Taking a short break--no post this week

I'm taking a short break and expect to post again on Sunday, July 5.

Radio Interview: Nuclear and other alternative energy sources

In lieu of my weekly post, I'm posting a link to a radio interview I did recently. Doug Goldstein, host of the personal finance show "Goldstein on Gelt," brought me back for a return engagement to discuss the future of alternative energy including molten salt reactors. The show was broadcast on Israel's English-language radio network, Israeli National Radio. Click here to go to the page containing the podcast.

To hear my previous interview on the swoon in oil prices, click here.

Kurt Cobb is an author, speaker, and columnist focusing on energy and the environment. He is a regular contributor to the Energy Voices section of The Christian Science Monitor and author of the peak-oil-themed novel Prelude. In addition, he has written columns for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen, and his work has been featured on Energy Bulletin (now Resilience.org), The Oil Drum, OilPrice.com, Econ Matters, Peak Oil Review, 321energy, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other sites. He maintains a blog called Resource Insights and can be contacted at kurtcobb2001@yahoo.com.

No, BP, the U. S. did NOT surpass Saudi Arabia in oil production

Even the paper of record for the oil industry, Oil & Gas Journal, got it wrong. With the release of the latest BP Statistical Review of World Energy, media outlets appeared to be taking dictation rather than asking questions about which countries produced the most oil in 2014.

If they had asked questions, they would have ended up with a ho-hum headline announcing that last year Russia at 10.1 million barrels per day (mbpd) and Saudi Arabia at 9.7 mbpd were once again the number one and number two producers of crude oil including lease condensate (which is the definition of oil). The United States at 8.7 mbpd remained in third place.

The most important question they could have asked is this: How is BP defining oil? It turns out that oil according to the BP definition includes something called natural gas liquids which includes lease condensate--very light hydrocarbons that come from actual oil wells and are included in the oil refinery stream--and natural gas plant liquids which come from natural gas wells and include such things as ethane, propane, butane and pentanes. Only a small portion of natural gas plant liquids are suitable substitutes for oil.

Delayed gratification for OPEC, more pain for investors

Delayed gratification is said to be a sign of maturity. By that standard OPEC at age 55 demonstrated its maturity this week as it left oil production quotas for its members unchanged. It did so in the face of oil prices that are about 40 percent lower than they were at this time last year, delaying once again a return to the $100-per-barrel prices seen during the past four years.

Why OPEC members chose to leave their oil output unchanged is no mystery. The explicit purpose for keeping oil prices depressed is to close down U.S. oil production from deep shale deposits--production that soared when oil hovered around $100 a barrel, but which is largely uneconomic at current prices. That production was starting to threaten OPEC's market share.

If OPEC were to cut its oil production now and drive prices back up, it would only lead to increased drilling in the United States and loss of market share. In fact, even as spot oil prices sank below $45 per barrel in the United States earlier in the year, investors continued pumping money into U.S. oil drilling. According to The Wall Street Journal U.S. oil companies sold almost $17 billion in new shares in the first quarter of 2015, more than they sold in any quarter last year when prices were much higher.