Oil and Gas: What mortals these fuels be.

Home


 

 

Interviewer: "What accounts for your success, Mr. Getty?"

J. Paul Getty: "Some people find oil, some don't."

Please understand that I am not an investment advisor, registered or otherwise. I may mention particular companies in one regard or another but that does not constitute a recommendation that anyone buy or sell the securities of such a company. I may buy or sell securities that I write about either before or after I post comments on said securities. You should do your own research before making any investment decision. If you chose to invest in ways similar to my own decisions and if such investments result in losses, you are wholly responsible, not me. Also, be sure that you take personal credit if your investments are successful.



RSS Feed
RSS Feed

 

 

Entries Tagged as 'NATURAL GAS'

Final Newsletter: October 21, 2009

October 21st, 2009 · 55 Comments

I’ve decided to stop posting to the Energy Investment Strategies web site and to take the site down eventually.  There are two reasons.   One is that I need to concentrate my efforts on fighting my cancer.  The other is that I think to a large extent my original aims for this site have been accomplished.  The site was started to educate investors about “peak oil”, its implications for potential future energy shortages, related increases in the importance and value of energy-related equities, and ways investors can best participate .  …

[Read more →]

Tags: China, India and the Pacific Rim · Investment Ideas · LNG · Megaprojects · Peak Oil · Price of oil · Rare Earth Element Miners · The Economy · demand for gas · price of natural gas

Newsletter #22: March 16, 2009

March 16th, 2009 · 26 Comments

Are stocks and oil bottoming?

Was last Tuesday’s 350-point rally the beginning of the end of the bear market or just a false “bear trap?”  And a related question: “Did oil bottom at $33 and will it get re-tested?”  Let’s see what we know.

Some things we know

Sometimes the objective observable facts can yield fairly clear conclusions.  Usually that’s not the case.  Usually you can use the available facts to make a decent argument in either direction.  But sometimes the facts seem fairly clear.

For example, there should have been clarity about being …

[Read more →]

Tags: Investment Ideas · Megaprojects · Newsletter · OPEC · Predictions · Price of oil · Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile, SA (SQM). · The Economy · oil demand · oil supply · price of natural gas

Newsletter 21: January 15, 2009

January 15th, 2009 · 22 Comments

Our current investment trauma marks the end of an era of excesses in credit and real estate markets, of course.  But it also denotes that the United States is undergoing a far more general and significant transition - not only to a new government with a radically different agenda, but more lastingly into a whole new climate for investments. 

Gone is the era of wind-to-the-back investing powered since 1982 by continually lower interest rates and the virtuous influence of the baby boomer demographic bulge working its way through the U.S. economy …

[Read more →]

Tags: Energy Policy · Investment Ideas · NATURAL GAS · Newsletter · OPEC · Peak Oil · PetroBank (PBEGF or TSO: PBG) · Price of oil · Rare Earth Element Miners · Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile, SA (SQM). · batteries · hybrid vehicles

NG Trucks to be built in Australia

December 3rd, 2008 · No Comments

  PACCAR Australia and Westport to Produce Natural Gas Trucks 8:00 AM ET, December 10, 2008 VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, Dec 10, 2008 (Marketwire via COMTEX) — Westport Innovations Inc. (WPT)(US:WPRT) and PACCAR Australia Pty Ltd. (”PACCAR”) announced today that the companies will develop and commercialise liquefied natural gas (LNG) Kenworth trucks for the Australian market. Australia’s Kenworth Trucks, a division of PACCAR, plan to begin factory-installed production in mid-2009 beginning with the T908, K108 and T408SAR truck chassis and roll out across additional models …

[Read more →]

Tags: NG powered cars and trucks

Environmental Push Back Against CBM

September 26th, 2008 · 1 Comment

Some mayors in Canada are working to halt coal bed methane drilling because the toxic water produced in the process may be polluting local waters according to the report posted below from the Financial Post.  They say the employment benefits are small compared with the risks to fishing, recreation, and health.  One company affected is PetroBank (PBEGF) which I own because of its patented technologies for extracting oil from deep deposits of tar sands in a move economical and environmentally benign way.    Stop drilling, B. C. mayors …

[Read more →]

Tags: NATURAL GAS · PetroBank (PBEGF or TSO: PBG) · shale and coal bed methane

Dimensions of a Possible Natural Gas Glut

September 4th, 2008 · 6 Comments

An excellent analysis of U.S. natural gas supply prospects and recent history has been posted at The Oil Drum.  It fleshes out a much discussed conclusion that new finds of unconventional gas combined with better extraction techniques could yield much higher NG production.  In fact production has recently been increasing - by as much as 8% according to this article. My sense is that there are two potentially large new sources of demand that could ultimately cause NG prices to rise again.  One is transportation.  A lot of new …

[Read more →]

Tags: LNG · NATURAL GAS · shale and coal bed methane · supply of gas · vehicles powered by NG

Oil Is a National Security Issue, Part 2

August 18th, 2008 · 22 Comments

The reality that’s been revealed by Russia’s Georgia adventure is captured in the following statement by Prof. Steven Blank at Penn. State: ““Russia’s energy objective is to monopolize all Caspian energy flows to Europe, so that it can then blackmail Europe and force political changes to European policy,” Prof. Blank said.

That is the new national security challenge presented by Russia that I discussed recently.  It’s historical and strategic dimensions are set forth in a excellent piece of journalism published today in the Globe and Mail and …

[Read more →]

Tags: Energy Policy · Russia · electric vehicles · hybrid vehicles · vehicles powered by NG

U.S. Natural Gas Seen to Be Superabundant

August 10th, 2008 · 10 Comments

A study released on 7/30/08 by Amercan Clean Skies Foundation and Navigant Consulting states that U.S. unconventional natural gas deposits are sufficient to supply 118 years of U.S. demand at 2007 levels.  Newly developed fracking and horizontal drilling techniques have made it possible to recover enormous quantities of gas from tight sands, coalbed methane, and gas shale formations, reports the Oil & Gas Journal (8/4/08) On the demand side, some leaders are starting to advocate the use of NG in lieu of petroleum to power cars.  Two Congressmen, Rahm …

[Read more →]

Tags: COAL · Energy Policy · NATURAL GAS · NG powered cars and trucks · Natural Gas Stocks · demand for gas · electrical generation · oil demand · price of natural gas · shale and coal bed methane · solar stocks · supply of gas · vehicles powered by NG

Newsletter #17: August 5, 2008

August 4th, 2008 · 18 Comments

The economy, the stock market, and our understanding of the future direction for energy and transportation may all be on the brink of major changes .  This letter will open a discussion of these ideas. 

A Very Tough Month

Before turning to the future, I must confess that the immediate past month was  most painful for the EIS portfolio.   Oil prices hit a violent downdraft in July, which especially impacted my “options on futures” strategy.  It declined in value by about 33%.  Since the purpose of these options is to provide portfolio …

[Read more →]

Tags: Economic Strains of Peak Oil · Investment Ideas · NG powered cars and trucks · Newsletter · Predictions · Ultracapacitors · batteries · drilling/service companies · electric vehicles · electrical generation · hybrid vehicles

Natural Gas Cars?

August 4th, 2008 · 10 Comments

The drum beat for substituting natural gas for petroleum to power cars and trucks has begun to get louder.  It’s been part of Boone Pickens’ plan, of course.  And now Jim Cramer has picked up the theme with support from Aubrey McClendon of Chesapeake (CHK). The concept is potentially practical since natural gas is currently much cheaper than oil on an equivalent power basis and since converting cars to NG is done in many parts of the world and is not terribly expensive.  Apparently conversions are popular in Australia …

[Read more →]

Tags: NG powered cars and trucks

Marcellus Shale Players

July 22nd, 2008 · 1 Comment

A recent post published at Seeking Alpha provides interesting data and commentary - both from the author and readers - regarding the prospects for various nat. gas producers, particularly in regard to the Marcellus Shale play.  I’m not sure this is the day to be loading up on such stocks, but some day the sun will shine on them again.  

[Read more →]

Tags: NATURAL GAS · shale and coal bed methane

Progress on Energy Policy

July 20th, 2008 · 4 Comments

Gore vs. Pickens vs. Congress vs. McCain

The U.S. Congress is pursuing such brilliant energy policy alternatives as:

1. Suing OPEC for anti-trust

2.  Stopping “speculation”

3. Subsidizing corn-based ethanol while taxing imports of foreign ethanol.

  4. Leasing more U.S. land for oil and gas drilling.

These ideas range from idiotic (1 and 2) to counter-productive (3) to moderately useful in the longer term (4). 

To be more specific on drilling, my view is that since there would be no additional oil flowing from drilling the OCS or ANWR for 7 - 12 years, and since …

[Read more →]

Tags: Energy Policy · Investment Ideas · Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile, SA (SQM). · batteries · demand for gas · electric vehicles · hybrid vehicles

Tough Heating Season Ahead

July 18th, 2008 · No Comments

This Winter could bring a good deal of economic strain to the roughly 8 million homes heating with oil.  The cost of natural gas heat is less than half that of oil, so that should push a fair amount of conversion from oil to gas.  Last year, about half of all U.S. households, 54 million, heat with gas.  As the report below from the Wall Street Journal states, “I don’t see any way to make the numbers work for middle-income people,” he says, adding, “They’re already …

[Read more →]

Tags: Economic Strains of Peak Oil · NATURAL GAS · Poverty and Oil (demand destruction) · demand for gas

Big Oil Targets Unconventional Nat. Gas

July 18th, 2008 · 4 Comments

The following Wall Street Journal story points out that some IOC’s are starting to buy North American gas reserves partly because they can’t find or buy enough oil in or out of North America.

This trend toward greater investment in nat. gas will tend to increase gas production over the next few years.  It’s possible that nat. gas supply could outrun demand for a while, although there should also be increasing demand from new electricity plants and some conversion from oil to gas in both transportation and heating.  

It’s also possible that …

[Read more →]

Tags: NATURAL GAS · supply of gas

Energy Independence Happening, Just Not in the U.S.

July 10th, 2008 · 3 Comments

Somebody gets it at The Washington Post.  Gal Luft makes perfect sense in this piece about how four other countries are becoming energy independent while the U.S. just plays silly games.  He left out the fifth country doing it, Denmark, which is going down a similar road to Israel’s except using wind instead of solar to generate the electricity.  ENERGIZED Iran and Brazil Can Do It. So Can We . Sunday, July 6, 2008; Page B01 When the founding fathers declared our independence, they could not have imagined …

[Read more →]

Tags: Brazil · Iran · electric vehicles · ethanol · hybrid vehicles · vehicles powered by NG