Big Oil Companies Should Adopt a Self-Liquidation Strategy

If I were to stereotype smokers I wouldn't call the a group of luxury item buyers. I know tobacco isn't a necessity but the anacedata point from me would be that poverty and tobacco use are closely correlated.

You can make plastics out of natural gas , and there's a shift to that happening. Also for some plastics some companies are starting to use biotech. And as for drugs, there are alternative routes to oil , at least at the research level - but it's a far easier problem, since it's less cost sensitive(per volume).

This author seems to be confused as to the realities on the ground, and engages in over-simplified analyses of the actions of various parties. If he really believed what he was saying, he would be shorting oil stocks and futures; but this piece really seems to be more like a Thomas Friedman prognostication (, which is to say a simplistic faux-intellectual self-indulgent scribbling).[1]

He seems to be reading what can only be described as 'the worst microeconomics textbook known to man' if he believes the quote below. All economists I have ever heard of believe that people (countries, and companies) should diversify their portfolios and hedge against risks, and that even if that were not true, politicians are largely mercantilists.[2]

>"Of course, the real world is never as simple as an economics textbook. Geopolitical tensions, transport costs, and infrastructure bottlenecks mean that oil-consuming countries are willing to pay a premium for energy security, including the accumulation of strategic supplies on their own territory."

Then he proceeds to read the minds of oil company executives, which is interesting, because I'm betting they know a lot of things this author does not, and they are no fools. In addition, an oil executive would have to be deaf, dumb, blind, and ignorant to believe in constantly rising oil prices after the last 10 years, and most of them seem quite intelligent and aware of reality.

>"That is precisely the strategy of self-liquidation that tobacco companies used, to the benefit of their shareholders. If oil managements refuse to put themselves out of business in the same way, activist shareholders or corporate raiders could do it for them. If a consortium of private-equity investors raised the $118 billion needed to buy BP at its current share price, it could immediately start to liquidate 10.5 billion barrels of proven reserves worth over $360 billion, even at today’s “depressed” price of $36 a barrel. There are two reasons why this has not happened – yet. Oil company managements still believe, with quasi-religious fervor, in perpetually rising demand and prices. So they prefer to waste money seeking new reserves instead of maximizing shareholders’ cash payouts. And they contemptuously dismiss the only other plausible strategy: an investment shift from oil exploration to new energy technologies that will eventually replace fossil fuels."

TLDR; This article is just click-bait, and we should all disregard it. This man is no Andy Grove.[3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Friedman

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_(finance)

[3] http://watercoolernewsletter.com/the-revolving-door-test-how...

The article ignores some realities. 1) The major OPEC producers need to recover far more than their lifting costs. Their oil revenues subsidize the rest of the economy and is their bulwark of social stability. Some estimate that Saudi Arabia needs $90/bbl. 2) Technological adaptation to the low price regime is happening as we speak. The years of $100/bbl oil developed expensive innovations, and now we are seeing those prices reduced to their marginal costs. 3) Almost no other country can use these new technologies as profitably as the US and Canada can. The US and Canada have a private mineral ownership regime, as well as a production and refinement infrastructure no other country will be able to match soon.

The US has a LOT of small- and intermediate-sized oil companies competing actively right now, on all these dimensions, to lower their costs so they can continue to operate profitably even in the current price environment. Most are succeeding.

I'd be interested in seeing a breakdown of the lifespan of oil using transport. A car might have a 15 year lifespan so we can't see a massive change in petroleum use until that time.

However boats, trains and planes have at least double that lifespan.

Because of capital investments, surely an alternative to oil is still 20 years away?