U.S. Shale Faces A Workforce Shortage

 

A problem for the U.S. shale oil and gas industry that analysts and observers have warned about for a long time has materialized: there is a shortage of workers. According to one service provider for E&Ps, trucker jobs remain vacant even with an annual paycheck of $80,000, which is certainly a big change from a couple of years ago when layoffs were sweeping through the shale patch.

This shortage could dampen the prospects of not just shale producers, who are eager to ramp up production as quickly as possible and take advantage of higher international oil prices, but it will also seriously hamper the recovery of the oilfield services segment, which has been hit harder than E&Ps by the price crash.

US Shale Declining And OPEC Still Climbing

Essentially, OPEC has killed off the U.S. shale industry, which was predicted last year. See the OPEC category for further articles on Saudi Arabia’s economic warfare scheme against the United States.

 

 

There is new data out today. The EIA published their International Petroleum Statistics yesterday. The EIA also published their Drilling Productivity Report which gave their expected shale oil and gas production through September. Then this morning OPEC published their Monthly Oil Marketing Report with OPEC crude only production numbers through July.

First the Drilling Productivity Report. Of course most of the Drilling Productivity Report is projection, not history. And that projection goes through September 2015.

The EIA has the Bakken peaking in December and declining 107 thousand barrels per day since that point. A secondary peak was reached in April and declining steadily since then.

Oil prices: OPEC plan to strangle US suppliers working

Demand for oil will strengthen this year, according to OPEC, as the cartel said its strategy of pumping oil into the market to squeeze out US producers was taking effect.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which pumps a third of the world’s oil, believes demand will average 29.27m barrels per day (bpd) in 2015, representing an increase of 80,000 bpd from its previous prediction.

Market Perspectives The Monetary Illusion

When such a newsletter comes from an institution such as Guggenheim, the soon-to-come problems America faces couldn’t be more surreal.

 

As economic growth returns again to Europe and Japan, the prospect of a synchronous global expansion is taking hold. Or, then again, maybe not. In a recent research piece published by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, global economic growth, as measured in nominal U.S. dollars, is projected to decline in 2015 for the first time since 2009, the height of the financial crisis.

In fact, the prospect of improvement in economic growth is largely a monetary illusion. No one needs to explain how policymakers have made painfully little progress on the structural reforms necessary to increase global productive capacity and stimulate employment and demand. Lacking the political will necessary to address the issues, central bankers have been left to paper over the global malaise with reams of fiat currency.

Iranian scientists running simulations of large nuclear weapon

Diagram suggests Tehran’s planned bomb would be three times stronger than Hiroshima blast

VIENNA (AP) — Iranian scientists have run computer simulations for a nuclear weapon that would produce more than triple the explosive force of the World War II bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, according to a diagram obtained by The Associated Press.

The diagram was leaked by officials from a country critical of Iran’s atomic program to bolster their arguments that Iran’s nuclear program must be halted before it produces a weapon. The officials provided the diagram only on condition that they and their country not be named.

The International Atomic Energy Agency — the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog — reported last year that it had obtained diagrams indicating that Iran was calculating the “nuclear explosive yield” of potential weapons. A senior diplomat who is considered neutral on the issue confirmed that the graph obtained by the AP was indeed one of those cited by the IAEA in that report. He spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue.

The undated diagram that was given to the AP by officials of a country critical of Iran’s

atomic program allegedly calculating the explosive force of a nuclear weapon. The curve

peaks at just above 50 kilotons at around 2 microseconds, reflecting the full force of the

weapon being modeled. The Farsi writing at the bottom translates “changes in output and

in energy released as a function of time through power pulse” (photo credit: AP)