The Era of "easy oil" is over

beingjdc

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

With that kind of buying, you don't usually take physical delivery of anything at all.

Then the futures price would rise, but the spot price wouldn't, and the spot price would then collapse as all the people who had bought speculative oil would need to sell their real oil to actual end users.

That's the point, a bubble in short-dated futures of a fungible commodity can only last a few months if it isn't supported by fundamentals or stockpiling, as the reality reasserts itself (unlike housing where a bubble can last ages).

A mate of mine is a trader and closed the wrong futures contract and very nearly had to take physical delivery. I found it hilarious.

IveSeenTheLight

posh*spice wrote: »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7421792.stm

A HPC is gonna be a walk in a park compared to this:eek: The end of an era - we really are going back to the 50's...:o

Working in the oil industry, I've seen the oppertunities worldwide and I doubt that this is due to a lack of oil.
There are plenty of reserves still untapped. The US are actually reservoiring the oil probaby due to future oil prices.

When CEO's make statement I wonder what the hidden agenda is.
I think this is partly to answer critics who ask why Shell made such high profits and petrol prices keep going up

One thing for sure, oil price has not increased beacause of a shortage

Markyt

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

One thing for sure, oil price has not increased beacause of a shortage

*ding*. Spot on. People keep going on about 'get used to it, its down to supply and demand'. rubbish. If that were the case, petrol would not be available at any price.

IveSeenTheLight

beingjdc wrote: »

Thing is, they've been saying that for the last year, and it's kept going up. It'll drop back for a while at some point soon, $130 a barrel isn't sustainable at the moment.

But if it's all been speculation, where are they putting it? If people are buying oil they don't need as a gamble, there should be huge lakes of speculative oil lying around (because until recently the price for oil STRAIGHTAWAY has been going up faster than the price for oil in 1year, 2years or 10years).

I dunno, I pay quite a lot of attention to this and it's hard to call, in my judgement peak easy oil is about now. Peak all oil is about 2012-2014. Peak everything liquid that you can set fire to and get energy out is about 2020-2025.

There's alway coal.

There is reports of the US reservoiring oil.
My concern is that if they and other countries do this, there will come a point when they want to utilise the reserve and it will have a bigger impact on jobs which are involved in the exploration of oil when they can put them on hold for a period.

Peak all oil is about 2012-2014

Definately not.
I've seen order already coming in for 2011 - 2012 and we have not yet really started touching reserves in south east asia

dad-of-4

a barrel of oil as an enery source contains about the equivalent of 25,000 man hours of labour, would you work 25,000 hours for the cost equivalent of 1 barrel of oil? i would guess not.

so oil can get a hell of a lot dearer before it becomes anywhere near uneconomical as an enrgy source used to produce "work" it is quite literaly the most precious recource we have

i challenge anyone reading this to look away from your screen righ now and list 1 thing you can see arround you that oil didnt play its part in. our world is that reliant on it.

IveSeenTheLight

dad-of-4 wrote: »

a barrel of oil as an enery source contains about the equivalent of 25,000 man hours of labour, would you work 25,000 hours for the cost equivalent of 1 barrel of oil? i would guess not.

so oil can get a hell of a lot dearer before it becomes anywhere near uneconomical as an enrgy source used to produce "work" it is quite literaly the most precious recource we have

i challenge anyone reading this to look away from your screen righ now and list 1 thing you can see arround you that oil didnt play its part in. our world is that reliant on it.

I totally agree.
They probably said the same about coal though.
When the time comes, the world will adapt.
That time is not now though

beingjdc

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

There are plenty of reserves still untapped. The US are actually reservoiring the oil probaby due to future oil prices.

Hmm.

http://jluscher.googlepages.com/crude_stocks_Jan-9-2008.gif/crude_stocks_Jan-9-2008-large.gif

setmefree2

epz wrote: »

The thing people don't get about oil is it not a limited resource like iridium or some of the other rare and usefull (1) elements.

Oil is a cheap and easily transportable chemical energy storage medium, at least it was and that prevented anybody trying to compete against it, how can your new energy storage medium such as an exotic metal hydride compete against a deep hole in the saudi desert so why invest in it.

Now there are LOTS of social and political reasons to stop handing huge amounts of cash to corrupt dark age civilisations but thats another matter.

Think about it like this, if you could stick a wind turbine and some solar panels on your roof, it charges a magic widget which puts hydrogen into a metal powder, that powder will release hydrogen into a fuel cell on demand to heat the house or you can shovel it into your car for free travel.

Sounds far fetched right, except there are techs out there that would make that perfectly possible now and at present oil prices companies are more than happy to take a punt and that will kill oil prices in the long run.

I would definitely consider buying solar panels. Of course because I'm MSE it will be on a savings basis not a green basis, (is that bad?). When my electricity bills get high I will buy panels. Also, they are still expensive and might come down in price. Additionally, the technology might become better and panels in the future maybe better quality.
I don't think I would have windmills on my house as they are supposed to be noisey.
In fact, if I wasn't trying to clear my mortgage - (don't want to have debt when we hit peak oil - I'll need all my money to buy food) I would probaby buy some shares in companies making solar panels.

beingjdc

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

I've seen order already coming in for 2011 - 2012 and we have not yet really started touching reserves in south east asia

South-East asia and all that - the problem is, we're finding lots of ponds, but ponds 'aint much use when the lakes are running dry.

As to someone's earlier comment that if oil was getting scarcer you wouldn't get petrol at any price, that's just silly. If you have 10% less, the price just has to go up enough that 10% of people decide not to use their car, you don't need to stop 100% of them to restore balance.

setmefree2

poppysarah wrote: »

A couple of years ago I got in touch with the main stream political parties asking them their policies in light of "peak oil".

None of them had a clue and made useless noises about supporting car owners.

The BNP was the only party that had anything about it on their website. (I was looking only for research)

I remember looking at the green parties candidates and thinking how disappointing they were at the last election- hope noone takes offence. They were caring perhaps, but unrealistic and you could not imagine them running the country. Furthermore they seemed like a single issue party.