U.S. Oil and Foreign Nationalism

Western nations – the U.S., in particular – are now experiencing the bow wave of a profound change in the current and future availability of oil. According to recently published data, oil output from all major Western oil companies is on an ominous decline trend. Exxon Mobil, for example, announced that its average oil output has fallen by 614,000 barrels per day in 2008.

Western oil majors like Exxon are finding it harder than ever to identify new prospects and successfully complete new oil projects. This comes despite the fact that the oil industry is flush with profits from upstream operations,…

An Inside Look at the Boeing Plant at Everett

How big is the Boeing Everett plant? It’s big. Very big. (It’s also big on energy and technology, we’ll get to that in a minute…)

You could fit the Pentagon inside the Boeing Everett plant. It’s the world’s largest building, by volume. There are literally miles of utility tunnels underneath a concrete floor that averages 6-8 feet thick.

The Everett plant is so big that it makes its own weather inside. That is, the heat of the lights and machinery alters the climate inside the vast plant. So Boeing uses fans to push the warm air down to heat the plant…

Oil Exploration — A Lot of Looking, Not Much Finding

I discussed the short-term weakness in oil prices. Let’s discuss the long term. Oil is headed back up, for all the familiar reasons.

Really, it’s not like anyone is finding new large oil deposits out in exploration land. Indeed, a whole lot of looking is leading to not very much finding in the exploration patch.

The big Oil companies are taking oil out of the ground. But generally, they are not replacing their reserves through reserve growth or resource expansion. To the extent that the oil companies are expanding reserves in the short term, it’s by searching further out in the ocean…

North Dakota Oil Is “Burning Up The Roads”

As I’ve driven across Canada and down into North Dakota, I’ve been seeing energy everywhere.

The farms are well tended, and the agricultural productivity is awe inspiring. There are wind farms up, and going up, on many a hillside. Power lines crisscross the landscape. There are dams and impoundments on many of the rivers. And the trains of the Canadian Pacific Railway are rolling in both directions, hauling grain, ag products, coal, phosphate and so much else.

North Dakota Oil Rush

In Saskatchewan and North Dakota, the big story is the Bakken Shale formation. I’ve seen over a dozen working rigs and dozens…

Where Is Oil Headed?

The Price of Oil

Oil made two runs toward $150 recently, and failed both times. Now oil is in a retreat. Oil was trading near $121 earlier this week. And it appears that support at that price is crumbling. This will surely take the oil company stocks down, as well as those of the oil service companies.

Despite this recent drop in oil prices, BP (BP: NYSE) reported a 28% increase in second-quarter profits, led by surging energy prices. BP also announced that it would continue to fight for its interests in its troubled Russian partnership, TNK-BP. All of this bodes well…