To gain a better understanding of the potential U.S. domestic shale gas and shale oil resources, EIA commissioned INTEK, Inc. to develop an assessment of onshore Lower 48 States technically recoverable shale gas and shale oil resources.

From the U.S. Energy Information, an assessment of key factors that can influence oil prices including physical market factors as well as those related to trading and financial markets. The analysis explores possible linkages between each factor and oil prices, and includes regularly-updated graphs that depict aspects of those relationships.

According to this report from Ernst & Young, the oil and gas industry recovered significantly in 2010, largely due to new shale discoveries and technological advances. The study found that total upstream spending - including acquisitions of proved and unproved properties, as well as exploration and development spending - more than doubled in 2010, up from $72.8 billion in 2009 to $177.9 billion in 2010. End-of-year oil reserves grew 11 percent and gas reserves grew 12 percent in 2010. The US E&P benchmark study is a compilation and analysis of certain oil and gas reserve disclosure information as reported by publicly traded companies in their annual reports filed with the SEC.

According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2011, world primary energy consumption grew by 5.6% in 2010, the largest increase (in percentage terms) since 1973. Chinese energy consumption grew by 11.2%, and China surpassed the US as the world’s largest energy consumer. Oil remains the world’s leading fuel, at 33.6% of global energy consumption, but oil continued to lose market share for the 11th consecutive year. Global oil production increased by 1.8 million b/d, or 2.2%, but did not match the rapid growth in consumption.

The Oil 150 organization has put together a nice list of petroleum industry-related museums organized by state. It includes links to the museum websites (when available).

According to the latest forecast from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), oil sands growth and new production from existing conventional oil reserves will drive Canadian crude oil production to about 4.7 million barrels per day by 2025.

According to the KPMG Energy Institute’s annual energy survey, energy executives expect continued volatility in the price-per-barrel of oil for the remainder of the year, with most (64 percent) predicting crude prices to exceed $121 per barrel. The executives also foresee shale oil and gas having a transformative effect on helping to meet the world's energy needs and showed that executives have a positive outlook on R&D investment, capital spending, and hiring. In fact, 35 percent of executives surveyed said their company would increase R&D investment in alternative energy projects in 2011, up considerably from 15 percent in KPMG’s 2010 survey.  The survey is based on a poll of 550 financial executives from energy companies during April 2011,

• is not only abundant but relatively cheap and therefore promises to take market share from nuclear, coal and renewable energy and to replace oil in some transport and industrial uses, over coming decades.
• will help to keep the price of nitrogen fertiliser low and hence keep food prices down, other things being equal.
• is unlikely to be a major source of pollution or methane emissions, but in contrast promises to reduce pollution and accelerate the decarbonisation of the world economy.

According to the Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook 2011, total domestic natural gas production will grow from 21.0 Tcf in 2009 to 26.3 Tcf in 2035. The projected production for 2035 is 3.0 Tcf more than EIA had forecast in its previous annual. The increase will be driven in large part by shale gas production, which will grow to 12.2 Tcf in 2035, when it will be 47% of total U.S. production, up from 16% in 2009.

This paper from the American Clean Skies Foundation provides an updated, comparative fuel chain calculation of the GHG emissions of natural gas- and coal-fired electricity. The analysis incorporates revised 2011 US EPA estimates of fugitive methane emissions from the upstream (i.e., production) portion of the fuel chain. Based on this revised EPA data and average generation heat rates, the paper concludes that existing gas-fired generation is still, on average, about 51% less GHG intensive than existing coal-fired generation. Similarly, a new gas-fired combined-cycle unit produces about 52% less GHG emissions per kWh than a new coal-fired steam unit; about 58% less than the average coal-fired unit; and about 63% less than a typical older coal-fired unit.