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Saudi prince: $100-a-barrel oil 'never' again

MildSteel said:
Of interest in the article was this



So as recently as July of this year, they have one position. Then all of a sudden, after a September meeting with John Kerry, the Saudis start driving down the price of oil causing oil prices to spiral downward. Amazing.
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I think the drop in oil is a power play.

Russians are dependant on oil money, and as the world's largest producer at the moment, cutting oil price belse the cost of production has threatened their economy.

The us gets hurt by this overall because many small producers don't have near infinite sums of money, but will barely touch the big guys.

Let's not forget either that this "glut" of oil reflects just an extra day or two of world consumption and so the price could jump back relatively quickly... If it's desired.

Final note, cartels are good only for the members of the cartel, any benefit to the "customer" of a cartel is coincidental.
 
BmanMcfly said:
I think the drop in oil is a power play.

Russians are dependant on oil money, and as the world's largest producer at the moment, cutting oil price belse the cost of production has threatened their economy.

The us gets hurt by this overall because many small producers don't have near infinite sums of money, but will barely touch the big guys.

Let's not forget either that this "glut" of oil reflects just an extra day or two of world consumption and so the price could jump back relatively quickly... If it's desired.

Final note, cartels are good only for the members of the cartel, any benefit to the "customer" of a cartel is coincidental.
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Though it will inflict some damage, it will not be a fatal blow for the big guys. I was talking to a person who has an executive position in the oil industry last month and he told me that the major players see it as an opportunity to get some of the minor ones out of the market.
 
They made their money, now our leadership wants to tax it back up to where we are used to paying.
 
Luftwaffe said:
We need to grow some balls and start investing heavily into alternative energies.

The second we become independent of oil is the second we can flip all the insignificant sand fleas the finger.
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Find something as efficient as oil, and you'll be gold. The transportability, producability and energy density of oil is difficult to beat. That's why it's still around, and partly because a well oiled (no pun intended) infrastructure has been around for it.
 
MildSteel said:
Though it will inflict some damage, it will not be a fatal blow for the big guys. I was talking to a person who has an executive position in the oil industry last month and he told me that the major players see it as an opportunity to get some of the minor ones out of the market.
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Exactly my point.
 
CRUE CAB said:
They made their money, now our leadership wants to tax it back up to where we are used to paying.
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If this is the case, those taxes won't go away when the price goe's up.

That tax money (the environmental part of that tax at least) goes right into al gore's pockets on the promise that he'll do something like plant a tree in a third world country.
 
Luftwaffe said:
The oil companies are scared, unable to evolve.

Old super successful companies are almost destined to be reluctant to change. Especially when you start talking about the oldest monopolistic companies like oil companies.

These companies will actively spend a lot of resources to fight any sort of change.

It's like an old diseased animal being kept alive just on life support.
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It is kind of funny the stereotype of oil companies.
The amount of research and innovation that comes out of oil companies is
actually fairly remarkable, (Texas instruments, started as a geophysical company)
Western Geophysical was the worlds second largest consumer of magnetic tape for many years,
and directly contributed to storage technology.
To be fair, much of the innovation within oil companies is not loudly advertised,
but kept close as intellectual property, but that does not mean it has not happened.
The Saudi prince may have one point though.
In 2010 the Navy said it can make synthetic jet fuel for between $3 and $6 a gallon.
Audi, has not set up an old refinery to make E-gas.
For the sake of discussion, $3 a gallon gasoline, is roughly equal to $120 barrel oil.
So far this process has been looked at by several Universities, and the Naval research labs,
The best and the brightest in the petrochemical world, work for the oil companies.
If they can improve the process to make man made fuels below say $1.5 a gallon,
Organic oil will only be useful as a feedstock for plastics, and other uses, not fuel.
 
BmanMcfly said:
I think the drop in oil is a power play.

Russians are dependant on oil money, and as the world's largest producer at the moment, cutting oil price belse the cost of production has threatened their economy.

The us gets hurt by this overall because many small producers don't have near infinite sums of money, but will barely touch the big guys.
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SA is using its competitive advantage, having a low production cost. pushing the price per barrel below the price at which shale oil is profitable will eventually cause domestic shale oil producers to end their unprofitable activities
graph shale oil production cost.jpg

Let's not forget either that this "glut" of oil reflects just an extra day or two of world consumption and so the price could jump back relatively quickly... If it's desired.

Final note, cartels are good only for the members of the cartel, any benefit to the "customer" of a cartel is coincidental.
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a cartel is only as strong as the glue that binds them together. oil, not so much. thank goodness
 
Declan said:
Which was why Iran supported OPEC cutting production to maintain higher prices but SA balked.
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Iran's production is down dramatically... and they need $140 a barrel to meet their budget.
 
Sooda said:
Iran's production is down dramatically... and they need $140 a barrel to meet their budget.
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Their production is down because nobody will buy their over-priced oil when Saudi Arabia refused to cut any production whatsoever. Iran is not choosing anything--they are being forced to indirectly by the Saudi decision.
 
Declan said:
Their production is down because nobody will buy their over-priced oil when Saudi Arabia refused to cut any production whatsoever. Iran is not choosing anything--they are being forced to indirectly by the Saudi decision.
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Sort of... they were producing 2.5 million bpd and they had over half their tanker fleet parked and being used as storage.. Then Obama tightened down the sanction in two phases. At this point they are producing 1.2 million bpd and importing gasoline from Venezuela since the don't have sufficient refinery capacity.
 
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