[meteorite-list] OT -Oil reserves, the reality

From: Thunder Stone <stanleygregr_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 14:27:02 -0700
Message-ID: <SNT117-W58E2EA4AEEDBF089EC1F08D2A70_at_phx.gbl>

Oil prices increase for three reasons
1. Shortage of supply2. Increase in demand3. Instability in regions (countries) that supply oil (this creates the believe the price will increase in the future)
In 2008 the increase was due to hedge funds and futures trading.
Now let's get back to meteorites please.
Greg S.

----------------------------------------
> From: drvann at sas.upenn.edu
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 14:16:24 -0400
> Subject: [meteorite-list] OT -Oil reserves, the reality
>
>
> Thought maybe it was time to change the thread title, and maybe stop this
> non-meteorite thread. In truth, I am responding to correct some factually
> inaccurate statements.
>
> Guido, I respectfully suggest that you investigate the facts before you make
> statements like "We are played for fools by the career politicians in Washington
> who pander to the environmentalists and prevent us from tapping our own reserves
> which are larger and easier to obtain than all the oil in the Middle East.
> That's why we object to increased pump prices."
>
> Politicians are not pandering to environmentalists, they are pandering to
> businesses, I think the events of the last thirty years speak very strongly to
> this; attacks on the Clean Air and Clean water acts, the Great Recession, the
> Savings and Loan disaster, the Energy trading frauds, etc. (I can go on for
> quite a while here, but is not the forum).
> Environmentalists have very little influence on the price of oil, if any.
> Rather, market forces determine this entirely. Examples: in the late '70's oil
> did not skyrocket because of environmentalists, it did so because OPEC was
> flexing its newfound muscle. Oil prices did not jump prior to the Great
> Recession because of environmentalists; it jumped because of speculators and
> because the oil refiners underestimated demand by China and India, resulting in
> inadequte production capacity (there was plenty of crude oil). The cost of oil
> is related to the cost of drilling; I could, again, go on, but this isn't really
> the forum. Suffice it to say, the price of oil is driven by market factors that
> are *not* related to supply, as the supply can be (and frequently is) increased
> to meet demand.
>
> So, environmentalists atempting to reduce drilling are not affecting the price,
> regardless of how one wants to view it. Most recently, the state of Florida,
> under a Republican govorner, decided to limit in-shore drilling to protect the
> states' fishing and tourist industries. They were deemed more valuable (to the
> state) than the short-term gains from onshore drilling - an economic argument,
> not an environmental one.
>
> Our oil prices are lower because we consume so much, getting a discount, and
> because we subsidize the oil companies with tax dollars. Government subsidies
> for profitable companies are not defensible, yet they keep getting them, because
> the politicians are pandering to the industries paying for their reelection.
>
>
> The final inaccuracy, " tapping our own reserves which are larger and easier to
> obtain than all the oil in the Middle East" is the most egregious. This is
> simply wrong. The proven resources in the US are about 22 billion barrels of
> oil; Saudi arabia *alone* has an estimated 270 billion barrels. Although that
> number has been questioned as possibly politically motivated, it is not
> overestmated by a factor of ten. If we take the 1968 numbers (before OPEC), they
> had something like 170 billion barrels, still fabulously more than our reserves.
>
> Our remaining reserves are not easier to obtain (discounting the politcal issues
> related to dealing with the Middle East), as they are increasingly deep water
> reserves (whose difficulty was amply demonstrated last summer) or in shales,
> which are environmentally destructive and energetically and mechanically
> difficult to extract; in fact, to date, there has been no economically viable
> method to extract these (but we will, when gas is expensive enough). The oil
> companies are going for the easy fruit first, as it is the most profitable.
>
>
> Sorry, but I have a difficult time letting false information get distributed -
> much like the NYT article. Plenty of others responded to that, so I'm responding
> to this one. The fact is, the Middle East holds more than one-half of the total
> reserves in the world. North America, including the shale sands in Canada holds
> maybe 16%. The largest reserves are in Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and the former
> USSR.
>
> We consume about 6.6 billion barrels per year, so we have about 3 or 4 years, if
> we drilled everything (that we 'own').
>
> The world average consumption rate vs the reserves indicates that we have about
> 50-60 years left (at current consumption rates, which are increasing
> substantially each year).
>
> So, to recap this too long message:
>
> Oil prices reflect market forces, not environmentalist obstruction.
> The US does not have more oil, easily obtained or not, than the Middle East.
>
> We complain about high oil prices, not because of politicians, but because it
> means we have fewer dollars left to buy meteorites.
> (that puts it back on topic. Sort of.)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> David R. Vann, Ph.D.
> Department of Earth and Environmental Science
> THE UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA
> 240 S. 33rd St.
> Philadelphia, PA 19104-6316
> drvann at sas.upenn.edu
> office: 215-898-4906
> FAX: 215-898-0964
>
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Received on Fri 08 Apr 2011 05:27:02 PM PDT