It's interesting that the IEA is also projecting 90% of Middle Eastern oil exports will go to Asia by 2035.
http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2012/nove...
U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020
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Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020
#22I find this hard to believe. Compare http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9584
You can always be assured that predictions based on extrapolation in systems like energy are always wrong. The claim (that we'll out produce Saudi Aramco by 2020) is bogus. You read comments like this "U.S. oil imports will drop to about 4 million barrels a day in 10 years from a current average of 10 million because of new production and stricter fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, which will curb demand,…
>if I had to guess I would say it was a 'feel good' piece about Fracking to try to offset the ever growing evidence that the dangers of hydraulic fracturing require much more oversight and regulation if we want to do it safely
Fracking is indeed extremely dangerous:http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/09... and many hard to believe promises of jobs and cost reductions in energy have come from the companies and even government. Check out the gasland documentary.
Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020
#23Thee 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.
Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020
#24I 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.
So you're a supporter of fracking then, right?
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 interesting thought that has been in the back of my mind.
Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020
#25All 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.
Since restrictions were removed on commodity speculation, a great deal (I'd argue the majority of the big spikes) of the price fluctuation in gas has very little to do with the oil producers and an awful lot to do with speculators. They would not be happy to watch the price drop so far and I expect they'd do something about it.
Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020
#26All 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 out how to deploy it at scale. Saudi Arabia didn't have much to do with it. Gas could be selling for $2/gallon and people would still be tripping over themselves to get more of it out of the ground.
Secondly, the idea that we're keeping troops in the middle-east in order to get oil for ourselves is rather naive. There was nothing in the article about all the free oil that the US gets just because we have troops in Iraq. The different political factions there are fighting so hard over every drop of oil that there isn't any left for the iraqi people, much less the united states.
There are no conspiracies here. No international intrigues. Technology improved, so now we have more oil. The energy sector is about to go into a boom that's going to lift the whole country's economy.
Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020
#27All 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…
The reason that American troops are in Iraq is completely different from, say, the reason that the Fifth Fleet is in Bahrain.
Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020
#28Thee 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.
I always come back to this point as well. Buy till there is no more, use nothing till everyone has ran out.
Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020
#29If for some reason, coal to oil (synfuel or syncrude) were to be ramped up, it could be quite astounding. There are only trial runs at this point, however.
Germany during the WWII era was able to produce 75% of their oil needs due to synfuels. Once the plants were bombed or disrupted, Germany ran out of fuel and lost the war.
Re: U.S. Oil Output to Overtake Saudi Arabia’s by 2020
#30All 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.
The Saudis and other oil exporters don't actually set the price of oil directly. OPEC have historically controlled oil prices indirectly by dialling their output up or down, but most producers are running flat out and have been for ages. Saudi used to keep around 1.5m BPD production in hand to moderate supply disruptions and keep prices stable, but now they are running much closer to their maximum practical output ca…
also because it's not just about production - the value of the dollar fluctuates as well, what $2.50 bought you a few years isn't the same today, and won't be the same tomorrow.