World Oil Production to Peak in 2013

Welfare recipients should be required to go to a station and pedal bikes to
turn generators....to make the electricity...

john

 

Any of the Wall street commodity investors. I was reading a good piece
this afternoon, (too freakin' hot to be outside), and wish I had kept
track of it (link). In a nutshell, the same crowd that got it to $145+
per BBL last July are back in business. Yet, OPEC just adjusted downward
their expectations for volume for the next year.

Au contraire... I takes 1 gal of diesel to move a ton over 450 miles by
rail. Trucks should be relegated to local deliveries or coverage in
areas not covered by long distance rail.

Circumstances change and such can be overcome by modifying methodology
and planning.

The northeast corridor is electrified and many other urban rail systems
are as well. Diesel/Electric is fine for long haul.

JT

 

You, for instance?

If you have money in the bank, are drawing a pension (even a government
pension), or have any investments of any kind (even CDs), you are one of
those "speculators".

The "speculators" were governemnts, banks, insurance companies, investment
firms, airlines, grocery store holding companies, you name it.

These things only ever become clear once the dust settles. It turns out
that a lot of money was in the mortgage market on account of the constantly
rising prices. When that fell apart, money rushed out quickly into the next
available thing: commodities. Such a phenomenon can only be finite, and so
this one was; once the frenzy ended, prices fell back to earth.

You need to get offline and read something with actual information in it,
such as Forbes magazine, Reason magazine, or the Wall Street Journal. Even
Canada's National Post/Finaincial Post is excellent for actual information.

You're old enough to remember the truck/train de-regulation of the early
'80s. Remember how all the spur lines were ripped up a few years later?
Guess why? Trucking ended up being cheaper, that's why. Nobody wanted rail
any more unless they were shipping all the way to the sea ports, or were
shipping enormous quantities of cheap commodities similarly long distances.

It's not just the fuel that counts, but the infrastructure. It would be
hideously expensive to build out and maintain a rail network even more
sprawling than the hideously expensive one we used to have (which was
heavily subsidized by the taxpayer and was a major money-loser).

That sounds good in here, but try putting that in practice. Could I ever
have an engine deliver and pick up ONE rail car in a few hours, then take
it immediately to Montreal? Not a chance.

Trains have necessarily very restrictive schedules, since you need a lot of
cars hooked up to your engine to make a trip economically viable. It's that
inherent restrictiveness that made trains highly unpopular the moment
just anybody could start a trucking company.

Trains are still popular, but in their niche. Now that railroads are not
required to be all things to all people, they can actually make money
(instead of losing it like they used to) doing what they do best: Deliver
large amounts of goods huge distances.

Very true. Rail and electrification are ideal for densely populated areas,
but scheduling and timing are still railroads' Achilles heels.

 

And yet they are now being driven once again not based on supply and
demand...

Uh, the article I did read was credible. Additionally, there are people
in the local area who are well aware of what is going on and agree that
the current spike is baseless in fact.

"Trucking was cheaper,..." is key here. Long distance trucking is no
longer cheaper and by quite a margin at that. That's what this is all
about.

Except for the northeast corridor, US rail is in private hands. No
subsidies and the main rail infrastructure is adequate.

Probably not but that's not the issue. Bulk long distance carriage is.

You'd be surprised how accommodating the railroads are. I spent an
afternoon as a guest at a rail management center in Ft Worth. Just think
NASA amplified several times.

That's my whole point.

JT

 

I agree with you here. I have read many papers on this subject with
basically the same finding. The ecoterrorist are the ones putting no to this
project.

Not so. They are developing fields along the Arctic coast in all areas where
these same ecoterrorists haven't stopped development.

This most definitely is not true. Yes, natural gas is being stored
underground in the Prudhoe Bay field, in the Kuparik field, in the Seal
Island field (to name just a few) but the reason is not to control the
price. Rather, there is no way, at present, to move the gas from the North
Slope to markets in Alaska, Canada, and the "smaller states". However, Gov.
Palin has negotiated contracts with companies to move said gas to the
markets. There is some lead time involved, say ten years or so. We here in
Alaska are impatiently waiting for that day to come.

DaveD

 

He's referring to speculators in commodity futures. The commmodity being
oil. Until the year 2000 its was not possible for speculators to dabble in
oil futures (except for a a few "exceptions". It was considerd to be too
risky in terms of causing price spikes unrelated to to actual supply and
demand. When that restriction was eliminated by Congress (at the request of
Enron, no less)), guess what happened - price spikes unrelated to supply and
demand!

That restriction needs to be put back into place. And quickly. The Arab
feifdoms lost control of world oil prices that year, but I'm not sure who is
worse having that control - OPEC or the likes of Goldman Sacks.

Bob

 

If global climate trends continue - large tracts of land previously
covered by ice will be accessible for oil and natural gas exploration
and extraction. This may delay the year that world oil output peaks.

 

99% of oil futures are traded between institutions: airlines,
transportation companies, insurance compaines, banks, investment firms,
retirement funds, that sort of thing.

The primary reason oil and other commodities spiked last year was a
wholesale switchover away from housing markets, as the subprime crisis hit.
As the above invertors ("speculators") realized the mounting losses in
housing, they hurriedly pulled their money out and put it into the next
best thing: commodities. That's why foodstuff commodities spiked at the
same time.

 

When the subprime crisis hit - speculator who were using
credit via equity-swaps evaporated and became more
susceptible to losses in the derivatives and commodities
market. Food stuff commodies were increasing before the
subprime crash and have stablized during the following
recession. Increase energy cost and increase production
of bio fuels - ethnanol in particular - has been blame for
the rise in food stuff. Enron has been charged with
manipulating electric utility prices higher. Increase
use of oil by the world (especially the USA and China),
the lack of Iraqi oil production due to the Iraqi War,
and low production levels of "sweet crude" high grade oil
has also been said to put pressure on the cost
oil base fuels.