Peak oil a hoax? Prove it.

[wintler2]

I made my points and I resent your bs mischaracterization of them.
Your ground rule "prove peak oil is a hoax" is full of shit.

What a devastating critique.

Why don't you instead prove for us that peak oil is true?

Read the title of thread, and my first post; the linked EnergyBulletin.net Peak Oil Primer you can take as my proof.

Your other demands are off topic, be glad to discuss them once you explain how you know peak oil is a hoax, something you have claimed on many threads on many and varied topics. This thread is where you are asked to put up or shut up. If you want to discuss those other topics, start your own thread.

[wintler2]

..Supply (of anything, even a theoretically fixed/limited resource) will always be a function of price, technology and available substitutes.

Uh, you forgot the actual volume in existance of said (demonstrably finite) resource, that plays a teensy tiny role too.

It took a couple years of economics, being a resource specialist during the 1980 oil shale days in western Colo, lots of hard knocks, and working with one of the foremost urban/regional economists to understand that. It's a valuable lesson, one that wintler doesn't seem to have learned yet.

Ah, a Claim To Superior Exclusive Knowledge, about time one of those showed up. Technology might at best push the peak back, with a steeper subsequent decline (so North Sea and Quatar experiences suggest). Price is only a signal, you can't burn price. And Substitutes - what is your substitute for 84mbd of fossil oil? <2mbd of tar sands? <1mbd biodiesel? Declining gas supply? They might help, but are in no way substitutes.

[wintler2]

Yeah I was gonna post a response that in effect even if its true its still a scam, and maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing/TEOTWAWKI but the OP seems to want someone to write him a thesis on the topic when the truth is most of the hard data is so obscured, unavailable, uncollected, or simply falsified that we have no fucking clue.

So nothing is knowable, its all too hard eh? I'm supposed to believe that this international multi-decade 'peak oil hoax' leaves no tracks, makes no records, and operates in such a completely undescribable way, so undescribable not a single poster has yet ventured even a paragraph explaining how it works. If Jeff can cross reference dozens of books and news reports on crimes and events that few even believe happen, then surely y'all can come up with SOMETHING.

Oil isn't going to dry up tomorrow.

HEY, thats stickydog99's strawman, he'll be miffed at you using it out without asking. Nobody is saying oil will dry up tomorrow, maybe you should read my first post.

[stickdog99]

I disagree that invading Iraq for oil means oil is running out. Cortez invaded the New World for gold. Did that mean that gold was running out?

You have to understand that Big Oil and Big Defense Contractors exist in mutual symbiosis. The USA's military is the world's largest consumer of oil. Meanwhile, the most profitable current spoil of war is the control of the spigot of world's cheapest oil. What other commodity can you obtain in huge quantities at a cost of less than one hundredth of its final selling price with an almost iron clad guarantee of continual growth in demand?

Iraqi crude is literally cheaper than dirt. It costs about $1 a barrel (42 gallons) to get it out of the ground. Whether shortages of oil will someday soon become real or simply remain contrived by the supplier controlled oil market and their subservient oil producer cartels as they have for the last 125 years, the final products of a barrel of crude oil (gas plus a bunch of other petro products) can now be sold for well over $100. A large portion of these petroleum end products are sold to US consumers who have been trained to drive ridiculous gas guzzlers over ridiculous distances. A lot more is bought by US taxpayers (and the foreign debt that allows the US govt to spend more than it collects) in the name of the bloated US military and national security state.

It's a racket. Oil suppliers spend somebody else's money to fatten up the other part of their singular beast (the defense contractors) in order to secure trillions of dollars worth of a commodity whose end products are then sold by them at an additional healthy profit. But does Joe Taxpayer -- who pays the bill for Big Oil driven imperialistic aggression -- profit in any way from these spoils of war? No. Big Oil instead works with the defense contractors (in the guise of political incompetence) to keep production down while counting on their paid operatives and a slew of useful idiots to make enough noise about Peak Oil to justify their imperial aggression, outrageous prices and record profits.

Don't kid yourselves. The price of gas has nothing to do with the price of oil production. It's a supplier controlled market. The only real price control is the political unrest that would accompany gas prices set so high that they would destroy Joe Taxpayer's debt based consumer lifestyle. The prices consumers pay for the end products of oil have almost nothing to do with the cost of production and everything to do with whatever cost regional consumers are willing to bear before foregoing oil, demanding conversion to other alternatives or rebelling against their rigged political systems. That's why Iraqis pay less than 20% of what Americans pay for gas and Americans pay less than 40% of what Europeans pay for gas.

The reason I hate Peak Oil chicken littles is that they are acting in the service of Big Oil by spreading a bunch of dubious information about what are essentially known unknowns and unknown knowns as gospel truth under the guise of grassroots environmental activism. While the intent of these chicken littles may be pure, the effect is to prepare the way for Americans to accept ever rising prices for gas and other petroleum products and ever more aggressive imperialistic forays into regions that are rich in cheap oil because "oil is running out" when the actual truth of the matter is that Big Oil continues to control the whole market as well as the imperialistic military beast that allows it to control the cheapest production spigots. The tidy fact that this beast is itself completely dependent on oil cements the deadly symbiosis of military aggression and Big Oil profits.

In the final analysis, message board Peak Oil chicken littles are Big Oil's "grassroots" way of trying to horn in on Big Pharma's game -- that is, convincing (or at least trying to convince) Joe Consumer that his interests are not served by protecting his own wallet but instead by filling the wallets of his corporate masters at his expense.

[stickdog99]

What are you trying to sell, wintler2?

The bottom line is that nobody has any clue when Peak Oil will come because its very definition depends on the price people are willing to pay for oil before getting serious about conservation and energy alternatives. If people are willing to pay $80 a barrel, suddenly South America and Canada have a shitload of oil. If people are willing to pay $100 a barrel, suddenly the technical difficulties of deep ocean drilling aren't dissuasive. By the time we get to $120 a barrel all sorts of alternatives (like solar, wind, water, growing hemp, growing microbes, converting garbage, etc.) become extremely viable, using nothing more advanced than current technology.

So exactly what are you trying to sell us here other than the fact that it's difficult to prove a negative?

[wintler2]

I apologise in advance to readers for fragmenting the text, its the only way i can keep track of the many themes, its a credit to stickydogs art.

I disagree that invading Iraq for oil means oil is running out.

I never said it did, would be a ridiculous case to make. Is the Iraq reference a reply to something i wrote earlier? (that'd be a first). It makes it easier for all if you can quote me, i go to some trouble to do so for you. I see the 'oil running out' strawman is back in your hands now, someone else gave it a trot whilst you were away, they seem to have departed now.

Cortez invaded the New World for gold. Did that mean that gold was running out?

See previous reply, quit with the strawmen.

You have to understand that Big Oil and Big Defense Contractors exist in mutual symbiosis.

'Duh!', but their relationship is by no means monogamous.

The USA's military is the world's largest consumer of oil. Meanwhile, the most profitable current spoil of war is the control of the spigot of world's cheapest oil.

How can your claimed worlds cheapest oil be profitable AND fuel the US military? Iraqi oil may once have cost $2/barrel to extract and ship (any reference for that?) but i'd say the price currently is alot higher - $2 trillion spent on war in last four years for what, 2mbd average since invasion?http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/PAPRPIQ.gif
Assuming $50/barrel (high guess at avg NYMEX US$/barrel over same period) thats $36bil/yr to gross from all Iraqs oil (2 x 365 x 50). Doesn't seem to add up.

What other commodity can you obtain in huge quantities at a cost of less than one hundredth of its final selling price with an almost iron clad guarantee of continual growth in demand?Iraqi crude is literally cheaper than dirt. It costs about $1 a barrel (42 gallons) to get it out of the ground.

One hundredth? Oil has never hit $100 a barrel.

Whether shortages of oil are will suddenly become real or simply remain contrived by the supplier controlled oil market and oil producer cartels as they have for the last 125 years, the final products of a barrel of crude oil (gas plus a bunch of other petro products) can now be sold for well over $100.

Is that you admitting that oil will peak at some time?

Much of this is sold to US consumers who drive ridiculous gas guzzlers over ridiculous distances. A lot more is bought by US taxpayers (and the foreign debt that allows the US to spend more than it collects) in the name of the bloated US military and national security state.

Duh. How is this connected?

It's a racket. Oil suppliers spend somebody else's money to fatten up the other part of their singular beast (the defense contractors) in order to secure trillions of dollars worth of a commodity whose end products are then sold by them at an additional healthy profit.

Duh. How does this prove oil extraction can't peak?

But does Joe Taxpayer -- who paid the bill for Big Oil driven imperialistic aggression -- profit in any way from these spoils of war? No.

What about cheap prices on the best packaged & concentrated energy we have yet found anywhere? Never having to walk to work or carry burdens? Cheap holidays? Plastics?

Big Oil instead works with the defense contractors (in the guise of political incompetence) to keep production down while counting on their paid operatives and a slew of useful idiots to make enough noise about Peak Oil to justify their imperial aggression, outrageous prices and record profits.

How does making noise about limits on oil extraction 'justify their imperial aggression, outrageous prices and record profits'? Couldn't be worse than the paranoia of numinous 'they' that your fear-mongering feeds.

Don't kid yourselves. The price of gas has nothing to do with the price of oil production.

Never said it did for fossil oil, tho it obviously does for alternative fuels like tar sands (now rip roaring) and shale oil (still not economicaly rational).

It's a supplier controlled market. The only real price control is the political unrest that would accompany gas prices set so high that they would destroy Joe Taxpayer's debt based consumer lifestyle.

Don't forget political unrest at the other end of the pipe, the end first-worlders always forget. 'Political unrest' in Nigeria or Columbia means more 'training operations' for client units within Nigerian military, aided by Blackwater KBR etc, all getting a wedge of cash at some stage.

The prices consumers pay for the end products of oil have almost nothing to do with the cost of production and everything to do with whatever cost regional consumers are willing to bear before foregoing oil, demanding conversion to other alternatives or rebelling against their rigged political systems. That's why Iraqis pay less than 20% of what Americans pay for gas and Americans pay less than 40% of what Europeans pay for gas.

Yes, you've you've been hammering this well known point fr a while now, wheres it going?

Its going kinky: after a few hundred words of all the right audience-specific cliches (think of it as the guy-gets-girl part of the matinee), now we have the poison in the fruit basket...

The reason I hate Peak Oil chicken littles is that they are acting in the service of Big Oil by spreading a bunch of dubious information about what are essentially known unknowns and unknown knowns as gospel truth under the guise of grassroots environmental activism.

Most peak oilers, certainly most of the 'early' (pre 1997) ones are engineers or material scientists of some description, they seem to be the only ones willing to 'kick all the wheels' enough to accept the evidence.

While the intent of these chicken littles may be pure, the effect is to prepare the way for Americans to accept ever rising prices for gas and other petroleum products and ever more aggressive imperialistic forays into regions that are rich in cheap oil..

You claim that is the effect, in one sentance asserting it as fact and blaming it on PO activists, yet you provide nothing to support your claim. Very rigorous. Personally i care not how 'muricans react to news of oil depletion, being happily many thousands of km from the place.

.. because "oil is running out"..

Is there a single post where you have not posed that strawman? I have never said it, have repeatedly pointed that out to you, and yet you continue to imply i did - why do you show repeated bad faith?

.. when the actual truth of the matter is that Big Oil continues to control the whole market as well as the imperialistic military beast that allows it to control the cheapest production spigots. The tidy fact that this beast is itself completely dependent on oil cements the deadly symbiosis of military aggression and Big Oil profits.

Lovely rhetoric, all the right jargon and hotbutton phrases, still waiting on the evidence or the how. eg. How is the Iraqi insurgency whipping US's xbox generation part of Big Oils plan?

In the final analysis, message board Peak Oil chicken littles are Big Oil's "grassroots" way of trying to horn it on Big Pharma's game -- that is, convincing (or at least trying to convince) Joe Consumer that his interests are not served by protecting his own wallet but instead by filling the wallets of his corporate masters at his expense.

Uh huh. Thats why so many PO advocates push lower consumption, smaller/no cars, controlling prices, rationing, oil reserve transparency etc, cos those are all high on Big Oils wish list...not!

Really, theres so much silliness in SDs theories its hard to know where to start. How about, If Big Oil is using PO to bolster support for resource-imperialism, why is ExxonMobil pouring scorn on peak oil?

[isachar]

..Supply (of anything, even a theoretically fixed/limited resource) will always be a function of price, technology and available substitutes.

Uh, you forgot the actual volume in existance of said (demonstrably finite) resource, that plays a teensy tiny role too.

Wintler, I see you still don't get it. You'll have to do a little more thinking on this and get past your simplistic assumptions. Believe it or not, others may have some useful insight on this subject beyond the simplistic chart-gazing you seem to have limited yourself to.

And, no one said the adjustments to price and other signals wouldn't be bumpy for some, painful for many others, and involve some lifestyle changes.

Methinks you've got the certitude and attitude of a convert who has only a facile knowledge of resource economics gained from straight-line extrapolations of someone else's charts.

At, say, $150 - $200 per barrel, those charts will exhibit much different behavior, and all sorts of things few would now consider become possible. And supply, even if fixed, will be extended relative to lower demand. All change takes place at the margin. Until you understand that, you won't get it.

For example, at that price I would imagine - for example - that public transportation, more motorbikes, ride-sharing, and mini-Coopers would come into use for personal transport. I would also expect much of the suburbs to become abandoned as millions of people realize the folly of living in a 5,000 sf house, 40 miles away from their place of work where they also need to burn $3.00 of gas just to get to their suburban grocery store to buy a quart of milk.

BTW, I love your Emperor Wintler, King of the Thread act. Keep it up ace. It's an expression of ignorance born of simplistic certitude.

[JD]

Guys, give Wintler a break. Yes he's gotten a bit snarky but no one has stepped up to the plate and provided him with anything approaching even a good case for Peak Oil being a hoax, let alone proof.

If you can't do it, don't bother posting.

I can empathize with his frustration, refer to my posting on the first page.

I've been a practicing petroleum engineer for 20 years who has worked around the world. This topic is difficult to "prove". All I can say is that I've looked at thousands of producing fields around the world and they are all depleting. And we aren't finding as much oil as we used to. We are chasing smaller and smaller targets.

"Oh yeah, we're supposed to believe YOU! You are an oilman!!"

Sigh. I anticipate the ad hominum. Yeah, why should you listen to someone who is intimately knowledgable about a topic........ Sigh.

What follows is not "proof" of oil peaking but certainly suggests to me that "cheap and easy" is on the wane? Anyone have a problem with that? (sorry article is not online)

BMO Capital Markets, January 17, 2007

Global Cost Study

We have released a comprehensive study of the global oil and gas industry’s cost structure based on the reported results of the Multinational Oils as well as North American Integrateds, Senior Producers and Junior Producers.1 The report compiles the results for 116 companies with aggregate worldwide crude oil production of 18.0 million b/d and worldwide natural gas production of 75.8 Bcf/d. We have translated the actual historical cost data (reserve replacement cost, production cost, G&A, income taxes) into “breakeven oil prices,” which we define as the crude oil-equivalent price level that is required to recover all of the reported costs, including a 10% return on capital. We have also translated the breakeven oil price to a “required WTI price;” that is, the level at which WTI prices would need to be in order for the company to generate sufficient revenue to cover its costs, taking into consideration the quality
of the product it produces relative to WTI.

Worldwide finding and development costs (reserve replacement costs) have increased from US$4.09/boe in 1999 to US$11.59/boe in 2005 while worldwide production costs (including G&A) have expanded from US$4.56/boe in 1999 to US$8.97/boe in 2005.

Now if I knew nothing about the oil and gas industry, I think I would reject out of hand that there is some "conspiracy" afoot. Costs going up; oil companies spending more money to produce what they have and to find more? This hurts their financial position.

Why would they do that?

Considering the alarming increase in cost structure, how are oil companies benefiting from any trends of rising prices? I would argue that if perform discount cashflow analysis that there has been NO BENEFIT to the average producer in terms of net present value creation in the price runup. Any benefit has been absorbed by the higher costs of production and development.

Oh yeah....... someone on this thread said something to the effect that it costs $1/bbl to get oil out of the ground.

Don't know where this individual got this idea from but it is flat out WRONG, the BMO report quoted above is a point of evidence for that. You could also look at annual reports for any oil company to verify that their costs are not $1/bbl but considerably higher.

Sorry everyone, but with the extreme level of ignorance and lack of diligence and thought applied by the posters who adhere to the "peak oil hoax" and "oil company conspiracy" side of this question I cannot be critical of Wintler at all. Pick up you socks, do some real work, put some real thought into the issue. The childish bullshit you are putting up on Wintler's thread, about something you know nothing about is merely a waste of electrons.

Either do it right or don't do it at all, and certainly don't bitch about being taken to task for it.

[stickdog99]

The first two paragraphs in my last large post were not in response to anything you said, wintler2, but to something erosoplier wrote on the bottom of page 5.

How can your claimed worlds cheapest oil be profitable AND fuel the US military? Iraqi oil may once have cost $2/barrel to extract and ship (any reference for that?) but i'd say the price currently is alot higher - $2 trillion spent on war in last four years for what, 2mbd average since invasion?

It's simple. The people who are "investing" in this imperialistic occupation are US soldiers and tax payers. They are the stockholders who get wiped out when their company goes bankrupt due to "bad planning" by government executives. How does this affect the profits of Big Oil and Big Defense contractors? It's another Enron-type scam except -- like the S&L bail out and so much other US government spending -- it throws public funds down the toilet in an attempt to insure that private megaliths keep making a killing.

One hundredth? Oil has never hit $100 a barrel.

The end products of a barrel of oil have, depending on the locality's ability to bear this cost without political upheaval as discussed. That's how Big Oil makes its "cost plus" margin. Big Oil's major interest in production is that keeping a hand in production allows them to control their demand growth market from the supply side as well.

Is that you admitting that oil will peak at some time?

Sure. And?

What about cheap prices on the best packaged & concentrated energy we have yet found anywhere? Never having to walk to work or carry burdens? Cheap holidays? Plastics?

So paying $3.50 a gallon for the dirty end dregs of something that costs less than $2 a barrel is cheap? This is where you need to step back. Yes, Americans use far, far too much oil. And certainly one way to reduce consumption would be to make gas and heating oil prices even more artificially high than oil companies and US taxation policies already do. But that doesn't change the fundamental fact that the oil market has been controlled by oil distributors since the days of Standard Oil, and the purpose of this control has been to keep the prices of petroleum end products continually propped up even in the face of huge cheap oil discoveries.

My point is that the US is now exercising (or at least attempting to exercise) effective military control over a vast untapped supply of oil that is ridiculously cheap to extract and refine compared to the current prices that the markets for petro end products are bearing. But should the US tax payer expect to see any (even temporary) end product price relief for his "investment" in procuring this incredibly profitable resource? Fat chance. The only way that could possibly happen is if Big Oil lost (corporate, political and/or military) control of a significant percentage of the cheap oil spigot. That's why Hussein had to go.

How does making noise about limits on oil extraction 'justify their imperial aggression, outrageous prices and record profits'? Couldn't be worse than the paranoia of numinous 'they' that your fear-mongering feeds.

My fear mongering? Who is running around here telling everybody to wake up to the fact that "our" entire economic sky is falling? Again, I have no problem with anyone making noise about the limits of oil extraction as long as the "noise" is presented in the right context -- which is basically Big Oil's historical control of the entire world energy market to keep end product prices high. Can't you can't see how sounding the alarm about how our "very way of life" is at stake because of coming oil shortages without placing this information in the context of the supplier controlled oil market is playing right into Big Oil's plans to keep raping consumers with as high of petro end product prices as they can possibly set without triggering political rebellion?

Who is more apt to exert political pressure to seriously change the entire energy market status quo, someone sold the line of goods that ever rising petro end product prices are a "natural" consequence of Peak Oil and Adam Smith's invisible hand or somebody who understands that the energy marketplace will never come to our rescue (well, at least not until Big Oil has bled us all dry for every last possible penny) as long as Big Oil is controlling it?

Lovely rhetoric, all the right jargon and hotbutton phrases, still waiting on the evidence or the how. eg. How is the Iraqi insurgency whipping US's xbox generation part of Big Oils plan?

Yeah, that's exactly what's happening over in Iraq. Care to compare the body count again? How many Big Oil executives have died in this war? How has the decimation of Iraq at the cost of a few thousand US lives and a trillion dollars of somebody else's money hurt Big Oil's profits? Big Oil currently controls Iraq's cheap oil spigot. That was the mission. It has been and will remain quite accomplished. To them, all the rest is just a little bad PR for their more bare faced political hacks on the right side of the fence. Wake me when the US military disbands or the US Demopublican oligarchy is overthrown because those are the only things that will stop Big Oil from militarily adventuring where and when it damn well pleases in pursuit of energy market control.

Uh huh. Thats why so many PO advocates push lower consumption, smaller/no cars, controlling prices, rationing, oil reserve transparency etc, cos those are all high on Big Oils wish list...not!

Please consider starting a thread highlighting these proposals so we can hold hands and sing Kumbaya.

Really, theres so much silliness in SDs theories its hard to know where to start. How about, If Big Oil is using PO to bolster support for resource-imperialism, why is ExxonMobil pouring scorn on peak oil?

It's as if you don't understand basic economics. Why does somebody selling a highly desired product set its price as high as possible without severely affecting volume? When it comes to maximizing profits, there are always pressures on both sides of the equation. In this case, Big Oil is attempting to procure a progressive buy in on ever rising petroleum end product prices without exposing itself to any serious political establishment pressures that might threaten its control of the world energy market.

[stickdog99]

JD, I didn't say that extraction costs were around $1 a barrel in general, just in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. But thanks for shedding some crocodile tears for the poor oil producers who can only hawk their wares for $50 a barrel. Certainly more appreciation of Peak Oil by the unwashed masses will help us all sympathize with the enormous difficulties that oil production executives face in never knowing exactly when the largely untapped, huge and well-proven $1 a barrel Iraqi reserves will finally flood their market in force.

If Peak Oil is actually already upon us, when can we expect to see oil prices rise to $100 a barrel to finally give these poor souls the profit margins they so richly deserve? I mean, the way things are now, it's been enough to force even a Presidentially competent oilman into several bankruptcies.

More importantly, when will you Peak Oil chicken littles learn to differentiate between the hapless prospectors of more expensive to extract and harder to refine crude from the Big Oil giants who control the entire marketplace that these prospectors must attempt to make their margins in?

[JD]

Iraq has this mythical $1/bbl oil, eh? Care to produce any evidence for that? Saudi too? Hmmmm........ My friend working for Aramco says it is not that much cheaper than North American extraction costs now. They have a raft of production problems; and over the last 5 years have been increasing their drilling fleet size by 30% or more a year just to keep up with the declines hitting them. Of course, that is no indication that "cheap and easy" is behind us, right?

Now for anyone of common sense, consider this. What is the merit of trading a perfectly good barrel of oil for some arbitrary and imaginary item called 50 American Dollars - now that is a great trade for the buyer!

The dollars were created arbitrarily by a privately owned Central Bank from NOTHING and mean NOTHING. The barrel of oil is the most dense and precious store of energy ever known to mankind. Looking for a scam? You are looking in the wrong place my friend! The scam is on the poor fool who must take the dollar for their precious commodity. Learn a bit about central banking and start pointing your finger where the finger pointing belongs.

More importantly, when will you Peak Oil chicken littles learn to differentiate between the hapless prospectors of more expensive to extract and harder to refine crude from the Big Oil giants who control the entire marketplace that these prospectors must attempt to make their margins in?

Hmmmm...... where to start.

"hapless prospectors" - I assume by that you mean startups or small independant producers?

That'd be me. I Started a company from scratch 2.5 years ago with four friends. Now it is a quarter billion dollar company. (And before anyone think I'm megarich let me confirm I only own a small fraction of the common shares - with growth comes dilution)

I'm not saying this to brag, but to let you know that the oil industry isn't a closed shop. It is dynamic, and smart hard working people can access capital to take a licken' to the big boys. Again - that'd be me. Done that.

For example, I beat the crap out of a certain world's largest oil company on a piece of business. Bought some assets from them they were too dim to know how to exploit properly. Tripled the production rate. Yeah, F#ck you, XOM! You think oilmen are in love with the big oil companies? LOL - their a teet to feed on. My only fear is that they'll one day be populated by decent professionals rather than pampered beauracrats. That'd put us out of business!

Having said some differences, there are similarities between independants and majors. We all take the same price for oil. Doesn't matter who owns the barrels. We all get the same price.

The majors sure as hell don't set the price. National oil companies way outproduce anyone else. They own the production side of the market, and sometimes, the downstream side too (example Venezuala owns Citigo (?) American downstream company)

A close business to that of and oil company is a farm. ??? Well to start with, seems almost every oilman grew up on a farm. Almost a precondition to entering the industry.

Instead of worrying about the weather and the grain price, we worry about what the drill bit finds and the oil price. We both roll the dice with every crop or well.

We're price takers, not price makers. Just like our Dad's on the farm. And the price is usually only barely high enough to make ends meet.

Both are technical trades, both require an undefinable "knack" or intuition as to how to do it well. In both you need to be a jack of all trades to suceed. Both require hard work, and good old-fashioned common sense. No room for nonsense or you lose the farm, get injured, or worse....

Yes, no room for nonsense. All I've been seeing on this thread is......nonsense. Sorry no time for it.

[stickdog99]

Well, Tex, thanks for that old country dress down.

Now please listen clearly. You are talking about oil producers. I am talking about Big Oil -- the Big Five -- the distributors that you sell to. Farmers they are not. Get it?

[JD]

Glad to get that clarification. The oil producers ARE NOT the bad guys. The "bad guys" are the top five distributors I sell to. OK gotcha. And...... who are they?

But hold on a second; I thought it was peak oil PRODUCTION that was the on the table as being a hoax. The oil producers (like myself?) are the good guys. OK, gotcha. Then how come the guys like myself are finding massively increasing F&D and operating costs? How are the "Big Five" influencing how much oil I and the rest of industry are finding? How are the "Big Five" influencing the massive decline in production in Norway (they aren't the big operators there), Mexico (they don't operate there), the North Sea (OK, they do operate there and are selling out as fast as possible to little guys like me), etc........

Not to mention how is the "Big Five" causing the depletion effects I have personally observed in every producing oil and gas field I've ever seen? Sorry lad but that's what peak oil is about - we are plucking away at a finite resource, and not getting on with preparing the alternatives for its inevitable end.

Sorry, I don't get the reasoning. Somehow big oil is putting the squeeze on me? Or is big oil just squeezing the consumer? If so, how to explain the terrible Return on Equity of the industry. Especially the downstream side. Low single digit ROE. Hmmmm. If there is such a conspiracy you think they'd be smart enough to make money on it. (PS - if conspiracy hunting I'd suggest looking to the Defence and Pharmaceutical industries - high ROE, high gov't involvement, restrictive trade practices)

Sorry, but I find I'm getting squeezed by small contractors charging ever more for their services, and by a hyper-competitive overcapitalized industry competing with itself too vigorously for ever shrinking opportunities for growth.

Sorry but I can't spot a conspiracy. The closest thing to a conspiracy in big oil I can spot is big oil companies like Shell bribing the crap out of gov't officials in Nigeria and such.

Sorry, but it isn't the days of JD Rockefeller and Standard. Now THERE was some conspiracies and crooked business practices for you. Just ain't like those days anymore I'm afraid. Ira Tarbell fixed that good, bless her heart.

Just out of curiosity, what do you do for a living? Video store clerk, or appliance repairman? Whatever you are doesn't matter but I will say that if I am talking to someone who is intimate with a subject I'd probably defer to their experience and listen to what they are saying, rather than rolling up my sleeves to prove them wrong. Not saying I'd believe what they told me entirely, but if you said something I'd probably fricking listen and think through what they were saying about their industry and experiences there.

[TooStoned]

I haven't really read enough about the subject to say authoritatively about any of it...I think the phenomena of PEAK OIL (manufactured prop or real phenomena) is an opportunity for us to move away from nonrenewable energy resources and make a change for the health of our Children's Children's children as the song goes.

Whether Petroleum deposits come from deposits from countless years of plants working the carbon cycle, making the relatively rare and highly reactive O2 gas available for all us meat puppets and burying the C away from the biota, or is seeping up from immense resevoirs beneathe crystalline rock the argument somewhat moot.

Of course knowledge for knowledge sake is worthwhile, and I've appreciated this thread for whatever coclusions or lack thereof I've made about PO.

I am sure REAL costs for us and the enviorment assosciated with "producing oil" (nice euphemism, no?) are only going up, while utilizing renewable sources real costs go down and could always get lower as technology improved.

My fear is that we have more carbon buried in the earth to burn than is wise or healthy to do (it did take millions of years for the earth romove it from the cycle we need for breatheable air)

...Mexico (they don't operate there...

),

In my alter ego as a "conventional political Lefty Blogger" (no KOS or DU Kool-aid for lemmings thank-you veddy much!) I've had discussions with folks tuned into Mexico and they say a big reason behind Calderon getting installed over Obrador (besides the fact the castillians consider AMLO a dirty mudblood commie) is because Pemex (the state owned oil company produces everything) is about to be broken up and "privatized"

Sorry if I just went way OT, but I think it all kinda relates...

[stickdog99]

How much total equity do the Big Five have between them, JD?

How much crude production do you think you personally could scour up if you were given a free hand and few hundred billion dollars to drill in a perfectly politically stable Iraq, JD?