Peak Oil 101

[RE]

You presume intent where none may exist. If you aren't a big name (you seriously think Gail The Actuary is a name?) you might write for some of these rags because you get name recognition. The information they work with? Unlikely to be raw data. Scrape websites of companies and state web pages maybe? Might not have the skills to use it if they did. So they take free EIA/IEA/OPEC reports and data and weave a story as best they can. No rigging of market desires or anything else, just best efforts.

What do you think their information budget might even be? Next to nothing? Which is why they use all the free stuff, and oftentimes themselves read the writings of others, mix in some personal take or spin, call that "research" and write it up.
 
There are analysts out there who are just doing the best they can with what they've got. "Influence" investors? You don't think the investors who are good at what they do? I say those BCG folks are damn shitfire on top of things. And they know the difference between Gail telling them we are all doomed...because of high oil price...oops...no...because of low oil prices...oops...its about ALL energy....ad infinitum...and those worth top dollar for their work. And you don't find them handing that out for free.

I never mentioned Gail Tverberg nor is her name associated with this article, which was written by the Ruskie girl over there, Tsvetana Paraskova.  WTF do you bring up Gail?  She's not involved in this at all.

Nothing exists in a vacuum, so I don't buy no intent as plausible.  Plus nobody asked for advice, they merely polled a bunch of "experts" who are anonymous and took an average from their responses.  So the question remains of who these anonymous experts are and why a poll is published with a number that is more than 15% off to the high side.  Reuters is a huge newz organization with plenty of money and resources to do research.   That's a huge difference for anybody who invests of course.  Big institutional investors with their own in house experts probably don't pay attention to this but these guys who pitched out those numbers are selling to somebody.

RE

[TDoS]

I never mentioned Gail Tverberg nor is her name associated with this article, which was written by the Ruskie girl over there, Tsvetana Paraskova.  WTF do you bring up Gail?  She's not involved in this at all.

I brought up Gail as an example because she the prototype of the "analyst" opinion written up in these articles...and her insipid analysis continues to this very day. Tsvetana I have been watching for awhile as her articles show up there fairly often. She doesn't do pesudo oil/energy "expert" charade like Gail does, she sticks more to mainstream titles and ideas and just appears to fall into "normal writer without direct experience" type.

You were not specific about whom you presumed was trying to rig the markets, but Gail would certainly not be one of them obviously.

Nothing exists in a vacuum, so I don't buy no intent as plausible.

Of course you don't. You have your way of figuring out problems, it has worked for you since you were 4 and smarter than everyone around you. You've decided you are correct, therefore you are correct. All quite self referential.

You asked a question and I answered it. Not from your position of believing in some macro level idea, but from direct experience. In your world, there is no reason to incorporate people with decades of experience in the undersanding of a thing, if you happen to believe it otherwise.

Plus nobody asked for advice, they merely polled a bunch of "experts" who are anonymous and took an average from their responses.  So the question remains of who these anonymous experts are and why a poll is published with a number that is more than 15% off to the high side.  Reuters is a huge newz organization with plenty of money and resources to do research.  That's a huge difference for anybody who invests of course.  Big institutional investors with their own in house experts probably don't pay attention to this but these guys who pitched out those numbers are selling to somebody.
RE

I know Reuters has money and resources. As does most everyone else in my arena of interest. So what? My job isn't to make money off of whomever speculating in the markets. My job is to do solid analysis upon which to make decisions, short the market, go long in the market, whatever. Renewable folks are also asking questions in my area of expertise.

It has been quite a change. I made a career starting out explaining why peak oil 20+ years ago was a crock, being right about that morphed into explaining how big shale resources could be and quantifying it as it was happening, and now the renewables folks are asking questions about flattening US production and the geologic and cost limitations, to find the point for renewables in various forms to undercut fossil fuels. And to some extent trying to figure out the next US or world peak oil to "pile on" as it were.

[RE]

Of course you don't. You have your way of figuring out problems, it has worked for you since you were 4 and smarter than everyone around you. You've decided you are correct, therefore you are correct. All quite self referential.

First you drag Gail Tverberg into this out of the blue and now you get all huffy because I find it unlikely there is no agenda underlying this poll?  None of this has anything to do with the article or the mismatch between the BoA numbers and the Reuters poll numbers.  You're just cluttering this up with irrelevancies to confuse the issue.  Enjoy the cooler.

RE

[K-Dog]

What does the argument about peak oil have to do with real world conditions?

The bailer is lowered into a slurry of oil and mud 1000 feet down.  Holes on the end are opened by a plunger that is pushed up when the bailer hits bottom.  An old engine from a dumptruck lifts the bailer up and it is dropped onto the retaining pond.  The plunger opens the holes when the bailer is dropped and oil squirts out like the money shot in a porn movie.  The oil slurry is put into 55 gallon drums, and the oil is collected from the top after it separates from the mud.

Another 55 gallon drum boils oil for distillation into diesel fuel and gasoline.  The Diesel is used to run the well.  The gas is used in motorbikes.

Saying all this is a bit messy is an understatement.  Local farmland is destroyed and the best minimum wage job around is working the oil.  There are no good jobs for the locals.  The locals do not know what peak oil is.  All they know is that they are screwed.

The Dutch started this clusterfuck over 100 years ago.

[K-Dog]

more:

[RE]

The article leads with this:

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

[RE]

Down to $67/bbl today!  Can we make it to the $50s?  How low can they go?

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-prices-dip-extended-opec-supply-cuts-highlight-weak-demand-2024-12-06/

Oil prices fall on supply glut fears despite OPEC+ output cut extension

RE

[K-Dog]

Down to $67/bbl today!  Can we make it to the $50s?  How low can they go?

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-prices-dip-extended-opec-supply-cuts-highlight-weak-demand-2024-12-06/

Oil prices fall on supply glut fears despite OPEC+ output cut extension

RE

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/BTL/2024/01-brentprice/article.php

[RE]

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/BTL/2024/01-brentprice/article.php

$79?  That's $14 over the price BoA came up with and Tdos came up with also in his analysis as most likely.  So it seems improbable because of that, and seems improbable also because of weak demand in China and the political mess in Europe.  The House of Saud is also slow with production cuts, so about the only thing propping up the price is fear of Vlad the Impaler and the usual Israeli-Palestinian nonsense.

I'm in the camp with BoA and Tdos.  It will be in the $60s IMHO.  Although it might touch 50s at some point, I din't think it can possibly stay that low very long.  We'd need a full on depression for that.  Which isn't impossible either, but I think it's still too soon for that.

Exciting times tho.

RE

[TDoS]

Of course you don't. You have your way of figuring out problems, it has worked for you since you were 4 and smarter than everyone around you. You've decided you are correct, therefore you are correct. All quite self referential.

First you drag Gail Tverberg into this out of the blue and now you get all huffy because I find it unlikely there is no agenda underlying this poll?

Gail was referenced as a specific example of the kind of "expert" that supplies articles to places that can't get their hands on the experts, or afford them, to get the quality of answers similar to the one I provided.

I don't get huffy. Ever. Has no place in the legal system as a defendant, doesn't work in the harsh reality of the oilfield, certainly scientific research cares NOTHING about emotion of any kind, and the obvious origins on your thoughts on market manipulation I've already explained.

None of this has anything to do with the article or the mismatch between the BoA numbers and the Reuters poll numbers.

You asked for something specific from me, and I provided it, and to an order of magnitude of more precision than the ones you pulled from the press. You're welcome.

[RE]

Gail was referenced as a specific example of the kind of "expert" that supplies articles to places that can't get their hands on the experts, or afford them, to get the quality of answers similar to the one I provided.

Well maybe, but she wasn't referenced here by name and I doubt she was one of the people polled by Reuters.  You already agreed Reuters has plenty of money and resources to afford quality experts also, so it's not a question of insufficient funds.  Therefore, there must be another explanation underlying the motive for publishing such a poll.

I don't get huffy. Ever.

You should read your own prose for tone.

Of course you don't. You have your way of figuring out problems, it has worked for you since you were 4 and smarter than everyone around you. You've decided you are correct, therefore you are correct. All quite self referential.

Huffiness in extremis. lol

RE

[TDoS]

Of course you don't. You have your way of figuring out problems, it has worked for you since you were 4 and smarter than everyone around you. You've decided you are correct, therefore you are correct. All quite self referential.

Huffiness in extremis. lol
RE

Indeed. My observation of this personal characteristic of yours is now more than a decade old. And as it has been carved into your psyche from an early age, it is a powerful characteristic of how you work. Once that fact is established it can then be taken advantage of. If you can just be led to the point where YOU convince yourself you know the answer, it becomes immutable.

It isn't as though this hasn't been known forever.

1) "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake"
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

[RE]

Of course, you observe I know how smart I am and I observe you get huffy about it.  Has nothing to do with the reasons behind the publication of a Reuters poll that is so out of line with other easily found estimates of what the price will be.  Far as mistakes are concerned, we seem to agree Reuters made a mistake with their numbers and you made a mistake dragging Gail Tverberg in out of the blue and I admit to making a mistake trying to hold a civil conversation with you.  Otherwise I'm not sure how Sun Tzu's strategy is particularly helpful here.

RE

[TDoS]

Of course, you observe I know how smart I am and I observe you get huffy about it. 

I have no objection to your intelligience.Stupid people are far more likely to be uncertain in their thoughts and actions, and therefore more random in their responses to stimuli. Less predictable.  I revel in your certainty because of your intelligience. I've been working with people at least as smart as you since I graduated college and ran into my first Harvard grad oil company owner. And his CalTech cousin. And his Harvard law roommate. And the BCG folks who came up with the money to buy bankrupt oil companies which were then handed off to me to manage. 

... I'm not sure how Sun Tzu's strategy is particularly helpful here.
RE

Indeed. Which is the entire point. 

[RE]

Indeed. Which is the entire point. 

No, the entire point is that we are being fed a bunch of bullshit in the dissemination of this Reuters poll.  Your predictable response to that is to distract from the point by making this about your strategic application of ancient Chinese war strategy to a personal war where I represent the enemy.

The distraction doesn't illuminate the topic, so there's no reason to further pursue the discussion.  However, you did manage to make it through this one without violating any rules seriously enough to warrant cooler time, which is some progress.  You may eventually make some kind of worthwhile contribution to a discussion.  Keep up the good work!   

RE