pakuashipi school teacher Pierre-Alexandre Defoy Wednesday, 22 March 2017, and posted on his Facebook page) shows a bear with a good layer of fat. A nice healthy bear that fortunately caused no trouble and moved on.

Thanks for sharing, Pierre-Alexandre.

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March 26, 2017 at 08:02PM

Snowy Pumped Hydro Scheme Set to Drain ‘Green’ Slush Funds & Starve the Wind Industry of Finance

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*** Malcolm Turnbull’s Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro plan has set nerves on edge among the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers and ruffled feathers among Labor politicians and their mates who have wedded their own financial futures to wind. Likely to cost in the order of $7-8 billion, Snowy 2.0 is set to starve the […]

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March 26, 2017 at 06:30PM