It is diabolical what the fucks in charge do.  America has 'cleverly' used Ukraine to make Europe stop using Russian oil and gas.  Now Europe buys from the US and pays three times as much.  And all it took was dead Ukrainians and Russians.

Owning Venezuela is part of this ongoing saga too.

Diabolical fucks in suits are destroying the species.

Richard and Jamarl have it going on.  I wish more than a few thousand people knew about them.  But damn the diabolical fucks are clever.

The interesting part is...even WITH all the ongoing conflicts and threat to steady supplies, the price today is STILL only $58/bbl!  Globally speaking, the Konsumers are tapped out.  Not enough buyers to drive to prices up.

RE

The Russians are managing to keep prices down.  The Saudis are producing at record levels to compete against Russia.  It keeps prices down.

OILPRICE.COM • 2025-11-19

Saudi Crude Oil Exports Soar to Seven-Month High

Saudi Arabia's crude oil exports hit a seven-month high in September as its production jumped to a 29-month high.  Jared Kushner has a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund in his private equity firm, Affinity Partners.  The monopoly of power has their bases covered.

Quote from: K-Dog on Dec 25, 2025, 03:22 PMSaudi Crude Oil Exports Soar to Seven-Month High

Saudi Arabia's crude oil exports hit a seven-month high in September as its production jumped to a 29-month high.  Jared Kushner has a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund in his private equity firm, Affinity Partners.  The monopoly of power has their bases covered.

Sounds more like...PEAK OIL.....AGAIN!!...to me.

Professonally speaking it has been interesting since the last peak oil happened at how...muted....the peak oilers have been. No new PO websites springing to life recycling the mantra and memes of yesteryear, none of hte old ones reviving at all, etc etc.

It's almost like....across decades..once bitten, twice shy applies?

Both the  Ruskies and the Saudis have to keep pumping to keep their economies afloat at such low prices.  Demand destruction on the global level is moving at a faster pace than the supply shrinkage.  There is insufficient credit being dished out on the consumption side to maintain growth and high demand. Most of the 1st world economies that pull consumption are up to their eyeballs in debt and are no longer credit worthy customers. 3rd world countries aren't growing enough to compensate so the whole economic cycle is broken.  What most Peak Oilers never got was that  the prooblem was much more an economic one than a supply one.  Really, the only 3 who ever really got it were Nicole, Steve and me.

RE

Quote from: RE on Dec 25, 2025, 06:27 PMBoth the  Ruskies and the Saudis have to keep pumping to keep their economies afloat at such low prices.  Demand destruction on the global level is moving at a faster pace than the supply shrinkage.  There is insufficient credit being dished out on the consumption side to maintain growth and high demand. Most of the 1st world economies that pull consumption are up to their eyeballs in debt and are no longer credit worthy customers. 3rd world countries aren't growing enough to compensate so the whole economic cycle is broken.  What most Peak Oilers never got was that  the prooblem was much more an economic one than a supply one.  Really, the only 3 who ever really got it were Nicole, Steve and me.

RE

Nicole Foss I presume, but who is Steve? And if it is Nicole Foss, what did she get that caused her to run off and hide in a "world is ending" type commune? She "got" something that never happened? Doesn't exactly give her economic credentials worth spit.

Here is Nicole...presenting on how she fixed her home for peak oil in 2011. You know....the one that the suckers fell for, as compared to the one that occured a decade or more later (depending on WHICH peak oil claim someone fell for early in the century). i don't have when exactly Nicole got involved in the 'Run for the hills, peak is coming!", she didn't seem to be involved much on the technical side, more on the fru-fru "I like the idea of resileince so I'll pimp peak like everyone else because it is popular". I trended towards the alleged technical folks.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESYAix1QD1E

Quotemore an economic one than a supply one.

Yes what is going on now does not have to do with the inevitable decline in long term supply.  What is going on now is about who can control the short term supply and price.  An independent Venezuela is not in that equation.  An independent Venezuela in coordination with Russia could keep prices low enough so expensive American oil can't be exported at a profit. 

America wants to be able to induce some scarcity here and there so our social parasites do not have to work.

Had they the morality of America, Venezuela and Russia would try to keep the price low.  Considering how hard America has worked to make enemies of both Russia and Venezuela they might decide to do that.

And do not forget that America will need Orinoco oil to melt all the ice in Greenland (53rd state after Canada), to get at all the gold because we won't have enough of our own oil to do that. 

I also think the plan is to use A.I. to make this happen so our compassionate great orange leader does not have to loose American lives and capital to get er done.

Piece of 🎂 cake.

Steve Ludlum of Economic Undertow.  Famous for his Triangle of Doom charts.



As for what became of Nicole Foss, I really have no idea what is going through her mind anymore.  I haven't been in touch with her in close to a decade.  Same with Steve.  Lots of folks got into prepping though and building resilience, which is something you can actually do.  Overall, I think all those concerned with the problems stemming from oil dependency became frustrated that no substantive changes could be made at the policy level of goobermint  Blogging on the subject had all the effectiveness of pissing in the wind.

RE

Quote from: K-Dog on Today at 04:54 AM

Quotemore an economic one than a supply one.

Yes what is going on now does not have to do with the inevitable decline in long term supply.  What is going on now is about who can control the short term supply and price.

And this has been the game since shortly after Drake began producing oil. Once there was competition, there certainly were short term price maximazation games. Same applies to apple producers and tire manufacturers.

Amusingly, peak oil also has an economic component, but DAMN did any of them ever want to talk about it, as compared to just pretending that the past predicts the future in the shape of a bell shaped curve.

Quote from: RE on Today at 05:25 AMSteve Ludlum of Economic Undertow.  Famous for his Triangle of Doom charts.

Interesting chart. Appears to be built on argument more than anything else. I'm more of a hard science guy.

Here is an example of a single play, if built for all the producing regions/countries/plays of the world, allows for a flexible stochastic model to be built to discuss price/supply/demand and whatnot.

They are hard to find, the ability to build even a single one can be substantial in terms of data and whatnot, which is why you find them more among those with the data, the EIA and their IEO and WEPS system, sometimes the USGS for at least the US (they have a method, not sure I've seen it applied for all plays as they don't get too deep into economics usually, certainly Rystad has a fully functioning global model as well. I forget what my set costs, but it ain't cheap. It also allows individual customer scenario analysis.

This is one of few the EIA let out the door, they also have better ones, but the last time I saw the internals of their system was like 2018 or so at s World Energy Modeling COnfernece in Maryland. Terribly smart people and with data and insight to boot.

Quote from: RELots of folks got into prepping though and building resilience, which is something you can actually do. 

Remember Pops the moderator at peakoil.com? He ran off to Missouri to do farming way back when. Then in remodeling his farm house he got good at it, moved back to California, did more remodeling than farming and jumped back into the normal economic system with his remodeling gig, as being a farmer and no peak oil effects showing up as predicted sort of took the need out of the survival aspects.

Nicole fled with a nicer gang of educated folks in Australia hiding out from Doom as well, it didn't last but a year or two before financial shenanigans or personal incompatibilities caused the entire thing to implode. It made the papers and everything.

Very few of the communal gang type angles ever worked that I am aware of. When I used to do interviews of these folks it was one of the interesting aspects, that the idea seemed reasonable (Hey! Lets become farmers together!) but in the application? Farming...be HARD. And then no PO shows up....hell I'm going back to teaching community ocllege or whatever, and getting me a hybrid!

The argument proved itself out quite accurately.  He was able to predict the collapse in oil prices 3 years in advance, to the month.  Best economic forecasting I ever saw.  Even his target prices were right on.  The chance he was just "lucky" with a guess that far in advance is close to zero.

RE

Quote from: RE on Today at 08:46 AMThe argument proved itself out quite accurately.  He was able to predict the collapse in oil prices 3 years in advance, to the month. 

Let us start with some basic observations based on his macro level graph and claims.

Firstly, correlation isn't causation for starters. Much like bell shaped curves and oil production...they appear to work until they don't.

Secondly, the universal claim that $125/bbl oil is required for operators to stay in business is disproven by the very idea that oil hasn't been that high since sometime near 2008-2009 spike, and guess what? Lots of oil producers still in business, these 17 years later. Producing more oil than that years particular claimed global peak oil as well.

As far as "predicting" anything, if he drew the lines with post 2015 data and then stated his conclusion, that isn't a prediction. It is an observation, coupled in this case with a bad conclusion, drawn from historical data. If he used this chart pre-2015 to predict the drop in oil prices, that would be different.

So...data is data, but drawing bad conclusions contradicted by your own information is the fault of the author. It should also be observed as to WHY oil price collapsed in 2015....it had nothing to do with two straight lines drawn by someone who's conclusion on the graph is producers only stay alive at an oil price not seen since 2008-2009. I would like to see the R^2 on his line as well, I think there might be a wonderful example of a high R^2 on a line that shows little to no actual correlation as presented.

The reason why price collapsed in 2015 is this: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=66025

Permian oil production growth creating a region that if it were an OPEC country, would be 2nd only to Saudi Arabia.
https://en.macromicro.me/charts/106023/opec-member-countries-crude-oil-production

As the Eagle Ford graph I presented demonstrated there is certainly a volumetric resource availability difference between $65/bbl and $125/bbl. More price = more oil on an asymptotic curve, I was always surprised peakers never brought even the most basic economically based resource availability arguments into their happy go lucky bell shaped curve days. The aggregate of many curves like this EIA one has ZERO requirement of being bell shaped in the aggregate result. In fact, this particular region...according to the EIA....has been basically flat since Covid.

Peakers fled the field of battle for a reason. They couldn't handle the economic relationship between oil production, oil price, and measures of economic availability at those prices, or others. 

In all fairness to the amateurs doing this work, they shouldn't feel too bad, the entire correlation/causation thing can be tricky. Particularly if intertwined with an economic component. So amateurs project into it things they want to see usually. 

Quote from: REBest economic forecasting I ever saw. 

Maybe. depending on the temporal component, as I mentioned earlier. Otherwise it is just line drawing to tell a story around. Did he happen to mention the "why" I just mentioned as well?

Quote from: REThe chance he was just "lucky" with a guess that far in advance is close to zero.
RE

Same as Hubbert it can be argued. For awhile. His chart shows the price collapse BEFORE he ran out of data, arguably he drew a line through it because it was historical, not a prediction. And the price is only for what, about 2019/2020? Project that red line out to the present and he is predicting $30 oil. Check WTI and let me know how low his prediction is today. Hell, he doesn't even label his chart as Brent or WTI for crying out loud.

WTI is about $57/bbl today. Brent is $60. So his guess sucks for 2025. Anyone who plays this game knows that straight lines don't usually work except in limited data regimes or after a data transformation of some type, and this is usually done as part of an argument. "I think oil will be $XX/bbl because.....<fill in the blank>". 

Pretty typical story telling from a data constrained perspective, with a veneer of "analysis" on top of it. Get all the data necessary to do it right, and then you can play in the big leagues. 

Quote from: TDoS on Today at 11:24 AMAs far as "predicting" anything, if he drew the lines with post 2015 data and then stated his conclusion, that isn't a prediction. It is an observation, coupled in this case with a bad conclusion, drawn from historical data. If he used this chart pre-2015 to predict the drop in oil prices, that would be different.

No, this is  just a recent chart, he started producing them back in around 2011-12 as I recall.  They all came before the price collapse.  I find it remarkable you managed to  miss them and him, since I regularly cross posted his blogs and did numerous podcasts with him.  Here's one with me, Steve and Ugo.


As to his current price point of $125 on production,  that has changed, you'd have to ask him why.  I suspect it's a price point for new discoveries, not an average for all production.  $60 on consumption is different as well now, used to be $80 as I recall.  Credit situation has worsened, obviously.

RE

Quote from: RE on Today at 12:13 PM

Quote from: TDoS on Today at 11:24 AMAs far as "predicting" anything, if he drew the lines with post 2015 data and then stated his conclusion, that isn't a prediction. It is an observation, coupled in this case with a bad conclusion, drawn from historical data. If he used this chart pre-2015 to predict the drop in oil prices, that would be different.

No, this is  just a recent chart, he started producing them back in around 2011-12 as I recall.  They all came before the price collapse.  I find it remarkable you managed to  miss them and him, since I regularly cross posted his blogs and did numerous podcasts with him.  Here's one with me, Steve and Ugo.

The website url rings a bell, but the name didn't register. I don't recall any of his work independently, or from that website. I tended to hunt far bigger game, in different venues.

Quote from: REAs to his current price point of $125 on production,  that has changed, you'd have to ask him why.  I suspect it's a price point for new discoveries, not an average for all production.  $60 on consumption is different as well now, used to be $80 as I recall.  Credit situation has worsened, obviously.

RE

The mechanisms of how credit works within the overall scheme of capital investment isn't something normally or directly incorported within the economic modeling of resource development itself, but might have a place within a financial overlay dictating the price that E&Ps see and by extension affect the go/no-go decisions.

Straight up changing price delta models are difficult enough, second or third order assumptions of how the maneuvering of capital takes place behind the scenes isn't something I've ever seen integrated in any believable way to deliver a long price to the resource cost side. I have no doubt it can be done with the necessary resources and personnel, but I've never seen it. And if it lacks a stochastic component I wouldn't believe it by default, no one who knows anything about this type of high quality macro-economic modeling can believable do it without including the uncertainties involved.