Category
Oil
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How to Invest in Oil's Final Frontier: The Arctic
Investors searching for how to invest in oil in 2013 should be focused on these latest developments from the Arctic.
In fact, countries are racing to get a piece of what could be the final frontier for oil…
As ice melts in the Arctic region, oil and gas trapped beneath the water becomes more accessible.
Money Morning Global Energy Strategist Dr. Kent Moors recently explained to Money Morning members about the search for Arctic oil and gas.
He spoke about the years-in-the-making U.S. Geological Survey's Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal. The study found that 84% of the total undiscovered oil and gas left on the planet is located above the Arctic Circle, mainly offshore and in three huge basins that lie under shallow seas.
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Why Oil Is the New "Gold Standard"
Something very interesting just happened at the 2013 MoneyShow in Las Vegas.
The purveyors of doom and gloom were all still hawking their services there. But the primary solution they offer – a cure-all elixir for everything that ails markets – was beginning to wear thin.
The usual conviction that this one asset is the remedy was gone. And the seats at these sessions were only half-filled.
Indeed, gold is beginning to lose its luster.
The erstwhile commodity fix has been under pressure of late as well. Yet, even while most eyes have been on declining commodities – especially gold, silver, and platinum – something else has been happening.
Crude oil is emerging as a new replacement to reflect stored market value.
That is good for folks like us who invest in the energy sector, because it will provide a floor to downward pressures in oil prices. It will not counter all forces reducing the price of oil, but it is likely to temper such movements, allowing us some leverage.
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A Major Breakthrough in U.S. Oil Exports May Be Coming
As the crude market continues to show considerable volatility, price gyrations are prompting another round of concerns over supply and production.
There isn't a shortage to worry about right now.
But whenever we have some issues on the demand side, attention shifts to the supply currently available on the market. And it's in this repetitive exercise that one of the major errors by analysts always occurs.
I have noted this shortcoming on several occasions.
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Why the "Death of Peak Oil" Still Won't Mean Cheap Oil
Today (Wednesday) an analyst from Citigroup became the latest lemming to declare the death of peak oil.
In a report entitled "The End is Nigh," Seth Kleinman says a combination of flattening demand and rising supply will cause oil prices to slide slightly by the end of the decade to $80-$90 a barrel.
But while oil companies have made many large new discoveries over the past few years, including big shale oil finds in North America and Australia as well as deepwater finds in the Gulf of Mexico, that doesn't mean oil prices will fall.
In fact, according to Money Morning Global Energy Strategist Dr. Kent Moors, it's far more likely that oil prices will continue to rise over the next decade.
Moors points out what most other analysts seem to be missing – that all of the new oil finds present many challenges that will add to the cost of extraction.
"None of this new volume is light, sweet crude," Moors said. "The average wellhead costs continue to go up, and that moves its way downstream to processing, wholesale, and retail."
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Forget the Kneejerk Reactions, Oil Prices Are Going Higher
With all of the concern exhibited over Cyprus' problems with banks and China's high-profile billion-dollar solar implosion, the doomsayers are once again predicting an oil price crash.
These guys must really need your money!
Each new geopolitical event is cast as the end of the world as we know it.
The fact is there is nothing on the horizon that will collapse oil prices for one very simple reason.
The prospects for oil prices are increasing, and elevating oil products along with them. Most sections of the U.S. will be testing 2008 gasoline price highs at the pump well before mid-summer.
Yes, we did see a swing down in crude futures during the initial stages of the Cypriot crisis, augmented by some short-lived negative comments on Chinese industrial prospects.
But by last Friday morning, stabilization had occurred and an oversold crude oil futures market began to move back up.
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Oil Companies Hope for New Opportunity in Energy-Rich Venezuela
One of the biggest headlines recently related to oil companies was news of the passing of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
"El Commandante" as he was affectionately referred to by his countrymen, at least by those who approved of his leftist policies, was 58 and succumbed to a lengthy battle with cancer.
Predictably, news of Chavez's passing has sparked ample speculation about what the future holds for Venezuela's oil industry and those oil companies looking to profit from a possible renaissance there.
Venezuela is South America's largest oil producer and an OPEC member. In what may come as a surprise to some investors, Venezuela could be called the Saudi Arabia of OPEC.
In other words, the South American nation is home to about 300 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, compared to about 270 billion barrels in Saudi Arabia. That is according to OPEC's own estimate.
Not only that, but Venezuela is home to the largest natural gas reserves in the Western Hemisphere.
Given those superlatives, it is easy to understand why some Western oil companies are cautiously optimistic about what the future may hold for them in Venezuela.
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Why Bigger Isn't Always Better in the Oil Business
Forty years ago, British economist E. F. Schumacher wrote that "Small is Beautiful" in a famous book by the same name.
The vision champions market approaches that discount the importance of size to results, a philosophy that contrasted the notion that "Bigger is Better."
In bringing the idea of his teacher (Leopold Kohr) to a broader canvass and a wider audience, Schumacher began a debate that has revolved around the impact of technology and market size ever since.
Just last weekend, the debate renewed.
Again it was an English environment, but the subject matter would have been quite unexpected only a few years ago. This time the occasion was our annual energy consultations at Windsor Castle outside London. The debate focused on both size and profitability of oil companies in the development of new fields.
The key lesson: During expanding times in the oil business, like today, small is not only beautiful.
It is also profitable.
And it can be for you as well if you take the time to learn why…
