Offshore oil projects are experiencing a resurgence due to higher prices
What higher prices are they talking about? Today's price is $68, and it's been under $70 since mid November. The EIA predicted a glut a few months back. The last time it was over $80 was in mid July. This reporter is a tad behind the times.
It is of course not just the frackers that have high costs and relatively expensive oil, the same is true for the deepwater drillers. At under $70 they aren't profitable either, so the wells will be shut in.
The oil also isn't really expensive, as I pointed out in a prior post. Taking into account inflation, oil is actually cheaper now than it was in the 80s. The problem is that everybody's credit line has been maxed out. Industrial enterprises never really are profitable, theey basically just burn energy and turn natural resources into waste products. Nothing of lasting value is ever created no "wealth" is produced. Even the most durable goods end up as landfill eventually. Skyscrapers eventually get demolished and replaced. Carz and planes go to junkyards.
All of this is paid for with credit, the Petrodollar being the primary credit instrument for the last 50 years. Every country and every corporation has borrowed against the future, and now just payin interest on all they borrowed before consumes their income. So new credit is not being issued, the money supply iss not growing, and thus the oil price cannot go up. Is there oil down there? Sure, plenty. It's just not profitable to pump it up or frack it out of the rock.
Credit is now being dished out to build renewable" energy production facilities. Just as once the TBTF banks loaned money to drill oil wells, now they make loans to cover the desert in solar panels or floating windmills in the North Atlantic. These so called "endless" energy production facilities are not in fact endless, they will be junk in 50 years time also unlessconstantly maintained and replaced. Will people be able to afford the energy they produce to pay off the debt incurred to build them and the annual maintenance costs? I doubt the credit scheme works anywhere near as long as it did for fossil fuels. If you begin it with John D. Rockefeller, Standard Oil and Chase Manhattan, the Dollars-Oil credit scheme lasted about 150 years. I'll be surprised if they get 20 years out of the renewables scheme.
As I mentioned in a prior post, the way the Energy Crisis is manifesting itself in the capitalist economy is as a Credit Crisis, and what we are beginning now is the Greatest Depression, one that will not end until Industrial Civilization has completely collapsed and at least 90% of the current population has bought their ticket to the Great Beyond. Kuntsler called it the Long Emergency, which is a good way to describe it. JHK is a jackass, but he's quite good at turning a phrase.
Cuba is the Canary in the Coal Mine, and over the next few years we'll see Cubas popping up all over the globe as various sovereign states lose their access to the international credit markets. Where this is going to be most interesting is in Europe, because European countries are far more dependent on the industrial economy than Cuba. Lights out for hours every day can be handled in Havana, lights out in London, Paris or Berlin for hour every day will be anarchy. No way will those goobermints last very long, nor will the EU. This is why they are advising their populations to prep up.
Collapse has entered a new phase. 2025 will see big changes in many locations around the globe. Break out the Popcorn.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/A-Looming-Supply-Glut-Could-Undermine-the-Offshore-Oil-Boom.html
A Looming Supply Glut Could Undermine the Offshore Oil Boom
RE