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Redfairen

(1,276 posts)
Mon Dec 16, 2013, 03:37 PM Dec 2013

U.S. oil output nearing all-time record, feds say

Source: Houston Chronicle

U.S. oil production is on track to reach a near historic high by 2016, before leveling off and eventually beginning to taper in 2020, according to a new federal forecast.

The nation’s crude output will crest at 9.5 million barrels per day in 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest annual energy outlook, released Monday. The United States hit its peak oil production in 1970, with 9.6 million barrels of crude harvested daily.

Advancements in oil field technology — particularly the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — have helped reverse years of declining oil production in the United States.

.......

But after 2017, the agency predicts the price for Brent crude oil will start climbing, ultimately reaching $141 per barrel in 2040, as the oil industry tries to meet growing demand by developing more costly resources.



Read more: http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/12/16/eia-expect-141-oil-by-2040/?cmpid=hpfc

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U.S. oil output nearing all-time record, feds say (Original Post) Redfairen Dec 2013 OP
then why doesnt gas here ever go below 3 dollars a gal? leftyohiolib Dec 2013 #1
It's at $2.97 per gallon where I live. Ranchemp. Dec 2013 #2
in the cleveland ohio area they have been bouncing from320 to 330 leftyohiolib Dec 2013 #3
TAXES, TAXES, TAXES .... lots and lots of taxes ... MindMover Dec 2013 #5
A Simple, Perfect Lie for Politicians - Peak Oil was a fantastic lie. mitty14u2 Dec 2013 #4
Umm, your first article's assertion is pretty much baloney ... brett_jv Dec 2013 #6

mitty14u2

(1,015 posts)
4. A Simple, Perfect Lie for Politicians - Peak Oil was a fantastic lie.
Mon Dec 16, 2013, 05:27 PM
Dec 2013

Oil and gas promoters used the theory to scare the public into investing huge amounts of capital into oil and gas exploration. Globally, the oil and gas industry's annual capital investment budget soared, from a little more than $100 billion in 1999 to an all-time record $1 trillion in 2012.

The promoters' pitch was intoxicating. Their siren song was the idea of the last barrel in the world. What would the world's last barrel of oil be worth? After all, if supplies could never be increased, then the price of oil and gas would soon reach unimagined heights. All this speculation drove oil prices to more than $150 per barrel in the summer of 2008.

Peak Oil was such a simple lie, even politicians could understand it. It was perfect for them because Peak Oil was a problem with no possible solution. When something can't be fixed, politicians claim all sorts of powers to regulate the issue. That's when the real trouble started.

http://www.dailywealth.com/2418/peak-oil-theory-lies

British and US companies win Iraq oil contracts 2008

The successful companies are expected to include Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Total.

Non-Western companies, notably those in Russia, are expected to lose out.

The technical support contracts will give the companies access to Iraq's vast untapped oil fields. Oil production in Iraq is at its highest level since the invasion in 2003. The Iraqi government wants to increase production by 20%, as the country has an estimated 115bn barrels of crude reserves.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/30/iraq.oil

Oil in Iraq

The Iraq Oil Bonanza: Estimating Future Profits (January 28, 2004)

This short paper estimates potential long-term profits by private oil companies in Iraq. By using different estimates for four key variables, including price and company/government share out of oil rents, the paper arrives at total profit estimates ranging from approximately $600 billion to $9 trillion. The most probable estimate yields annual profits from Iraq production of $95 billion per year for 50 years, a rate three times greater than the 2002 worldwide profits of the five largest international companies.(Global Policy Forum)

http://www.globalpolicy.org/political-issues-in-iraq/oil-in-iraq.html

ExxonMobil Profits for 2013 over $30 Billion

The Iraq War was Not for OIL, WTF.

brett_jv

(1,245 posts)
6. Umm, your first article's assertion is pretty much baloney ...
Mon Dec 16, 2013, 09:39 PM
Dec 2013

Firstly, the wild oil speculation bubble in 2008 was not driven based on 'fears over peak oil having been reached'. That's not a correct assertion to begin with.

Secondly, the large majority of the most notable World Peak Oil proponents (i.e. those that say we are currently at or very near it) are not people directly associated with the Oil/Gas industries, and very few stood to gain much, if anything, by advancing the theory. Believe it or not, there's also LOTS of money to be made by 'denying' it^.

Furthermore, it's not a 'lie' in the slightest, it is a 'real thing', the only question is ... when will it occur, and what will the depletion and price curves look like in response to the physical/geologic realities in play? That's what the bickering is over.

In reality, we may have a nice little bonanza here in the US for a short time (though I've also read credible research that suggests getting back to our 1970 peak is a pipe dream, and that if it DOES happen, it will be very short lived due to the very high depletion rates for tight shale oil), but it's a blip on the radar in terms of world production, which has been at a plateau-level since roughly 2004, despite rising US production, and dramatically increased price.

US oil production rising for a short time due to new extraction technologies does not negate 'Peak Oil' or make it a 'lie'.

We are likely AT world peak production right now, barring some hugely massive unforeseen bonanza (Arctic, perhaps?) somewhere/somehow.

And because US oil is mostly sold on the world market (and much of it 'owned' by foreign corps anyways), afa price to the consumer goes, it's largely irrelevant that we're seeing increased production here. If it falls elsewhere (like Cantarell, Mexico, which is in steep, permanent decline, as is the North Sea) in the world, then we're not likely to see cheap gas here in the States.

'Our Oil' ... is not really 'ours', you see? It's just a slice of the world 'pie'. And price in much of the world (esp. countries with no state-owned oil company, like the US) is ultimately still largely dictated by the World Demand/World Supply equation.

The simple fact that we're turning to tar sands (like Alberta) tight shale (like the Bakken) and Deepwater Drilling and talking about developing uber-costly places like the Arctic ... along w/the fact that world production is failing to increase over the last decade despite rising prices ... should tell any intelligent person all they need to know ... the 'cheap', easy to get-at oil ... is gone. That's the only reason that money would start to flow to 'expensive' sources. They KNOW that the error of cheap oil (i.e. cheaply recoverable) is OVER. It's BEEN USED UP.

From here on out, we're looking at more and more expensive oil, as costs to produce it will inexorably rise. The only way places like the Bakken will be developed (they've KNOWN about this oil for like 100 years, folks) is if the price for oil stays high.

There's really no 'lie' involved at all, and your 'Daily Wealth' article is bunko-conspiracy-theory nonsense, IMHO.


^ For an example of the way 'the lie' can work in the opposite way, consider this paragraph from the OP article carefully:

The EIA is the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy. Its predictions could help color the department’s decisions on nearly two dozen pending applications to export liquefied natural gas to countries that do not have free trade agreements with the United States. The Energy Department already has granted five LNG export licenses.


What they mean here is ... the greater the IMPRESSION of abundance of Natural Gas wealth that is produced by the EIA reports, the more likely the Energy Dept is to give licenses to domestic producers to liquify the products of our little 'fracking-based' NG 'bonanza' so that it can be sold to the highest international bidder, rather than kept here as a strategic resource and lower-priced option for domestic manufacturers.

And this is far from the only mechanism by which creating the OPPOSITE impression from 'Peak Whatever' can result in people making lots more money than they would make if the general impression promulgated by 'the authorities' was that of 'restricted' or 'peak' supplies.
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