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7514. thoughtful - 5/22/2008 10:41:07 PM Re oil, 2 interesting pieces of data.
One is....check the doe energy information site and look at rig counts....it's nowhere near as high as it was in the 80s. How come?
2nd bit of data is there are apparently 9300 approved drilling permits outstanding that haven't been acted upon by the oil cos.
How come?
7515. thoughtful - 5/22/2008 10:43:07 PM oh yeah...let's not draw any rash conclusions about rig counts and the windfall profits tax...rig counts went up when the profits tax came on...perhaps the oil co's figured out then that they might as well actually put their profits to good use increasing supply since they weren't going to be enjoying the profits anyway with the tax on...
Nah! Can't be. 7516. alistairConnor - 5/22/2008 10:54:46 PM I don't understand a word of that, Tful. I imagine you're talking about the USA?
All of the rigs in the world are fully employed. Costs have escalated through the roof. All the easy oil is already being exploited. Lots of marginal fields, difficult and expensive to develop, slow to produce.
The world oil industry is running full steam, overheated. World oil production will probably increase, marginally, for another year. Or two. 7517. concerned - 5/22/2008 11:04:21 PM When you planning to pay up, AC? 7518. jexster - 5/23/2008 12:30:15 AM He didn't arrive until May 15th!
Let's be thankful he isn't trying to appease our enemies
Look what his dune coon buddies did to him!
Funny how Bin Laden, Bush and McBush all feed from the same trough isn't it 7519. alistairconnor - 5/23/2008 8:51:18 AM When you planning to pay up, AC?
We'll wait for the BP data. 7520. thoughtful - 5/23/2008 12:59:18 PM AC, what I'm suggesting is that high oil prices lead to increased exploration and production and so rig counts go up. They ran up like crazy in the 80s. But not this time around. Why?
The oil cos in the US say there's plenty of oil around but they're not allowed to drill it due to environmental concerns. But the data show there are at least in the US 9,300 permits issued for drilling activity that have not been acted upon.
Clearly the oil fields are less productive than in the past...the easy stuff has been found. But the less productive fields become viable as oil prices run up, as they have most recently. So why hasn't the activity???
The other big difference between the 80s and now is there was a windfall profits tax in effect then...not now.
See? 7521. alistairconnor - 5/23/2008 1:15:38 PM OK I see. It might seem more logical that the lack of a tax would stimulate extra activity this time around, but...
I agree. My analysis is that the oil majors aren't actually very interested in opening up new, difficult, capital-intensive fields. They have an incredibly profitable racket going on : they are sitting on reserves of easy oil that have increased astronomically in value, and so their stock price has followed. It's far easier to hand out dividends than to do all that dirty work developing new fields, that can never be as profitable as their current holdings.
On the bottom end of the industry, there are hundreds of small outfits that are experts at squeezing the last drop out of marginal or abandoned oil fields.
What is lacking, presumably, is a middle tier of companies with enough capital to do the new developments that the big boys aren't very interested in.
Result : the whole thing is a sunset industry. I'd much rather the big boys were taxed on their super-profits to encourage (to force) investment in renewables, on a huge scale. Because that's what's needed. Drilling the parks isn't going to change the game. Leave it in the ground. 7522. thoughtful - 5/23/2008 3:47:11 PM Well my thinking is the tax last time prevented them from gaining so much from limiting supply as the benefits were taxed away. This time, they gain so much profit from limiting supply, they have no incentive to fix it.
And of course, they have no incentive to develop alternatives...cutting off one's nose to spite one's face... 7523. jexster - 5/25/2008 1:09:44 AM America the Humiliated
Now the French are laughing at us....
In the beginning of the 1970s, when a barrel of black gold cost less than $2, no one imagined that one day an American president would be reduced to begging the king of Saudi Arabia...
Le Monde: The Power Has Changed Sides 7524. jexster - 5/25/2008 1:17:42 AM Hugo has us by the balls ....
and all we have is George W. Bush and his designated heir, an old man who is quite possibly even dumber than him
Consumer countries' dependence is linked to the fragility of the multinational companies. Oil states and their national public companies share 85 percent of the world's reserves. The majors no longer hold more than 15 percent and are having trouble reconstituting that percentage to the extent they draw those reserves down. What weight does "giant" ExxonMobil - the biggest listed company in the world - carry compared to Gazprom or Saudi Aramco? The great Western companies' access to oil fields - closed in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Mexico, ever more difficult in Russia, Venezuela and Algeria - would involve "returning to the period before the 1970s' nationalizations," believes Nicolas Sarkis, director of the "Arab Oil and Gas Review." 7525. jexster - 5/25/2008 1:19:39 AM Gazprom...McManchurian Candidate..how does that fit your international Muzzie-Commie Conspiracy Mandrake..errrr ConnedMan? 7526. jexster - 5/29/2008 6:15:04 PM Better Than Corn 7527. arkymalarky - 5/29/2008 10:15:20 PM Anyone here use Dreamweaver? 7528. concerned - 5/29/2008 10:53:03 PM What a strange demented sand box of a world jexster must occupy. 7529. anomie - 5/29/2008 11:03:21 PM I don't know what Dreamweaver is Arky, but it reminds me of an old 70s song.
7530. anomie - 5/29/2008 11:05:45 PM Is Microsoft stupid? The tablet pc was a flop and now they're touting a touch screen system. I'm happy with my hand resting on the mouse. I don't want to be raising it up to a screen every 5 seconds. And imagine the dirt and fingerprints. 7531. jexster - 6/3/2008 1:07:31 AM Global Warming "Africanizing" Spain 7532. jexster - 6/3/2008 1:25:52 AM Life on mars!?!?!?!
 7533. concerned - 6/3/2008 9:26:14 PM Re. 7531 -
It's due to development, not global warming.
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