[Tanada]

I rewatched The Prize on Amazon Prime yesterday and learned something interesting from the historical POV. In the 1920's a large number of experts predicted Peak Oil because the drilling techniques and equipment they were using were failing to find many big oil plays after the Spindletop in 1901. The 1920's world politics were dominated by a fear of Peak Oil that lead to all sorts of behind the scenes political maneuvering by both oil companies and countries trying to secure access to known and suspected oil fields. During the 1920's there was some drilling in 'Mesopotamia' and scattered plays across the USA and elsewhere, but nothing as spectacular as Spindletop was being found and drilling was fairly intense because of the post World War I boom in consumer vehicles in America.

The interesting new fact I learned is, just as all these political maneuverings to secure known resources were being concluded in 1928-1932 two massive events happened. First the Wall Street crash of 1929 dropped demand by a large factor. Second in 1930 the first successful well was drilled in East Texas proving there were huge additional reserves nobody had suspected while the negotiations had been taking place.

A side fact that is also important, no exploration in the Persian Gulf had been taking place during negotiations because nobody was willing to wildcat when their lease rights could be overturned in the negotiations. As soon as negotiations concluded Petroleum geologists sent to the Persian Gulf started finding lots of oil in Qatar and Saudi Arabia and Dubai and so on and so forth.

These three events all came together to absolutely destroy the sale price of oil. The Great depression lowered demand at the 1929 price, then East Texas flooded the market which restored demand, then the Persian Gulf brought on another flood in the mid 1930's which lead to world wide production quota's everywhere except America where the anti-trust laws prevented it.

So here is the What If for all who wish to play. In 1911 at least one oil company, Millville oil, drilled in the East Texas play. Unfortunately for them the cap rock is tough enough that they went broke with broken bits and broken pipes ruining wells before they ever found a drop of oil. In fact when the first well was brought in nearly 20 years later the first two wells on the lease were both dry holes because of pipe failure during drilling before they got deep enough to hit the productive layer.

So what if Millville Oil Company of East Texas gets very high quality pipe and bits in 1911 instead of average quality? In mid 1911 they penetrate the 3500 foot level and hit a gusher that sprays out say 5,000/bbl/d. Oil and gas prices were strongly influenced by Standard oil Company of New Jersey until that summer when the court ruled against them under the anti-trust laws and forced them to break up Standard Oil into 37 smaller companies. So you suddenly have the death of price fixing by Standard oil coupled with the new bonanza of oil coming out of East Texas 20 years earlier. Americans who in real history fell in love with cars powered by cheap gas after the fall of Standard Oil are suddenly hit with a much steeper drop in oil prices.

A couple things may come from this, one is a delay in electrification demand because Kerosene for lamps has never been cheaper and its very cheap compared to electrifying your home and having to buy light bulbs frequently because they do not last very long.

The other thing is there will be a massive incentive to improve everyone's drill pipe and drill bit quality because there is proof of oil deeper than people had thought it was possible in 1910. In the scenario where Millville Oil Company got lucky good quality there would still be a number of drillers who would be snapping pipes or breaking bits trying to get in on the east Texas bonanza. I see something along the lines of thicker wall drill pipes and bits made of the armor steel formula used for big navy combat ships to protect them from enemy artillery. Within a couple years better pipe and tougher bits will allow all sorts of wells to be drilled not just in East Texas but also in Mesopotamia (northern Iraq, part of the Ottoman Empire).

Suddenly oil is plentiful in 1913 and early 1914. Historically speaking one of the reasons the UK was somewhat eager to go to war with Germany in 1914 was actually because they wanted the Ottoman Empire oil fields in Mesopotamia and the Emirate of Kuwait. Great Britain had already cut a deal with the Emir who was technically part of the Ottoman Empire and sent troops to 'secure docking rights' in Basra and Kuwait for the Royal Navy in 1899 when nobody had any idea there was oil in the area. The ancestor to today's British Petroleum company had negotiated oil exploration deals with the Ottoman Empire but they really wanted to secure all that oil for Great Britain because the Royal Navy was in the process of switching from Coal to Oil fueled boilers for their fleet.

Now in the period just before the assassination in Sarajevo Great Britain can explore for oil in Kuwait and discover they already have control of all the oil they need for their navy. This takes away their incentive to go to war with the ottoman Empire, which is allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary on the side of their ancient enemy the French.

World War I averted?

[C8]

I don't think this averts WW1- too many, bigger forces: overpopulation, nationalism, alliances, Germany losing out on the grab for colonies. I regularly read text from the era- it is completely drenched in Social Darwinist thinking. Militarism was seen as simply an expression of the national will of superior races to dominate.

Today we think of races conflict as white/non-white- but back then there were lots of finer distinctions. There was tons of literature about the superiority and duty to rule of Anglos vs. Germans vs. Slavs, etc. The population was outracing food production creating tons of poverty and inner conflict. National war is the grand distraction from class warfare. Europe was a powder keg.

[ROCKMAN]

T - A few more details. Lots of oil discovered in east Texas before the 30's. Prior to the ETO Field discovery there were 50,000+ oil wells in Texas (many in east Texas) producing millions of bbls of oil according to the BEG...Texas Bureau of Economic Geology. The BEG is the best place to hunt for historical facts.

The First Texas Oil Boom - 1894

Some consider the 1894 Corsicana oilfield discovery well (in the heart of east Texas), drilled on South 12th Street, the first commercial oil discovery west of the Mississippi. Although it was not the first oil well in Texas, the discovery soon led to others that established the state’s exploration and production industry. Corsicana was also home to Wolf Brand Chili.

In 1923 a second, even larger oil deposit, the Powell oil field, was discovered, unleashing a new drilling boom that attracted thousands. According to the Texas State Historical Association, the first Texas oil refinery was built in Corsicana in 1897. By the next year there were 287 producing wells in the Corsicana field. The town also became a center for oil field service companies.

Inventing the “Corsicana Rig” - One new enterprise was started by the company that had drilled the 1894 discovery well. It would help revolutionize drilling technology. Although American Well Prospecting Company continued to drill wells, its far-sighted owners decided to open an equipment repair shop in Corsicana. Business boomed. In 1900 the company secured the rights for a hydraulic rotary drilling rig design. It began manufacturing this oil field innovation far more efficient than traditional cable tools. The rigs were soon known as “Corsicana rigs.” An American Well and Prospecting rig drilled the famous “Lucas Gusher at Spindletop Hill in January 1901. In 1953 Corsicana claimed to have the highest per capita income of any town in Texas. One reporter wrote that 21 millionaires lived within the city limits. The Corsicana field produced about 125 million barrels of oil.

{Of course at 125 mm bbls of oil it's no East Texas Oil Field. OTOH there's only a few ETO Field's in the entire world.

Jan. 10, 1901, is the most famous date in Texas petroleum history. This is the date that the great gusher erupted in the oil well being drilled at Spindletop, near Beaumont, by a mining engineer, Capt. A. F. Lucas.

{BTW even though Spindletop is located in eastern Texas it is not in the East Texas Geologic Basin. It's in the Gulf Coast Geologic Basin}

Texas oil production increased from 836,039 barrels in 1900 to 4,393,658 in 1901; and in 1902 Spindletop alone produced 17,421,000 barrels, or 94 percent of the state’s production. Prices dropped to 3 cents a barrel, an all-time low.

Offshore, 1908 - The first offshore drilling was in shallow northern Galveston Bay, where the Goose Creek Field was discovered in 1908. Several dry holes followed, and the field was abandoned. But a gusher in 1916 created the real boom there. {BTW the Rockman lives 100 yards from Groose Creek for which that field was named.} In 1911, a water-well drilling outfit on the W. T. Waggoner Ranch in Wichita County hit oil, bringing in the Electra Field. Salt dome oil fields followed at Damon Mound in 1915 (Brazoria County), Barbers Hill in 1916 (Chambers County), and Blue Ridge in 1919 (Fort Bend County). Another great area developed in 1921 in the Panhandle {north Texas}, with sensational oil and gas discoveries in Hutchinson and contiguous counties and the booming of the town of Borger. The Luling Field in south Texas openned in 1922, and 1925 saw the comeback of Spindletop with a production larger than that of the original field. And more Gulf Coast Basin booming: Raccoon Bend opened in 1927. Sugar Land was the most important Texas oil development in 1928. The Darst Creek Field in was opened in 1929. In the same year, new records of productive sand thickness were set for the industry at Van, Van Zandt County {East Texas Basin) . Pettus in Bee County was another contribution to the 1929 discoveries {Gulf Coast Basin}.

And now we come to: The East Texas field, biggest of them all, was discovered in October 1930. The success of this well — drilled on land condemned many times by geologists of the major companies — was composer by the biggest leasing campaign in history.

{And now about "flooding" the oil market} - On Aug. 17, 1931, Gov. Ross S. Sterling ordered the National Guard into the East Texas Oil Field, which he placed under martial law. This drastic action was taken after the Texas Railroad Commission had been enjoined from enforcing production restrictions. After the complete shutdown, the Texas Legislature enacted legal proration, the system of regulation still utilized.

{I'll stop now. If interested in Texas proration and the "allowable" (what % every well in Texas can produce of its rate) set every month even today and still subject to criminal charges if violated. And would actually be Texas Rangers (as in "Walker - Texas Ragber") that would come for you: they are the state's official oil patch cops. Some time ago the Rockman detailed helping the Rangers bust a group of oil patch con men. Very satisfying. LOL.

[AdamB]

New technology required to develop the "unconventional" resources of the day....yep. Last I counted this has happened some 5 or 6 times since Drake, as humans moved to more and more "difficult" oil.

Industry technology and advancement proving peak oilers wrong from as far back as 1919, as Tanada noted (and that was the USGS making the claim, not some blokes on the internet). We can also talk about end of oil claims from 1886, but why rub salt in the wounds, right?

And the Texas BEG folks are pretty good for Texas information Rockman, but the entire state was johnny come lately to the oil field, the only reason they were able to accomplish much was by getting second generation experience flowing out of Appalachia as the original easy oil was drying up, before any development in Texas had begun. The hillbillys find it amusing that Texas pretends they invented oil development.

[ROCKMAN]

Adam - "...proving peak oilers wrong from as far back as 1919". Actually as I pointed out about Corsicans Field in east Texas that was done in 1894. As you pointed oil the oil patch boomed and fizzled decades earlier in PA.

A lot of stripper production in Texas today comes from fields developed in the late 40's/early 50's. It was those trends that provided the bulk of Hubbert's data base he used to build his US PO model.

[Subjectivist]

Actually what it proves to me is that people were premature in the past, including in 2005, but given the difficulty of extracting shale oil and the rarity of productive plays to be fracked we are scraping the botto of the barrel pretty hard these days.

[rockdoc123]

It is interesting to think back as to how many time we have been "scraping the bottom of the barrel". I remember when the entirety of the Canadian foothills zone had been subject to extensive exploration and the comment was that we had pretty much drilled all the good stuff. But then came horizontal drilling which led to the potential to drill wells along the crest of structures with low matrix permeability and intersect the natural fracture network. Suddenly the whole trend was back in play. Same thing for the reef plays in Alberta. By the eighties all of the big reef trends (Redwater, Leduc, Swan Hills etc) had been drilled up and the lament was that particular play was a dead horse that couldn't be flogged any longer. Along came improvements in 3D seismic and suddenly we were all chasing pinnacle reefs. And perhaps the big game changer for natural gas came in the eighties when John Masters and Jim Gray at Canadian Hunter started exploring in the tight gas plays of the Deep Basin. This was likely one of the first basin centered gas plays and at the time didn't require either horizontal wells or much in the way of fracking just a simple clean up frack and an acid wash.
So at each junction we thought the game was over and then along came a game changer. Such is the case with the shales. I do believe this is likely the last one though. It is hard to imagine what else could be out there. It is after all a non-renewable resource with only so many places it can hide.

[ROCKMAN]

Doc - Yep...where to go to next? Years ago a couple of exploration "experts" for big client wanted to pick the old fart's brain for what BIG NEW play he thought might be potential if the tech improved and the oil price was right. My answer was for them to find known hydrocarbon bearing provencies that haven't at least some test drilling. A month later they came back and said they couldn't find even one. Even the Arctic Basin was being drilled. Not much activity but some evaluating it. Of course I didn't tell them that was what I expected. Figure is better for them to find out on their own.

As you pointed out we already know every hydrocarbons have accumulated. The tech might not exist and/or the price isn't right but we've already found all the places to poke holes into.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'A')dam - "...proving peak oilers wrong from as far back as 1919". Actually as I pointed out about Corsicans Field in east Texas that was done in 1894. As you pointed oil the oil patch boomed and fizzled decades earlier in PA.

A lot of stripper production in Texas today comes from fields developed in the late 40's/early 50's. It was those trends that provided the bulk of Hubbert's data base he used to build his US PO model.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Subjectivist', 'A')ctually what it proves to me is that people were premature in the past, including in 2005, but given the difficulty of extracting shale oil and the rarity of productive plays to be fracked we are scraping the botto of the barrel pretty hard these days.

[ROCKMAN]

And some more details about the "oil flood" after the discovery of the giant East Texas Oil Field:

"The flood of oil had a predictable result: Prices plummeted. In early 1930, before Joiner's well came roaring in, a barrel of crude oil sold for about $1.30. By mid-1931, the price had come down to 13 cents, and in parts of East Texas, it was selling for as little as 3 cents.

Despite the low prices, Texas producers didn't want to reduce production. All were relying on an old English common law known as the "right of capture." On the surface, the wells were owned by different people. Below the surface, all were sucking oil out of the same reservoir. If they stopped drilling and producing, their neighbors could simply pump the oil out from beneath their land. In theory, the Texas Railroad Commission, an agency originally set up to regulate railroads, had the authority to limit the amount of oil each producer took from his well. The best solution for all producers was for the commission to limit production so that it simply met demand (a system known as prorationing). The commission set quotas several times, but producers in the East Texas Oil Field ignored the directives.

On July 31, 1931, a federal court in Houston sided with a group of independent oil producers and ruled that the commission had no right to impose prorationing. A few days later, the Texas Senate, its gallery packed with East Texas producers, agreed with the court and rejected a bill that would have given the commission authority to limit production.

Texas Gov. Ross Sterling decided he'd make his own rules. On Aug. 16, 1931, Sterling declared martial law in the East Texas Oil Field and dispatched the Texas National Guard with instructions, "without delay" to "shut down each and every producing crude oil well and/or producing well of natural gas." Sterling's move stabilized prices, but it also spawned years of legal and political wrangling. Finally, in 1935, another powerful Texan, U.S. Sen. Tom Connally, helped pass a federal law that gave the Railroad Commission the authority to proration oil. Every month, the commissioners met at the agency's office in Austin and set "allowables," which determined the amount of oil that each operator could produce from his wells. The system worked: By managing the flow of oil from America's most important oil fields, the Railroad Commission effectively determined world prices for the next four decades.

That control ended in October 1973, when the Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, along with Egypt and Syria, began an oil embargo, forcing up prices. By March 1974, global oil prices had risen from about $3 per barrel to about $12 per barrel. OPEC was able to affect prices by restricting supply, and it did so by copying the Railroad Commission's system of allowables.

[KilonBerlin]

These oil field made it much easier to fight the Nazis in Europe! But since many tankers (I have read it had been alone 608 oil "tankers" or ships which were carrying somehow oil, maybe old private ships and maybe they really still used barrels, however since the area to "hunt" for the tankers was too large to provide permanent escorts per sea or air, the build the "Big Inch" to New York Area, not far from Pennsylvania where Rockefeller started and the US oil industry in ~1860 around, from New York (State) the now safe transported crude (through the Big Inch) was refined into the needed fuels and brought to Europe, some casualties here, but less and less... alone the Western Allies used 7 billion US gallons of oil against the Nazis. 6 out of the 7 billion gallons came from the US! I do not know if this already includes the large amounts of escorts (not always, but often in convois there were some),

the other ~1 billion gallon for North Africa, UK and later "D-Day" and until the end, the other billion gallon came from Persia... but maybe even more than 1 billion US gallons (42 gallons = 1 barrel) were transported from Persia through the Wolga and Don rivers to the Soviets, with the Don and Volga you could transport oil from Persia (or today Iran) to the Baltic Sea! It were thousands of kilometers and many rivers of course, in 1942 this was blocked because of the advance into Stalingrad where the Wolga and Don are going through, that is why Stalingrad today again is "Wolgograd", large oil storage tanks were destroyed by artillery fire and some air raids from the Nazis before they launched their attack, the whole oil was destroyed through Nazi fire or very small amounts by Soviets so that the Nazis do not get it, since Oil was vital and lucky the Nazis did not know what they had under their feets in many places...

The US was the "Saudi Arabia" of the World for the first ~90 years of oil history... Saudi Arabian oil tankers should leave in late 1939, but the start of WW2 delayed this to early 1946..

World War 1 and World War 2 were won to an extreme large part by the almost 10 million square kilometers of the US today with Alaska and Hawaii and its huge oil reserves (Canada and the US are even now after over 150 years of commercial production the Number 3 and in 2014 there was almost a new record...

For these old wars with thousands of motorized vehicles you needed really millions of tons of crude oil/oil fuel... but well this is changing, I guess at 2025-2030 most of the pilots will be young almost kids controlling a drone, already the largest drone in US service yet can fly 24 hours, a turboprop which is by far more efficient than jet engines, allows to reach almost every target on the world without a refuel, or I think an aerial refuel is possible, this is always a hard thing, but the crews of the "Stratotankers" only have this job and the pilots in the US who controll the drone support it too...

Now everything changed and we have too much oil, in the past 48 hours another larger (hard to say yet how much oil is there) field was found, a test drill at 170 meters hit oil at a rate of 3,800 barrels per day @ 28 API (which is more light than heavy or?!), but the "thing" is... they were looking at oil in 300m or even lower... so it could be another large found, a single drilling-well and 3,800bpd @170m is really... Iraq was untouched long time for many many difficult reasons (Saddams wars, later oil for food corruption in the UN, than US invasion... so in Iraq today you find the best fields, maybe even better than the Saudi Arabian or "easier" to get the oil, but since Saudi ARAMCO is top secret with its field details we will not know, except that oil for sure will not go out........

and drones maybe need far less fuel, but they need it, especially the coming modells which are armed, and the electricity to controll a drone maybe 10,000 kilometers away, the extreme high quality cameras of the drone and so on.... it will be a slow process, the electric energy in the controll stations will come mostly by natural gas, nuclear power, coal, hydropower and other renewables... but natural gas boom created some new gas power stations,

Electric Cars are on the rise too... you think there will ever be a way to use oil products for much "cleaner" electricity production than now?! Since I think in 40 years oil car fuel demand will be very low, but the states with oil still want to sell it, except some remote areas with Diesel or even Crude oil generators I only can see an fuel for a large power station... maybe they develop something.... energy contained in 1 liter oil is large as we know.... 1 liter is 10 kWh or 10,000 kcal ("calories") afair, with 50% efficiency in the future 5 kWh could be produced from 1 liter... because USA, India, and China combined will not be able to burn all of this oil in their cars, especially since they get more and more efficient as law says: if you do not reach Euro-5 you can forgot a selling for use in cities...

[ROCKMAN]

KB - "US was the "Saudi Arabia" of the World for the first ~90 years of oil history". And that's what I thought until recently. Before the US was THE Saudi Arabia of the world Russia was THE Saudi Arabia of the world. In fact just like the KSA et al recently crushing oil prices the Russians ruined Rockefeller's day by flooding the global market with oil over 100 years ago. But the following decline of Russian oil producing preserved the Baku oil complex and thus became one of the most critical aspects of WW II. From another recent post:

From:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrole ... Azerbaijan

“In 1898, the Russian oil industry produced more than the U.S. At that time, approximately 8 million tons were being produced (160,000 bopd). By 1901, Baku produced more than half of the world’s oil (11 million tons or 212,000 bopd), and 55% of all Russian oil. Approximately 1.2 million tons of Baku kerosene were also sold abroad.

Revolution and Soviet Republic – Several oil crises jolted Russia around 1903, when constant strikes, violence and ethnic strife during Russian Revolution of 1905 led to fall in the oil production from the peak of 212,000 bbl/d. The relative calm of the early 1910s was disrupted by World War I, when production of oil steadily decreased to reach the lowest level of just 65,000 bbl/d by 1918 and then dropped even more catastrophically by 1920. As a result of civil unrest no oil export was possible, oil storage facilities were damaged and wells were idle. The government of Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan was unable to restore the damage done to the oil industry during its time in office between 1918 and 1920.”

And as the chart shows Russia went from being the largest oil producer on the planet to producing almost ZERO OIL by 1930 after the revolution. It then took about 50 years for Russian production to regain that title when it reached its second peak oil by 1980:

http://www.crudeoilpeak.com/wp-content/ ... 008sep.jpg

[KilonBerlin]

I watched it once on You...be... It seems very old and copyright is no longer existing or the owner of the copyright has no problem with "distribution" (right word for a video?!) of this docu-like episodes... since some people without crude oil knowledge can learn something...

Rockefeller was the first "real" Capitalist in the world, almost 100 years before the others came. He used his power to "destroy" enemies, to take controll of over 90% of the US lightning petroleum, he told the people, that they lose every guarantee if another petroleum is used than the "Standard Oil (Corporation)" Petroleum!

Another "capitalist" method was: sending free samples, okay German pharmaceutical company did send free samples of "ASS" (I think you call it "ASA" in the US, the acetylsalicylic acid in "Aspirin" and its genericas today), as well as Diacetylmorphine samples for free, Bayer Company was already quite large company in Germany in 1898 (the year in which Aspirin and Diacetylmorphine/Heroin got the Patent at the German Patentamt). After sending free samples, an never seen before advertising for a medicine, there was a special graphic designed for the english speaking markets:



But it was already in the last months of the 19th Century... Bayer started well into the 20th Century... as the "Höchst Farbwerke" (Farbe = colour) which found Methadon-Racemat by surprise, searching an substance against convulsions they found Methadon (Levomethadon + Dextromethadon, like with Amphetamine, 2 Isomere), in Germany, Austria and Switzerland we are the only ones who use until this day "Levomethadonhydrochlorid", since in the normal Methadonracemat-HCL only the Levomethadon works and the Dextromethadon is almost without any effect, but has side effects... but since the isolated Levomethadon (its 1 step more to extract the optic active Levomethadon), the (D+L+)Methadon is available since some years as "Methaddict" (5 to 40mg per tablet only) as a preparation (of course Drug Law) from HEXAL, while the Methadone (I get 140mg and buy sometimes even more, this is 14 ml, in Poland they only give up to 50mg for people with HIV/Hepatitis C and only around ~5,000 spaces in the 5 largest cities of Poland, while in Germany we have almost 80,000 places, I get it now since Autumn 2005, well I started very young because I have real heavy psychological problems....

well, with the buying it is like a "balance", many people do it and buy additional methadone, while there is on the other side a group of persons who gives clean urine/salivary tests, and they get the so called "Take Home" for up to 6 doses, and 1 dose you drink there = 1 week, the term "Take Home" is no translation, it is written so in the German law in English), and many people sell theirs and Germany has a very well social care system but this money is a nice bonus for these people, since extreme high doses are being given in Berlin at least and prices are cheap... in Munich and in the economic strong west and south prices are higher, Netherland is closer (entry port area for everything...)

It is made from Oil! I drink it in a throw-away in such a white plastic "cup", most medicine today is made by substances which are produces from substances which are somehow linked to oil or not soo often "natural gas", so literally I drink "oil" every day Most medicine is made so and the package is also from oil, at least the Blisters and the colour which is painted on it,

the cheapest is made by the pharmacy itself (for low dose it is only a bit cheaper, but for such high doses like mine I save more than 60% compared to Methaddict or even L-Polamidon [left only, in mg only 50% of Racemat], there is a special way how to produce it or better mix it! They make 1 liter for example with lets say 400ml (40%) of yellow "vanilla" taste heavy syrupe mixed to make it harder to abuse it by injection since the syrup is soo thick and full of sugar, lactose or other stuff, but some people do not care and inject it... we have legal heroine program in Germany too since 2002... it is the same company like for the Heroine Program in Switzerland, and the only one without any contact data, only "DiaMo Narcotics", even the people working in the Berlin Heroine "station" (a larger complex of maybe 200-300 m²) do not know when the next transport with injection (only injection is allowed!) ready stuff.

It is amazing, once I tried to count how I use oil, natural gas or Coal directly and indirectly. I was standing up, my room is 35m², I live in a project, with one women, we got a 110 m² apartment in the 4th floor (maximum for "old buildings"), the heating system already uses thermal power from the Moabit power and heating plant... than I drove to the doctor, I used the metro... thousands of lights are in the over 100 or over 150 metro stations in Berlin... than the Metro it self runs on energy, from the power stations which run by Russian natural gas or German/Polish Coal, maybe a bit coal from other states too, in the night from Brandenburg (directly bordering Berlin, Berlin is capital and a "state" itself) there is coming wind energy into Berlin, since Brandenburg already covers ~40% of its need alone with wind! In some nights during the week when the wind is strong larger amounts are going into the System and the base load power plants can reduce their input of gas/coal...

I stopped counting when I was at 50... I reached 50 within 3 hours, moving/driving through Berlin... with a shopping stop (this is the worst^^) for food....

So maybe transportation fuel demand peaks, but can we replace all these oil/gas/coal based stuff in our life?! Smartphones are promised by some people since they only have around 10 to 15 Watt-Hours, its nothing... but the mobile internet is costing really much energy, whole "server farms" like in the silicon valley are existing and used by everyone who uses mobile internet..... so nothing with a 2012 studie which said the average US-American iPhone user loads 3.5 kWh per year, today it might be 5 kWh, but even more in the "server farms" since the volume packages are getting cheaper/greater = more use...

However Rockefeller was really underestimated, all these methods which are "normal" today he used over 150 years ago! Many of his "early" actions, before he had his Imperium, were not legal, at least by today laws, and I do not want to talk about morale or so... he destroyed you or made at least a wealthy men from you if you owned land with much oil, he had over 90% of the US petroleum market (some of course knew they can never see which petroleum was used, and so guarantee losing is only to make fear and to let the people buy Standard Oil's Products and not the small competition which had in total volume a not sooo small market, but well all together less than 10% of the US... Ford saved him, or he saved Ford, the "Ten Lizzy" or Ford Model T was the breakthrough, 1911 banned Standard Oil Corp. as 1 corporation, I think it splitted into 11 "Standard Oil of New Jersey" (Indiana, New York, Florida etc?!),

1914 oil demand at WW1 start: 100,000 barrels per day
1918 German capitulation: 300,000 barrels per day!

In 1950 it was around 10,000,000 bpd!

[KilonBerlin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'K')B - "US was the "Saudi Arabia" of the World for the first ~90 years of oil history". And that's what I thought until recently. Before the US was THE Saudi Arabia of the world Russia was THE Saudi Arabia of the world. In fact just like the KSA et al recently crushing oil prices the Russians ruined Rockefeller's day by flooding the global market with oil over 100 years ago. But the following decline of Russian oil producing preserved the Baku oil complex and thus became one of the most critical aspects of WW II. From another recent post:

From:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrole ... Azerbaijan

“In 1898, the Russian oil industry produced more than the U.S. At that time, approximately 8 million tons were being produced (160,000 bopd). By 1901, Baku produced more than half of the world’s oil (11 million tons or 212,000 bopd), and 55% of all Russian oil. Approximately 1.2 million tons of Baku kerosene were also sold abroad.

Revolution and Soviet Republic – Several oil crises jolted Russia around 1903, when constant strikes, violence and ethnic strife during Russian Revolution of 1905 led to fall in the oil production from the peak of 212,000 bbl/d. The relative calm of the early 1910s was disrupted by World War I, when production of oil steadily decreased to reach the lowest level of just 65,000 bbl/d by 1918 and then dropped even more catastrophically by 1920. As a result of civil unrest no oil export was possible, oil storage facilities were damaged and wells were idle. The government of Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan was unable to restore the damage done to the oil industry during its time in office between 1918 and 1920.”

And as the chart shows Russia went from being the largest oil producer on the planet to producing almost ZERO OIL by 1930 after the revolution. It then took about 50 years for Russian production to regain that title when it reached its second peak oil by 1980:

http://www.crudeoilpeak.com/wp-content/ ... 008sep.jpg

[ROCKMAN]

Correct: that doesn't change what was going on in 1950. It also doesn't change the fact that: "The US was NOT the "Saudi Arabia" of the World for the first ~90 years of oil history." Which was the point I responded to. Like I said: was surprised Russia was the Big Dog after US production in PA fell off and before Texas kicked in. Had thought Russia didn't become a player until the 50's.

More political drama overriding geology: Doing some fact checking I discovered how the Brits dominated Iranian oil production prior to 1950. Couldn't find a credible numbed but a lot of oil produced. But then came political unrest and around 1952 Iranian oil production = ZERO. But once the Iranian govt took over: Iran's PO of 6 million bopd in 1973. But not for long: 1981 = 1.2 mm bopd. Didn't get back to 4 mm bopd until 2005.

[Zarquon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'D')oing some fact checking I discovered how the Brits dominated Iranian oil production prior to 1950. Couldn't find a credible numbed but a lot of oil produced. But then came political unrest...

[ROCKMAN]

Z - Mucho thanks. Had my suspicions but didn't dig deeper. Similar to data I had not run across regarding OLDER significant production in other countries. Such as not realizing Russia was THE global oil producer around 1900....and then collapsed with the revolution and took many decades to recover. After PA declined and before Texas boomed.

As you say a variety of what-ifs and who they might have changed global history. What if Russian oil production had not collapsed and it became a major power in the region: could it have shut Nazi Germany down before it started? Had the UA not discovered one of the world's largest oil fields just in time to fuel the allied effort during WWII: in the US would we be eating struddle with chopsticks today? Had the Shah not been the butcher the US supported and backed the citizens would Iran be a major US supporter in the ME?

Let your imagination run free and there's a long list of alternate universes.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'Z') - Mucho thanks. Had my suspicions but didn't dig deeper. Similar to data I had not run across regarding OLDER significant production in other countries. Such as not realizing Russia was THE global oil producer around 1900....and then collapsed with the revolution and took many decades to recover. After PA declined and before Texas boomed.

As you say a variety of what-ifs and who they might have changed global history. What if Russian oil production had not collapsed and it became a major power in the region: could it have shut Nazi Germany down before it started? Had the UA not discovered one of the world's largest oil fields just in time to fuel the allied effort during WWII: in the US would we be eating struddle with chopsticks today? Had the Shah not been the butcher the US supported and backed the citizens would Iran be a major US supporter in the ME?

Let your imagination run free and there's a long list of alternate universes.

[ROCKMAN]

T - Yep, a rather dynamic critter that peak oil thingy, eh? LOL.