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The word "producer" is misleading. No new oil is being produced. Should be largest "Extractor." Too bad. Wouldn't it be better to buy from other countries and leave your reserves in the ground? In the future, once all the easy to extract oil is gone, the US will have to buy from abroad at potentially higher prices.
The word "producer" is misleading. No new oil is being produced. Should be largest "Extractor." Too bad. Wouldn't it be better to buy from other countries and leave your reserves in the ground? In the future, once all the easy to extract oil is gone, the US will have to buy from abroad at potentially higher prices.
It's like how it's assumed that high quality artificial meats would replace farming of animals. Not quite - since meat is one of a 1000 products they're used for. Also true of oil.
Not that I doubt that they're right about this data point, but interesting choice of source... appears to be some sort of climate-change-denial organization?
The link is to something maybe questionable, but the information source is the EIA, the same graph is on the front page of https://www.eia.gov/
It's been fascinating to watch Saudi influence wane over the last few years as this sinks in as the new reality. We live in a completely different power structure now from 20 years ago. They're certainly still obscenely rich, but the power they had over geopolitics via OPEC is effectively gone at this point due to tar sands, renewables, and natural gas.
I wonder what the next 20 years will bring, especially with the shift to electric vehicles.
But the plugin hybrids won't be sold as "fuel efficient", but sold as "more powerful". However once people start doing most of their driving in all-electric mode, that will cause many gas stations to go out of business (since they run on razor thin margins). That will then be the push to make the leap to all electric in the following generation. In other words, I fully expect plug-in hybrids to be the bridge to all electric.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-opec-saudi-trump/can-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder what the next 20 years will bring, especially with the shift to electric vehicles.
Most people I talk with in my peer group wouldn't even think of getting an all-electric car (except maybe as a secondary vehicle), due to range anxiety. However, what I think will happen over the next 20 years (with battery improvement, etc) is more and more hybrids and plugin hybrids. For example, see Ford's plans starting in 2020. But the plugin hybrids won't be sold as "fuel efficient", but sold as "more powerful"…
It's been fascinating to watch Saudi influence wane over the last few years as this sinks in as the new reality. We live in a completely different power structure now from 20 years ago. They're certainly still obscenely rich, but the power they had over geopolitics via OPEC is effectively gone at this point due to tar sands, renewables, and natural gas.
You missed the other significant factor in reducing OPEC political power, horizontal drilling, IE fracking. Almost all the new oil and natural gas in the US is coming from horizontally drilled wells.
arguing:
>...fracking could not have taken off so dramatically were it not for record low interest rates after the 2008 financial crisis. In other words, the Federal Reserve is responsible for the fracking boom.
>Frackers haven’t proven that they can make money. “The industry has a very bad history of money going into it and never coming out,”
and that it may not be sustainable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> They're certainly still obscenely rich, but the power they had over geopolitics via OPEC is effectively gone at this point No, not really. They still have the ability to flood the market and cause prices to tank, which would wreak havoc on the US fracking industry.
>No, not really. They still have the ability to flood the market and cause prices to tank, which would wreak havoc on the US fracking industry. ...And tank their own profits? Cheap oil is good for literally everyone but the Saudis, that's the entire reason they've cut supplies since the glut of 2014-15. US fracking is already barely at a fraction of capacity right now with how low prices are. It's not an essential in…
Like you yourself said, Saudis are obscenely rich. They can tolerate losses in profits. In contrast, fracking companies in the US can't, at least not without massive government subsidies.
There was an interesting article The Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/opinion/the-next-financia... arguing: >...fracking could not have taken off so dramatically were it not for record low interest rates after the 2008 financial crisis. In other words, the Federal Reserve is responsible for the fracking boom. >Frackers haven’t proven that they can make money. “The industry ha…