Today’s oil prices are because of two factors, supply and demand and the current worth of the US dollar.
The Dollar issue can be debated till we all turn blue in the face, but oil has a worldwide worth factor…. Call it “X”. As the dollar slides it costs more dollars to equal X hence one side of the problem.
The other boils down to worldwide consumption. I was a mud engineer (drilling fluid engineer) in the oil patch in the very early 80’s, and we are not drilling here in the US anywhere close to the capacity we hit in 1980-81, why is that?
In the late 70’s early 80’s oil supply was considered unreliable as there were tensions in the middle east, oil/gas prices skyrocketed, I can remember gas shortages and people lining up for blocks to get gas. The oil business went parabolic.
Today we have the same tensions, but with an even bigger world need as several countries economic levels have developed significantly in the last 20/30 years.
So I ask why are we not drilling the #$^%&^% out of the ground, until we can develop some alternative sources ( don’t even get started as to why we couldn’t see this coming 10/15 years ago.) And why did we put the worlds largest (there’s only 3 in the world if I’m correct) deposit of clean burning coal in Utah ( it’s emissions are far less that the current epa standards with out any added aide.) Under national land management and make a national monument so it cant be developed?
After the bust in the mid 80’s prices went south and it was cheaper to buy the oil from the middle east than produce it here, as the wells there are very shallow and cost per produced barrel is much cheaper than in the US.
The answer for many years was that we need prices to be back in the 50’s preferably $60’s to make oil drilling profitable.
Duh? Is it high enough now?
When someone can answer the question why we are not ramping up production big-time here to offset the problem while at the same time investing big-time in alternative fuel research and development you will be getting at the true underlying issue.
Two ways to get the prices down, drill our selves out of it in the short term until we find a different answer to our needs, or a world wide depression, we wont need the stuff.
Fwiw, a weekend rant.
http://www.wtrg.com/rotaryrigs.html
http://www.wtrg.com/rotaryrigs.html#graphs
http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm
http://gis.bakerhughesdirect.com/Rig.../default2.aspx
p.s fwiw the 1k thing is annoying
The Dollar issue can be debated till we all turn blue in the face, but oil has a worldwide worth factor…. Call it “X”. As the dollar slides it costs more dollars to equal X hence one side of the problem.
The other boils down to worldwide consumption. I was a mud engineer (drilling fluid engineer) in the oil patch in the very early 80’s, and we are not drilling here in the US anywhere close to the capacity we hit in 1980-81, why is that?
In the late 70’s early 80’s oil supply was considered unreliable as there were tensions in the middle east, oil/gas prices skyrocketed, I can remember gas shortages and people lining up for blocks to get gas. The oil business went parabolic.
Today we have the same tensions, but with an even bigger world need as several countries economic levels have developed significantly in the last 20/30 years.
So I ask why are we not drilling the #$^%&^% out of the ground, until we can develop some alternative sources ( don’t even get started as to why we couldn’t see this coming 10/15 years ago.) And why did we put the worlds largest (there’s only 3 in the world if I’m correct) deposit of clean burning coal in Utah ( it’s emissions are far less that the current epa standards with out any added aide.) Under national land management and make a national monument so it cant be developed?
After the bust in the mid 80’s prices went south and it was cheaper to buy the oil from the middle east than produce it here, as the wells there are very shallow and cost per produced barrel is much cheaper than in the US.
The answer for many years was that we need prices to be back in the 50’s preferably $60’s to make oil drilling profitable.
Duh? Is it high enough now?
When someone can answer the question why we are not ramping up production big-time here to offset the problem while at the same time investing big-time in alternative fuel research and development you will be getting at the true underlying issue.
Two ways to get the prices down, drill our selves out of it in the short term until we find a different answer to our needs, or a world wide depression, we wont need the stuff.
Fwiw, a weekend rant.
http://www.wtrg.com/rotaryrigs.html
http://www.wtrg.com/rotaryrigs.html#graphs
http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm
http://gis.bakerhughesdirect.com/Rig.../default2.aspx
p.s fwiw the 1k thing is annoying