When it comes to price predictions, few things have become as slippery as crude oil. The big economic shock of this year is likely to transmute into several big political stories in 2015 as the consequences of the collapse in oil prices unfold. Shale oil and gas are revolutionary. But their real impact will be to destabilise the once well-buffered global oil price system. --Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Hindustan Times, 23 December 2014
The U.S. shale boom that’s brought the country closer to energy self-sufficiency than at any time since the 1980s will be challenged in 2015 as never before. The benchmark U.S. crude price fell below $50 today for the first time since April 2009. Some of the largest U.S. shale drillers have been spending money faster than they make it, borrowing to pay for their expansion. Current oil prices are “not a sustainable long-term trend,” said Warren Henry, a spokesman for Continental. --Asjylyn Loder, Bloomberg, 5 January 2015
The oil market is in a state of insurrection. The production-owning elite has paralysed itself while legions of bolshie shale operators who are undermining the system from down below. The shale insurgency will survive. Oil prices can never fall low enough and long enough to put the US shale industry out of business. The real revolutionary aspect of shale oil is that production can be turned on and off with unprecedented speed. Traditionally, oil prices can take as much as a year to respond to market developments. With shale, this will be reduced to just a few weeks. --Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Hindustan Times, 23 December 2014
Last year’s bitter winter wreaked havoc on American natural gas stocks, sending prices soaring and producers scrambling to refill stores ahead of this year’s cooler months. Thanks to the shale revolution, we seem to have pulled off what looked to be an impossible task. Not only are more wells being drilled and more shale gas produced, but the infrastructure to bring these new gas sources to market has been beefed up over the past year. While more than one million English families with children will live in fuel poverty this winter, here in the U.S., shale is proving to be a timely gift for households looking to keep the heat on. --The American Interest, 5 January 2015
The decision by president Barack Obama to open the door to US oil exports seeped out of Washington in a low-key manner last week, but the impact could be as explosive as a New Year’s Eve firework display. --The Observer, 4 January 2015
The UK’s oil industry is “close to collapse” but the falling oil price could have a net benefit to the nation’s economy. Robin Allan, chairman of the independent explorers’ association Brindex, says it is “almost impossible to make money” with the oil price below $US60 a barrel and there will be no new investments. But accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) says the falling oil price “should be a net benefit to our economy as a whole, even if there is some losers in the UK oil and gas sector and in particular places like Aberdeen”. --Yahoo Finance News, 6 January 2015
You know all that talk of peak oil, peak gas, peak this, peak that? Turns out it was nonsense. Such nonsense that this year the oil price fell dramatically, for many varied reasons, but one of which is that there’s more oil than we thought. There is now thought to be 3.3 trillion barrels of oil and 22,900 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. And 1,040 billion tonnes of coal. Which is a lot. Three per cent more coal than we thought we had in 2011, in fact. Because that’s the thing: new fossil fuels are being discovered all the time. We might live in what feels like post-Enlightenment times, but we’re still doing that Enlightenment thing of ‘wresting nature’s secrets from her grasp’ (Francis Bacon). Up next: a uranium revolution? –Brendan O’Neill, Spiked, 29 December 2014
President Barack Obama's determined efforts to combat global warming face their biggest trial yet as Republicans take full control of Congress this week. The GOP vows to move fast and forcefully to roll back his environmental rules and force his hand on energy development. Success for Republicans on the climate front would jeopardize a key component of Obama's legacy. And the ramifications would likely ricochet far beyond the United States. --Josh Lederman, Associated Press, 6 January 2015
