Oil prices: Return to sanity, or a collapse?

[sauerkraut]

Oil is going back up as OPEC cuts production. OPEC never should of let oil get past $100.00 a barrel it was overpriced and opened up oil for a collapse. Pump prices are still too high for $72.00 barrel oil prices. We really need to drill for our own oil so we won't be hooked on OPEC.[B)]

[sauerkraut]

quote:Originally posted by OUGrad05

quote:Originally posted by Transport_Oklahoma

Long term back up.  Still all those in China and India who want to live like we do.

No doubt that market forces will eventually push prices higher.  By 2015 I think we could be back at 150 dollar oil world demand projections are 95 to 100 million barrels a day and thats conservative.  Some think world demand could be between 105 and 115mbpd.

Heck- we could have $150.00 a barrel oil in the summer of 2009 if Obama gets elected president and shuts down off shore oil drilling, and with the no-drill democrats in congress we'll be paying a pretty penny for oil and gasoline in 2009. By 2015 we could all be on bikes and on foot with oil at $300.00 a barrel.

[Hoss]

quote:Originally posted by sauerkraut

quote:Originally posted by OUGrad05

quote:Originally posted by Transport_Oklahoma

Long term back up.  Still all those in China and India who want to live like we do.

No doubt that market forces will eventually push prices higher.  By 2015 I think we could be back at 150 dollar oil world demand projections are 95 to 100 million barrels a day and thats conservative.  Some think world demand could be between 105 and 115mbpd.

Heck- we could have $150.00 a barrel oil in the summer of 2009 if Obama gets elected president and shuts down off shore oil drilling, and with the no-drill democrats in congress we'll be paying a pretty penny for oil and gasoline in 2009. By 2015 we could all be on bikes and on foot with oil at $300.00 a barrel.

There's them fear-mongering republican talking points at work....

[]

Hey, for that matter, we could be tappin' into alternative fuels, hydrogen cells, electric cars, and our dependence on oil might have gone in the crapper.  How bout that fear-mongering?

[OUGrad05]

quote:Originally posted by Hoss

quote:Originally posted by sauerkraut

quote:Originally posted by OUGrad05

quote:Originally posted by Transport_Oklahoma

Long term back up.  Still all those in China and India who want to live like we do.

No doubt that market forces will eventually push prices higher.  By 2015 I think we could be back at 150 dollar oil world demand projections are 95 to 100 million barrels a day and thats conservative.  Some think world demand could be between 105 and 115mbpd.

Heck- we could have $150.00 a barrel oil in the summer of 2009 if Obama gets elected president and shuts down off shore oil drilling, and with the no-drill democrats in congress we'll be paying a pretty penny for oil and gasoline in 2009. By 2015 we could all be on bikes and on foot with oil at $300.00 a barrel.

There's them fear-mongering republican talking points at work....

[]

Hey, for that matter, we could be tappin' into alternative fuels, hydrogen cells, electric cars, and our dependence on oil might have gone in the crapper.  How bout that fear-mongering?

You care to tell us how its not just a talking point?  Pelosi is on record telling democrats to say whatever to get elected but that we're not drilling offshore.  

[Hoss]

quote:Originally posted by OUGrad05

quote:Originally posted by Hoss

quote:Originally posted by sauerkraut

quote:Originally posted by OUGrad05

quote:Originally posted by Transport_Oklahoma

Long term back up.  Still all those in China and India who want to live like we do.

No doubt that market forces will eventually push prices higher.  By 2015 I think we could be back at 150 dollar oil world demand projections are 95 to 100 million barrels a day and thats conservative.  Some think world demand could be between 105 and 115mbpd.

Heck- we could have $150.00 a barrel oil in the summer of 2009 if Obama gets elected president and shuts down off shore oil drilling, and with the no-drill democrats in congress we'll be paying a pretty penny for oil and gasoline in 2009. By 2015 we could all be on bikes and on foot with oil at $300.00 a barrel.

There's them fear-mongering republican talking points at work....

[]

Hey, for that matter, we could be tappin' into alternative fuels, hydrogen cells, electric cars, and our dependence on oil might have gone in the crapper.  How bout that fear-mongering?

You care to tell us how its not just a talking point?  Pelosi is on record telling democrats to say whatever to get elected but that we're not drilling offshore.  

Even if they don't drill offshore, it's already been noted that we wouldn't see any benefits in the US for at least 10 years due to the way the market works.

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/offshore-drilling-comes-empty

Note that:  50 cents a barrel in reduction.

Now, I'm not against offshore drilling, but to say it's a pie-in-the-sky solution to our short term or even long term energy problems is a little naive, dontcha think?

[TheArtist]

The US has paltry reserves of oil. Even if we put every field into production. A. we would hit maximum capacity pretty quick, but B. we couldnt refine all of it and you cant pull it all out like that anyway. Thats just no the way it works. Your only going to stick so many drilling platforms in one area. Its like turning on faucets or pipes, not opening a dam. No matter how large the body of water behind the dam, only so much is going to flow out of those pipes at once. It only moves so fast and can only have so many wells all at once. Plus, when you have prices as low as they are now, its more risky to build more platforms and refining capacity. When its up, you dont know for how long. Its finding that balance.

This is interesting... Its possible that little Cuba has as much oil reserves as the US. The US has about 21billion barrels

http://www.yourindustrynews.com/cuba+claims+large+oil+reserves+in+gulf+of+mexico_13018.html

With recent finds, even Brazil possibly has more than 50billion barrels in oil reserves (some say up to 100 billion. Though not easy to get to.

[sauerkraut]

Turns out OPEC wants a another massive cut in oil production to boost up falling oil prices, they just anounced it on the news overnight. What scares me is it looks like Obama and the democrats will be controling our nation for the next 4 years and that means no drilling and no new domestic oil drilling, so we'll be hooked on OPEC's prices. What if OPEC decides not to increase oil production for the 2009 summer driving season? We will be looking at pump prices higher than in 2008. We need to start drilling for our own oil  and tell OPEC to take a hike..

[sauerkraut]

quote:Originally posted by TheArtist

The US has paltry reserves of oil. Even if we put every field into production. A. we would hit maximum capacity pretty quick, but B. we couldnt refine all of it and you cant pull it all out like that anyway. Thats just no the way it works. Your only going to stick so many drilling platforms in one area. Its like turning on faucets or pipes, not opening a dam. No matter how large the body of water behind the dam, only so much is going to flow out of those pipes at once. It only moves so fast and can only have so many wells all at once. Plus, when you have prices as low as they are now, its more risky to build more platforms and refining capacity. When its up, you dont know for how long. Its finding that balance.

This is interesting... Its possible that little Cuba has as much oil reserves as the US. The US has about 21billion barrels

http://www.yourindustrynews.com/cuba+claims+large+oil+reserves+in+gulf+of+mexico_13018.html

With recent finds, even Brazil possibly has more than 50billion barrels in oil reserves (some say up to 100 billion. Though not easy to get to.

North America does have alot of oil, we have tons of oil in rock shale and Alaska is floating on a sea of oil but it's all off limits. The eastern Gulf Of Mexico has tons of oil but it to is off limits. We are the only nation in the world that does not use it's own natural resources. We depend on OPEC to keep our oil flowing.[xx(]

[nathanm]

quote:Originally posted by sauerkraut

We need to start drilling for our own oil  and tell OPEC to take a hike..

We don't have enough oil to do that, sadly, nor would it be online in any reasonable timeframe if we did do more offshore drilling.

And we aren't the only country in the world to not drill/mine/whatever willy-nilly. Conservation (as in keeping some for later, not reducing use, although that might be a good idea) is smart planning for the future.

If we want to tell them to take a hike, we need to stop consuming so much oil.

[sauerkraut]

quote:Originally posted by nathanm

quote:Originally posted by sauerkraut

We need to start drilling for our own oil  and tell OPEC to take a hike..

We don't have enough oil to do that, sadly, nor would it be online in any reasonable timeframe if we did do more offshore drilling.

And we aren't the only country in the world to not drill/mine/whatever willy-nilly. Conservation (as in keeping some for later, not reducing use, although that might be a good idea) is smart planning for the future.

If we want to tell them to take a hike, we need to stop consuming so much oil.

North America has more oil than the middle east, we have billions of barrels locked up in oil rock sand, we can get off mid-east oil if we drilled where ever we had oil. We are bending over at the OPEC alter and this weekend OPEC is planning to decide how much to cut oil production- read: increase in pump prices.

[sauerkraut]

quote:Originally posted by Hoss

quote:Originally posted by sauerkraut

quote:Originally posted by OUGrad05

quote:Originally posted by Transport_Oklahoma

Long term back up.  Still all those in China and India who want to live like we do.

No doubt that market forces will eventually push prices higher.  By 2015 I think we could be back at 150 dollar oil world demand projections are 95 to 100 million barrels a day and thats conservative.  Some think world demand could be between 105 and 115mbpd.

Heck- we could have $150.00 a barrel oil in the summer of 2009 if Obama gets elected president and shuts down off shore oil drilling, and with the no-drill democrats in congress we'll be paying a pretty penny for oil and gasoline in 2009. By 2015 we could all be on bikes and on foot with oil at $300.00 a barrel.

There's them fear-mongering republican talking points at work....

[]

Hey, for that matter, we could be tappin' into alternative fuels, hydrogen cells, electric cars, and our dependence on oil might have gone in the crapper.  How bout that fear-mongering?

Alternative fuels are still a far off pipe dream. No vehicle today runs on them, today we need oil not hydrogen. Besides it takes oil to make hydrogen. Electric cars have been around since the 1980's and they still are full of bugs. The batteries for them cost $30,000 and they can't tow anything they can't go very far on a charge, and don't run well in winter when the cold weather zaps battery power and a electic car requires a electric heater in winter and all  that drains the batteries faster. Then how well will our power grid handle thousands of electric cars plugging into a battery charger every night at 5pm after work? Will the drain cause city blackouts? This stuff all needs to be worked on and figured out. In the meantime we need oil and need to drill, drilling also makes many new jobs. One thing that seems to hold some promise is natural gas cars, natural gas is cheap there is plenty of it and we can fill up at home if we have natural gas in our homes. We would just need to add a natural gas adapter to our current home gas lines. That seems like a good place to start for alternative fuel. Natural gas will cost about $1.20 a "gallon" and we have tons and tons of that.

[nathanm]

quote:Originally posted by sauerkraut

North America has more oil than the middle east, we have billions of barrels locked up in oil rock sand, we can get off mid-east oil if we drilled where ever we had oil. We are bending over at the OPEC alter and this weekend OPEC is planning to decide how much to cut oil production- read: increase in pump prices.

Tar sands aren't really a viable source of energy. It takes too much energy to get at. It's like hydrogen in that way. It takes too much energy to make hydrogen for it to really be a viable fuel source. (short of building a crapton of nuclear power plants to power the conversion process)

Plastic is cheap precisely because it's easily made from oil and oil is relatively cheap, and takes a tiny amount of energy to extract and refine compared to what you get from it. Same with fertilizer, which is what gives us relatively inexpensive food.

Depending on massive energy production for such basic things isn't a good idea.

Not that we can't manufacture oil, but again, it's silly when we could just save some for later.

And your fearmongering about electric cars causing blackouts is just ridiculous.

And as far as our having a lot of oil? You apparently aren't familiar with the amount that we consume. We'd run out in something like 10 years if we could consume only domestic supplies. (of course, we can't produce the volume we consume no matter how much drilling we do because all our fields are getting old and tired, as it were)

[YoungTulsan]

I think if we started using natural gas for more of our cars, the price of natural gas wouldn't remain the same, it would rise to equilibrium with gasoline.  While I like Pickens' plan, he isn't altruistic, he knows the price of natural gas will skyrocket if a huge new demand for it is created.

We're down to $67 by the way.  The "drill drill drill" cries don't get as much attention.  Oil is still abundant.

Conan already detailed in an earlier post in this thread that you need a price of at least $100 for the oil sand argument to have merit.  In the real world, you need a garuntee of $100++ oil and the POTENTIAL for $250 oil before that would rise into enough production to make a dent in our imports.

Our biggest risk now is the dollar unwinding.  It is currently under a huge rally as people flock to treasuries, and foreign currencies inflate worse than ours making us stronger by comparison.  That is part of this drop in oil prices.  If global confidence in the dollar dries up, the dollar will crash hard, and oil will be back up again.

I know I started this thread fearful for how low oil prices might go (in the interest of the Tulsa, Oklahoma economy) but there is a counter-risk of a complete turning of the tables with the dollar situation.

Maybe everything will even out, but it is a weird battle of inflation and deflation.

[Gaspar]

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

I think if we started using natural gas for more of our cars, the price of natural gas wouldn't remain the same, it would rise to equilibrium with gasoline.  While I like Pickens' plan, he isn't altruistic, he knows the price of natural gas will skyrocket if a huge new demand for it is created.

We're down to $67 by the way.  The "drill drill drill" cries don't get as much attention.  Oil is still abundant.

Conan already detailed in an earlier post in this thread that you need a price of at least $100 for the oil sand argument to have merit.  In the real world, you need a garuntee of $100++ oil and the POTENTIAL for $250 oil before that would rise into enough production to make a dent in our imports.

Our biggest risk now is the dollar unwinding.  It is currently under a huge rally as people flock to treasuries, and foreign currencies inflate worse than ours making us stronger by comparison.  That is part of this drop in oil prices.  If global confidence in the dollar dries up, the dollar will crash hard, and oil will be back up again.

I know I started this thread fearful for how low oil prices might go (in the interest of the Tulsa, Oklahoma economy) but there is a counter-risk of a complete turning of the tables with the dollar situation.

Maybe everything will even out, but it is a weird battle of inflation and deflation.

Still difficult to defend sending hundreds of billions of dollars to other countries who hold their hands on the energy faucet.

We have all of the energy we need right here.  More resources than almost anywhere else in the world.  More technology to harvest it.  More science and industry to bring it to it's full potential, and more people who depend on it, yet we hand over control to someone else because we fear our own potential for evil.

I fear the potential for evil from those we finance far more than from ourselves, but that's just my opinion.

[YoungTulsan]

Refinery Upgrade Called Off

http://www.newson6.com/global/story.asp?s=9307988

TULSA, OK -- It's another sign the economy in crisis is hitting home.  Sunoco canceled a $375 million upgrade at the Tulsa refinery.  Sunoco's decision eliminates a project that could have had a big economic impact on Tulsa.



Looks like it is starting.  Oil futures are at $60.19 right now.  Gas is $1.83 a gallon.  KOTV is reporting that the Sun refinery upgrades have been called off.

Does anyone know the status on Sinclair?  They are supposed to be doing a  $1 BILLION upgrade.  Is it too far along to halt, or has it even begun yet?

Pretty soon the entire energy sector in Tulsa is going to take a big hit from this.  How ironic that Semgroup went under because prices were too HIGH.   But Kivisto's bet was correct, that oil prices would fall under $100.  His timing is unfortunate, and judgment to engage in flippant gambling were wrong of course.