Peak Oil, peak Gas Peak Coal.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Just coming out now, we have a brand new all time record.

Check the NYMEX now.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I commend Canada for having the foresight to do this, even if you went and produced the biggest toxic waste site on Earth with Athabasca, this is something we can all strive for. The abundance of hydroelectric is very useful. I just wish Whitehall had got nuclear pushed through faster, because watching us lose our gas and oil and become a lesser priority for Norwegian and Russian gas is disturbing.

[Gil Hamilton]

Is that even really news anymore, or is this another Peak Oil thread where you, J, and Marina going around again dancing on our graves? Yes, oil's price is going up and chances are isn't going to go down barring something unforeseen. I'm not sure that's a newsflash for anyone.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Dammit, I should have put this in the current thread. I posted it as a new topic on another board and got carried away. Moving.

[aerius]

Clearly, a generational opportunity to short oil.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Gil: I don't see where I'd be dancing on any graves. Last I checked, I was losing, not making, money off the price of oil.

OIL IS CHEAPER – NOW CUT PETROL PRICES!

Friday June 6,2008
By Louise Barnett, Consumer Editor


GREEDY petrol companies were accused of profiteering yesterday as pump prices continued to soar – but the cost of oil fell dramatically.

The price of a barrel of oil and the wholesale cost of diesel have both dropped by around 10 per cent in the past two weeks.

But suppliers are refusing to pass on the benefits. Analysts said diesel should be at least 7p a litre cheaper by tomorrow. But last night diesel and petrol continued their relentless rise, with the average pump price climbing to almost £1.30 and £1.17 a litre.

As anger also rose, hundreds of motorcyclists staged a demonstration and pressure groups joined the Daily Express’s crusade for a cut in the fuel tax now. For more and more drivers are

fed up with paying 20 per cent more for unleaded and 33 per cent more for diesel than in June last year.

In particular, pressure groups said there was no reason for cuts in wholesale diesel prices not to be passed on immediately. AA president Edmund King said motorists should not be “strung along”.

He said: “We would expect to see changes in wholesale prices work their way through to the pump much, much faster than changes to the oil price. After all, this is a finished product.

“Unless fuel suppliers can come up with a valid reason why diesel prices are still going up when wholesale prices have dropped, the AA will call for an immediate investigation.

“We will not allow drivers to be strung along as they have in the past, to the extent that we may call for a price regulator to ensure the price transparency seen in the United States and Australia.”

Explaining it was the supply companies which trade in oil who are failing to pass on the price cuts, Mr King added: “We regularly see that when the world price goes up, the pump price follows almost immediately. But when the world price drops, there is a lag at the pumps.

“We feel there is profiteering going on here. This is something the Government should look at and investigate.”

Mr King added: “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have the retailer putting prices up almost immediately when world prices go up and then not putting them down.

“The two have to add up. Somewhere along the line not all the price falls are being reflected at the pumps.”

The chairman of the Association of British Drivers, Brian Gregory, said: “We need prices to come down quickly because it drains everybody’s spending power and that just forces us from the brink of recession into full recession.

“What we need is Mr Brown or Mr Darling actually to decrease the tax levels that are responsible for this burden. It is the Government that is the real villain.

“I want Mr Brown to decrease the level of tax on fuel to the same level as in the US.”

The soaring cost of Britain’s fuel has prompted an overwhelming response to the Daily Express crusade.

More than 42,000 people have now signed the vouchers we are printing every day and which will be passed on to Downing Street.

The frustration at soaring pump prices saw hundreds of motorcyclists stage a motorway demonstration in Manchester, which brought roads to a grinding halt.

Energy experts Platts reported the 10 per cent fall in the wholesale cost of diesel imported between May 23 and yesterday as crude oil dropped to around 123 dollars a barrel from its record high of 135 dollars a fortnight ago.

The motorists’ summer of misery looks set to continue as petrol tanker drivers prepare to go on strike over a pay dispute.

I love this rag of a paper with its "crusades" (check out the rival it has - The Daily Mail - and their hilarious campaign against cloned foods. OH NOES!!1!). Sadly, there is little substance here, or for that matter, thought.

Honestly, if this is what we're dealing with, then we have issues. People need to be better informed. Calling for profiteering, when there isn't any, is taking the focus off the tax issue and letting people ignore the fact that oil supply and demand is severely constrained.

[Darth Wong]

My dad worked for Ontario Hydro R&D when they were building Darlington, he had some very unkind words for the fuckups who were managing the project. Lots of union crap, lots of last minute changes by all sides, which led to more union cap and red tape. He had to do craploads of last minute redesigns on a bunch of stuff, which meant lots of OT pay. He was not a happy person.

The Ontario Hydro union is intolerable, but I would have to say that about all of the big unions. Having said that, we should keep in mind that it was a 100% Crown corporation at the time. They weren't too concerned about wasting money at the top levels because they were creating jobs. Even busy work is a job. That's why the plant managers at Nanticoke and Lambton both installed FGC systems on their plants, and the guy who brought it in at twice the labour cost of the other guy is the one who got the promotion. They just didn't care that much about efficiency (disclaimer: none of what I'm saying was an official or openly stated policy at Ontario Hydro; I just happened to work there in 1988 and that was the scuttlebutt; the situation at Nanticoke and Lambton did require some sort of explanation).

[Darth Wong]

I commend Canada for having the foresight to do this, even if you went and produced the biggest toxic waste site on Earth with Athabasca, this is something we can all strive for. The abundance of hydroelectric is very useful. I just wish Whitehall had got nuclear pushed through faster, because watching us lose our gas and oil and become a lesser priority for Norwegian and Russian gas is disturbing.

Don't commend Canada as a whole. Ontario is part of the East Coast liberal region, so we have all these high-falutin' ideas about environmentalism and sustainability in our heads. Out west in Alberta, they're having a fossil fuel party, trashing their environment in the process, and praising The Lord for the financial bounty.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Don't commend Canada as a whole. Ontario is part of the East Coast liberal region, so we have all these high-falutin' ideas about environmentalism and sustainability in our heads. Out west in Alberta, they're having a fossil fuel party, trashing their environment in the process, and praising The Lord for the financial bounty.

I hear that in the near future, you may have to reverse your gas flows to supply the west, if only to keep their current pet project of digging up unprocessed road surface for a little while longer. Either way, Canadia has managed to see the light, albeit, not entirely.

Contrast that with the US and their... I actually don't know what to add. They have programmes from solar thermal to wind farms, yet none of them make a dent on their horrendous energy security. Iraq is their ace in the hole, which is a sorry state of affairs.

Oh yeah, and Asia eating up all of OPEC's increases in production means they're not bed buddies with the major oil cartel any more.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Heh, you call tar sands unprocessed road surface? LOL I'm going to have to remember that one next time I hear some wanker go on and on about unconventional reserves.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Heh, you call tar sands unprocessed road surface? LOL I'm going to have to remember that one next time I hear some wanker go on and on about unconventional reserves.

Go one better. Ask them if they'd go so far as to dig up roads to get what they can for their penis-mobile. It's about as useful, but desperation from private oil companies and a local government eyeing their fat wallets explains this charade. I put more faith in Thunderhorse, despite one comment on Newsnight Scotland stating "It's like standing on the top of the Wallace Monument [just off Edinburgh's Princes St], and dangling a piece of spaghetti downwards, and steering it through a letterbox in someone's door in Leith [about 2 miles away]".

There's an article on BBC News' website about 4x4 sales in the UK dropping and small cars rocketing up in percentage sales. Nominal numbers are still favouring large over small; I do expect that trend to reverse if this phenomenal price surge today is going to be carried on through summer.

Calls for digging into the SPR in the States will only get louder, I imagine.

[Surlethe]

Few questions I have:

* I've heard about big reserves in Montana/Wyoming/Canada....is this bogus media hype or are they true hope for getting North America through peak and into the 'new age' of energy (i.e. nukes, solar, wind)? I'm pretty confident we'll be keeping anything we get out of there....how long could it realistically hold us over?

The reserves in Montana/Wyoming/Canada are really heavy forms of oil -- more accurately, oil shale and sands. Right now, there are difficulties accessing them because to get oil, you have to heat the rocks and crack them down into oil, then pump them out. It's conceivable that the problem could be dealt with by strip-mining, but that also deals with the problem of time. Anyway, these are only stopgaps; production from them will peak eventually, and getting them out of the ground is an environmental nightmare.

* In the next two decades, would America be able to make all *electricity* based off nukes, wind, solar? I figure we can power everything off this stuff, and use the remaining oil/nat gas/coal for transportation purposes...?

Probably not. IIRC, we get something like 66% of our electricity from fossils; replacement will take decades.

* If everyone's so certain that this is going to happen (as I am), why don't you all open up a TDAmeritrade account (as I did) and invest all you can afford in Oil, Nat Gas, Wind, Railroads, and Solar (as I have been doing)? Assuming you have the spare money to invest, that is... Do you think it will get so bad that financial assets will be worthless in 20 years regardless? I figure if I attach a good portion of my savings to oil/nat gas + invest in alt energy and railroads, I should be able to keep pace w/ inflation and the recession/depression....any reasons why my plan wouldn't work out? Worked well so far, my portfolio was up 10% in May....

Because I'm young with very little to invest.

* What would you prefer: Capitalism/free-markets working naturally to try and fix this, or a planned economy? If not capitalism, why? Only reasons I could see Capitalism not working out is b/c it may take too long to react, or it may end up destroying the Earth even quicker (i.e. global warming). Yes, I'm an Economist Major, so you know which I'm supporting...but on the other hand I have no doubt that people would sacrifice the environment even more to keep their $$$...dismal science indeed.

Somewhere in between. I have very little doubt that capitalistic free markets would eventually correct for the problem; after all, it's only a matter of scaling up production of alternatives, which are known to exist. However, the key word there is "eventually"; the process of correction will take us through a very deep economic trough, simply because scaling up the alternatives will take time, and during the downturn, there will be little available capital to invest. Government intervention could limit the magnitude of the contraction and

* On a scale of 1-10 (one being total collapse, ten being ongoing growth as we've seen it in the past century, five being a plateau to where we at now), in the next 20 years what would you predict for: US/Canada, South America, China, Russia, EU?

US/Canada: 3,4
S. America: 2,3 (depending on the country; Venezuela and Brazil will do better while Argentina and Colombia will do worse, etc.)
China: 2,3 (big social problems when the contraction starts, loss of 1st world markets)
Russia: 4,5 (oil exporter; booming times)
EU: 3,4 (rich and generally better prepared than the US)

In general, the first world will weather it. The third world is screwed upside down.

[Hamel]

I heard from this old fart that north Alaska has oil reserves greater than Saudi Arabia, but we are never going to utlize it because of some deal with the Saudis -> we agreed to buy their oil and they agreed to trade in our currency and buy our debt. If we started pumping from this reserve, oil prices could go as low as US$1.50/gal, the Saudis would quit buying our debt and our currency/economy would collapse.

I've lost 10 lbs thanks to this fish diet

[Admiral Valdemar]

I heard from this old fart that north Alaska has oil reserves greater than Saudi Arabia, but we are never going to utlize it because of some deal with the Saudis -> we agreed to buy their oil and they agreed to trade in our currency and buy our debt. If we started pumping from this reserve, oil prices could go as low as US$1.50/gal, the Saudis would quit buying our debt and our currency/economy would collapse.

I've lost 10 lbs thanks to this fish diet

Partly right. They are pumping the stuff (else I wonder what Shell has wasted all their cash on lately), and the US has a deal with the Kingdom. None of that will screw their little partnership, though. Up above, I did mention that Saudi is giving the US a hard deal, whether it's to get more out of the dollar before it really tanks or to spite the ever more annoying administration for their harassment and clusterfuck in Iraq is unknown. I don't see them parting ways any time soon: America simply needs that oil, far as it travels compared to Mexico, Canada and Venezuela's.

[CaptainZoidberg]

Because anything can happen to make such a prediction woefully inaccurate. If the experts can only give a range of years for things to go belly up, then I'm hardly in the position to pluck a year out of thin air.

Originally, you were saying that it will happen very soon. Now you're backtracking and saying that we can't make accurate predictions, presumably so we

You seem to think all of this is solely down to geology. It is not. As has been repeatedly discussed on this board (do a search for previous topics related to peak oil for some informative banter), the human element is enough to cause a major downturn that would not ordinarily manifest based on petro-geology. For example, the light sweet crude peak was in mid-2005, but the real fun is happening as of the last quarter of 2007 where OPEC started to run out of spare capacity. It's not a coincidence that the price has increased rapidly since those events popped up on the radar.

Then make a conservative prediction.

The correction this week in prices was short lived. We've just this past 24 hours seen the largest single rise in oil spot price in history (over $6). We're now hovering just below another all time record. This means the commodity was oversold on Tuesday/Wednesday and we're seeing the repercussions come about immediately.

I'm not disputing any of that.

Because a) the Lower 48 are far older fields, b) as such, they used older technologies e.g. they didn't start with horizontal well drilling, secondary and extended recovery via saline or CO2.

I'm not saying that you have to make a prediction. All I'm saying is that you can't just keep going around saying "The world is going to end very soon, things will get much worse" without turning it into a quantitative prediction that we can go back and test.

If you look at the newer fields, like Forties and Brent in the North Sea, you'll see they fell off a cliff. The older fields in the US and KSA are better able to extend the decline, as per the HL bell curve, because of the way they're managed. If the UK was used as an example for the world, then we'd have seen the global economy crash overnight.

So, basically you're saying that you don't know all of the factors so you can't make a prediction.

Which is the efficiency increase I talked about. Again, that only goes so far. You cannot get more energy out of a barrel of oil when thermodynamics is the limiting factor. It is important to also recognise that economic barriers can be overcome provided the Law of Receding Horizons doesn't bite too hard, but the final factor dictating whether a reserve is recovered or not is EROEI.

Okay.

Whether the phenomenon is real or not is not questionable. It's the time-lines, and the IPCC has many possible scenarios, just as PO theorists do too.

Right, they have possible scenarios. Presumably, one is the most conservative, and one is the most extreme.

So why don't you just throw out your most conservative P.O. theory, and then that can be used as the test? You keep saying that things will get bad, and you've said that it will happen sooner than expected. Why not just put that in numbers so we can know for sure if you were right or not?

It may be happening now. We know that the majority of all liquids increases since 2005 have been down to bio-fuels, CTL and GTL. Heavy sour is harder to refine and while still abundant, won't help much if you cannot get the finished products out fast enough. The others rely heavily on government subsidies, such as US ethanol which is a major boondoggle financially and has only around two thirds the energy of an equivalent volume of fossil fuel liquids.

Is that supposed to be the prediction?

I honestly don't see the point. If you're here to corner me into blurting out a date so you can then say "No, you were wrong", then you're missing the bigger picture. There is a major problem right now. Who cares if it's 2009, 2012 or 2020? The effects are being felt today and rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic doesn't accomplish anything.

I want to have an objective prediction so you can't move the goalposts later. It's the same thing I'd say to a Jehovah's Witness person if they kept saying that the end times were going to come soon. I'd tell them to make a specific date and a specific effect so I can make sure that they're not just making it up.

Moreover, it does matter if it's 2009 or 2020, because when it's 2009, you can say its 2020. When it's 2020, you can say it's 2030, and so on...

This isn't a new problem either. Hubbert anticipated oil to peak in 1995. When it didn't and, in fact, got even cheaper and more abundant, he was decried as a fraud. Same goes for the Club of Rome's Limits of Growth paper. So while these jackasses were gloating over watching the Malthusian doomsayers remove that egg from their collective faces, the world decided to carry on with BAU and throw us further down the Olduvai Gorge of energy despair.

And that's relevant how?

If we had any sense - and seemingly we don't - we'd have addressed this problem in the '70s. The exact period Robert Hirsch mentions as being the opportune time to get off this stupid fossil fuel habit. But of course, the North Sea and Prudhoe Bay arrived to save the day. Until now.

I agree with that 100%. IMO, the US should've put a gas tax up after the oil embargo to keep it expensive, so that efficient cars and the such would catch on.

Tested for what? Are you going to check if the world has imploded or not by the arbitrary date I'm meant to report?

Yes.

As I say, such predictions are meaningless if the major troubles are already rolling on to us in ever harder waves.

How long do you think the world can survive $100+ oil without severe economic difficulties?

Right now you're making a prediction - that we'll have "severe economic difficulties" if oil is over $100 a gallon. Why not put that into objective numbers?

If you have any idea on how far we can go before the globalised economy falters and collapses like a house of cards, I'd be interested in hearing it. Because the long and short of it is: nobody knows.

So if nobody knows, why do you keep saying that it is going to happen?

The thing is - I agree that peak oil will happen. I just want you to throw out some definite predictions so we can know if they're true or not, rather than vague things like "collapses like a house of cards", which could be interpreted any number of ways.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Originally, you were saying that it will happen very soon. Now you're backtracking and saying that we can't make accurate predictions, presumably so we

I take it you missed the last several months of action then. I've detailed this up thread.

Then make a conservative prediction.

For what? Give me an idea of what you want a prediction for. Peak heavy sour? Peak economic growth? Outbreak of war?

I'm not saying that you have to make a prediction. All I'm saying is that you can't just keep going around saying "The world is going to end very soon, things will get much worse" without turning it into a quantitative prediction that we can go back and test.

Only I have, or do you think ten dollars is added to the price of crude within hours every day? That alone should be the front page story on every newspaper on the planet.

So, basically you're saying that you don't know all of the factors so you can't make a prediction.

No. I'm saying some factors that can skew predictions are inherently unpredictable, that is, black swans. Geology is easy. Politics is not.

Right, they have possible scenarios. Presumably, one is the most conservative, and one is the most extreme.

So why don't you just throw out your most conservative P.O. theory, and then that can be used as the test? You keep saying that things will get bad, and you've said that it will happen sooner than expected. Why not just put that in numbers so we can know for sure if you were right or not?

Off the top of my head, the most conservative were from energy think tanks and government institutes like the IEA who saw peak being mid to late century. The worst possible cases are WWIII within a few years. I'm not for either of those, but this latest news on Iran is distressing. So I'm hoping it's a weather report from NOAA accounting for some of this price premium, to go with speculators artificially keeping the price low.

Is that supposed to be the prediction?

That peak was in 2005? It'd be a very poor prediction as far as they go.

I want to have an objective prediction so you can't move the goalposts later. It's the same thing I'd say to a Jehovah's Witness person if they kept saying that the end times were going to come soon. I'd tell them to make a specific date and a specific effect so I can make sure that they're not just making it up.

Moreover, it does matter if it's 2009 or 2020, because when it's 2009, you can say its 2020. When it's 2020, you can say it's 2030, and so on...

Because what a guy on the Internet said is going to be a pressing concern if I happen to be right also? You're clearly not getting this. By 2020 we will have a severe export shortage. How would you like me to dress that up? Economic poverty, or global thermonuclear war? I neglected to bring my crystal ball today, because this would be where human reactions takeover from geological extremes.

And that's relevant how?

It's relevant because it has bearing on those unknown factors. None of those positive events changed anything in the end. The only real likely surprise events now can be ones with greater cuts in output or exports. Or we could get nuclear fusion in a form that is cheap, easy to build and totally clean and economic. I doubt that last one.

Yes.

Oh please. You're heading for harsh times no matter what I say. Expecting my adding an exact date as some sort of justification for concern is entirely pointless.

Right now you're making a prediction - that we'll have "severe economic difficulties" if oil is over $100 a gallon. Why not put that into objective numbers?

Do you not watch the news then? Has the OECD growth warning passed you by? You don't find it a tad suspicious that the economy is facing a major downturn just as oil export capacity is stretched to breaking point?

So if nobody knows, why do you keep saying that it is going to happen?

Gee, who'd think a finite resource would run out and that our oil based economy would be affected? The point I'm making is that the specifics that dictate how bad the way down the slope is are entirely down to human actions. If I were a telepath and had a time machine, I'd happily tell you precisely what will happen. As it stands, these things cannot be modelled, and as such, we can only give scenarios as to how things may play out in a typical case e.g. a geological decline of a certain percentage, with exports and consumption declining and growing, respectively, to such an extent. No terrorist or military action and an economy that doesn't fold immediately.

The thing is - I agree that peak oil will happen. I just want you to throw out some definite predictions so we can know if they're true or not, rather than vague things like "collapses like a house of cards", which could be interpreted any number of ways.

The loss of the premier energy source will be that catastrophic without mitigation. Your quest for a hard prediction is that of a good enquiring mind, but I wonder why you aren't looking into this yourself too as I suggested, when it's much easier to read the source material and go about putting up your own predictions. I've already mentioned that exports will be squeezed and this will lead to serious economic problems, fuel rationing increased inflation and geo-political instability. I can see this happening within two years, if not sooner should we do something stupid like hit Iran. Then all bets are off.

Any predictions now would need to mention what they expect to see within that time-frame. I am only willing to look at basic situations deteriorating e.g. crude supply constraints. The other issues that branch off from that, like economic and social policy or military action, is up in the air. Without those playing into the mix, with everything progressing as it is and no magical finds in oil like the last elephant fields in the '70s, then ten years from now we will see a far more frugal society, though even that may be a bad prediction if people don't take lightly to conservation, less disposable income and watching the oil exporters stick their fingers up and enjoy their own energy source for longer than we can.

The late Dr. Bakhtiari was often very good at predicting and understanding the basic problem. A more extreme version would be the Olduvai Gorge theory, which is a severe decline only accelerated by humans taking irrational decisions as the cushy life we have now is threatened.

[Surlethe]

How so?

The price increase and inventory draws thanks to export declines. They're not things I expected anything like as bad now. I was thinking maybe $100 oil by end of summer, if a bad hurricane season hit.

That doesn't excuse your vagueness -- e.g., am I supposed to read your mind and get "airlines" out of "many large corporations"? -- nor does it establish that the US will lose a significant fraction of its imports by September.

You just need to watch the news. Every day for the past two months, BBC Breakfast has had the economics correspondent go on about companies cutting back thanks to increased commodity prices, which feed into the credit problems and property and so on. Our general economic slowdown is being made more of a problem as energy prices rise because of the fundamentals.

First, I only get the BBC World Service at 1 am EDT. Second, you're still being vague, which was my main beef with you. You're obviously making your statements from a model you've got in your head; the difficulty for the rest of us is figuring out what the model is and why you think it's true.

Uh, the link you gave was to monthly averages, ending in March.

Hmm, thought that was the link there. I shall have to go hunting for the figures again, but either way, there have been draws on the crude inventories thanks to lower import rates and an increase in refinery utilisation.

EDIT: Apologies. Link found, I had a lot of others mixed up in my Glipper cache.

Ah, thanks.

As I read through this, I see that crude imports averaged 9.0 mbpd for the week ending May 23. Crude inventories dropped 8.8 mb, but the drop was accounted for by delayed tanker offloading along the Gulf coast. The inventories are in the lower half of their range for this year. Perhaps I'm just missing it, but nowhere in the report do I see the sudden drop you pointed out.

Mexico and Venezuela are hitting problems, and that's the bottom line. For every barrel they don't ship out, that's one the US either needs to replace or learn to live without. Replacement means someone going without elsewhere, and that's why prices are rallying so much (along with other factors like heavy sour being the main type of crude in those tankers Iran is holding and no one can refine).

EDIT: I forgot to respond to this block of text.

Yes, Mexico and Venezuela are peaking. But are they responsible for any US inventory changes and import changes right now? I think it more likely that the US is currently outbidding poorer countries for their decreasing output right now.

I take it back; you're not happy about it. But you don't really do much to make me think you're correct about your assessment of the situation, either.

For curiosity's sake, what would be your assessment, if only to see how you gauge our current situation and how it will play out this summer?

My guess? I think oil prices are going to continue to pretty steadily increase. It's difficult to say where the price will be at the end of the summer, because we'll see volatility introduced by commodities trading, so there will be mini bubbles (like the one that popped last week and brought it down from $135 to $126), but $180/bbl or more seems to be pretty consistent with what's been going on (the reason prices jumped today is Morgan Stanley released a report predicting $150/bbl by 4 July).

As oil prices (and hence gasoline prices) rise, the US economy will really start to contract. I'm guessing that economic growth will be zero or negative by late August. As far as gasoline prices, I wouldn't be surprised at shortages here and there, but I think that gasoline demand will continue dropping over the summer, and that will limit shortages for the time being. If you want me to put a tentative time on when the first major shortages will occur in the US, I'd say summer '09.

Now, do bear in mind that this is all guesswork. I've not got much in the way of support for this assessment, just my intuitive assessment from the way I understand the economy and peak oil work. So take it with a truckload of salt; it's almost certainly wrong.

[Admiral Valdemar]

First, I only get the BBC World Service at 1 am EDT. Second, you're still being vague, which was my main beef with you. You're obviously making your statements from a model you've got in your head; the difficulty for the rest of us is figuring out what the model is and why you think it's true.

Not necessarily the Beeb, but any news worth its salt should highlight the increasing tension within the economy. As for vagueness, it's hard to gauge how things will fare much further in the future than a few months. I tried predicting what this summer would be like from last year, and it's not all that accurate. I'm at the point where any unforeseen events messing with predictions will be to the detriment of the world, not the opposite.

Ah, thanks.

As I read through this, I see that crude imports averaged 9.0 mbpd for the week ending May 23. Crude inventories dropped 8.8 mb, but the drop was accounted for by delayed tanker offloading along the Gulf coast. The inventories are in the lower half of their range for this year. Perhaps I'm just missing it, but nowhere in the report do I see the sudden drop you pointed out.

How the next few weeks unfold will determine how this situation resolves itself. Draws on the crude inventory have been bad these past few weeks, and while I'm not ruling out the holding back of oil tankers down to weather, that is a story that was used before when such events never happened or to that severity at least. It's like the import version of "It's the dollar falling, stupid" argument.

EDIT: I forgot to respond to this block of text.

Yes, Mexico and Venezuela are peaking. But are they responsible for any US inventory changes and import changes right now? I think it more likely that the US is currently outbidding poorer countries for their decreasing output right now.

I'll get back to you on this. I had a good explanation someone typed up the other day and I can't find it right now. One key thing is that the US needing oil from, say, the Persian Gulf means that you've effectively elongated the pipeline and made it likely to hit MOL far quicker if any delays crop up.

Since it takes longer and far more tankers to supply a steady rate at that distance, and since Iran is hoarding VLCCs right now to store unmarketable heavy sour crud, it would appear that the current tanker fleet globally is not able to keep pace with demand. Rates are going up and the US is actually being outbid by Asia, so if anything, the US is hurting from VenMex losing output for their various reasons and any replacements being less than satisfactory.

Do they really want to let their pitbull in the ME bomb Iran? I'm thinking not.

My guess? I think oil prices are going to continue to pretty steadily increase. It's difficult to say where the price will be at the end of the summer, because we'll see volatility introduced by commodities trading, so there will be mini bubbles (like the one that popped last week and brought it down from $135 to $126), but $180/bbl or more seems to be pretty consistent with what's been going on (the reason prices jumped today is Morgan Stanley released a report predicting $150/bbl by 4 July).

As oil prices (and hence gasoline prices) rise, the US economy will really start to contract. I'm guessing that economic growth will be zero or negative by late August. As far as gasoline prices, I wouldn't be surprised at shortages here and there, but I think that gasoline demand will continue dropping over the summer, and that will limit shortages for the time being. If you want me to put a tentative time on when the first major shortages will occur in the US, I'd say summer '09.

Now, do bear in mind that this is all guesswork. I've not got much in the way of support for this assessment, just my intuitive assessment from the way I understand the economy and peak oil work. So take it with a truckload of salt; it's almost certainly wrong.

Welcome to the fun world of putting a time-line to your expectations. It's not easy, least of all because what can seriously go wrong is down to variables that no computer can simulate. Saudi losing interest with the US would be a pretty major one, they sure as hell aren't without buyers for their crude.

[Surlethe]

First, I only get the BBC World Service at 1 am EDT. Second, you're still being vague, which was my main beef with you. You're obviously making your statements from a model you've got in your head; the difficulty for the rest of us is figuring out what the model is and why you think it's true.

Not necessarily the Beeb, but any news worth its salt should highlight the increasing tension within the economy. As for vagueness, it's hard to gauge how things will fare much further in the future than a few months. I tried predicting what this summer would be like from last year, and it's not all that accurate. I'm at the point where any unforeseen events messing with predictions will be to the detriment of the world, not the opposite.

It is hard to gauge how things will fare even as far as a few months out -- which is why I have a problem with (seeming) pronouncements of doom and gloom. If all you can get is a vague idea of how the situation is going to be in three months, then it's pretty much useless to claim specifics -- e.g., the claim that there will be major shortages by September.

Ah, thanks.

As I read through this, I see that crude imports averaged 9.0 mbpd for the week ending May 23. Crude inventories dropped 8.8 mb, but the drop was accounted for by delayed tanker offloading along the Gulf coast. The inventories are in the lower half of their range for this year. Perhaps I'm just missing it, but nowhere in the report do I see the sudden drop you pointed out.

How the next few weeks unfold will determine how this situation resolves itself. Draws on the crude inventory have been bad these past few weeks, and while I'm not ruling out the holding back of oil tankers down to weather, that is a story that was used before when such events never happened or to that severity at least. It's like the import version of "It's the dollar falling, stupid" argument.

The report noted that inventories are pretty much normal for this time of year; this isn't a bad problem with inventory withdrawals being covered up by a story, it's a nonexistent problem in the first place. If you're looking for evidence of decreasing imports in the report, I'd look at the part where it says that crude inventories are in the lower part of the average range. I'd bet that the inventories have been in the lower part of the average range for at least several months.

EDIT: I forgot to respond to this block of text.

Yes, Mexico and Venezuela are peaking. But are they responsible for any US inventory changes and import changes right now? I think it more likely that the US is currently outbidding poorer countries for their decreasing output right now.

I'll get back to you on this. I had a good explanation someone typed up the other day and I can't find it right now. One key thing is that the US needing oil from, say, the Persian Gulf means that you've effectively elongated the pipeline and made it likely to hit MOL far quicker if any delays crop up.

Since it takes longer and far more tankers to supply a steady rate at that distance, and since Iran is hoarding VLCCs right now to store unmarketable heavy sour crud, it would appear that the current tanker fleet globally is not able to keep pace with demand. Rates are going up and the US is actually being outbid by Asia, so if anything, the US is hurting from VenMex losing output for their various reasons and any replacements being less than satisfactory.

What percent of VenMex exports does the US eat? What I was saying is that the US doesn't need to get Saudi oil as a replacement -- it can just outbid the other consumers of VenMex oil. Oil prices increase, of course, but the US has the buying muscle to shove other people out of the market.

Do they really want to let their pitbull in the ME bomb Iran? I'm thinking not.[/quote]
The US letting Israel have more leash is an entirely different topic. Only a moron would let them bomb Iran.

My guess? I think oil prices are going to continue to pretty steadily increase. It's difficult to say where the price will be at the end of the summer, because we'll see volatility introduced by commodities trading, so there will be mini bubbles (like the one that popped last week and brought it down from $135 to $126), but $180/bbl or more seems to be pretty consistent with what's been going on (the reason prices jumped today is Morgan Stanley released a report predicting $150/bbl by 4 July).

As oil prices (and hence gasoline prices) rise, the US economy will really start to contract. I'm guessing that economic growth will be zero or negative by late August. As far as gasoline prices, I wouldn't be surprised at shortages here and there, but I think that gasoline demand will continue dropping over the summer, and that will limit shortages for the time being. If you want me to put a tentative time on when the first major shortages will occur in the US, I'd say summer '09.

Now, do bear in mind that this is all guesswork. I've not got much in the way of support for this assessment, just my intuitive assessment from the way I understand the economy and peak oil work. So take it with a truckload of salt; it's almost certainly wrong.

Welcome to the fun world of putting a time-line to your expectations. It's not easy, least of all because what can seriously go wrong is down to variables that no computer can simulate. Saudi losing interest with the US would be a pretty major one, they sure as hell aren't without buyers for their crude.

The biggest problem is that the economy is so huge and complex. It's very difficult for laypeople like you and me to predict the effects of high oil prices in any reasonable resolution. We (or at least I) just don't understand it well enough to say with any reasonable certainty what will happen in the space of a few months.

[Admiral Valdemar]

It is hard to gauge how things will fare even as far as a few months out -- which is why I have a problem with (seeming) pronouncements of doom and gloom. If all you can get is a vague idea of how the situation is going to be in three months, then it's pretty much useless to claim specifics -- e.g., the claim that there will be major shortages by September.

I disagree. The specifics are hard to produce. The overall trend being accelerating collapse is quite easy to justify.

The report noted that inventories are pretty much normal for this time of year; this isn't a bad problem with inventory withdrawals being covered up by a story, it's a nonexistent problem in the first place. If you're looking for evidence of decreasing imports in the report, I'd look at the part where it says that crude inventories are in the lower part of the average range. I'd bet that the inventories have been in the lower part of the average range for at least several months.

The fog story doesn't hold water. The inventories should be up far more if those tankers were delayed. They aren't. So those tankers would be... where? If they didn't go elsewhere, then they're trapped in some Bermuda Triangle of fog that is unrelenting.

Inventories being normal is not my point. Inventory declines being unsustainable is. If imports don't increase somewhat and remain strong in summer, then refiners will have to lower utilisation rates again to put off drawing down on inventory stock too much. Moving into driving season with this state of affairs is not healthy, and while CNN might play up the demand going down card in the US, the trend is the total opposite globally. Anything the US doesn't use, China most certainly will and they can easily outbid the US for it.

What percent of VenMex exports does the US eat? What I was saying is that the US doesn't need to get Saudi oil as a replacement -- it can just outbid the other consumers of VenMex oil. Oil prices increase, of course, but the US has the buying muscle to shove other people out of the market.

Practically all of (something around 90%) Mexico's PEMEX production in exports goes to the US with oil revenue accounting for 40% of the government's budget. Venezuela exports around 1.41 mbpd of crude from a total export quota of 2.2 mbpd, so about 64%. This is based on 2006 EIA data, though. I can't find more up-to-date stuff right now, and even then that was down 8% from the previous year's production.

And no, you can't just outbid people. The US is broke, and while I'm sure it's a great achievement to push Namibia off the map for exports, you'll not be doing that with China or Russia or the EU. I have already shown that OPEC is shipping everything they can add to their export quota to Asia, so if the US wasn't so concerned, you'd have to explain that situation along with the near constant envoy visits to Riyadh to convince the Saudis to pump more and maintain the "non-negotiable" American way of life.

In any case, Chavez is not the world's biggest Uncle Sam supporter and he has absolutely no shortage in demand for what PDVSA produces. China and Venezuela are getting quite snuggled up. Mexico is a lame duck. In four years it will be a non-issue.

The US letting Israel have more leash is an entirely different topic. Only a moron would let them bomb Iran.

And we have a moron in the White House. Let's hope he doesn't think 28% approval rating is enough to justify the biggest single mistake since WWII.

The biggest problem is that the economy is so huge and complex. It's very difficult for laypeople like you and me to predict the effects of high oil prices in any reasonable resolution. We (or at least I) just don't understand it well enough to say with any reasonable certainty what will happen in the space of a few months.

Like I say, it's clear that supply is not meeting demand, exports are declining from many key producers far faster than anyone could anticipate to go with their geological declines and the market price of oil is going parabolic. The only way I see our predictions being wrong is by them being too conservative right now. ANWR is the current catch all in solving this problem, but as I detailed elsewhere:

Maybe too late to help Joe public, but it could all turn into another 'Black Monday' for the oil brokers and speculators.

If the U.S. decided to open up the oil fields in Alaska and offshore, the market will be flooded with oil. The brokers/speculators who are paying $138 per barrel now for delivery in a few months could suddenly find that nobody wants it that price - but they will still have to pay for it.

The same goes for OPEC. Who will buy their oil if the Yanks open up ?

I'm afraid the US opening ANWR up will change nothing.

As per the EIA's own analysis of the reserves in Alaska's wilderness:

This analysis assumes that enactment of the legislation in 2008 would result in first production from the ANWR area in 10 years, i.e., 2018. The primary constraints to a rapid development of ANWR oil resources are the limited weather “windows” for collecting seismic data and drilling wells (a 3-to-4 month winter window) and for ocean barging of heavy infrastructure equipment to the well site (a 2-to-3 month summer window).

The assumption that ANWR oil production would begin 10 years after legislation approves the Federal oil and natural gas leasing in the 1002 Area is based on the following 8-to-12 year timeline:

• • 2 to 3 years to obtain leases, including the development of a U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) leasing program, which includes approval of an Environmental Impact Statement, the collection and analysis of seismic data, and the auction and award of leases.
  • 2 to 3 years to drill a single exploratory well. Exploratory wells are slower to drill because geophysical data are collected during drilling, e.g., rock cores and well logs. Typically, Alaska North Slope exploration wells take two full winter seasons to reach the desired depth...
  • 3 to 4 years to construct the feeder pipelines; to fabricate oil separation and treatment plants, and transport them up from the lower-48 States to the North Slope by ocean barge; construct drilling pads; drill to depth; and complete the wells...

So, if Congress passed for ANWR to be drilled as of this week, and with no delays, you can expect the first oil produced from the well as it comes on-stream by around 2018-19. That would peak at a maximum output rate of 780,000 thousand barrels a day by 2027 (the world, as of this year, uses the upper end of 85 million barrels a day with a 2% growth on demand on that number annually. The UK as a total uses near 2 mbpd).

The USGS data the EIA uses (the USGS has been known to be hopelessly optimistic on reserve size before) states:

The 1998 USGS ANWR assessment assumed an average recovery factor of 37 percent of the original-oil-in-place. This recovery factor is based on primary (pressure-driven) and secondary (water-injection) recovery techniques, but does not included tertiary (enhanced oil recovery) techniques, which can increase oil recovery by an additional 5 to 15 percentage points...

Between 2018 and 2030, cumulative additional oil production is 2.6 billion barrels for the mean oil resource case...

The maximum recoverable reserves for ANWR would total around 2.6 billion barrels. To put that in perspective, the world uses 30 billion barrels a year.

ANWR is not the answer.

[CaptainZoidberg]

Only I have, or do you think ten dollars is added to the price of crude within hours every day? That alone should be the front page story on every newspaper on the planet.

Okay, I don't disagree with you that the economy will be hurt. I don't disagree with you that we'll hit peak oil. But early on this thread you kept making specific but qualitative predictions:

All the fossil fuels are expiring long before most analysts would have predicted. Even if they weren't, the net export decline is serious enough that we may see the US hit a major export crisis by the end of summer.

There is no mitigation now, it's simply how we go about powerdown. Do we do it civilly and accept frugal lifestyles, or do we go to war over what's left?

Here you predict that:

1. Fossil fuels will expire before analysts predicted
2. The US will hit a "major" export decline by the end of summer
3. The US will go about powerdown
4. We'll have to accept frugal lifestyles

All of those predictions are vague, qualitative, and totally open-ended. How do you define an export "crisis"? Does that mean exports go down 5%? 20%? How do you define frugal? How big of a cut in per capita GDP is that?

What analyst's predictions are you talking about? Just how large is the "powerdown"?

Look, I completely understand if you can't make a prediction for whatever reason. What bothers me is when you make a prediction but leave it somewhat ambiguous.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Here you predict that:

1. Fossil fuels will expire before analysts predicted
2. The US will hit a "major" export decline by the end of summer
3. The US will go about powerdown
4. We'll have to accept frugal lifestyles

All of those predictions are vague, qualitative, and totally open-ended. How do you define an export "crisis"? Does that mean exports go down 5%? 20%? How do you define frugal? How big of a cut in per capita GDP is that?

An export crisis is where exports consistently fail to match inventory draws. Depending on how the summer hurricane season pans out, and it could be a harsh one given recent regional sea temperatures, then we could see imports drop off a cliff or keep below their safe level around 10.5 mbpd to assure supply is consistent.

As for cut in GDP, pick a number. This is wholly determined by how industry and consumers react to high prices. No economist has ever been better than a coin toss, so I'm not going to put a number here and simply say that actual supply is at risk here. This is why I mentioned Solow et al for a rough estimate of the relation GDP can have to available energy. If a declining export trend forms for long enough, we can get a better idea of just how this will harm US economic forecasts which have been revised down repeatedly over the last few months along with the UK's.

What analyst's predictions are you talking about? Just how large is the "powerdown"?

Powerdown is where you have to mitigate the effects of declining energy by conservation and efficiency measures. That is, you have to cast off the idea of GDP growth when energy declines by a set percentage annually (acceleration or not is another variable) and focus on maintaining the economy from collapsing because of it. The more serious concerns would be lack of energy to heat homes and power vehicles for haulage and agriculture, or simple pricing out of many people normally in the market. After all, people have never starved in the First World because of lack of food, just the lack of money to pay for it. In this instance, supply and demand are balanced, because demand destruction in the form of removal of consumers who cannot meet the new price level and their economic activity. The latest job numbers for the States are a good indicator, along with the global fuel protests and hauliers/airlines going bust.

Look, I completely understand if you can't make a prediction for whatever reason. What bothers me is when you make a prediction but leave it somewhat ambiguous.

I'd love to be more precise, really I would. But after the last 18 months of intensive thought over this topic, I find that even those who work within economics, petro-logistics or physics and engineering don't really know how things can go on bar in the most general sense i.e. declining oil production and exports. As we all know, it's how this affects us in the end that concerns everyone, so basic predictions of how one oil field will die at whatever rate year-on-year is disconnected from how it hits you in the wallet and so on. I'm afraid that is up to how our leaders tackle the problem along with market forces, which right now are more concerned with digging up every last scrap of dino-juice rather than accept the economy has slowed down to a crawl and renewables and nuclear are the only real solution. More oil, gas and coal is simply a plaster on a wound to the carotid of the global economy.

This is why I like Dr. Bakhtiari's phases, because you can gauge roughly where we are by what events are happening at the present time. There are no ludicrous predictions like "Oil will be $167 by May 2009" or anything too precise. It is a simple analysis of how your average scenario will progress. It could be worse or better in places, but the overall trend is that business as usual has to cease.

[Ender]

Anyone got supporting info on the NZ FTP plant? I'm discussing synthetic fuels elsewhere and backup for them reopening the plants and the projection of $60 per barrel would be useful.

[Surlethe]

Sorry -- just now had time to reply to this.

It is hard to gauge how things will fare even as far as a few months out -- which is why I have a problem with (seeming) pronouncements of doom and gloom. If all you can get is a vague idea of how the situation is going to be in three months, then it's pretty much useless to claim specifics -- e.g., the claim that there will be major shortages by September.

I disagree. The specifics are hard to produce. The overall trend being accelerating collapse is quite easy to justify.

Of course, that's what I'm saying. You can't get more than a vague idea of what things will look like; all you can say is that the trend will exist. We simply don't know where the economy will be three months from now.

The report noted that inventories are pretty much normal for this time of year; this isn't a bad problem with inventory withdrawals being covered up by a story, it's a nonexistent problem in the first place. If you're looking for evidence of decreasing imports in the report, I'd look at the part where it says that crude inventories are in the lower part of the average range. I'd bet that the inventories have been in the lower part of the average range for at least several months.

The fog story doesn't hold water. The inventories should be up far more if those tankers were delayed. They aren't. So those tankers would be... where? If they didn't go elsewhere, then they're trapped in some Bermuda Triangle of fog that is unrelenting.

Why should the inventories be up far more? If the EIA would lie in the report about why the numbers are going down, why do you trust their numbers?

Inventories being normal is not my point. Inventory declines being unsustainable is. If imports don't increase somewhat and remain strong in summer, then refiners will have to lower utilisation rates again to put off drawing down on inventory stock too much. Moving into driving season with this state of affairs is not healthy, and while CNN might play up the demand going down card in the US, the trend is the total opposite globally. Anything the US doesn't use, China most certainly will and they can easily outbid the US for it.

Any inventory decline is of course unsustainable in the long, but not nearly as precipitous as you made it out to be -- from 5/23 to 5/30, inventories declined just 1.5% [ref]. And that doesn't change the fact that the inventory is still at a normal level.

What percent of VenMex exports does the US eat? What I was saying is that the US doesn't need to get Saudi oil as a replacement -- it can just outbid the other consumers of VenMex oil. Oil prices increase, of course, but the US has the buying muscle to shove other people out of the market.

Practically all of (something around 90%) Mexico's PEMEX production in exports goes to the US with oil revenue accounting for 40% of the government's budget. Venezuela exports around 1.41 mbpd of crude from a total export quota of 2.2 mbpd, so about 64%. This is based on 2006 EIA data, though. I can't find more up-to-date stuff right now, and even then that was down 8% from the previous year's production.

And no, you can't just outbid people. The US is broke, and while I'm sure it's a great achievement to push Namibia off the map for exports, you'll not be doing that with China or Russia or the EU. I have already shown that OPEC is shipping everything they can add to their export quota to Asia, so if the US wasn't so concerned, you'd have to explain that situation along with the near constant envoy visits to Riyadh to convince the Saudis to pump more and maintain the "non-negotiable" American way of life.

In any case, Chavez is not the world's biggest Uncle Sam supporter and he has absolutely no shortage in demand for what PDVSA produces. China and Venezuela are getting quite snuggled up. Mexico is a lame duck. In four years it will be a non-issue.

Interesting. Are you sure the US is too broke to bid on oil?

The US letting Israel have more leash is an entirely different topic. Only a moron would let them bomb Iran.

And we have a moron in the White House. Let's hope he doesn't think 28% approval rating is enough to justify the biggest single mistake since WWII.

Indeed.

The biggest problem is that the economy is so huge and complex. It's very difficult for laypeople like you and me to predict the effects of high oil prices in any reasonable resolution. We (or at least I) just don't understand it well enough to say with any reasonable certainty what will happen in the space of a few months.

Like I say, it's clear that supply is not meeting demand, exports are declining from many key producers far faster than anyone could anticipate to go with their geological declines and the market price of oil is going parabolic. The only way I see our predictions being wrong is by them being too conservative right now.

What if the US economy responds more slowly to high oil prices than you expect? What if the Saudis actually can and do ramp up production even more? There are factors in both directions that we simply don't know how they'll work, and we don't understand how the economy works well enough to guess at specifics.

ANWR is the current catch all in solving this problem, but as I detailed elsewhere:

<snip>

ANWR is definitely not a solution, but if it were approved it would help cushion the landing. It would also

[Admiral Valdemar]

Of course, that's what I'm saying. You can't get more than a vague idea of what things will look like; all you can say is that the trend will exist. We simply don't know where the economy will be three months from now.

True.

Why should the inventories be up far more? If the EIA would lie in the report about why the numbers are going down, why do you trust their numbers?

The oil that didn't get there during the middle of the month should still arrive, yet it didn't. You have several deliveries that are delayed because of weather one week, so, naturally, the next week should see an excess in imports compared to the norm. It never happened. I trust their numbers, I don't trust the talking heads that try and spin things as if to say it's not a potentially serious problem outside weather or hoarding.

Any inventory decline is of course unsustainable in the long, but not nearly as precipitous as you made it out to be -- from 5/23 to 5/30, inventories declined just 1.5% [ref]. And that doesn't change the fact that the inventory is still at a normal level.

Of course I'm looking at this as a long term problem with near term shocks. The US crude supply isn't the immediate concern, rather, it's the petroleum and diesel levels you should be concerned about in summer. Last year saw very high draw downs and increased demand despite higher prices.

Interesting. Are you sure the US is too broke to bid on oil?

You're in the red by a sum of trillions. Anything the US starts writing as an IOU is practically worthless once people see you can never repay your debts no matter what you do. That's why you've got Arabs buying huge chunks of your industry up now.

What if the US economy responds more slowly to high oil prices than you expect?

Then the fall is harder. A good example is the airline industry, our proverbial canary in the coal mine, because they are very reluctant to increase fares to cover fuel surcharges. Many airlines are looking at going bust by year's end, with several already dead and buried. If the economy doesn't work in a way to counter increasing base prices, then it will fall apart. Course, even if it does correct for long term increases in prices, people will still be unable to keep up.

What if the Saudis actually can and do ramp up production even more? There are factors in both directions that we simply don't know how they'll work, and we don't understand how the economy works well enough to guess at specifics.

Their own king has come out saying they are conserving for the future and they recently had a meeting between ARAMCO and House of Saud officials over curbing exports. Even if Saudi found another Cantarell (highly unlikely), they won't sell it off, least, not at any real rate and more than likely only as processed and refined products to reap the benefits there.

ANWR is definitely not a solution, but if it were approved it would help cushion the landing. It would also

I'm thinking that will be small potatoes when the global economy has ground to a halt. People will be unhappy in the extreme from simple disruptions to their lifestyles now in the form of taxes or pandering to the cause of climate change. When they have to ration their food and fuel, you will get ever more irrational reactions.