[quote]As oil production swells, demand falters and prices slide, the global oil market appears on the verge of a pivotal shift from an era of scarcity to one of abundance.
Oil prices have fallen as much as 20% since June, despite a host of rising supply risks, leading more investors and traders to consider whether 2015 is the year in which the U.S. shale oil boom finally tips the world into surplus.
While the plunge has rekindled speculation that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) may need to cut output for the first time in six years when it meets next month, some analysts are looking much further ahead.[/quote]
[url=http://business.financialpost.com/2014/10/07/north-dakota-and-texas-have-effectively-joined-opec-a-new-era-of-oil-abundance/?__lsa=e980-2d4c]Source[/url]
Personally I hate OPEC.
Same here. OPEC are the bastards who acts as a cartel to inflate world oil price. The 'em burn.
Very cool. Surplus is good. I saw gas was lower than it had been in a long time when I was just out. Also, I own a partial stake in mineral rights on some shale land in the Dakotas, so I like hearing shale is doing great. Hopefully the US shale production increase will help offset anything OPEC does, at least enough to keep the prices where they are.
Suck it, OPEC.
[QUOTE=SexualShark;46173810]Suck it, OPEC.[/QUOTE]
We've seen this coming for some time now. The best part about it is that we produce so much oil (from shale) that OPEC is going to have to risk lowering their prices to compete with us.
Oh shit we have loads of oil does that mean America is going to invade America for their oil???
[QUOTE=KorJax;46174768]Oh shit we have loads of oil does that mean America is going to invade America for their oil???[/QUOTE]
Oh man, that joke never gets old. It's hilarious. Because of all those other times we invaded countries for their oil, thus ensuring gas prices are kept low for the consumer. It's why our prices have gone down so far from the $2/gal we had in 2002.
[QUOTE=KorJax;46174768]Oh shit we have loads of oil does that mean America is going to invade America for their oil???[/QUOTE]
That's what the 19th century was.
[QUOTE=darunner;46175063]Oh man, that joke never gets old. It's hilarious. Because of all those other times we invaded countries for their oil, thus ensuring gas prices are kept low for the consumer. It's why our prices have gone down so far from the $2/gal we had in 2002.[/QUOTE]
(actually it was because of Europe)
I was hoping for a crisis that causes massive investment in batteries.
Bring on the cheap gas! MEans less focus on bullshit hybrids and more focus on nice cars being produced.
Does this mean the great satin can finally be let into OPEC?
[editline]7th October 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=TestECull;46175925]Bring on the cheap gas! MEans less focus on bullshit hybrids and more focus on nice cars being produced.[/QUOTE]
Let's not regress to the early 1970s please, cars are nice today and fuel standards are Americas secret weapon against OPEC, if people don't need to buy as much oil then OPECs share of oil consumed decreases
Still love how the state emblem of North Dakota is pretty self-explanatory:
[t]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/Coat_of_Arms_of_North_Dakota.svg/200px-Coat_of_Arms_of_North_Dakota.svg.png[/t]
If only we would make this fucker our flag already.
oh good more people using oil excellent just what the planet needs
[QUOTE=BrainDeath;46176109]oh good more people using oil excellent just what the planet needs[/QUOTE]
prefer that to massive economic and social collapse
[QUOTE=Cabbage;46176168]prefer that to massive economic and social collapse[/QUOTE]
Because a world without oil would clearly be an anarchistic wasteland.
[QUOTE=bravehat;46176231]Because a world without oil would clearly be an anarchistic wasteland.[/QUOTE]
Without an alternative, yes.
[QUOTE=BrainDeath;46176109]oh good more people using oil excellent just what the planet needs[/QUOTE]
planet is doomed anyway
DOOOOOOMEEEDDD
"Oh no, but shale!!!"
[QUOTE=BrainDeath;46176109]oh good more people using oil excellent just what the planet needs[/QUOTE]
Shale oil is not going to last very long. It's EROEI is pretty shitty even at optimistic estimates, so it's expensive to extract and it's extraction process is highly unsustainable and/or environmentally hazardous.
The mere fact that options like shale and tar-sands are even being viewed as a viable production environment just goes to show how dire oil supply is.
[QUOTE=hypno-toad;46176348]Shale oil is not going to last very long. It's EROEI is pretty shitty even at optimistic estimates, so it's expensive to extract and it's extraction process is highly unsustainable and/or environmentally hazardous.
The mere fact that options like shale and tar-sands are even being viewed as a viable production environment just goes to show how dire oil supply is.[/QUOTE]
Depends how you look at it.
The current shale deposits in North Dakota originally were estimated at being capable of lasting forty years at current consumption. This was later upgraded to sixty to eighty years at current consumption after the finding of a few more deposits around Mandan, North Dakota.
[QUOTE=TestECull;46175925]Bring on the cheap gas! MEans less focus on bullshit hybrids and more focus on nice cars being produced.[/QUOTE]
We get it already, you're love for fuel guzzling is as strong as your hate for the planet. You bring this up every time fuel efficiency is mentioned.
*obligatory avatar joke*
It's weird how suddenly so much oil is being discoverd.
Even in Romania a shitload of oil and gas fields we thought we didn't have anymore is about to start getting extracted.
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;46176381]Depends how you look at it.
The current shale deposits in North Dakota originally were estimated at being capable of lasting forty years at current consumption. This was later upgraded to sixty to eighty years at current consumption after the finding of a few more deposits around Mandan, North Dakota.[/QUOTE]
Reservoirs are important but there are more critical factors in production costs and profits. A oil-shale surplus is unlikely to benefit you as a consumer.
"Yargh, price fixing, this will make oil cheaper fuckin OPEC!!" is fallacious because shale oil is [I]inherently dependent on a high market price[/I]. It's not economically viable to extract from shale unless oil has an extremely high market value and you can offset the production costs.
Actually I feel like the OP and the article writer have missed the ramifications of this entirely. Same with the people here complaining about OPEC being crooks and how the US is going to set them straight. In an environment where shale-dependent US producers are the ones setting market prices with their own production output, it's in their own interest to see oil prices become [I]higher[/I] because they need to recoup their "shale-revolution" production costs with higher profits. A production surplus is bad (or well, not great at least) for the profitability of the US oil industry because it diminishes the profitability of the predominantly shale-based extraction projects. They need to maintain a balance between demand, output and market value for shale extraction to be profitable.
This increase in production =/= fall in prices, not for long at least. It's just going to get more and more expensive in the longrun; that's the only thing making oil-shale extraction production viable in the first place.
^
Except oil is relatively low and has been for some time now, shale development has been happening even as prices have stayed low, oil has been hovering around 100$/barrel for years now, its not the 50$/barrel it was a decade ago but development will continue still even if prices drop since the technology to extract it and find it has crashed in prices
[QUOTE=Sableye;46177312]^
Except oil is at an all time low and has been for some time now, shale development has been happening even as prices have stayed low, oil has been hovering around 100$/barrel for years now[/QUOTE]
The for "for years" you mention is when the "shale revolution" first started, and started because* oil was $100/barrel. What I'm saying is, oil production has only increased recently because scraping the bottom of the barrel is profitable now in the absence of better sources, it doesn't mean that the extraction is hugely profitable or not environmentally detrimental.
A dip to $90 dollars a barrel wouldn't spell doom for shale, but oil prices can not drop on a linear gradient indefinitely, if worldwide production suddenly exploded (due to factors other than shale, that is...) shale would be made largely unprofitable. Shale, like oil sand extraction is an inefficient extraction process and requires nearly as much energy to extract as is gained from the extraction process, so it requires a high price like $90-115 a barrel to recoup expenses and make a reasonable profit margin. Like I said the only reason it's even being considered is because there are fewer "easy" oil prospects like there used to be and only the hard jobs are left. This problem will only grow worse so I wouldn't stake too much faith in the long-term viability of shale, because oil extraction is pretty much a race to the bottom at this point.
Anther issue pertaining to the US is that shale extraction requires a lot of water as well, something the US doesn't exactly have a lot of right now, especially in the southwest where droughtsa dn water shortages are becoming more and more frequent due partially because of, and further exacerbating, a gradual groundwater depletion, with the help of global warming (ironically, caused in part by fossil fuel use). More "unforseen" environmental hazards caused by a varingly inefficient energy mining process that is probably not sustainable, as I was saying in my original point.
[QUOTE=bravehat;46176231]Because a world without oil would clearly be an anarchistic wasteland.[/QUOTE]
Considering that modern society pretty much exists on the the petroindustry and petrochemical products? The amount of famines and social collapse you'd have in the first decade following the disappearance of all oil would be brutal
My grandfather was an civil engineer who had a lot of things to do with drilling operations around the us. He'd told my father scout how America would drill oil wells, cap them, and just but outside oil, to make sure America had enough in times of war. As it turns out, that's probably why we're seeing such a boom in production in the past years. I know for a fact they've opened a few wells my grandfather himself had capped, I used to drive past them every day.
[QUOTE=Swineflu;46176660]It's weird how suddenly so much oil is being discoverd.
Even in Romania a shitload of oil and gas fields we thought we didn't have anymore is about to start getting extracted.[/QUOTE]The extraction technology is getting better, and deposits that originally were too expensive to consider extracting (like these shale oil deposits) are starting to look lucrative.
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;46176381]Depends how you look at it.
The current shale deposits in North Dakota originally were estimated at being capable of lasting forty years at current consumption. This was later upgraded to sixty to eighty years at current consumption after the finding of a few more deposits around Mandan, North Dakota.[/QUOTE]
If in 60-80 years we're still burning fossil fuels like we are today, we're fucked anyway. Glad to know some capitalist bigshots got richer while dooming our entire species.
All the money poured in to this shit should've gone in to alternative fuel/power sources.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
