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U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020

bloomberg.com

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Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020

#41

Post by checker »

Arjuna wrote: post #37
notatoad wrote: post #23

Thee article seems to skip pretty quickly over what, to me, is the important point: >Will transform the U.S. into the largest producer for about five years starting in 2020 So the us is going to start pulling it's oil out of the ground a lot faster. And then it's going to run out of oil. I think it might be better to just keep buying from the Saudis and keep a little bit in the ground.

"So the us is going to start pulling it's oil out of the ground a lot faster. And then it's going to run out of oil." This does not appear to be an entirely accurate conclusion, according to the article. For example, the article explains that: "The desert kingdom is due to become the biggest producer again by 2030, pumping 11.4 million barrels a day versus 10.2 million in the U.S." That said, if the numbers and proje…

I believe your theory is essentially peak oil: When the price of extraction exceeds demand. Oil will still be there, but it would be economically unfeasible to tap, especially with the rise of alternative fuels.

Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020

#42

Post by grannyg00se »

I find these oil report news pieces to be incredibly lacking almost all of the time. First of all, this person is speaking predictions and postulations without showing a single piece of data. Not a good sign.

I'm very skeptical, because the net return on oil reserves has been steadily declining since the early 1900s. Shale oil is extremely expensive to extract/process and also relatively dangerous. The production cost ratio is less than 10:1 if I recall correctly, while in the early days of oil drilling the ratio was in the hundreds to one. You could pretty much poke a hole in the ground and have sellable oil gushing out with no further effort. Now it's a struggle to get just past the "economically feasible" point.

The tarsands in Canada are a great example of this. Currently they are sitting at a ratio of about 5:1. And that's also a very dangerous, and highly polluting extraction process.

Another problem is oil reporting is context. They'll throw out a number like 169 billion barrels of oil. That's the current reported bitumen content in the tarsands. Sounds huge. If you do the math, that's about five years' worth at current world consumption. Five years. For one of North Americas largest and most championed reserves. With the extraction ratio taken into account, we can slice one year off of that. And if the demand trend continues it's even less. I'm not convinced that a few percentage points of extra fuel efficiency in consumer vehicles is really going to make a significant dent in demand.

Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020

#43

Post by roc »

Arjuna wrote: post #37
notatoad wrote: post #23

Thee article seems to skip pretty quickly over what, to me, is the important point: >Will transform the U.S. into the largest producer for about five years starting in 2020 So the us is going to start pulling it's oil out of the ground a lot faster. And then it's going to run out of oil. I think it might be better to just keep buying from the Saudis and keep a little bit in the ground.

"So the us is going to start pulling it's oil out of the ground a lot faster. And then it's going to run out of oil." This does not appear to be an entirely accurate conclusion, according to the article. For example, the article explains that: "The desert kingdom is due to become the biggest producer again by 2030, pumping 11.4 million barrels a day versus 10.2 million in the U.S." That said, if the numbers and proje…

It's pretty well accepted that oil will never physically run out.

Long before even extraction/refining costs make remaining oil infeasibly expensive, supply/demand will send the price spiking to uneconomical levels as soon as oil production so much as slows down relative to growth in world-wide demand.

That's what the US increase in extraction is primarily about: trying to avoid price shocks between now and when the economy is, or can be, substantially run on natural gas and renewables as global demand outstrips supply. And even then, all we'll likely have done is smoothed the increase in price over the next 20 years.

Similarly, the increased CAFE standards are much more about lowering American dependence on oil, fleet-wide, than environmental concerns.

Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020

#44

Post by danielweber »

deelowe wrote: post #14
kyledrake wrote: post #7

I think stopping the destruction of our planet's climate is more important than becoming oil independent and having cheap petroleum, personally. This is troubling news to me, I was hoping that peak oil would start people down the track of dealing with these problems.

People are on track to deal with these problems (or at least are attempting to be). There are hybrid cars all over the place now, Tesla Motors is doing well as a company and there is a ton of research going into clean energy. These are just extremely difficult problems to deal with. In the meantime, the country can't just let society fail as a whole. The whole world would descend into chaos and war. The US has to do…

American cars are a teeny tiny part of world CO2 emissions. Whatever else their pros and cons, hybrids and Teslas aren't going to matter to global warming.

Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020

#45

Post by dmritard96 »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #38
reportingsjr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interpreted the opposite; that (s)he is opposed to anything that makes fuel prices cheaper. This is the viewpoint that I personally hold. I would like fuel prices to go up and match the rest of the world as that would create a huge push towards much more efficient transportation technologies. Of course it isn't that black and white as prices of commodities would increase, possibly decrease sales, etc, but it is an…

Let me make my point more clearly. If CO2 emissions are such a huge threat to the world then it makes the most sense to push for fracking in the short term because switching to natural gas over kerosene/gasoline and especially over coal reduces carbon emissions substantially. If a hybrid compact car makes sense from an environmental standpoint then shifting hydrocarbon usage to natural gas makes as much if not more s…

"Let me make my point more clearly" - yes please do because your first attempt was gawd awful...

Part of the reason I would rather not invest in fracking (aside from the immediate environmental issues) is that if we want to end up at clean and sustainable energy then why make expensive investments into intermediate technologies that don't significantly impact the underlying problem. While it would reduce emissions that doesn't make it a good choice. If we gave someone 4/5s of a vote instead of 3/5s of a vote that would still leave a lot of people in our country pretty ticked.

The post you were responding to is saying they want to pay more for our energy because that is the only way people will understand that it needs to be used (and obviously produced) wisely. Fracking and natural gas allow for us to use more energy at cheaper rates albeit a bit cleaner. Bottom line, the poster above wants to pay more for energy and encourage people to use less/produce cleaner.

Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020

#46

Post by gnaritas »

hooande wrote: post #26
ck2 wrote: post #3

All it took was $4 gas. All the Saudis have to do is drop their price to the point where gas is $2.50 again and suddenly all the US companies go under in 12 months. But think how much we'll save by having less than 10k troops in the middle-east someday.

Our increased production of oil is due to the new technology of fracking (fracturing the ground to get oil out of it). The situation is certainly not "We could have been fracking 15 years ago, but we didn't feel like it because Saudi gas was cheap". The energy sector is subject to the same process of technological advance that any other industry is. We came up with a new way to get oil out of the ground and figured o…

You can't currently frak $2 a gallon gas yet. It's the higher price that makes these new techniques profitable.

Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020

#47

Post by ojbyrne »

edj wrote: post #33

As other commenters have pointed out, the US only overtakes SA for a few years before falling behind again: "By around 2020, the United States is projected to become the largest global oil producer (overtaking Saudi Arabia until the mid-2020s)" So maybe that part of the story is overblown. But perhaps more interesting is that the US will supposedly become a net exporter shortly thereafter: "The result is a continued…

US != North America.

Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020

#48

Post by josefresco »

From the article: "Iraq will be the biggest contributor to new oil supplies, raising production to 6 million barrels a day by 2020."

So Iraq's oil is our (US) oil? Or am I misreading that statement? I guess they could be saying that overall Iraq will see the biggest jump of all nations? Not sure.

Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020

#49

Post by deelowe »

kamjam wrote: post #35
deelowe wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are on track to deal with these problems (or at least are attempting to be). There are hybrid cars all over the place now, Tesla Motors is doing well as a company and there is a ton of research going into clean energy. These are just extremely difficult problems to deal with. In the meantime, the country can't just let society fail as a whole. The whole world would descend into chaos and war. The US has to do…

$4 a gallon is peanuts. Price of gas in Rome, Italy was 1.87 euro per litre when I was there in July. Per litre, not gallon! So people get around town on little mopeds, motorbikes, small cars and a lot of SMART cars around as well. I agree there is a lot of forward momentum with hybrid/electric cars in terms on technological advancement, but the uptake in the US is abysmal. Just because you drive an electric car does…

Consumers are not the issue here really. It's cargo that's the concern. That's where most of the pollution is (from oil anyways) and that's where the price of oil affects the economy. I don't think people realize just how much the US is dependent on oil for it's goods. Most consumer products are made overseas, shipped into a port, offloaded onto a train, and then delivered to retail locations via trucks. On top of that, it's already an incredibly efficient process, so it's going to take a major shift before industry moves to another solution (sorry, don't have a better link right now): http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/05/how-efficient-is-a...

Remember, the reason why is because of this: http://mapfrappe.blogspot.com/2011/02/countries.html

Also, there's no need for sarcasm. Please provide a rebuttal if you disagree. My argument is that Russia and the middle east is inherently unstable (I do not care to go into why as I understand fully how much a part the US has in that). The US needs to maintain it's oil producing capacity or else it becomes pretty easy to hurt the US without ever attacking it.

Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020

#50

Post by deelowe »

danielweber wrote: post #44
deelowe wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are on track to deal with these problems (or at least are attempting to be). There are hybrid cars all over the place now, Tesla Motors is doing well as a company and there is a ton of research going into clean energy. These are just extremely difficult problems to deal with. In the meantime, the country can't just let society fail as a whole. The whole world would descend into chaos and war. The US has to do…

American cars are a teeny tiny part of world CO2 emissions. Whatever else their pros and cons, hybrids and Teslas aren't going to matter to global warming.

Of course they aren't the solution, but technological progress typically happens in low volume, niche markets. My point wasn't that a solution is here today. Quite the opposite, but it's disingenuous to claim that people aren't working on the problem or that progress isn't being made. It's also a bit dubious to claim that simply making oil more expensive would solve things. There's a balance. At one end of the spectrum you destroy humanity via global warming at the other, you do so via war. The government has to play both options to strike a balance.
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