North Sea oil companies "close to collapse"

ruggedtoast

I think people "misunderestimate" the extent to which America controls the world. If they thought Iran were a strategic threat they would have properly dealt with it long ago, and it wouldn't be producing a drop of oil.

As it is they need Iran intact much more than they need it occupied. Iran is the world's Islamic bad guy and the justification of trillions of dollars invested into the military industrial complex.

I agree they arent very keen on oil producers selling barrels in anything other than dollars. There was apparently quite some concern in Washington that the UK was going to join the euro and reprice oil in that currency rather than dollars. They were seeking a guarantee that there wouldn't be a change (of course the UK will do what its told in these issues anyway).

Iran and Israel and Islamic terrorism will continue to be perpetuated by American foreign policy forever. There is too much money and political capital invested and too many people getting paid for it to be otherwise. AIPAC will see to that.

Russia is pricing oil in roubles in the meantime. A policy they will probably have to look at if they want America's foot off their throat.

Thrugelmir

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Iran and Israel and Islamic terrorism will continue to be perpetuated by American foreign policy forever.

Far more complex than that. Historically the UK had a huge influence in the shaping of the Middle East today. Like Ireland, history lingers on underneath the surface.

pop_gun

cells wrote: »

The USA doesn't need ME energy it is a coal exporter and soon a big NG exporter and its foreign oil needs have been much lowered (most its foreign oil imports are now from canada and Mexico not the ME and Africa)

Also if the USA wanted to !!!!! slap nations to take their resources Africa is vast and very very poor they could buy/bribe/take over half that continent at half the effort and twice the return.

also USA is slowly switching from oil to NG where it can. Eg building are switching to much cheaper NG from heating oil. Some larger distribution and train companies are doing the same. If Boeing pushes its LNG aircraft into commercial production all domestic flights could swich from JetA fuel to LNG at a fraction of the cost of oil.

Just writing the U.S. doesn't need middle eastern oil doesn't make it so. Recent history tells us they do.

The USA is bribing and taking resources from Africa. In fact most industrialized countries do. Regarding oil reserves and American interest on the continent, we have Ghana's recent 3 billion barrels of oil discovery. Obama has sent troops to the country to 'help' them apprehend rebel leader Joseph Kony.
Those same troops could be used to overthrow the government if needs must.
What of Equatorial Guinea and it's president Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo who is looting the country of it's 346,000 barrels of oil a day and holding the money in personal U.S. accounts.
The irony is America could label him a dictator and seize those accounts. Hence in effect acquiring all their oil for free.

Denying the obvious makes fools of us all.

cells

We can both agree that as the worlds super power it has and wishes to have influence around the world.

But I don't buy the oil or resource argument. The USA is a technical manufacturing power. It can manufacture all it energy it needs or wants.

Also why go fight trillion dollar wars when if you want oil you can just mandate higher vehicle fuel economy. The USA fleet is only 20mpg if they mandated that to 40mpg which is easily achievable domestic oil demand would fall 5-6 mbpd. Then all of USA oil would be domestic or Canadian oil.

Or they could build a dozen coal to liquids plants (like China) or gas to liquids plants (like Qatar) and manufacture oil from very abundant domestic coal and gas.

The resource argument to me doesn't make sense because the USA has abundance of resources

Also a final note. When computer driven vehicles are viable commercially it is the end of oil. Oil just becomes heat very soon post computer cars and it can't come soon enough.

pop_gun wrote: »

Just writing the U.S. doesn't need middle eastern oil doesn't make it so. Recent history tell us they do.

The USA is bribing and taking resources from Africa. In fact most industrialized countries do. Regarding oil reserves and American interest on the continent, we have Ghana's recent 3 billion barrels of oil discovery. Obama has sent troops to the country to 'help' them apprehend rebel leader Joseph Kony.
Those same troops could be used to overthrow the government if needs must.
What of Equatorial Guinea and it's president Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo who is looting the country of it's 346,000 barrels of oil a day and holding the money in personal U.S. accounts.
The irony is America could label him a dictator and seize those accounts. Hence in effect acquiring all their oil for free.

Denying the obvious makes fools of us all.

ruggedtoast

The biggest lobbiest in Washington are oil companies, pharmaceutical companies, medical insurance companies, and weapons companies.

Therefore, the world that Washington creates is one in which Pfizer, Lockheed Martin and Exxon dominate. Only their godawful private healthcare system manages to, currently, remain their domestic problem.

The US has oil, but it doesn't have oil security unless it continues to control the Middle East. It can't control the Middle East without weapons and it doesn't have a political reason to without Exxon.

We are decades away from green energy, if it ever happens without our current way of life collapsing (wind farms aren't much use if you want to make plastic). He who controls the oil controls everything. And the USA controls everything.

gfplux

One hidden consequence of the sudden sharp fall in the oil price will be traders who have bought forward oil near or close to the recent high prices. There could be billion dollar losses waiting to happen.
This may not only be seat of the pants traders but there might be huge financial institutions who have bet on the wrong side of the oil price.

Generali

gfplux wrote: »

One hidden consequence of the sudden sharp fall in the oil price will be traders who have bought forward oil near or close to the recent high prices. There could be billion dollar losses waiting to happen.
This may not only be seat of the pants traders but there might be huge financial institutions who have bet on the wrong side of the oil price.

Banks aren't meant to hold open speculative positions like that. It's against the Volcker rule.

Graham_Devon

It appears that North Sea oil companies may now get tax breaks. This is direct from the government.

I don't know enough about taxation on North Sea companies to comment really, but a commentator has suggested it's rather unfair to give tax breaks directly to one sector.

purch

gfplux wrote: »

One hidden consequence of the sudden sharp fall in the oil price will be traders who have bought forward oil near or close to the recent high prices. There could be billion dollar losses waiting to happen.
This may not only be seat of the pants traders but there might be huge financial institutions who have bet on the wrong side of the oil price.

I don't know about speculative positions, but lots of Oil/Fuel users will have bought expensive price hedging vehicles that will expire worthless.

N1AK

pop_gun wrote: »

Oil prices are artificially low because the U.S. has asked Saudi Arabia to pump more oil in a bid to collapse the Russian economy.

If only the conspiracy nuts were a third as clever as they were deluded. Perhaps you'd like to provide a source showing how Saudi production has decreased?

The Saudi's are pumping ~5% less oil than they were a year ago (as of August, when prices were already falling). The only people supporting this conspiracy theory are the people dumb enough not to question it for the few seconds it takes to google oil production data. They'd fit in well with flat earthers pretty well.