Just prior to 2008, shortly before the United States financial collapse, gas was in the range of $13 dollars; a far cry from the low price that gas sunk to last week. At $2.30 per 1,000 cubic feet, pricing has pushed some operators, like Colorado-based QEP to stop production in dry gas plays across the United States, abandoning their wells to grind through the slope in the market. “Trying to survive will not work, operators have to continue to thrive with low gas prices. It is the only successful strategy,” said Steven Mueller, President and CEO, Southwestern Energy.

Although dry gas isn’t favoring well, the demand and the price of natural gas liquids continues to do well in domestic as well as export markets. During CERAWeek, gas operators and market enthusiasts shifted from the previous day’s oil conversation to the growing role of natural gas, supply and demand as well as market trends and pricing. Read More »

In one of its more modest sessions, IHS CERA Senior Director, Jackie Forrest, moderated a panel on the Canadian Oil Sands – Growth Prospects and Risks to Growth. Speakers included executives from TransCanada, Laricina Energy and the American Petroleum Institute.

Forrest moderated the session, focusing primarily on the public’s misconceptions of the project. The Keystone XL pipeline project, which was submitted in 2008, is a proposed 1,700-mile pipeline that would transport 830,000 barrels connecting one of the largest oil reserves in the world in Alberta to the world’s largest refining center in the Gulf Coast. After the President stalled any decision on the project until after the 2012 elections, Congressional members, in an effort to push a decision, tied the approval to the payroll tax extension.

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On the heels of the recent spike in gas prices, energy professionals are descending on Houston for one of the largest energy shows, CERAWeek, hosted by IHS CERA. Oil and gas executives, economists and IHS CERA staff will be speaking to the abundance and diversity of our worldwide and domestic resources, the controversy surrounding current technology and the issues facing supply and demand.

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People from developed modern societies can pay thanks to those who helped revolutionize the way we experience the world because of fossil fuels. Through the use of coal and oil we have taken our cultures and turned them into thriving metropolises across the globe. While countries in Europe, the United States and most recently China and India have experienced economic prosperity through the use of fossil fuels; is it possible as we continue to develop new renewable resources that emerging and developing nations should start looking at alternatives?
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The documentary film spOILed debuted last week in Denver to a private crowd hosted by the city’s petroleum club, which was greeted with cheers and applause as the film gushed to a start. Director Mark Mathis delivered a truthful and resonating film from the perspective of a realist who journeyed to discover the truth about oil. As a born and bred local of Colorado and an energy enthusiast I was pleased to experience a realistic and balanced perspective on oil production.

From the onset, the film is catchy and interrupting. Mathis’ story line delivers you to logical points and in an instant flashes you back in time to iconic moments in history as a reminder of how quickly our perception of oil has changed. His clip composition is timed perfectly to anticipate the moments when the viewer may be thinking, “but…” Read More »

As oil prices continue to soar and as North America strives for energy independence, the Athabasca Oil Sands represent a real energy future for our continent. Unlike liquid oil, this mined sand produces large profits and has created more jobs than there are people to fill them. While the region continues to be developed, activists and industry supporters alike are working together to produce the oil sands resource while also considering long-term sustainability.

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Oil and gas are dirty; wind and sun are clean. It seems almost logical and undeniable. The thought of a breeze dancing through the air on a sunny day, providing energy to homes is almost idyllic, while drilling into the dark cold earth for oil and gas is grimy and horrid.

The reality, however, is that the comparisons don’t match up, they are misleading. The processes to harness both renewable energy and fossil fuel energy are essentially the same. It starts with an end-user, you, and the products and technologies to supply that demand.  Whether it is drilling or manufacturing, nothing is clean. Everything comes at a price and sometimes those prices are the products of unintended consequences. Read More »

In our turbulent and uncertain world, countries like China and India have emerged as nations leading the charge towards global economic growth, industrializing through fossil fuels.  However, despite the emergence of these successful economies, energy poverty continues to be an issue for countries across Africa that lacks the infrastructure for even small-scale energy developments. And while the slate is clean for countries across Africa to explore the vast resources available to them, they also have to work through the challenges that those same resources pose.

For this reason, academics, researchers, engineers and business leaders came together to speak to those challenges and share ideas to help create a sustainable energy future, a platform for economic development in Africa.  The Global Commerce Forum’s event held in Denver challenged participants to look at potential development based on clean energy complemented by natural gas. Read More »

Refinery to terminal conversions have, for the most part, occurred quietly. It’s a trend that hasn’t yet swept the market but is slowly beginning to pick up momentum. Companies like Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Petroplus have made headlines for such conversions but larger investment firms are slowly moving in to capitalize on such investments.

Many conversions that have happened here in the United States are due to an excessive amount of shuttered refineries created from government subsidies back in the 1950s and 1970s. By the time crude prices collapsed in 1982, many of the smaller refiners were left at a disadvantage within the market at the hands of huge transportation and financial costs.

Now, these long shuttered and mostly unpleasant sleeping giants are being transformed into useful storage and distribution centers that can also accommodate water treatment facilities and other industrial uses. By breathing life back into these dormant sites, small communities are able to experience quality job growth and local tax revenue from these tracts of land.

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On the tenth floor, perched high above the University of Colorado, Boulder campus, teeming with young minds, running eagerly between classes is the office of physics professor, Dr. Jerry Peterson, Ph.D.  His office is quaint but every inch of it is covered. Books line shelves and table tops, papers and binders are stacked high on two separate desks, graphs and charts hang on the walls and sitting atop one of his bookshelves are Geiger counters and a Safeway bag filled with uranium ore.

“Come on in, check out my view,” he says to me. Through the only window in the office, he looks out onto the beauty and simplicity of the flatirons that stretch across the Boulder horizon.  It is the perfect juxtaposition to the chaos of his office and the nature of his study.

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