Il suicidio del fracking

[Amati75]

Doppio post

[Metabo]

Pericolo fracking: sono oltre 80mila i pozzi che bucano gli USA
Pericolo fracking: sono oltre 80mila i pozzi che bucano gli USA

di Luca Scialò il 11 novembre 2013 · 0 commenti

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Gli investimenti a favore delle energie rinnovabili, almeno negli USA, sembrano sempre più lontani, alla luce del fatto che il prezzo del petrolio è diminuito sensibilmente, grazie soprattutto alla diffusione del fracking per estrarre il gas, di cui il sottosuolo americano pare molto ricco.
E d è proprio grazie al metodo della frantumazione delle rocce profonde per arrivare al gas d’argilla che gli Stati Uniti si sentono quasi autosufficienti energeticamente, e prevedono di arrivare persino a non importare più petrolio dai paesi arabi entro il 2015.





SCOPRI ANCHE: Il super fracking mette in pericolo l’America rurale
Il fracking però non è una pratica estrattiva pulita. Anzi. Come abbiamo avuto modo di spiegare nel post: che cos’è il fracking, questa tecnica prevede l’immissione di acqua mista ad un cocktail di sostanze chimiche ad altissima pressione nel sottosuolo, in prossimità di rocce argillose (da qui viene il nome di shale gas, ovvero gas di argilla), così da poter fratturare le rocce e liberare il gas in esse contenuto.
Questo cocktail però inquina il terreno che si trova sia sopra che sotto le vene rocciose. In porfondità avvelena le falde acquifere sotterranee mentre in superficie affiora, rendondo il suolo sterile. A farne le spese è anche l’aria, giacché il gas libera sostanze volatili potenzialmente pericolose. Per non parlare delle radiazioni da gas radio, liberato insieme al gas, e del pericolo di crolli sotterranei, dovuti alle cavità che si formano, dopo aver svuotato del gas le formazioni rocciose.
Poi c’è la questione rifiuti tossici: gli Stati Uniti, solo nel corso del 2013 ne hanno accumulati infatti quasi 1.000 miliardi di litri, una quantità destinata a crescere e che pone il problema dello smaltimento.
LO SAPEVI? Anche in Italia si accende la polemica contro il ‘fracking’
Infine, c’è lo spreco di acqua dolce. Negli ultimi 8 anni negli Stati Uniti sono stati perforati più di 80.000 pozzi e solo nel 2005 l’industria del fracking aveva utilizzato 250 miliardi di litri di acqua per il processo estrattivo.
Ne risulta, dunque, che il fracking sia una pratica dai tanti effetti collaterali negativi che sta scatenando un acceso dibattito tra l’opinione pubblica USA. Anche in Francia e in Ingghilterra se ne discute apertamente. E in Italia?

[Amati75]

AHAHA Metabo neanche ha letto.. fa il motorino postato i soliti articoli....

[Metabo]

AHAHA Metabo neanche ha letto.. fa il motorino postato i soliti articoli....

Il solito troll della situazione

[Amati75]

Il solito troll della situazione

Metabo, ha letto.. no vero? Ecco quindi cosa parla di trollaggio? Mi saluti Amero e campi Fema.. ne azzeccasse una ....

[Amati75]

Unforeseen U.S. Oil Boom Upends Markets as Drilling Spreads

By Asjylyn LoderJan 8, 2014 55 AM ET

The U.S. oil boom has put European refineries out of business and undercut West African crude suppliers. Now domestic drillers threaten to roil Asian markets and challenge producers in the Middle East and South America.
Fifteen European refineries have closed in the past five years, with a 16th due to shut this year, the International Energy Agency said, as the U.S. went from depending on fuel from Europe to being a major exporter to the region. Nigeria, which used to send the equivalent of a dozen supertankers of crude a month to the U.S., now ships fewer than three, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. And cheap oil from the Rocky Mountains, where output has grown 31 percent since 2011, will soon allow West Coast companies to cut back on imports of pricier grades from Saudi Arabia andVenezuela that they process for customers in Asia, the world’s fastest-growing market.


“I don’t really think anyone saw this coming,” said Steve Sawyer, an analyst with FACTS Global Energy in London. “The U.S. shale boom happened much faster than people thought. We’re in the middle of a new game. There’s nothing in the past that predicts what the future will be.”
Advances in extracting oil from shale rock drove a 39 percent jump in U.S. production since 2011, the steepest rise in history, and will boost output to a 28-year high this year, according to the EIA. While drilling in shale is more expensive than other methods and poses environmental challenges, the prospect of a growing supply is encouraging analysts to predict a more energy-independent nation.


With U.S. exports of gasoline and other refined products hitting a record last month and the country on pace to become the world’s largest oil producer by 2015, five years faster than the IEA’s earlier predictions, industry advocates such as Senator Lisa Murkowskiof Alaska are calling for an end to 39-year-old restrictions on U.S. crude exports.
In a measure of just how quickly the oil market has changed, President Barack Obama unveiled in March 2011 a goal considered so outrageous that correspondent Christopher Mims wrote on the environmental news website Grist that it could be accomplished only by “an economic crash bigger than any ever seen in U.S. history, or perhaps an alien race forcing all of us to take to our bicycles.” Obama said that by 2025 the U.S. would cut crude imports by one-third.

It didn’t take 14 years. It took less than three.


End Restrictions

The country is so flush with crude that imports are plunging and drillers are challenging export limits imposed after the 1973 Arab oil embargo. Murkowski, the top Republican on the Senate Energy Committee, called on Obama yesterday to end restrictions and vowed to introduce legislation if he doesn’t.
Easing controls would have been unthinkable just three years ago, when uprisings in Arab countries such as Libya pushed crude prices over $100, said Philip Verleger, a former director of the office of energy policy at the Treasury Department and founder of the Aspen, Colorado-based consultant PKVerleger LLC.
The boom has been led by drilling in the Permian Basin in West Texas and the oil-rich Bakken shale, which stretches from North Dakota into Montana and Canada.
North Dakota and Texas have more than doubled crude output since Obama’s 2011 speech, with Texas pumping more than Iran, according to the EIA, the statistical arm of the U.S. Energy Department, and a Bloomberg survey of producers, oil companies and analysts.
Bone Springs

Drilling is spreading in emerging oil fields in the Rocky Mountain region such as the Niobrara inColorado and the Bone Springs in New Mexico and spurring a revival of crude extraction aroundWyoming’s Teapot Dome formation, home of the first U.S. reserves and the namesake of a 20th century political scandal. Colorado’s production jumped 17 percent in the first 10 months of 2013, Wyoming rose 16 percent and New Mexico added 10 percent, according to the EIA.
A record amount of crude is already riding the rails from oil fields in North Dakota, Colorado and New Mexico to California’s fuel makers, according to the California Energy Commission. Companies looking to ship even more include Tesoro Corp., Valero Energy Corp. (VLO) andPlains All American Pipeline LP (PAA), which are planning to build train terminals in California and Washington state, according to company statements and regulatory filings. Plans are awaiting permits or in the planning stages to handle capacity roughly equal to the amount of crude sent to the region by Saudi Arabia.
Asia Demand

If the railway networks on the U.S. West Coast are completed, the region’s refiners will be able to use domestic crude supplies to boost exports to meet rising needs in Asia, where demand for new cars, electricity and air conditioning is boosting energy consumption. China, already the world’s largest importer, will rely increasingly on crude from the Middle East and refined fuels from the U.S. to meet its consumers’ growing demand.
An increase in the number of U.S. cargoes to Asia might force Saudi Arabia to cut its output to head off a worldwide glut, Verleger said. As the de facto leader of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the kingdom is monitoring signs of potential oversupply as Iraq and Libya try to boost output and Iran increases exports as international sanctions are loosened, he said.
“It’s another outlet for North American oil products and means more supply for the rest of the world,” said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC, an energy consultant in Houston. “The West Coast is behind the rest of America as far as getting crude by rail. It will increase supply and help the consumer.”
Hydraulic Fracturing

The U.S. gains were made possible by innovations in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, that have unlocked fuel trapped in underground rock. The technology allows producers to bore horizontally, then use explosives and a high-pressure stream of water, sand and chemicals to blast open fractures that free the oil.
The process comes with environmental risks. A 2011 U.S. government report found fracking chemicals in groundwater in Pavillion, Wyoming, and in June, 47 people died when an unmanned train carrying Bakken crude derailed and exploded in Lac Megantic, Quebec. Crude from the Bakken may be more flammable and more dangerous to ship than other types of oil, the U.S. Transportation Department said Jan. 2.
Fracking is also more expensive than traditional extraction. Drilling a horizontal shale well in the Bakken can cost 10 to 20 times what a vertical well might cost, according to Austin, Texas-based Drillinginfo Inc. Production from shale wells declines by 60 percent to 70 percent in the first year, while output from traditional wells diminishes by as much as 55 percent in two years before flattening out, according to Drillinginfo.
Import Need

One reason the U.S. still depends so much on imports is that demand continues to outstrip domestic supply. Another reason is the quality of crude its refineries can handle. Many of them performed expensive upgrades in the past decade so they could process oil from overseas that was more difficult to turn into transportation fuel.
Gasoline users and diplomats benefit from the surge in U.S. production. While the 2011 Libyan uprising had U.S. consumers paying almost $4 a gallon for gasoline, pump prices declined 1.3 percent last year and averaged $3.314 a gallon on Jan. 6, according to AAA, the largest U.S. motoring organization. That was even after sanctions cut off more than 1 million barrels a day of Iranian oil exports. Starved of their primary source of cash, the Islamic republic’s leaders in November reached an agreement to curb its nuclear program.
“It took time to realize how significant this transformation was going to be,” said Jason Bordoff, who was an energy adviser to the National Security Council and helped draft Obama’s 2011 speech. “We were able to impose pain on Iran without imposing pain on ourselves.”
Rail Routes

New rail routes and pipelines are carrying increasing supplies of crude from North Dakota, Oklahoma and elsewhere to refiners in New Jersey, Louisiana, Texas and Pennsylvania. They are in turn sending cargoes of diesel to London, Rotterdam and Antwerp, Belgium. U.S. fuel exports to the Netherlands, a major import hub for the region, reached a record in September, according to the EIA.
The one-two punch of declining crude imports followed by rising fuel exports hit the refining industry in Europe and the U.K. particularly hard. That’s because refiners outside North America typically buy oil based on the price of Brent crude, a North Sea grade that last year cost an average of almost $11 a barrel more than West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark.
WTI futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange traded at $93.77 a barrel today, a 13 percent discount to the Brent price of $107.45 on ICE Futures Europe in London. The spread widened to a record $27.88 a barrel in October 2011.
“When historians write this story 10 or 20 years from now, they are going to look at a very different U.S.,” said Verleger, the former Treasury Department official. “Everything has changed.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Asjylyn Loder in New York at aloder@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bob Ivry at bivry@bloomberg.net
Unforeseen U.S. Oil Boom Upends Markets as Drilling Spreads - Bloomberg

[Amati75]

Unforeseen U.S. Oil Boom Upends Markets as Drilling Spreads

By Asjylyn LoderJan 8, 2014 55 AM ET

The U.S. oil boom has put European refineries out of business and undercut West African crude suppliers. Now domestic drillers threaten to roil Asian markets and challenge producers in the Middle East and South America.
Fifteen European refineries have closed in the past five years, with a 16th due to shut this year, the International Energy Agency said, as the U.S. went from depending on fuel from Europe to being a major exporter to the region. Nigeria, which used to send the equivalent of a dozen supertankers of crude a month to the U.S., now ships fewer than three, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. And cheap oil from the Rocky Mountains, where output has grown 31 percent since 2011, will soon allow West Coast companies to cut back on imports of pricier grades from Saudi Arabia andVenezuela that they process for customers in Asia, the world’s fastest-growing market.


“I don’t really think anyone saw this coming,” said Steve Sawyer, an analyst with FACTS Global Energy in London. “The U.S. shale boom happened much faster than people thought. We’re in the middle of a new game. There’s nothing in the past that predicts what the future will be.”
Advances in extracting oil from shale rock drove a 39 percent jump in U.S. production since 2011, the steepest rise in history, and will boost output to a 28-year high this year, according to the EIA. While drilling in shale is more expensive than other methods and poses environmental challenges, the prospect of a growing supply is encouraging analysts to predict a more energy-independent nation.


With U.S. exports of gasoline and other refined products hitting a record last month and the country on pace to become the world’s largest oil producer by 2015, five years faster than the IEA’s earlier predictions, industry advocates such as Senator Lisa Murkowskiof Alaska are calling for an end to 39-year-old restrictions on U.S. crude exports.
In a measure of just how quickly the oil market has changed, President Barack Obama unveiled in March 2011 a goal considered so outrageous that correspondent Christopher Mims wrote on the environmental news website Grist that it could be accomplished only by “an economic crash bigger than any ever seen in U.S. history, or perhaps an alien race forcing all of us to take to our bicycles.” Obama said that by 2025 the U.S. would cut crude imports by one-third.

It didn’t take 14 years. It took less than three.


End Restrictions

The country is so flush with crude that imports are plunging and drillers are challenging export limits imposed after the 1973 Arab oil embargo. Murkowski, the top Republican on the Senate Energy Committee, called on Obama yesterday to end restrictions and vowed to introduce legislation if he doesn’t.
Easing controls would have been unthinkable just three years ago, when uprisings in Arab countries such as Libya pushed crude prices over $100, said Philip Verleger, a former director of the office of energy policy at the Treasury Department and founder of the Aspen, Colorado-based consultant PKVerleger LLC.
The boom has been led by drilling in the Permian Basin in West Texas and the oil-rich Bakken shale, which stretches from North Dakota into Montana and Canada.
North Dakota and Texas have more than doubled crude output since Obama’s 2011 speech, with Texas pumping more than Iran, according to the EIA, the statistical arm of the U.S. Energy Department, and a Bloomberg survey of producers, oil companies and analysts.
Bone Springs

Drilling is spreading in emerging oil fields in the Rocky Mountain region such as the Niobrara inColorado and the Bone Springs in New Mexico and spurring a revival of crude extraction aroundWyoming’s Teapot Dome formation, home of the first U.S. reserves and the namesake of a 20th century political scandal. Colorado’s production jumped 17 percent in the first 10 months of 2013, Wyoming rose 16 percent and New Mexico added 10 percent, according to the EIA.
A record amount of crude is already riding the rails from oil fields in North Dakota, Colorado and New Mexico to California’s fuel makers, according to the California Energy Commission. Companies looking to ship even more include Tesoro Corp., Valero Energy Corp. (VLO) andPlains All American Pipeline LP (PAA), which are planning to build train terminals in California and Washington state, according to company statements and regulatory filings. Plans are awaiting permits or in the planning stages to handle capacity roughly equal to the amount of crude sent to the region by Saudi Arabia.
Asia Demand

If the railway networks on the U.S. West Coast are completed, the region’s refiners will be able to use domestic crude supplies to boost exports to meet rising needs in Asia, where demand for new cars, electricity and air conditioning is boosting energy consumption. China, already the world’s largest importer, will rely increasingly on crude from the Middle East and refined fuels from the U.S. to meet its consumers’ growing demand.
An increase in the number of U.S. cargoes to Asia might force Saudi Arabia to cut its output to head off a worldwide glut, Verleger said. As the de facto leader of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the kingdom is monitoring signs of potential oversupply as Iraq and Libya try to boost output and Iran increases exports as international sanctions are loosened, he said.
“It’s another outlet for North American oil products and means more supply for the rest of the world,” said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC, an energy consultant in Houston. “The West Coast is behind the rest of America as far as getting crude by rail. It will increase supply and help the consumer.”
Hydraulic Fracturing

The U.S. gains were made possible by innovations in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, that have unlocked fuel trapped in underground rock. The technology allows producers to bore horizontally, then use explosives and a high-pressure stream of water, sand and chemicals to blast open fractures that free the oil.
The process comes with environmental risks. A 2011 U.S. government report found fracking chemicals in groundwater in Pavillion, Wyoming, and in June, 47 people died when an unmanned train carrying Bakken crude derailed and exploded in Lac Megantic, Quebec. Crude from the Bakken may be more flammable and more dangerous to ship than other types of oil, the U.S. Transportation Department said Jan. 2.
Fracking is also more expensive than traditional extraction. Drilling a horizontal shale well in the Bakken can cost 10 to 20 times what a vertical well might cost, according to Austin, Texas-based Drillinginfo Inc. Production from shale wells declines by 60 percent to 70 percent in the first year, while output from traditional wells diminishes by as much as 55 percent in two years before flattening out, according to Drillinginfo.
Import Need

One reason the U.S. still depends so much on imports is that demand continues to outstrip domestic supply. Another reason is the quality of crude its refineries can handle. Many of them performed expensive upgrades in the past decade so they could process oil from overseas that was more difficult to turn into transportation fuel.
Gasoline users and diplomats benefit from the surge in U.S. production. While the 2011 Libyan uprising had U.S. consumers paying almost $4 a gallon for gasoline, pump prices declined 1.3 percent last year and averaged $3.314 a gallon on Jan. 6, according to AAA, the largest U.S. motoring organization. That was even after sanctions cut off more than 1 million barrels a day of Iranian oil exports. Starved of their primary source of cash, the Islamic republic’s leaders in November reached an agreement to curb its nuclear program.
“It took time to realize how significant this transformation was going to be,” said Jason Bordoff, who was an energy adviser to the National Security Council and helped draft Obama’s 2011 speech. “We were able to impose pain on Iran without imposing pain on ourselves.”
Rail Routes

New rail routes and pipelines are carrying increasing supplies of crude from North Dakota, Oklahoma and elsewhere to refiners in New Jersey, Louisiana, Texas and Pennsylvania. They are in turn sending cargoes of diesel to London, Rotterdam and Antwerp, Belgium. U.S. fuel exports to the Netherlands, a major import hub for the region, reached a record in September, according to the EIA.
The one-two punch of declining crude imports followed by rising fuel exports hit the refining industry in Europe and the U.K. particularly hard. That’s because refiners outside North America typically buy oil based on the price of Brent crude, a North Sea grade that last year cost an average of almost $11 a barrel more than West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark.
WTI futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange traded at $93.77 a barrel today, a 13 percent discount to the Brent price of $107.45 on ICE Futures Europe in London. The spread widened to a record $27.88 a barrel in October 2011.
“When historians write this story 10 or 20 years from now, they are going to look at a very different U.S.,” said Verleger, the former Treasury Department official. “Everything has changed.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Asjylyn Loder in New York at aloder@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bob Ivry at bivry@bloomberg.net
Unforeseen U.S. Oil Boom Upends Markets as Drilling Spreads - Bloomberg

[Metabo]

Come spiega bene quest'articolo per alimentare la bolla degli shalegas hanno bisogno sempre di nuove terre

Gli economisti sono morti, qualcuno glielo dica. La bolla dello shale gas and oil | Blogeko.it
Gli economisti sono morti, qualcuno glielo dica. La bolla dello shale gas and oil


Le grandi testate – certo ve ne sarete accorti – stanno cercando di indurci a guardare di buon occhio lo sfruttamento in Europa (e in Italia) di idrocarburi non convenzionali, come lo shale oil e lo shale gas che si estraggono attraverso il fracking, una tecnica devastante dal punto di vista ambientale.
Questo post pubblicato venerdì dal blog economico Rischio Calcolato (ne ho parodiato il titolo, dice che siamo morti noi ecologisti) riassume la quintessenza del punto di vista che va per la maggiore: gli Stati Uniti con il fracking hanno trovato una cornucopia di energia a buon mercato. Noi in Europa paghiamo il gas ad un prezzo molto più alto. Anche in Europa c’è molto gas da estrarre col fracking. Gli ecologisti non hanno più alcun peso, vogliamo continuare a farci del male inseguendo le loro fisime?
Assoluta miopia: non ecologica ma proprio economica. Gli economisti (non gli ecologisti!) se cascano in una trappola del genere sono morti, e soprattutto fanno morire noi.
La produzione di shale gas negli Stati Uniti è molto costosa anche se i prezzi del gas sono bassi. E’ dunque con ogni probabilità un’effimera bolla finanziaria creata al prezzo di perduranti devastazioni ambientali: uno schema di Ponzi che, per reggersi, ha bisogno di nuovi gonzi. E li cerca in Europa.
E’ vero, grazie alle tecniche non convenzionali gli Stati Uniti hanno moltiplicato l’estrazione di idrocarburi. Ma la prodigiosa crescita della produzione avviene solo grazie ad un ancor più forsennato aumento del numero delle trivellazioni. E ogni trivellazione costa l’iradiddio.
Procediamo con ordine. Innanzitutto l’andamento della produzione di petrolio negli Usa in rapporto con il numero delle trivellazioni. Come ha calcolato Marco Pagani, l’EcoAlfabeta di Ecoblog, grazie allo shale oil dal 2008 gli Usa hanno aumentato del 25% circa la produzione di petrolio: ma contemporaneamente hanno più che quadruplicato il numero delle trivellazioni.
Però il prezzo del petrolio (negli Usa come in tutto il mondo) è relativamente alto. Lo shale gas ha portato ai mercati americani gas a basso prezzo ma presenta il medesimo problema dello shale oil: per aumentare la produzione bisogna aumentare ancor più velocemente il numero delle trivellazioni.
L’andamento dell’estrazione in due pozzi-tipo di shale gas è stato ricostruito ancora da EcoAlfabeta: si dimezza ogni anno, nel giro di poco tempo restano solo le briciole.
Il Post Carbon Institute ha condensato in un grafico (pubblicato all’interno di un rapporto sugli idrocarburi non convenzionali) il numero di pozzi produttivi per il gas (convenzionale e non) e la produttività media dei pozzi, sempre negli Stati Uniti. In vent’anni il numero dei pozzi è aumentato del 90% e la produttività del pozzo medio è diminuita del 38%.

Come se la necessità di aumentare freneticamente il numero delle trivellazioni già non fosse un ostacolo sufficientemente arduo, il costo di ogni singolo pozzo scavato negli Usa è quadruplicato fra il 2002 e il 2007 (ultimi dati disponibili).
Non sto a dilungarmi sulle pesanti controindicazioni ambientali del fracking tipo il rischio di innescare terremoti (non sto parlando di scosse strumentali) o di contaminare la falda sotterranea d’acqua che serve per bere e per irrigare i campi. Mi fermo alle mere questioni pecuniarie. Come è possibile che, nonostante questi alti costi di estrazione, il gas americano abbia un prezzo più basso rispetto al gas convenzionale europeo?
E’ possibile perchè i produttori ci stanno rimettendo anche la camicia e hanno tutti i bilanci in rosso: è la considerazione del capo di Exxon Mobil raccolta da Forbes quasi un anno fa. Sottolineo: da Forbes, una testata economica e non ambientalista. Aggiungo che da allora i prezzi non hanno avuto esattamente un clamoroso recupero. Sul problema della bolla del gas americano è tornato anche Le Monde Diplomatique del marzo scorso.
Già nel 2011 il New York Times (e sottolineo ancora una volta l’autorevolezza della testata) avanzava il dubbio che lo shale gas fosse una bolla innescata dalla speculazione finanziaria: una sorta di schema di Ponzi che può reggersi (e procurare guadagni) solo finchè troverà nuovi adepti disposti a sorreggerlo. L’ultimo arrivato si prenderà solo macerie. E’ questo che vogliono da noi e dall’Europa?

[Amati75]

Niente... Metabo ancora non riesce a fare un semplice ragionamento domanda/offerta e quindi dei costi.... e va boh... intanto mancano solo 5 mesi al supposto scoppio della bolla dello Shales tando agli articoli che Metabo prende per buoni senza fare un minimo di ragionamento (Maggio 2014)... e se fra 5 mesi non scoppia sta bolla che si fa.....?

[Amati75]

U.S. Will Be Energy Self-Sufficient by 2035 on Shale, BP Says

The U.S. will be able to provide for all its own energy needs by 2035 as output of shale oil and gas accelerates and demand growth slows, BP Plc (BP/) said.
The country, which became the world’s biggest producer of liquid energy last year, will produce more gas and coal than it consumes, BP said in its Energy Outlook 2035 report today.
The report highlights how technology to exploit shale resources by grinding underground rocks to release oil and gas will transform the global energy trade over the next two decades. Asia andEurope will become the main importers of fuel while the rest of the world exports, and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will have to rein in output to prevent prices from falling.
“Both oil and gas import concentration will increase massively in Asia and Europe,” BP Chief Economist Christof Ruehl said on a conference call. “About 80 percent of all traded oil will go into Asia.”
World energy demand will rise by 41 percent by 2035 from 2012, a slower pace than the 52 percent gain in the last two decades, BP said in the report. Ninety-five percent of demand growth will come from emerging economies, defined as those not in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, and more than half the increase will come from China and India.


OPEC Capacity

Spare production capacity from OPEC is forecast to surge to 6 million barrels a day by about 2018 as the group cuts output to offset rising global supplies, Ruehl said. That’s the highest since the 1980s. The group’s unused capacity was at 3.37 million barrels a day in November, according to theInternational Energy Agency.
Unrest and supply cuts within OPEC nations are likely to persist, Ruehl said.
“These things can last much longer than expected,” he said. “The economic situation in OPEC countries will come under increasing strain. That, of course, sows the seeds for the kind of unrest which leads to supply disruptions which we have seen over the last three years.”
The shale revolution will make the U.S. a net exporter of gas in 2017, according to the report. Other countries may still be slow to harness shale resources, with North America still accounting for 65 percent of global tight oil and about 70 percent of global shale gas production in 2035. North America will provide 99 percent of the world’s shale gas through 2016.


Output Progress

Energy production will be able to keep up with demand, BP predicted. Fossil fuels will remain dominant sources, with oil, gas and coal each accounting for about 27 percent of global demand by 2035, the first time that there isn’t a single dominant fuel in the energy mix.
China will become the largest energy importer by 2035 as import dependence rises to 20 percent from 15 percent. The country will overtake the U.S. as the world’s biggest oil consumer by 2027 and surpass Russia as the largest gas consumer after the U.S. by 2025, the report said.
Emissions of carbon dioxide, the polluting greenhouse gas, will rise by 29 percent by 2035, with all of the growth coming from countries outside the OECD. Global emissions in 2035 will be almost double the 1990 level even though emissions from OECD countries will decline, BP forecast.
To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Swint in London at bswint@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net; Stephen Voss at sev@bloomberg.net

U.S. Will Be Energy Self-Sufficient by 2035 on Shale, BP Says - Bloomberg