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No reason for $80 Oil?

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.

Re: No reason for $80 Oil?

Unread postby Ming » Sun 23 Sep 2007, 07:25:59

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mkwin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ming', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mkwin', 'W')hat makes you think there will be a short-term price drop?

The tame most probable supply/demand scenarios for the next few weeks and, mostly, the very large build in crude net long positions on the part of funds, during the past 3 weeks, and the record number of positions they are holding at the moment.


Ming, what data do you use on ther supply/demand picture? And, do you have a link I could get please? Also, where do you get you info on the amount of short/long positions?

For the short/long positions you have info here (updated weekly) and here (historical reports)

For the supply/demand, since we are talking of predictions, there are no such convenient sources.
We have to integrate the production data (EIA, IEA, specific countries), the transport problems (tropical storms hitting the ship channels, etc.), hurricanes in the GOM, demand patterns for each week in the year, weather (hot/cold), etc…
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Re: No reason for $80 Oil?

Unread postby Ming » Sun 23 Sep 2007, 07:42:41

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ferretlover', 'M')ing, "what is impossible?"
Did I misuse a term?
My interpetation of capacity is the ability to contain something (we can continue to 'build containers."
My interpetation of supply is the total amount of something available.
As for: If you have a glass of chocolate milk, it does not matter how quickly or how slowly you drink it, there is still only so much milk in the glass!,
glass is the earth, milk is the oil, your body is the container, the amount of milk is the supply, and quickly-n-slowly is how it is extracted.
I will read the site you cited-what am I looking for specifically?

Ok, here it goes:

You wrote "IMHO, the capacity could rise and rise--Until the Oil Runs Out." and "They can suck it out slowly, or quickly."

Capacity, in context you used is not "the ability to contain something (we can continue to 'build containers."" but rather production capacity.

And you reinforced that use of the term saying that “If you have a glass of chocolate milk, it does not matter how quickly or how slowly you drink it…

Now enter Hubbert, and the physical (geological, investment, etc.) realities:
You can't choose/decide the crude extraction rate freely:
You can try to produce your reserves as fast as possible, but after a point (in terms of global resource depletion) your production will go down, no matter your efforts.
(Of course, if you do not perform those efforts, production will go down a lot faster… :wink: )

So, in short, that kind of choice (same overall resources, but we can decide to extract them fast or slow) is really not applicable:

We can just decide to do our best to produce all we can (and follow the Hubbert “bell” curve, or something very close to it), or we can decide to produce less than that (and prolong the availability of resources, but at the cost of lower present production.

The third choice, the one you stated we could use (accelerating the extraction rate to fill our growing demand, even if at the cost of ending the resources faster) is not available to us…
(And we should be glad for that, because (us beeing only humans) the temptation to do it would be great! :roll: )
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Re: No reason for $80 Oil?

Unread postby whereagles » Sun 23 Sep 2007, 09:30:51

FerretLover, extracting oil from the ground is NOT like sucking juice from a bottle with a straw. It's more like squeezing a sponge.

It is correct that juice can be extracted at any rate we like, but a sponge is a different matter. It ain't easy to squeeze it, especially when it's 3 or 5 km deep :) In practice what happens is production rises steadily, up to a peak, and then declines.

You can check what I said in any textbook on petro-geology.
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Re: No reason for $80 Oil?

Unread postby TreebeardsUncle » Sun 23 Sep 2007, 16:18:09

Well, in mining, the extraction rate is related to the amount of ore present generally. It is not a direct proportionality. However, one tends to have the fastest rates of extraction at the lowest price when the ore is the most plentiful. As time goes on and the quantity that is accessible decreases, the cost to mine it increases and the extraction rate tends to decrease.
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Re: No reason for $80 Oil?

Unread postby halcyon » Sun 23 Sep 2007, 16:34:07

Several reasons have been speculated for the recent run up on oil prices:

1. Escalating Iran tension (= short term speculation)

2. Hedge funds trying to cover their losses with the winter energy run up (= short term speculation)

3. Oil is NOT priced in dollars, dollars are priced in oil ( = US dollar and US gov financial crisis, i.e. financial hedging)

4. Inflation fears (i.e. financial hedging)

5. Problem between production and demand (i.e. real shortage or near shortage condition, that is _fear_ about prices not being high enough, mid-term speculation)

Did I forget something?

I tried to remove the completely nutty conspiracy theories.
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