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The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer

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Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer

#181

Post by [deleted] »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #89
2trill2spill wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil is not going away anytime soon. While there will be significantly more electric vehicles on the road in twenty years and gas and diesel vehicles will be much more efficient. There will still be millions and millions of vehicles burning gasoline and diesel. Plus that doesn't even factor in all the uses of oil outside of transportation and energy, for instance pharmaceuticals, plastics, nylon, polyester, asphalt, f…

I don't think anybody expects it to go away, what's interesting is what happens to the price if we dropped demand by 10 or 20% for instance. Would the price fall close to the cost of extraction or would supply restrict enough to keep it higher.

[deleted]

Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer

#182

Post by brianpgordon »

seibelj wrote: post #19
aphextron wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I always bet on entrepreneurs and free markets over kingdoms and dictatorships. The Sultan got things set up a certain away and assumed nothing would change, while the free West just responds and innovates no matter circumstances.

I don't know about all of that. We got lucky to have such rich natural resources within our borders. All of the innovation and entrepreneurship in the world wouldn't have helped much if a bunch of plants and dinosaurs didn't happen to die and get buried in a geologically fortuitous way.

Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer

#183

Post by nradov »

beat wrote: post #100
jfrankamp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way to think about it is owning an electric as a primary vehicle (most trips are under 50 miles or whatever) and the gas car as as secondary, long range vehicle. This makes way more sense than hybrids for two car families. We own a Nissan Leaf and its definitely our primary vehicle, it gets 10x the miles/day as the gas car at a fraction of the maintenance cost. We pull the gas car out for the weekends or trip…

At which point just renting a gas vehicle for long trips starts sounding really good.

It sounds good until you want to rent a gas vehicle on the same holiday weekend as everyone else and there are none available.

Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer

#184

Post by alach11 »

greedo wrote: post #129
bigodbiel wrote: post #106

i still have the feeling that the next big bust will come from the fracking industry by 2020. The reserves are vastly overestimated, profitability muddled by financially wizardry, and capital flow about to get squeezed as interest rates rise.

Fracking is actually far more resilient to market swings than traditional oil fields/wells. If prices for crude/natural gas drop, you just shutdown the well. Spinning it back up is far faster and cheaper than normal wells.

I work in the O&G industry and I think this is backwards. You're far more likely to see conventional wells be choked back or shut-in during price drops. That is what we saw in the recent oil price drop.

With unconventional wells (horizontal fracked wells) decline rates are so high that you will see a dramatic decrease in production by simply stopping drilling of new wells.

Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer

#185

Post by dekhn »

thinkcontext wrote: post #107
dekhn wrote: post #45

Daniel Yergin is an energy analyst who has written several good books on oil and energy, The Prize and The Quest. The Prize is a history explaning how to got to 1990. And The Quest explains how we got to 2011. By the end of The Quest, you will understand how we got to here. Why Russia is a major natural gas provider to Europe. Why Venezuela's economy is collapsing. Why Saudi Arabia may follow. And mostly importantly,…

I second the Yergin recommendation but don't understand this: > Right now the US seems to be using oil exports to weaken other countries, rather than banking the oil and exploiting it when supply starts to dry up. I also think that some methods aren't long-term a good idea. The US is still a net importer. It exports some because its refineries are more setup for heavy grade imports. The light, sweet crude from its ne…

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/28/business/energy-environme... (see quotes from Yergin and others explaining why they think that US exporting has economic impacts on OPEC and other exporters).

Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer

#186

Post by liftbigweights »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #9
aphextron wrote: post #5

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.

> I wonder what the next 20 years will bring, especially with the shift to electric vehicles.

The expectation of a shift to electric vehicles is highly exaggerated. In 20 years, most of the cars will run on gas with a small market share of electric/hybrids/hydrogen cars. It's pretty much a certainty at this point. Even if electric vehicles are economical today, everyone isn't going to switch their current cars. Moving the car market towards electric will take many decades, if it ever goes electric at all.

The projections for oil is the projections for every energy source but coal. Up.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=32912

This is the same conclusion reached by pretty much every institution. Oil will be the dominant source of energy in 2040 just as it is today.

Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer

#187

Post by jackfoxy »

aphextron wrote: post #5

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.

It's not tar sands, it's fracing.

Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer

#188

Post by sitkack »

kd5bjo wrote: post #110
2trill2spill wrote: post #27

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 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.

Horizontal drilling and fracking are two distinct but related techniques: * "Horizontal drilling" refers to drilling a non-vertical (and often curved) borehole, to reach deposits that aren't directly beneath the wellhead. * Hydraulic Fracturing, "fracking," is the practice of injecting water into a well to crack the rock around the borehole, increasing its permeability. Each can be used independently, but it's the co…

Can those same techniques increase OPEC production?

Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer

#189

Post by phyller »

saryant wrote: post #78
crunchlibrarian wrote: post #40

Energy independence achieved. Except it hasn't been at all, because much of the oil is more profitable to sell and refine abroad than use domestically. So if we actually wanted to force independence we'd need to prohibit companies from exporting their oil. I doubt that's ever happening. Watch the "energy independence" talking point evaporate now that the new millionaires have been minted. It's almost as if that's wha…

We're energy independent in the 1970's sense, which is when the term originated. We are no longer subject to the sort of oil embargo OPEC initiated in 1973 over Western nations' support of Israel, because the West now has sufficient capacity to plug any gap in supply.

I'm not sure about that. The US still consumes a lot more than it produces. It might be the largest oil producer by a little, but it is the largest oil consumer by a lot. Looks like, net of exports, US production needs to rise several million barrels a day more to be really capable of meeting its own supply. Unless you are thinking of other Western countries that have enough surplus to cover the difference for the rest?

Relevant data: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_snd_d_nus_mbblpd_m_cur....

Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer

#190

Post by aphextron »

headmelted wrote: post #127
beat wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without abandoning piston engines entirely and going to turbines or something, modern auto engines are approaching maximum practical thermal efficiency for the conditions under which they must operate (being primarily horsepower-oriented rather than torque-oriented). You can get maybe 50% better if you're powering an oil tanker rather than a car, but you're not powering an oil tanker, but rather something that has to…

"This creates a tremendous market incentive for purely electric vehicles." Can confirm. I bought a used Nissan Leaf two months ago from a dealer (being used it was a small fraction of the $25k Ford). A near-identical car (trim/mileage/colour) is now listed on their site for close to 30% more than I paid. If we were living in normal times this would make no sense - but the TCO picture is changing that rapidly (owing t…

I paid $5k for my 2011 Leaf with 10 bars and 30k miles. Best decision ever. Seems like people are catching on though since theyre getting hard to find anywhere near that now.
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