What are some good energy/oil sites?

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This is my first timeposting here. I got here through the Countryside forum, which is on the Greenspun server too, I guess. Anyway, all the posts about oil and gas supplies have me a little worried. Are there any sites that concentrate on that topic? Like where people in the industry discuss oil supplies and what it all means for us down the road a few years? Also, I know this sounds silly, but who's cpr and why does he (she?) shout all the time? Imean, I see people posting news articles and stuff, and he really doesn't like it. BTW, thanks to Cave Man and theothers for the info.

-- Worrier (worried@bout.oil), August 24, 2000

Answers

W:

You will find postings about the energy sector at GICC at

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a.tcl?topic=Grassroots% 20Information%20Coordination%20Center%20%28GICC%29

I hope this is helpful.

-- Paula Gordon (pgordon@erols.com), August 25, 2000.


Paula lives!

-- (nemesis@awol.com), August 25, 2000.

American Petroleum Institue

http://www.api.org/

-- (Try@this.site), August 25, 2000.


http://biz.yahoo.com/apf/000824/heating_co_2.html

Thursday August 24, 7:21 pm Eastern Time

Heating Prices To Affect Consumers

American Consumers Will Face Much Steeper Home Heating Bills This Winter With Natural Gas and Heating Oil Prices Near Historic Highs

By DAVE CARPENTER
AP Business Writer

CHICAGO (AP) -- Already walloped by a rise in gasoline costs this year, American consumers are now about to face much steeper home heating bills with natural gas and heating oil prices near historic highs.

Energy markets were jolted this week by a combination of developments that sent prices shooting higher -- an unexpected drop in U.S. crude oil stockpiles coupled with a pipeline explosion in New Mexico and a hurricane that raised fears of another blow to already-low natural gas supplies.

Soon the aftershocks will be felt by consumers nationwide, whose utilities already were warning them to brace for big bills ahead.

Suzanne deGraff, a natural gas customer from Rochester, N.Y., said she's been told her monthly bill from Rochester Gas and Electric Co. will jump about $26 to $130.

``I'm not happy,'' she said, ``but, again, they're the only ones in town. What am I going to do?''

Whether a customer's utility provides natural gas or heating oil, there appears to be no way around prices heading higher than last winter -- one of the costliest home heating seasons ever.

Home heating oil prices surged Wednesday to their highest since the Gulf War in the wake of industry surveys showing inventories of U.S. crude oil, its source, dropping to 24-year lows. Energy prices retreated slightly Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, but heating oil remains more than 50 percent more expensive than a year ago.

The increase is blamed partly on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its decision to cut back production last year after prices swooned.

Natural gas has rocketed upward for different reasons.

U.S. supplies of natural gas have been declining since the mid-1990s amid a falloff in production by energy firms that didn't find it worth their while when prices were low.

Prices are no longer cheap -- they've more than doubled in the last year and a half and reached an all-time high of $4.85 per 1,000 cubic feet this week on the New York Merc, where futures prices are a precursor for wholesale and retail trends.

Making matters worse, production hasn't been revved back up, rising just 1 percent this year. And demand is up sharply in a booming economy that has more Americans plugging into computers and industrial use surging. The nation depends increasingly on natural gas to generate electricity as utilities gradually switch from coal and nuclear-powered plants.

The situation has worsened this summer, with heavy usage to help supply demand created by air conditioners preventing the industry from stockpiling for the winter heating season ahead as it usually does. Natural gas inventories are near six-year lows.

That leaves gas prices highly susceptible to supply disruptions -- such as last Saturday's pipeline explosion in New Mexico that killed 11 people and shut down a primary gas main supplying California. Hurricane Debby's brief advance toward key production facilities in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico raised fears of similar trouble and propelled prices higher before they fell back.

If further disruptions or heavy demand drain dwindling stockpiles further, rationing and industrial shutdowns are ``a pretty good possibility'' this winter, especially involving natural gas, says analyst Michael Lynch of WEFA, an economic think tank in Bedford, Mass.

Edward Kelly of Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Houston stops short of predicting such an energy crisis. But he says the market is the most vulnerable it's been since energy deregulation two decades ago.

``It's the worst situation since at least the early 1980s,'' he said. ``It's been difficult ... to store enough gas for this winter.''

Experts say consumers could skate by this winter only if last year's warmest winter on record is followed by one just as warm or warmer. But according to at least some meteorologists, the pattern of historically warm winters is at an end.

``If we have a winter that's just normal, we're going to see potentially astronomical natural gas prices -- much higher than we see today,'' said David Chang, senior energy trader for Bank of America in New York.

Karen Drudi of West Springfield, Mass., is unhappy with the prospect of even higher natural gas prices. ``It's not a luxury to be able to heat your home,'' she said.

Her family, which spent about $550 on gas heat last winter, will blunt the burden of higher prices with more use of its wood stove. But, she said, ``It's a lot easier to just walk over and turn the thermostat up.''



-- the (latest@on.energy), August 25, 2000.


http://server5.ezboard.com/fdownstreamventurespetroleummarkets.html

http://qv3.com/policypete/policypete.htm

http://www.dieoff.org

http://www.egroups.com/group/RunningOnEmpty

-- Whatever (who@car.es), August 25, 2000.



Here's a couple more:

http://www.egroups .com/group/energyresources

http://www.petroleumworld.com/"< /a>

http://fullcoverage.yahoo.com/Full_Coverage/Business/Oil_and_Gas/

-- Cave Man (
caves@are.us), August 25, 2000.


www.sciam.com/2000/0900issue/0900scicit4.html

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), August 25, 2000.

Just want to thank all those who posted links to energy sites. Like the original Worrier, I've read enough here to be seriously concerned. If I'm doing the math right, well, I hope I'm not doing it right. Lessee, annual increase in energy demand versus annual production, toss in discovery peak two decades ago, this Hubbert Curve stuff . . . Naw, this can't be right. Cause if it is, we're headed for deep fertilizer country.

-- Worrier II (worriedtoo@bout.oil), August 25, 2000.

http://www.sciam.com/2000/0900issue/0900scicit4.html GEOLOGY_PETROLEUM

Awash in Oil

There's plenty of cheap oil, says the
U.S. Geological Survey


The debate over this summer's skyrocketing gasoline prices-an issue that has drawn the ire of both U.S. presidential candidates, Congress and the Federal Trade Commission-obscures what may be a larger truth: there's gobs of oil out there.

In June, after a five-year study, the U.S. Geological Survey raised its previous estimate of the world's crude oil reserves by 20 percent, to a total of 649 billion barrels. The USGS team believes the largest reserves of undiscovered oil lie in existing fields in the Middle East, the northeast Greenland Shelf, the western Siberian and Caspian areas, and the Niger and Congo delta areas of Africa. Significant new reserves were found in northeast Greenland and offshore Suriname, both of which have no history of production. "What we did is look into the future and predict how much will be discovered in the next 30 years based on the geology of how it gets trapped," explains Suzanne D. Weedman, program coordinator of the USGS World Petroleum Assessment 2000. "We also believe that the [oil] reserve numbers are going to increase."

Besides relying on geological surveys, the USGS also based its numbers on changes in drilling technology that are making it easier to find new supplies and to squeeze more oil out of existing fields. Petroleum companies are flushing out oil with pressurized water and carbon dioxide and using improved robot technology to construct offshore drilling rigs in up to 3,500 feet of water. They are also conducting three-dimensional seismic imaging of underground and underwater fields.

The idea of an expanding "reserve growth" of undiscovered oil isn't shared by everyone. Colin J. Campbell, an oil industry analyst based in Ireland, believes the USGS estimates are overly optimistic. "It's only the low end of this scale that has any practical meaning; the other end of the scale is a very bad estimate," argues Campbell, who warned of an impending crunch, based on projections of current production and reserves, in an article in Scientific American ["The End of Cheap Oil," March 1998]. Weedman says the USGS report is documented with 32,000 pages of data. "We've looked at all the information," she states, "and tried to predict on the basis of science and not on past [oil] production."


--Eric Niiler



-- Banned Person (NonPerson@EZbanned.edu), August 25, 2000.

Bloomberg Energy

http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/index.html

-- (one@more.site), August 31, 2000.



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