[Revi]

I am not too worried about telling people any more about what's going on with peak oil. They don't hear me anyway. I was heartened to hear that nobody listens to the people who really are at the forefront of Peak Oil. Here's a quote by Ron Patterson, who is the main researcher at Peak Oil Barrel:
Ron Patterson says:
04/25/2016 AT 10:21 AM
" I have three sons, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. And I tell them exactly what I think. And none of them believe a goddamn word of it.

I can only quote Montaigne, ‘all I say is by way of discourse and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly, were it my duty to be believed."

I agree with him. All you can do is tell people once or twice.

Then it's up to them to either take it seriously or not. We tried...

[ROCKMAN]

Revi - Or as the great Texas comedian Ron White puts it more simply: "You can't fix stupid".

[ROCKMAN]

Here's a portion of another post I thought might put some of the "has the danger of PO passed" bullsh*t into perspective:

Consider when the Rockman started with Mobil Oil in 1975 the oil patch was very aware of the dangers of PO. His mentor explained PO and the struggle the oil patch faced THEN. Again this is 40+ years ago. We didn’t then nor now call it “peak oil” in the oil patch. It has always been the “reserve replacement problem”. The problem wasn’t a lack of new reserves to hunt for but the lack of new reserves as large as the ones we had already developed. Those were the reserves we’ve been trying to replace for more than 4 decades and it has always been a struggle. In the US not much success in that regards until we started expanding in the shallow water GOM in the 70’s and 80’s and then eventually the Deep Water GOM. Even when we had the price spike in the late 70’s and more than 4,500 drill rigs were put into the service the US did not see any meaningful increase in oil production.

Consider the reserve replacement goal: from 1949 to 2011 the US has produced 215 BILLION BBLS OF OIL. And many tens of billions of bbls produced before 1949. And since 1975 when the Rockman first learned of PO the US has produced 130 BILLION BBLS OF OIL. Now think about one of the biggest DW GOM that might produce 500 million bbls of oil. While it sounds big that field replaces only 0.4% of the reserves we’ve produced since 1975. Now drop back to the onshore. The Rockman is trying to increase production from just one relatively small trend in Texas. Small but still produced 4.5 BILLION BBLS OF OIL. And that trend is now DEAD as far as developing NEW RESERVES: there are no undeveloped reservoirs left to find. Which shouldn’t be a shock since the trend was heavily explored starting in the 1930’s. All the major fields had been discovered and developed 60 years ago. What’s left to recover from existing wells amount to only hundreds of thousands of bbls.
Of course high oil prices made developing the KNOWN oil reserves in the unconventional reservoirs economic since most of the drilling and frac’ng tech had already been refined.

But it’s easy to be impressed with some of the new numbers: the EIA now estimates 4.84 million bopd from all the unconventional trends. That’s 1.8 BILLION BBLS OF OIL PER YEAR. So if oil prices had not collapsed and there were an infinite number of unconventional wells left it would only take another 72 years of drilling with 1,600 rigs/day and $50+ TRILLION in new capex to replace the reserves the US has produced since the Rockman started in 1975. And 120 years to replace the US production since 1949. And another perspective: some estimate the KSA has produced about 150 BILION BBLS OF OIL since Ghawar Field came on in 1951. At a rate of 10.5 mm bopd it will require the KSA to hold its current rate for about 40 years to replace the reserves it has produced through 2015.

Helps to put some of those numbers into perspective, eh? LOL

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'I') am not too worried about telling people any more about what's going on with peak oil. They don't hear me anyway.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'R')evi - Or as the great Texas comedian Ron White puts it more simply: "You can't fix stupid".

[ROCKMAN]

Adam - I can paint that answer with a rather broad brush. But let me focus of the govt/politicians. There's no excuse for even our most scientifically challenged legislators: they have large staffs and lots of funds to do the research. Just consider the absurdity of how many in Congress and the administration continue the completely insane “Now the US can export oil since the POTUS cancelled the ban last January” bullsh*t. It doesn’t even require any research: all a staffer has to do is go online and pull down the govt’s own figures that show that the US has exported 1.7 BILLION BBLS OF OIL since the ‘ban’ was put in place in the 70’s. The process takes less than 60 seconds. Or just the fact that last years, before the POTUS set the “ban” aside the US exported over 160 million bbls of oil. IMHO every congressman /administration official/employee that truly feels there has been a ban on exporting US oil should be immediately removed from their position.
How can this govt come up with anything close to a reasonable response to the energy situation if so many are totally ignorant of such an easily confirmed FACT.

[Pops]

No doubt lots of predictions were wrong but not just on the pessimistic side, there is plenty of wrongness to go around so I'd think it is a little disingenuous to swing at the boy who cried wolf strawman without admitting to the boys who cried free lunch.

CERA said in 2008 that we'd be at 112mbd by 2017, lynch said as late as '09 that $30 oil was right around the corner — turns out we put up with 4 years of the highest average oil price since oil before it finally got there. KSA said they could pump 50mbd for 50 years, except they never have for even a day. I could go on but thats all I have time for now.

Expensive unconventional oil is no substitute for cheap conventional oil. The decline in US consumption at the price level that enabled LTO illustrates that perfectly. But 'Merican ingenuity is not the reason we didn't peak in the oughts. Credit that to the collapse of communism in the USSR that postponed a whole bunch of their consumption and their peak to about now; and, the "liberation" of Iraq, at the cost of many dead Americans ... although they do have the thanks of grateful oil company shareholders everywhere.

From CrudeOilPeak, notice especially the cyan blue and lime green slices which propped up production and the economy while the receipts from record high prices were plowed into fracking leases and pumper rigs.



The point is that even with 10 years of high price, 4 in a row of the highest average real prices ever, the bottom tier of that chart continued to decline, the offset being the countries that had been hindered by politics. And even now, 6-8-10 years post epiphany, fracking is only making any big mark in the US and only when supported by prohibitively high prices.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'A')dam - I can paint that answer with a rather broad brush. But let me focus of the govt/politicians. There's no excuse for even our most scientifically challenged legislators: they have large staffs and lots of funds to do the research. Just consider the absurdity of how many in Congress and the administration continue the completely insane “Now the US can export oil since the POTUS cancelled the ban last January” bullsh*t.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'N')o doubt lots of predictions were wrong but not just on the pessimistic side, there is plenty of wrongness to go around so I'd think it is a little disingenuous to swing at the boy who cried wolf strawman without admitting to the boys who cried free lunch.

CERA said in 2008 that we'd be at 112mbd by 2017, lynch said as late as '09 that $30 oil was right around the corner — turns out we put up with 4 years of the highest average oil price since oil before it finally got there. KSA said they could pump 50mbd for 50 years, except they never have for even a day. I could go on but thats all I have time for now.

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he point is that even with 10 years of high price, 4 in a row of the highest average real prices ever, the bottom tier of that chart continued to decline, the offset being the countries that had been hindered by politics. And even now, 6-8-10 years post epiphany, fracking is only making any big mark in the US and only when supported by prohibitively high prices.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Adam', 'L')ynch it turns out was more right than those who said the world was ending

[Pops]

Thanks for that roc.
Seems like there is always some political bottleneck somewhere, no? I was thinking of Iran, Lybia & Mexico particularly as politically restricted and significant producers. I did read that a well has actually started producing in the Tupi field off Brazil (though I think they now call it Lula... but maybe not for long, LOL)

What is your guess as to the effect of the current price on future production? Say 5 years hence?

.

[ennui2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'f')racking is only making any big mark in the US and only when supported by prohibitively high prices.

[Pops]

I agree, they will start right back when the price is right.
But, the right price depends entirely on location.
In the center of a sweet spot with 1kb/d initial flow, $30 or $50/bbl may make money. There are some wells being made even now.

But out a few miles where 250bbl initial flow rate is expected, $100/bbl may be a loser.

Just like conventional reservoirs aren't everywhere and all you need to do is sink a hole to get a gusher, LTO isn't everywhere either. There are sweet spots. 300,000 of which have already been fracked.

[ennui2]

I agree, at which point all of us fall back on ROI speculation. Pessimists manufacture high break-even numbers and optimists manufacture low break-even numbers.

It's not that different when discussing the break-even for Saudi crude while they were flooding the market. Pessimists assumed the Saudis were taking a loss and optimists assumed they were pulling a small profit.

Note that the Saudi's notably came out recently with some strategic plan to run their economy on something other than oil, and references a truly massive oil-wealth nestegg. Ultimately you have to go by the information that's out there and the observable behavior and not just plug in self-serving numbers and suggestive but vague terms like "prohibitive".

My feeling is that yes, fracking will deplete quickly. It's not a viable long-term stalling tactic, but I think there's still a second wind to be had as the drills went idle due to the glut, not advanced depletion. When it will crank up again and how much mileage it gets before geologic depletion wipes it out, I don't know.

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hat is your guess as to the effect of the current price on future production? Say 5 years hence?

[Pops]

Thanks roc.

I sorta think the Fracking Head Fake is actually a bigger danger than "peak oil." When prices were high, consumers got the message, they purchased more efficient cars, drove less, maybe moved closer.

But because of the Great Frack, folks are convinced Tech foiled Mother, America is gonna be great again and the party's gonna roll on forever. So not only are they not thinking about getting more local, they are going in the opposite direction, driving more and buying f-150s to go to the QuilSac.

All the while investment in the big projects that are 95% of production grinds down to zilch. As mentioned, politics liberated Russian and Iraqi oil which averted peak in the oughts and high price sustained conventional oil in the teens, but just barely.

5 or 10 million barrels a day of shale is great— but only if there is 90 million a day of everything else.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '
')Really, doomers deserve all the ribbing they get. I'll even take my share (even though I'm not really an overnight armageddonist). But you are falling into the same trap, I think. You show up at PO.com in the middle of a glut and act like the previous record prices and market gyrations were an anomaly. They weren't, things have changed, cheap oil can't keep up with demand, necessitating more expensive substitutes. This will only continue.

[ROCKMAN]

Adam - "...they are advocates for whatever point of view the Congresscritter wants." Which is exactly the point I keep pounding. At best some of those critters are being willfully ignorant of the facts. Facts, as you say, that are readily available. Which also means many of them know exactly what the facts are. Which means those are not "points of views" but flat out big lies being told for their electorial benefit. And in my world that earns them the title of traitors. LOL.

As far as needing more economists in the debate that will only make matters more confusing if they don't have a very strong grounding in the fossil fuel extraction business. Sorta like hoping for more OBGYN docs to help look for a cancer sure. You really need experts in any field in order to develop decent models. And then you still have to have a political system that pushes those facts into the public arena. A political system that the US clearly lacks. Lacking as indicated by the continued misrepresentation of US oil exports. If the DC critters can't or are unable to get such a simple FACT straight what hope is there for them to develop realistic responses to the much more complex dynamics?

IOW if a person really believes 2 + 2 = 3 what chance do they have to correctly integrate a differential equation? LOL.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AdamB', 'n')o one except Rockman and Mr reserve was even willing to speculate on what could happen next, or why.