PEAK OIL is PAST

[Sparohok]

Quote from Pekelo:

Hate to point it out for the 3rd time, but you are ignorant on the subject.

Pekelo why are you being such a dick? Did they teach you that over at theoildrum.com? The way to deal with ignorance is to educate not ridicule; that way if you turn out to be the ignorant one you might learn something yourself. From your first post in this thread you were incredibly combative and denigrating, when I read that I knew this thread is going nowhere fast.

Traders need to be humble about what we "know." There's good arguments on both sides and the way we learn about the other side of every trade is to respect and learn from those who disagree with us. If there's some way crude could go back down to $40, I really need to know about it, it's not just a matter of idle speculation it's worth a lot of money to me. So let's try to debate this like adults.

Martin

 

[Pekelo]

Quote from Sparohok:

Pekelo why are you being such a dick?

I dunno, I was probably born this way.

The way to deal with ignorance is to educate not ridicule;

Generally I agree, but! I have already tried this topic here and got exactly the same result. I have tried it on other forums, exactly the same result.

So my 2 cents is that you will get again, nowhere and I am getting tired of idiots, who:

1. Don't know facts.
2. Can't make logical arguments.

So when you show me a denier who can do those 2 points, I will be patient and polite.

Getting back to the topic, oil demand could go easily down if there is a pandemic in China or a serious economic downturn in the USA...But that would just give us more time for mitigation, the inevitable will come eventually...

P.S.: Wish you good luck educating anyone...By the way I am not aware of any good arguments from the other side, unless you count abiotic oil theory as good argument...

 

[Sparohok]

<i>By the way I am not aware of any good arguments from the other side, unless you count abiotic oil theory as good argument...</i>

I think abiotic origin is a very interesting theory. I read Gold's "Deep Hot Biosphere" and I think it is compelling but in the end not entirely convincing. In any case, even if there are significant supplies of abiotic petroleum refilling reservoirs from deep sources, it's unlikely that the rate is sufficient to overcome depletion.

One thing that I wonder about is the fact that OPEC is still for the most part trying to talk down the price of oil. For example the Arab OPEC members are all claiming they can continue to grow supply more or less on a whim.

If OPEC feels they are and will remain well supplied, they have an incentive to talk down prices to avoid a demand side shock and oil price collapse. They also want to avoid giving alternative energy sources and energy conservation any more play.

If on the other hand, peak conventional oil really is here, then OPEC would have no incentive to hold down the price of oil. Even if they pumped every barrel they can, prices will still go up for the forseeable future. In such a scenario, they have no incentive to hold prices down because they would be selling their clearly limited national endowment of oil for less than fair market price.

The only explanations I see are:

1) OPEC oil ministers (particularly Saudis) really do believe that they still have excess supply and total control of the market. In which case they probably do; nobody is in a better position to forecast peak oil than they are.

2) OPEC is genuinely fearful of an oil shock leading to a viable substitute for oil. If so they have a great deal more faith in the ability of the West to solve a near intractable problem than I do.

Martin

 

[Pekelo]

Quote from Sparohok:


2) OPEC is genuinely fearful of an oil shock leading to a viable substitute for oil.

Bingo!

That's why no Western government acknowledges peak oil, because than as any RESPONSIBLE government, they should take steps and those steps would be very unpopular and hard to make.

There is a chance that instead of a sudden drop in production we will get a 10-15-20 years plateau between 80-90 mbpd, and most people in the know hoping for it.

But as we know Murphy's law, some shit is going to happen, and the truth will be out soon.

Speaking of Murphy's law, the answer to my quiz was:

The flooding at Cigar Lake, that was supposed to be the biggest uranium mine and now production is going to be delayed by a few years.
For comparison, it is such a big mine, like taking out Saudi Arabia from oilproduction.

And the points that I was trying to make were:

1. It is not so easy just to switch to nuclear, because uranium production is also limited.
2. Shit always happens so it is better to plan for the worst instead of hoping for "humankind will develope something".

 

[Sparohok]

Quote from Pekelo:

Bingo!

So, to be clear, at the same time you are arguing that:

1) We have no practical substitute for the oil supply that is drying up, and no forseeable way to make up for the shortfall in conventional oil production, yet...

2) OPEC is talking down the market price for their steadily depleting oil reserves because they are afraid that high prices would quickly bring about a practical substitute for oil supply.

The only way to resolve this is to assume that we are smarter and more knowledgable about the oil market than OPEC oil ministers. I think that is a dangerous assumption and it worries me (since I am net long oil).

Martin

 

[Pekelo]

Quote from Sparohok:

1) We have no practical substitute for the oil supply that is drying up, and no forseeable way to make up for the shortfall in conventional oil production, yet...

Most people don't realize how many other things we make out of oil. A fellow called Rockelfeller said: "Oil is too precious to burn it in engines", and I guess he knew something about oil.

Now the solution is mitigation, trying to cut back unnecessery comsumtion and using the substitutes wherever it is possible. Sooner we start, the less we will get hurt.

The only way to resolve this is to assume that we are smarter and more knowledgable about the oil market than OPEC oil ministers.

Not necesserily smarter, but we don't have an agenda. Oilministers have, politicans also have, so they are not going to be honest about it.

A good analogy would be global warming. Again, I don't have an agenda, I can freely discuss it and change my mind. Mr. Bush does have a vested interest in denying it, thus he is going to lie about it.

Now of course, they could have said: "yes, there is GW but it is not manmade", and that would have been a logical argument. But instead of that, they flatly denied it, just like peak oil deniers do.

And once you deny a FACT, your credibility goes out the window, and nobody will believe your next statement, even if it is true....

 

[arealpissedgoy]

Quote from local_crusher:

I've thought a lot about it in the recent months. After all, I've come to the conclusion, we've seen "peak oil".

Maybe late 2005, maybe 2006 until now, that won't matter.

What does matter, indeed, is that you all have some really dark ages right ahead now.

And no, price won't solve the margins between demand & supply.

I think in a distant time the words will be the oil industry with all it's political might and power ruined billions life's as they sucked the last drops out.

The concept of "peak oil" is a fantasy. Just like most news in the mainstream media. There is enough oil on earth to last another 500 years. And that's using a consumption rate that is twice todays rate. Guess where they are parking all that excess oil? watch the tanker rates.

 

[Sparohok]

Quote from arealpissedgoy:

There is enough oil on earth to last another 500 years. And that's using a consumption rate that is twice todays rate.

There are so many things wrong with this statement that I barely know where to start.

1) It's just not true. Proven + ultimately recoverable conventional oil reserves according to USGS are around 2.2 T barrels. Round that up to 3 T barrels and it's still only 98 years supply at <i>current</i> oil consumption. Even conventional + recoverable unconventional reserves are no more than 6 T barrels, that is still only one fifth of your claim.

2) Your claim says nothing about production rates and hence does not necessarily contradict an imminent oil production peak. See for example my comments about the difficulty of producing unconventional oil at sufficiently high rates earlier in this thread.

3) According to EIA statistics, world oil production has been literally flat for the last 3 years despite strong global economic growth and a doubling in oil price. If producers cannot create incremental supply at these prices it certainly seems likely that there are geophysical reasons for it.

Guess where they are parking all that excess oil? watch the tanker rates.

That's ridiculous. The world tanker fleet has a capacity of about 400M metric tons, 35 days supply. And all except obsolete single hulled tankers are in continuous demand for deliveries. No appreciable amount of oil is parked in tankers.

Martin

 

[Sparohok]

Quote from Pekelo:

Not necesserily smarter, but we don't have an agenda. Oilministers have, politicans also have, so they are not going to be honest about it.

I expect them to have an agenda, but I expect that agenda to be driven by rational self interest. Driving down the price of a resource that will be in short supply for the forseeable future doesn't make sense, which to my mind calls into question the theory of a current conventional oil peak.

And once you deny a FACT, your credibility goes out the window, and nobody will believe your next statement, even if it is true....

A world conventional oil peak is not yet a fact. Well, it's a fact in the sense that it will happen someday, but that it has happened now or will happen in the near future is still a matter of conjecture. You and I happen to believe it is likely but that doesn't make it a fact.

Martin

 

[Pekelo]

Quote from Sparohok:

There are so many things wrong with this statement that I barely know where to start.

See? What did I tell you? And I am the dick who puts idiots like Realpissedgoy to their places?

Pretty much ALL of the deniers are NOT interested in discussions or actual learning, so again, good luck with them, I hope you have lots of patience...

By the way don't worry, they not gonna stick around. They throw out a few soundbites and non-facts and leave... As I said, I have experience with them... :eek:

On the other hand, we can still continue...