“We have not been finding enough new fields.” That’s William DeMis, president of Richelle Court, LLC, who said that, in addition to not finding enough, we keep erecting new ways to export what we’re not finding.
The way, he said, to avert the coming shortage is for people to find new sources of gas outside of Haynesville field, which for years, considering its proximity to the Gulf Coast, and the petrochemical plants of Southwest Louisiana, as well as pipelines, made it a swing producer for natural gas.
“But I can tell you from bitter experience over the last three years that finding people to fund greenfield exploration is darn near impossible. There is scant capital to drill natural gas wildcats in the U.S.” said DeMis.
Petroleum Supply Monthly (PSM) data for November 2025 are scheduled for release on Friday, February 6, 2026.
The U.S. Census Bureau will release trade data (both imports and exports) for November 2025 on Thursday, January 29, 2026. As a result, we will delay release of PSM data for November 2025 from the original scheduled release date of January 30, 2026, until Friday, February 6, 2026. The delayed PSM release will allow us time to incorporate export data for November 2025.
Campaigners against Rosebank, Britain’s largest untapped oil field, have told the UK government that approving the project would risk breaching international law.
They say profits would flow in part to the Israeli oil and gas company Delek Group, which the UN human rights commissioner accuses of “supporting the maintenance and existence” of illegal settlements in the West Bank.
Note that Delek is not a Rosebank partner, but is the majority shareholder in a 20% Rosebank partner, Ithaca Energy. The 80% owner and project operator is Equinor, which is 2/3 owned by the Norwegian govt. Apparently, neither Equinor nor Norway are troubled by Ithaca Energy’s 20% Rosebank share. (There is no indication that the BBC contacted Equinor prior to publishing the article.)
The most sensible quote in the article is from the govt of Israel which dismissed the accusations as “absurd and distorted.”
Which do left-wing activists hate more – oil or Israel?
“The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is initiating the first steps that could potentially lead to a lease sale for minerals on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) offshore Alaska by publishing this request for information and interest (RFI).”
Next week, BOE will rank the 2025 Gulf of America Safety Compliance Leaders according to the number of incidents of non-compliance (INCs) per facility inspection.
As we descend into hotter, deeper tiers, the process shifts from pressure-driven to density-driven stimulation. With larger density contrasts between the injected water and pore fluid in the rocks, density takes the lead. The deeper we go, fracturing becomes easier, not more challenging, and reduces the need for massive pumping fleets.
It all results in a superhot subterranean network sweeping away 10-100x more heat than all other forms of geothermal. We are sending water coursing through engineered permeability, harnessing Earth’s most abundant energy and powering the next century of global innovation.
Supercritical fluid dynamics are thus the key to superhot geothermal completions. Water above and 22 mega pascals (3191 psi) enters a supercritical state with liquid-like density and gas-like viscosity. The water that is injected into a hot, supercritical reservoir is thus much denser than the surrounding superhot fluid. The injection of relatively cool water into superhot rock creates and widens fractures increasing permeability without increased pumping pressure.
John comments that the project description, which calls for removing the jacket, seep tents and pipelines, and partially removing the upper 5 feet of the 23-foot-high shell mounds, does not make much sense given the abundant fish and invertebrates that reside on or around the platform jacket.Cutting the jacket off 85 feet below the water line and converting the remaining structure to an artificial reef would make more sense and should have been designated the proposed project.
The plan is to send the materials to the Ports of Long Beach, Los Angeles or Hueneme or possibly Ensenada, Mexico. The project involves complex logistics and is going to be a very long (3 years), ambitious and expensive project that will likely set a precedent for future platform decommissioning projects.
According to their agreement with the CSLC, Exxon is responsible for the decommissioning costs.
Scientific American: The steel “jackets” that support California’s offshore oil platforms are covered in millions of organisms and provide habitat for thousands of fishes. Joe Platko
The piston coring survey will involve the collection of 40–60 seabed core samples across the Walton and Morant Basins, accompanied by bathymetric, multibeam echo-sounding, and heat-flow surveys.
The data will be analyzed for geochemical and thermal signatures to confirm the presence of thermogenic hydrocarbons, assess source rock maturity, and refine basin modeling, materially enhancing the definition of key prospects, including Colibri and Oriole.
“Exxon spinoff Sable Offshore faces seven barriers to restart its pipeline, idled since a major oil spill in 2015. One of those approvals needs to come from the California Coastal Commission, which Sable CEO Jim Flores criticized for its “Teflon” “eco-Nazi attitude” in a leaked call recording newly obtained by Hunterbrook. Because of these barriers — and despite Trump Administration intervention — Sable’s project, originally scheduled to go online in Jan 2024, may never sell oil. At least not under the ownership of Sable ($SOC), which is quickly running out of cash.“
Exxon’s options per Hunterbrook:
The Exxon purchase agreement gives Exxon a free reassignment option: If Sable fails to “restart production” by Mar. 31, Exxon can demand reassignment of the assets within 180 days, “without reimbursement of any Purchaser costs or expenditures.”
In other words: Exxon can just take back the asset. For free.
And if Sable’s regulatory pathway is really just delayed, not denied — as Sable claims — that may be a more appealing proposition for Exxon than it once was.
Or, perhaps, Exxon will decide to retire the project, recognizing the Sisyphean path to production. (Exxon already took a $2.5 billion write-down as part of exiting offshore operations in California.)