Monday Charts and News -- Breakthrough Oil Technology and More

Buyers of my new oil report will remember Repsol. Here's some good news ...

Repsol Chases Breakthrough Technology as Offshore Oil Politics Heat Up

Spanish-Argentinean oil major Repsol and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center’s Kaleidoscope Project team at the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid on July 1 announced early research results that lead them to believe a major breakthrough in offshore oil exploration is within reach. Working with IBM BladeCenter QS22 supercomputers -- built around IBM’s PowerXCell 8i processor, originally developed for use in Sony video game consoles -- Repsol and BSC researchers believe they now have a methodology, "Reverse Time Migration", and the tools to speed up exploration and development of deep oil and gas fields on- and off-shore up to six times compared to the technology currently employed by the oil and gas industry.

Here are some charts ...


Up, up and away!

From Calculated Risk …

Using the EIA price data, and making a few assumptions (no increase in energy consumption in 2008, and an energy mix of 40% petroleum, 23% coal, 23% natural gas, and 14% nuclear and renewables), we can estimate that energy consumption as a percent of U.S. GDP will set a record in 2008 of over 14%.

Banking Losses to Hit $1.6 Trillion

From Infectious Greed ….

The expected losses from the financial crisis will reach $1600 billion. To-date financial institutions have so far announced only $400 billion. The pessimistic forecast comes from a confidential study by Bridgewater Associates, the second largest hedge fund in the world.

"We are facing an avalanche of bad assets," says the study. The biggest losses were the U.S. credit banks before. "We have big doubts that the financial institutions will be able to have enough new capital in order to cover the losses," the authors write.

Vroom-Vroom!

From Bloomberg …

Mattel's market cap just surpassed that of GM. The maker of Hot Wheels and Matchbox now has a market cap of $6.22B versus the $5.76b cap of the maker of non-toy cars GM.

Oil Trades Near $144 After Falling on Iran's Response on Nuclear Program Crude oil traded near $144 a barrel in New York as Iran said its nuclear program policy remains unchanged a day after responding to an incentives package by world powers to halt uranium enrichment.

XX Sean’s note – 5 gets you 10 that this good news on Iran falls apart in the next couple weeks.

Corn, Soybeans May Rise as Hot Weather Threatens U.S. Crop, Survey Shows Corn and soybeans may rise to records on speculation a shift to hot, dry weather will reduce plant yields after record rains last month in the U.S. Midwest stunted root development, leaving crops vulnerable to heat stress.

Cameco Scoops 550t of Yellowcake in Secret Deal

Saskatoon-based Cameco Corp. purchased the reported 550 tonnes of ''yellowcake'', the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment, in a deal reported to be in the tens of millions of dollars.

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