Oil and Gas is Not So Rare Anymore

I have worked extensively as a consultant in the oil industry. An interesting article from the Economist below.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/baob...rc=scn/fb/wl/bl/makingthemostofagoodsituation

No matter where one looks, it appears as if there's plenty of affordable oil still left in the ground or under the sea! No small thanks to new methods of extracting the stuff.

With or without China, oil and gas prices are set to fall. The price of natural gas has crashed in the USA thanks to new finds and fracking. And now even more black gold found off Africa.....some reports say Angola has as much in reserves as the North Sea.

Plenty of reasons to be shorting oil producers!
 
OPEC is all but dead. When supply is so great that is vastly exceeds demand, there is only one direction prices can go.

I'm not saying oil is good for this planet. I'm just saying there is plenty of it still left. Will oil touch its 1986 lows? No, I do not think so....but I'm sure, in real terms, it will come close.

North Sea oil, now in decline, is just a tiny morsel. Plenty of undersea opportunities abound, all over the world. And on-shore natural gas is now more abundant than ever.
 
North Sea oil, now in decline, is just a tiny morsel. Plenty of undersea opportunities abound, all over the world. And on-shore natural gas is now more abundant than ever.

The abundance of the oil is only part of the equation. If it gets more and more expensive to extract then that's just as bad for prices.
 
Peak oil idealogy was really never a valid $ theory for me in any case,


Throughout industrialised history, when the availability or pricing of some core resource reaches point X, science, human ingenuity and financial drive have always resolved that in some way.

ta
rolf
 
There haven't actually been any significant new oil finds since about the 1960's. There have been some new finds but they are basically insignificant compared to the amount of known reserves and the amount being used. What is generally reported as new reserves is simply a rejigging of the numbers of known reserves.

This interview gives a good explaination.

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/11/05/mmm-interviews-ere-on-peak-oil/

I'm not saying PEAK OIL(doom and gloom etc etc) is here, just that the idea we are constantly finding vast new reserves is not exactly accurate and that we will run out long before the oil and related industries would like everyone to believe.
 
There haven't actually been any significant new oil finds since about the 1960's. There have been some new finds but they are basically insignificant compared to the amount of known reserves and the amount being used. What is generally reported as new reserves is simply a rejigging of the numbers of known reserves.

This interview gives a good explaination.

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/11/05/mmm-interviews-ere-on-peak-oil/

I'm not saying PEAK OIL(doom and gloom etc etc) is here, just that the idea we are constantly finding vast new reserves is not exactly accurate and that we will run out long before the oil and related industries would like everyone to believe.

How did you discover this moneymoustache site? I'm curious, do you use it to assist you in making investment decisions? The interview (see above link) is with a blogger who, although informed, seems to be peddling an agenda of his own.
 
How did you discover this moneymoustache site? I'm curious, do you use it to assist you in making investment decisions? The interview (see above link) is with a blogger who, although informed, seems to be peddling an agenda of his own.
I found the site through a thread on this site.

Whether I use it for investment decisions or not is not really relevant but for the record, no I don't.

As for the blogger who is informed but seems to be peddling an agenda of his own, from what I've been able to find and read he seems to be correct in what he says.

If you have any information regarding actual substantial new oil finds I'd be interested in reading any links.
 
hence the carbon tax!

The way money is distributed through the carbon tax it actually encourages more people to consume more, potentially using more energy, potentially creating further polution. The only people who are financially penalised to the point where they need to moderate their behaviour are the upper middle class. Everyone else is either:
* Cashflow neutral (they don't need to modify behaviour)
* Penalised by have so much disposible income it doesn't matter.
* Over compensated so they can spend more.

The carbon tax is a policital farce designed to take money from the middle class and give it to low income earners.

It's also renvenue negative so it costs the government money to administer.
 
If you have any information regarding actual substantial new oil finds I'd be interested in reading any links.

Nothing that could rival Saudi Arabia or Iraq, I am afraid to say. The lowest hanging fruit is always the first to be discovered. Nevertheless, there are plenty of smaller and very rich pickings that more than match North Sea.
 
^^

I guess the significance of such new finds would depend on the definitions of "plenty" and "very rich".

From what I've read these plenty of new finds are insignificant in comparison to what we already know about. Sort of like finding a sink full of water sitting next to an olympic swimming pool.
 
And, right now, both sink and olympic pool are very far from being empty.
Yes, that's why I said, in my original post that I was not claiming "peak oil" was here. Only that, whilst being far from empty, the olympic pool isn't really getting significantly bigger all the time like many would like to believe.
 
The way money is distributed through the carbon tax it actually encourages more people to consume more, potentially using more energy, potentially creating further polution. The only people who are financially penalised to the point where they need to moderate their behaviour are the upper middle class. Everyone else is either:
* Cashflow neutral (they don't need to modify behaviour)
* Penalised by have so much disposible income it doesn't matter.
* Over compensated so they can spend more.

The carbon tax is a policital farce designed to take money from the middle class and give it to low income earners.

It's also renvenue negative so it costs the government money to administer.

Sorry Peter this is just plain wrong. If you increase the price of something like electricity, people will find ways to use less of it. Regardless of whether their income has increased or not.

We have seen this with reducing electricity demand across Australia in the last few years.
 
Sorry Peter this is just plain wrong. If you increase the price of something like electricity, people will find ways to use less of it. Regardless of whether their income has increased or not.

We have seen this with reducing electricity demand across Australia in the last few years.

Ah yes, another carbon tax rent seeker defending it. Good thing the gravy train stops in September this year. Carbon Taxes don't make the Earth cooler, nor do they reduce the need for air conditioning and heating which require electricity.
 
Ah yes, another carbon tax rent seeker defending it. Good thing the gravy train stops in September this year. Carbon Taxes don't make the Earth cooler, nor do they reduce the need for air conditioning and heating which require electricity.

Rent seeker? Guilty as charged! That's what we're all here for on this forum isn't it?

Just to be clear my gravy train is the Renewable Energy Target, which enjoys bipartisan support being an initiative of the Howard govt. Carbon tax makes no difference to this - so all good here! :)
 
Rent seeker? Guilty as charged! That's what we're all here for on this forum isn't it?

Touché.

Just to be clear my gravy train is the Renewable Energy Target, which enjoys bipartisan support being an initiative of the Howard govt. Carbon tax makes no difference to this - so all good here! :)

Two sides of the same coin. The target of renewable energy % of power generation is a direct link to the justification for having a carbon tax in the first place to reach that target more quickly.
 
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