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Sunday, March 24, 2013

$500 Million For The Palestinians Released This Weekend; $500 Million Would Pay for 140 Years of White House Tours; 3% Interest on $500 Million Would Pay for 4 Years of Tours

[I'm heading for bed; no more posting until tomorrow. Normally I leave a Bakken story as the "last" post, but the president canceling White House tours really, really bothers me. If you think you've seen this story before, you have. I posted it earlier, but in case folks missed it, I'm posting it again. I seldom re-post anything. That gives you an idea how upset I am with the cancellation of White House tours.]

Today we learn Mr Obama, following his trip to Israel, gave another $500 million to the Palestinians.  That equates to 50,000 days of White House tours. Divide those 50,000 days by 360 days (I assume even fewer days than that are actually open due to official events, Lincoln bedroom commitments, etc), but 50,000 / 365 = 140 years of White House tours.

Actually more because until the 2nd through 140th year-money would be needed, it could be invested in GE stock, paying 3.3% dividend, and potential for share appreciation over those 140 years.  [3.3% of $500 million = $16 million = 1,650 White House tours = almost 5 years of White House tours.]

I assume most of the $500 million will end up in Cyprus banks.

Also, putting the cost of White House tours in perspective: White House tours canceled because it costs $11,000/day for uniformed security.
“We’ve learned that the White House employs three calligraphers, who cumulatively earn $277,000 a year,” reported Strassel. “The Environmental Protection Agency gave $141,000 to fund a Chinese study on swine manure. Part of a $325,000 National Science Foundation outlay went to building a robotic squirrel.”
When will this craziness end?

"Make the sequester as painful as possible." -- President Obama.

Meanwhile, the cost to fly vice-president Biden one-way to his home in Delaware each weekend costs about $10,000, the cost for one day of White House tours. Eliminating a vice-presidential round trip to Delaware each weekend would pay for two days of White House tours.

Best Analysis Of The Week? At SeekingAlpha: Everything You Need To Know About Natural Gas and The Bakken

Richard Zeits is writing: Bakken: The Bounty Of Super-Rich Gas - Everything Investors Need To Know.

I know there is some remuneration for contributing to SeekingAlpha, but it seems in this case, whatever it is, it is not enough. This is an incredible article.

It is so full of data and information, it makes no sense for me to do my usual highlighting. Just go to the linked article and spend some time there. [I did add some comments below.]

For newbies: remember, the Bakken is not considered a "gassy field." The Bakken is an "oily" field. In fact, when I first started blogging about the Bakken I had no plans to talk about natural gas, partly because I did not understand natural gas, but more importantly, because economic value of natural gas in the Bakken was felt to be about 3% of total oil & gas economic value. Incredible, huh? Natural gas in the Bakken with three percent of total oil & gas economic value and natural gas in the Bakken has become a huge story.

From the beginning I gave a lot of credit to ONEOK for pioneering natural gas industry in the Bakken. My interest in natural gas in the Bakken all started when I accidentally drove by a ONEOK natural gas gathering and process plant under construction northwest of Williston and not knowing what it was. Whiting has also become a big name in natural gas in the Bakken. And then this week, it was announced that Crescent Point Energy was going to align all its wells with ONEOK natural gas pipelines in Divide County, north of Williston.  Same with Whiting in its Red River wells in the southwest part of the Bakken, putting in natural gas lines before completing those wells.

Great article. A huge "thank you" to Don for sending me this article. I'm not sure how I missed it earlier this week.

Some Takeaways From the Article

Three things that are important to note about Bakken gas:
  • It is super-rich in NGLs and is characterized by perhaps the highest heat content among North American unconventional plays;
  • It is growing fast; and,
  • As a by-product of drilling for oil, it is essentially "costless."
There is an interesting "convergence" of numbers: the Bakken is forecast to produce 1.5 million bopd by 2015 - 2016 (I think in an earlier post, I mistakenly said "they" projected reaching 1.5 million bopd in the Bakken by the end of this year; at best, I think it's a million); the Bakken could produce 1.5 billion cubic feet/day of  gas within the next three years.

From the article:
With crude production from the Bakken expected to grow for over a decade, associated gas output should also rise to much higher levels, possibly as high as 2.5 Bcfe/d of raw gas at the wellhead. This would position the Bakken as a very significant source of NGL supply in North America and will create a continued growth opportunity for Midstream infrastructure providers focused on the Bakken.
This, perhaps, is the most important part of the linked article:
Not all E&P operators will benefit equally from the processing infrastructure build-out. Given that the Williston Basin remains gas infrastructure short, some operators may find themselves without processing agreements and will have to wait until sufficient capacity is finally available. Production volume and acreage/well concentration are particularly important to an operator's ability to secure gathering & processing agreements on reasonable terms.
The distribution of economic benefit is another important issue. Operators who control processing and gathering infrastructure will obviously be in a better position to receive the highest value for their product. Hess Corp. and Whiting Petroleum are two examples of large operators taking significant control of infrastructure development in their operating areas. Hess' midstream solution is the most comprehensive and integrated: it includes a large-scale processing and fractionation facility, a dedicated ethane pipeline (Vantage pipeline), and an anchor shipper position on a new lateral interconnection to an interstate gas pipeline.
But, good news, short term:
In summary, gas takeaway capacity from the Williston Basin does not appear to have structural constraints, at least in the near term, and all the volumes produced by processing plants should find transportation solutions, regional or interstate. While Bakken gas may trade at a Canadian-type differential to Nymex, the basis should stay reasonably narrow (by the historical standards for AECO basis).
But there is much more to the pipeline story, longer term. Go to the link for more. Be sure to read "Oil Finder"'s comment near the bottom of the comments. He highlights one of the problems publicly traded companies have with quarterly need to please investors.

Third of Three Rambling Posts; The Bakken Is Mentioned (If You Read Far Enough)

The Oil Drum features a nice discussion/analysis of ExxonMobil's energy projections for the future. The writer compares what XOM said in 2011 and what they say in 2012.

Like many such Oil Drum articles, there are a lot of graphs, and a lot of words. I did not read it closely, and I may have misinterpreted the author's conclusions.

But I agree with what I think the author said: the author's bottom line -- XOM's rosy projections for the future are just that: a bit too rosy. XOM says there should be no problem meeting the energy needs in 2040. The author of The Oil Drum article is not so sure.

Early in the article:
By 2040, XOM anticipates that the global population will be approaching nine billion, up by around 25% from current numbers. Of that nearly two billion additional folk most are expected to be born in the developing countries such as India and in Africa, with the former gaining 300 million and the latter 800 million.
Because the majority of the growth occurs in these countries, and the improvement in living standards and working conditions are more energy intensive, (whether air conditioning or iPhones) from a lower base and demand growth is concentrated more in electrical energy demand than that of transportation fuels
Figure 4 at the linked article is a bit strange, especially considering it comes from XOM. The graph is titled: "Industrial Energy Demand by Fuel." These are the six fuels compared, from 2000 to 2040: electricity, market heat, renewables, coal, gas, and oil. (By the way, eliminate "market heat" -- it's inconsequential; one could almost eliminate renewable energy also -- it comprises such a small percent, and the percent changes almost not at all between 2020 and 2040.)

So, back to Figure 4 and the six "fuels." What do you find strange about the breakdown? Yes, "electricity." There is no such thing as "electricity" as a fuel -- it come from something else. Also, note that "nuclear" is missing. Even the author of the article noted that discrepancy:
The report breaks down the growth in demand into several sectors. And this, at first, is a little irritating. The reason is that in describing, for example, the growth in residential/commercial energy demand, the track-back on the power sources stops at the point where electric current comes out of the wall. Given that it is the growth in electricity consumption, projected to grow overall by 85%, that is the greatest contributor over the period this is a little disingenuous. Now it is true that there is a whole section devoted to electricity generation, but the lack of the source fuel portrays a little bit of sleight of hand.
Later on, XOM does address this "sleight of hand," when it discusses the source of electricity. The narrative states that the use of coal will decline:
EM anticipate that coal will continue to gain market until 2025, but from that point forward its share will decline as the main competitors, renewables, nuclear and natural gas take an increasing part of the supply.
The narrative states that the use of coal will decline but the graph is worth a thousand words: the use of coal might decline, but it is almost imperceptible. Whatever decrease in coal use there is, it is offset mostly by natural gas; nuclear to some extent; and, renewable hardly at all. It's really natural gas that makes up the largest growth/demand.

XOM explains the change from coal to natural gas:
One of the reasons for the change, particularly the change to natural gas from coal, comes with the increasing burden of carbon costs, as XOM projects.
The linked article does not explain what is meant by "increasing burden of carbon costs." If we are talking about "global warming carbon costs, carbon taxes, etc" that's a huge assumption. The Kyoto Protocol gave the emerging companies a pass on global warming carbon costs, and in 2040, if there are shooting wars over access to energy (oil and natural gas), it doesn't take a Steven Chu to tell us that countries who wage war for energy, won't be willing to pay Algore carbon taxes. 

Back to transportation energy demands.
XOM project that overall the demand for liquid fuels will rise to 113 million barrels of oil equivalent (mboe) per day by 2040, a 30% growth over 2010 with most of the demand remaining with the transportation needs. The company seems comfortable with industry being able to achieve that level of supply, although the mix will change considerably from that which currently prevails.
  • In 2010, daily global demand: 88 million boe
  • In 2040, projected, daily global demand: 113 million boe
I'm not going to look for it now, but everything I've read suggests that that it will be difficult to get from 88 million boe to 100 million boe, much less 113 million boe.

And then this at the linked article:
And it is here, I fear, that the report becomes overly optimistic. By looking at the relative size of the remaining resource, relative to the production achieved to date, XOM foresee no problem in providing the supply targets that are shown in the above figure. XOM expect that technical innovation will continue to dramatically improve production from the United States and North America in total. Supply growth is anticipated from tight oil in places such as the Bakken, Deepwater from the Gulf and the tar sands. They project that these will combine to lift North American total liquids production by another 40%. When the production from the offshore Brazilian fields and the heavy oil sands of Venezuela are added, then this reinforces the view that they hold of an achievable target. 
I agree completely: "here is where the report becomes overly optimistic."

Back to the linked article:
Yet it is in the Middle East, a region they hardly discuss, that they see the largest growth. XOM don’t actually say where that great growth is likely to come from, but it is very likely heavily weighted towards the most optimistic of estimates for the future production of Iraq, with the ongoing turmoil of the “Arab Spring” being totally discounted. 
"Arab Spring" is the least of "their" problems. Iraq, maybe.  [By the way, and I digress, if President George W. Bush saw the same thing -- remember when Bush was president, there was no Bakken and there was no fracking revolution -- it explains why he was willing to go to war to rid Iraq of a Saddam family dynasty that might extend into 2040.] In fact, to a large extent, the Mideast is Saudi Arabia. Saudi's energy demand is increasing, so much that that it is actually installing huge solar farms. As Saudi's energy demand increases, it makes it less likely for them to increase exports.

A nice article to read at the link. Bottom line for me: I think it's going to be a bit more difficult than XOM suggests to get form 88 million boe to 113 million boe over the next twenty years. If "we" get there, it won't be cheap.

Second of Three Rambling Posts

The January-February, 2013, issue of the Harvard Business Review had two somewhat interesting articles. I was reading a print issue while waiting for my wife's car to be serviced. Unfortunately, one can't read the entire article on-line without a subscription. But here are my notes. One of the two articles was titled "Total Shareholder Return: The Grass Isn't Greener," by Evan Hirsh and Kasturi Rangan.

The authors looked at approximately 50 sectors in which one can invest, such as oil and gas, chemicals, commercial banking, leisure equipment, water utilities, utilities (non-water), etc.

The authors were exploring the question what a new CEO should do to improve shareholder return. The authors suggest that a lot of (new) CEOs look to other sectors when trying to improve shareholder return rather than concentrating on their own core competency. Moving into another sector can be done a couple of ways: start a new business from scratch; or, buy another company.

The authors provide a very revealing graph. They plot shareholder return over time by sector, and then within sector by company. The median shareholder return across all 50 sectors was incredibly unvarying: the median was pretty much 17% across all 50 sectors, and throwing out the two outliers, the sector with the lowest return and the sector with the highest return, made the median return even more consistent across all sectors. So, whether the sector is leisure equipment or chemicals, the median return of the sector was about 17%.

However, there was a completely different story within sectors. Some sectors varied from highly negative returns to highly positive returns. Other sectors had very narrow differences.

It was not surprising to see the utility sector with the least variability. The worst-performing utility was not a whole worse than the best-performing utility, at least compared to the oil and gas sector in which the spread between the worst-performing oil and gas sector and the best-performing sector was huge.

The sectors with the largest spreads: commercial banks, chemicals (huge spread), and oil & gas.

The sectors with the narrowest spreads: energy equipment, utilities, water utilities, life equipment , packaging, road and rail, and leisure equipment.

The article was written for CEOs and consultants when faced with the question what to do when looking to increase shareholder return. Their conclusion: don't look outside one's own core competency. On average, if a company moves into a new sector, the company will very likely simply meet the median for shareholder return; worse, moving away from their core competency and it could be much worse.

And that's where the article ended.

But, for investors, there might be another takeaway. It seems obvious, but if one wants to increase the odds of improving one's personal investing return, invest in a sector with a larger spread on shareholder return. If one invests in utilities, one almost doesn't need to do a lot of research looking for the best utility. The spread between the best and the worst is very narrow. But if investing in commercial banking, one must be a very, very good stock picker (or very lucky). The spread between the best commercial bank and the worst commercial bank is huge.

With regard to oil & gas, one suggestion. The authors should have separated out oil-centric oil & gas companies from natural-gas-centric oil & gas companies. I assume the spreads would have been much different than the very wide spread for oil & gas companies in general.

First of Three Rambling Posts

The January-February, 2013, issue of the Harvard Business Review had two somewhat interesting articles. I was reading a print issue while waiting for my wife's car to be serviced. Unfortunately, one can't read the entire article on-line without a subscription. But here are my notes. One of the two articles was titled "How People Really Use Mobile; Seven Primary Motivations."
  • Self-expression was defined as hobbies and interests. Like using mobile to read about bass fishing.
  • Discovery: seeking news and information. Like using mobile to learn about the various bass species.
  • Preparation: planning for upcoming activities. Like using mobile to find next bass fishing tournament.
  • Accomplishing: managing financial health and productivity. Like using mobile to access cash at one's Schwab account to pay for the bass tournament.
  • Shopping: self-explanatory. Like using mobile to buy plane tickets to get you to the bass fishing tourney.
  • "Me Time": social networking, videos, window shopping; purely goofing around on the net; nothing serious; relaxing; couch potato stuff
Okay, excluding e-mailing, SMS messages, and voice-over-internet (telephone calls), how do folks use their mobile devices?
  • Self-expression: 1% of the time, folks are using mobile to learn more about their hobby, such as fishing
  • Discovery: 4% of the time, folks are using mobile to learn about the various bass species 
  • Preparation: 7% of the time, folks are using mobile to find the next bass tourney; how to get there, etc
  • Accomplishing: 11% of the time, folks are using mobile to access cash to pay for their trip
  • Shopping: 12% of the time, folks are using mobile to actually buy the plane ticket
  • "Me Time": 47% of the time, folks are using mobile to mindless surf the net
I would assume, that outside the office, this about the same for folks who don't have a SmartPhone or a tablet and use their laptops for the same purposes as above. Actually, my hunch is that "Me Time" decreases on a laptop, and shopping drops down considerably. It only takes a few minutes to actually but a plane ticket on-line or order books through Amazon. Remember, looking for the plane ticket and/or looking for a book is covered under "discovery" and "preparation."

On a laptop, more time would be spent on "accomplishing," managing financial health and productivity. "Accomplishing" would have a higher percent value, and "Me Time" would have a lower percent value. Laptops are much, much better for productivity. I can't imagine many folks "doing their taxes" on their SmartPhone or even their tablet.

The percentages for each category would likely vary among different groups. I can't imaging non-working spouses with no responsibility for family finances actually spending 11% of their mobile time on managing financial health and/or productivity. I assume the percentages were taken from web-data in the aggregate without concentrating on any specific group.

That mobile devices are used almost half the time for "me time" is not surprising. And much "me time" was probably not captured if this was data from the web: a lot of time is spent playing solitaire and Free Cell.

Wells Coming Off The Confidential List Over the Weekend, Monday

Note Fidelity's  Sanish well and 4-section spacing; it's a relatively short lateral; really only one section-long lateral but with the spacing, mineral owners in four sections will share royalties.

Active rigs: 187 (nice)

Monday, March 25, 2013
  • 22285, 1,329, Whiting, Buckman 44-9PH, Bell, t9/12; cum 37K 1/13;
  • 22286, 1,669, Whiting, Buckman 34-9PH, Bell, t9/12; cum 56K 1/13;
  • 22508, 291, Hunt, Bear Butte 1-5-8H, Bear Butte, t2/13; cum --
  • 23259, drl, KOG, Grizzly 146-99-3-3-10-13H3, Ranch Creek,
  • 23451, drl, WPX, Dancing Bull 16-21HC, Van Hook,
  • 23573, drl, Hess, AN-Bohmbach 153-94-2734H-5, Antelope,
  • 23762, 1,246, XTO, Nelson State 24X-33A, Indian Hill, t2/13; cum --
Sunday, March 24, 2013
  • 22520, 1,235, SM Energy, Anderson Federal 16-15H, Croff, t12/12; cum 45K 1/13;
  • 23147, 676, Fidelity, EHB 19-30-29H, Sanish, 4 sections; t9/12; cum 35K 1/13;
  • 23177, 648, Enerplus, Coyote 151-94-33DH TF, Antelope, t1/13; cum 15K 1/13;
  • 23373, 1,833, KOG, P State 154-97-3-16-21-14H3, Truax, t12/12; cum 21K 1/13;
  • 23504, 864, American Eagle, Megan 14-12-163-101, Colgan, t12/12; cum 40K 1/13;
  • 23715, drl, XTO, ND State 43X-16B, Stoneview,
Saturday, March 23, 2013
  • 23728, drl, CLR, Caroline 1-2H, Rosebud,
  • 23761, 825, XTO, Nelsen State 24X-33F, Indian Hill, t2/13; cum --
Comments: XTO seems particularly active. For all its acreage and all its rigs, it sure doesn't seem like CLR reports many wells coming off the confidential list. None of the wells above posted any production numbers. Rosebud is a huge field southwest of Williston, north of the river.

Around The Net

Pretty much, for investors only:

Random Sign -- Sent To Me By a Reader; Why The Blog Has No Comment Function


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On a completely different note, after the NDIC site came back up after being down for five days, I was way behind on the data. I turned off the comment function because comments slow me down, and I needed time to catch up on all the NDIC data.

When NDIC went down for five days, it gave me a chance to think about the blog.

One out of ten comments, maybe one out of twenty comments, that come in are worth publishing. Fifteen out of 20 comments are "robotic" spam, not even written by a human. Just spam advertising some website, usually for payday loans or something along that line. Those comments obviously don't get posted.

I have to go through each comment individually; takes time.

Of the other five of twenty comments, three of them are from readers who really, really dislike Big Oil and gripe about the oil industry. Those I don't print either.

So, I get one or two comments out of 20 that are worth posting; takes a lot of time. And even those comments don't often add much to the blog.

When the NDIC site came back up, I had five days of data to go through and comments would delay getting caught up.

So, for now, I've left the comment function off. They're a lot of work for very little return.

So far, it's made my life a lot easier and I've been able to post a lot more than usual.

$500 Million For The Palestinians Released This Weekend; Equates to 140 Years of White House Tours

White House tours canceled because it costs $11,000/day for uniformed security. Also at the link:
“We’ve learned that the White House employs three calligraphers, who cumulatively earn $277,000 a year,” reported Strassel. “The Environmental Protection Agency gave $141,000 to fund a Chinese study on swine manure. Part of a $325,000 National Science Foundation outlay went to building a robotic squirrel.” 
And today we learn Mr Obama, following his trip to Israel, gave another $500 million to the Palestinians.  That equates to 50,000 days of White House tours. Divide those 50,000 days by 360 days (I assume even fewer days than that are actually open due to official events, Lincoln bedroom commitments, etc), but 50,000 / 365 = 140 years of White House tours.

Actually more because until the 2nd through 140th year-money would be needed, it could be invested in GE stock, paying 3.3% dividend, and potential for share appreciation over those 140 years.  [3.3% of $500 million = $16 million = 1,650 White House tours = almost 5 years of White House tours.]

I assume most of the $500 million will end up in Cyprus banks.

When will this craziness end?

"Make the sequester as painful as possible." -- President Obama.

Meanwhile, the cost to fly vice-president Biden one-way to his home in Delaware each weekend costs about $10,000, the cost for one day of White House tours. Eliminating a vice-presidential round trip to Delaware each weekend would pay for two days of White House tours.

The Bakken: The Crown Jewel of America's On-Shore Domestic Oil Play

CNBC is reporting (a reader alerted me to the story).
In the resurgence of US energy production, one spillover effect has been to put relatively obscure places on the map. One of those is Bakken, an oil hub that some believe could challenge the Gulf Coast's prodigious crude output.
Bakken, a region stretching through swaths of North Dakota and Montana, has transformed itself into a major site of US crude production.The formation is now seen as the future of oil drilling in the U.S., and is an epicenter of pipeline expansion projects designed to capitalize on production. Estimates say the region's oil output has more than doubled over the last two years.
According to official data cited by North Dakota's Department of Mineral Resources and the Energy Information Agency, Bakken crude production surged from 274,000 barrels per day in January 2011 to 673,000 in January 2013.
Yet private estimates put that figure even higher, stating Bakken generates more than 800,000 barrels per day — with the potential to top one million barrels within the next few years. Analysts expect some 33,000 wells will be drilled there over the next 20 years, with more than 5,000 coming by 2015. 
Flashback: Jane Nielson said:
Frequent Internet users are getting emails about the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and Montana, supposedly a great oil bonanza just waiting to be tapped if only nasty enviros would let it happen. The emails and websites say that Bakken would solve all our petroleum “needs.” (What, me worry about  global warming?)
Don’t believe it. There’s some oil to be gotten out of Bakken, and it’s going to be exploited. But the “bonanza” is nothing but hype.
Flashback: Snopes.

This Is Not Good But I Assume President Obama Has Israel's Back

Updates

May 5, 2013: The President's "not-so-red-line" in Syria. In over his head.

Original Post

Reuters is reporting that Israel fired into Syria overnight, destroying a machine gun "nest." The president just left the region; I assume he slept through it. It's a pretty small story; a "dog-bites-man" story but it's the lead story for some sites.

Record Cold in North Dakota; Now It's Winter Storm Virgil

The Weather Channel is reporting: the winter that won't end. 
Meanwhile, the swath of significant snowfall will continue Sunday from Missouri and southern Iowa into Illinois and Indiana, expanding east into Ohio Sunday afternoon. The snow is taking the form of a one-two punch, with an eastern lobe of snow being followed by a second zone of accumulating snow farther west, both tracking east across mostly the same areas.
The heaviest snow will wind down across Missouri late Sunday afternoon into Sunday evening, and the Ohio Valley later Sunday night. However, lighter snows will linger into Monday across most of this region even as Virgil focuses its heavier impacts on the Mid-Atlantic.
AccuWeather is reporting 20 million people will be in the path of this storm

From a reader in southwestern North Dakota:
We are at 3 degrees this morning. We have 4 inches of snow on the ground. I remember only one other spring this cold up north.
The Bismarck Tribune is reporting record cold for March:
March is a popular time for North Dakota cows to calve. Some producers are in the middle of calving season, while others are just starting. Temperatures in March usually have climbed out of the deep freeze, making it easier on calves.
Of course, North Dakota’s winter has a way of overstaying its welcome. Recent days of snow and cold have shown that all too well. And while a long-lasting winter can be an annoyance for many here, it can be a dangerous time for newborn calves.
Take this month, for example. The average temperature for March in Bismarck, based on 20 years of data, is 29.9 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. The average temperature so far this March has been 21.3 degrees through Thursday. The average high for March in Bismarck is 40.4; this March, the average high has been 31.2 through Thursday. The average low for March in Bismarck is 19.4 degrees; this year, it has been 11.4 through Thursday.
Every road in Kansas is snow packed. For the global warming activists, a reminder: this is spring. (The link is dynamic; the posting was accurate at the time of posting.)

Meanwhile Algore is calling for a carbon tax NOW! No link; story easily found.

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A Note to the Granddaughter

Global warming alarmists should read Paul Collins' new book, The Birth of the West, c. 2013, to understand the effects of global warming a bit more. Just one excerpt, more to follow:
Throughout the classical period from the fifth century BC onward, much of the Mediterranean world was deforested by increasing population and the use of timber for shipbuilding and housing (and fuel, he could have added). After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the early fifth century [AD] until the tenth century, a sizable proportion of the forests recovered because the climate was warmer, which encouraged vegetation growth, and the population decreased after the Roman Empire collapsed.