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Nickelless
Administrator
USA
5580 Posts |
 Posted - 07/21/2008 : 21:39:58
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ANALYSIS: Oil companies spending money on investments instead of new resources
By JOHN PORRETTO/The Associated Press
HOUSTON — As giant oil companies such as Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips get set to report what will probably be another round of eye-popping quarterly profits, just where is all that money going?
The companies insist they’re trying to find new oil that might help bring down gas prices, but the money they spend on exploration is nothing compared with what they spend on stock buybacks and dividends.
It’s good news for shareholders, including mutual funds and retirement plans for millions of Americans, but no help to drivers already making drastic cutbacks to offset the high cost of fuel.
The five biggest international oil companies plowed about 55 percent of the cash they made from their businesses into stock buybacks and dividends last year, up from 30 percent in 2000 and just 1 percent in 1993, according to Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.
The percentage they spend to find new deposits of fossil fuels has remained flat for years, in the mid-single digits.
The issue has become more sensitive as lawmakers and Americans frustrated by high gas prices have balked at gaudy reports of oil industry profits. ConocoPhillips is scheduled to kick off the latest round of Big Oil earnings reports Wednesday.
Oil prices are set on the open market, yet not by the oil industry. But that hasn’t stopped public protests, a series of congressional grillings for top oil executives, and a failed attempt by lawmakers to slap Big Oil with a windfall profits tax.
In the first three months of this year, Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company, shelled out $8.8 billion on stock buybacks alone, compared with $5.5 billion on exploration and other capital projects.
ConocoPhillips has already told investors that its stock buybacks for April to June of this year will come to about $2.5 billion — nine times what it spent on exploration.
Stock buybacks are common throughout corporate America, not just for Big Oil. They shrink the amount of stock on the open market, essentially increasing its value and giving individual shareholders a bigger stake in the company.
But some critics say Big Oil focuses too much on boosting stock prices, in an industry that sometimes ties executive pay to stock price.
And in focusing on buybacks and dividends over exploring for new oil, some critics say, oil companies jeopardize its already dwindling share of world supply.
“If you’re not spending your money finding and developing new oil, then there’s no new oil,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Rice University who’s studied spending patterns of the major oil companies.
Investor-owned companies such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron hold less than 10 percent of global oil and gas reserves, way down from past decades. And finding new oil has become harder and more expensive.
State-run oil companies, like those in Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, control about 80 percent of oil reserves — and at today’s prices, it’s not surprising they’re keeping a tight grip on what they have. Scarce equipment and hard-to-find labor also pose problems.
No one questions that Big Oil is rolling in cash. The cash the biggest oil companies bring in from running their businesses, or operating cash flow, is four times what it was in the early 1990s.
“It becomes a management decision,” said Howard Silverblatt, a senior index analyst at Standard & Poor’s. “It’s not like they’re going to the board and saying, ‘Well, I can do one or the other or the other.’ The balance sheets are flush with cash.”
So what’s Big Oil to do?
The companies say they are doing what they can to find more fossil fuels around the world, but the easy oil is gone. Exploring these days may mean expensive projects in thousands of feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico or costly ventures pulling petroleum from Canada’s vast oil-sands deposits.
TransCanada Corp. and ConocoPhillips Co. just said they’d spend $7 billion to nearly double the amount of crude flowing through a pipeline from Canada’s tar sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
And analysts point out that because there’s no guarantee oil prices will stay in the stratosphere, oil companies should approach exploration projects with caution.
“There’s only so much money you can throw at it without being ridiculous,” said Joseph Stanislaw, a senior adviser to Deloitte LLP’s Energy & Resources practice. “I think they’re doing what they can.”
It’s also important to remember it can take several years before a company produces the first barrel of oil from a new field.
One example is an oil field in the Gulf of Mexico called Thunder Horse. Operated by BP and partly owned by Exxon Mobil, the platform only last month began producing oil and gas — nine years after the field’s discovery.
At its peak, the multibillion-dollar project is designed to produce 250,000 barrels of oil and 200 million cubic feet of natural gas each day, which would make it the Gulf’s largest producer.
“When you look at the spending that’s going on, the companies are bringing on a lot of long-term discoveries,” said John Parry, a senior analyst with John S. Herold Inc.
At ConocoPhillips, the capital spending budget for 2008, which includes exploration and production, is $15.3 billion, more than double the spending of five years ago.
“Could we spend $20 billion or $25 billion? Absolutely,” spokesman Gary Russell said. “Could we do it effectively, in a way that provides ultimate value to our shareholders? Probably not.”
Exxon Mobil, known for its disciplined approach to investing in energy projects, has drawn criticism for its reluctance to invest in alternative energy sources like wind and solar power.
The company expects to spend $25 billion to $30 billion on capital and exploration projects each of the next five years. Last year, it spent about $32 billion on share buybacks.
“You fund your investments that make sense,” spokesman Alan Jeffers said. “You have criteria, and you have to meet that to be a good investment for the shareholder. And then if you’ve got cash that’s left over, you’re going to return it to the shareholder because it’s theirs.”
Exxon Mobil often touts its $100 million contribution to Stanford University’s Global Climate and Energy Project. By contrast, BP says it plans to spend $8 billion over the next decade developing alternative energy using wind, hydrogen and other means.
Big Oil isn’t alone buying back large amounts of stock, but the companies are certainly some of the biggest indulgers.
A boom in stock buybacks has been under way in corporate America since 2004. In the first quarter of this year, Exxon, ConocoPhillips and Chevron were all among the top 10 companies for share buybacks in the S&P 500.
In Washington, one Democratic proposal would impose a 25 percent tax on “unreasonable” profits of the top five oil companies, which together made more than $120 billion in 2007, and put the money toward a trust fund for investment in alternative energy sources. Republicans say it’s a gimmick that won’t help at the pump and will discourage domestic oil production.
But Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the fervor for stock buybacks is a clear sign Big Oil isn’t interested in new production or alternative energy.
“When you hear that,” he said, “it screams out for a windfall profits tax.”
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Edited by - Nickelless on 07/21/2008 21:40:45 |
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fb101
Administrator
USA
2856 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2008 : 05:15:38
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As a first note, Sen. Chuck Scumer is currently working to impose an additional 10c per gallon gas tax on the american people, so I assume he's either a congenital idiot or just a hypocrite.
Quote: Exxon Mobil, known for its disciplined approach to investing in energy projects, has drawn criticism for its reluctance to invest in alternative energy sources like wind and solar power.
I'm curious about this. I wonder how oil companies will generate oil through wind and solar power. I would have thought that generated electricity and was in the realm of electric companies. I also wonder how those will impact the price of oil. If I have more electric power, how will that help? There is no viable electric auto anywhere. I hear of one that coming will go 100 miles on a charge. So If I want to drive to CT to visit my sister, I'd have to spend 6 hours on the road, and stop for an additional 4 hours and 2 stops at a charge station(s) which will likely cost me as much as the gas.
I don't see anything in this whole deal for me, but the gov't gets their hand on many more billions to buy the suckers votes. I admit if they'd use the money to service the debt and not waste it, I could be supportive, but this gov't will never do that. They lucked out years ago and did great on the internet bubble tax increases, but without that, we'd have been bust a few years ago. Or maybe they'll use the money to decrease our taxes. (I better quit here, I must be getting irrational)
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starwarsgeek171
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
651 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2008 : 12:59:42
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| Go XOM! |
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Nickelless
Administrator
USA
5580 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2008 : 05:11:24
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| These execs getting these fat perks should be forced to work as gas station attendants facing angry mobs, but oil exploration isn't going to sustain us much longer. Starwarsgeek171 just sent me a copy of THE LONG EMERGENCY by James Kunstler about what's going to happen when oil runs out, and despite on-again, off-again talk of the need for alternative energy, that's not going to be sufficient and the U.S. as we know it is going to change forever. I'm about halfway through this book and HIGHLY recommend it to anyone, especially those of us who are focusing on long-term preparedness and a look at what we're going to be up against. |
Visit my new preparedness site: Preparedness.cc/SurvivalPrep.net
--Latest article: Stocking up on spices to keep food preps lively
---------------
Be prepared...and prepared to help: http://www.survivalblog.com/charity.html
Are you ready spiritually for hard times? http://www.jesusfreak.com/rapture.asp |
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redneck
1000+ Penny Miser Member
1273 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2008 : 06:49:11
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Here is a preview of the book "The Long Emergency"
You must be logged in to see this link.
I understand where the author is coming from.
I just don't buy it...
Peak oil
Lets have a independent evaluation of the known oil reserves. (preferable several independent evaluations)
This would also have to include the unacknowledged oil reserves.
(a whole lot tougher since this would open up strategic business and government plans)
We then could estimate how long we have till it runs out.
If we can put a man on the moon in less than a decade then we could figure a way out of this.If they wanted us to.
No one said it was going to be easy to wain off the oil nipple.
Alternatives are there but with the existing infrastructure having already been put in place by the oil companies they will not go without a fight.
Oil = Money
Money = Power
The two are inseparable.
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starwarsgeek171
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
651 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2008 : 08:41:16
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I don't mean to sound like an a$$, but XOM bought and furnished my home.
"There will never be battery-powered airplanes."
Eventually, we will have to downscale. |
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silverhalide
Penny Sorter Member
92 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2008 : 10:37:39
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The problem is there aren't many new oil projects left that are worth their time especially with the tax and infrastructure cost increases.
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starwarsgeek171
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
651 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2008 : 10:37:43
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| Amen, silverhalide! |
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swusc
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
553 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2008 : 14:50:55
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The problem I see with alt energy forms is they can't be stored in great forms. Batteries can only store so much energy and they aren't very efficient.
Gasoline might not be super efficient either, but 10 gallons or so will get a car 250 miles. That isn't exactly no small feat. Try and figure out a way to create the energy and put it into a storage device that can be used by a car.
Electric is great until you want to go above 60 mph or on a trip longer than a few hundred miles.
The answer might be real hybirds that are plugged up and only use gas as a back up. The problem with these is the cost to produce them. I think the problem is that gas is a smaller cost of auto ownership in the past, so it doesn't hit as hard as it did in the 1970s. That means the price will have to go higher to cause people to switch. Current prices are decreasing demand.
-SWUSC |
`Everybody is ignorant. Only on different subjects.' Will Rogers
"This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard." Alan Greenspan, 1966. |
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Nickelless
Administrator
USA
5580 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2008 : 19:48:59
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quote:
Originally posted by redneck
Here is a preview of the book "The Long Emergency"
You must be logged in to see this link.
I understand where the author is coming from.
I just don't buy it...
Peak oil
Lets have a independent evaluation of the known oil reserves. (preferable several independent evaluations)
This would also have to include the unacknowledged oil reserves.
(a whole lot tougher since this would open up strategic business and government plans)
We then could estimate how long we have till it runs out.
If we can put a man on the moon in less than a decade then we could figure a way out of this.If they wanted us to.
No one said it was going to be easy to wain off the oil nipple.
Alternatives are there but with the existing infrastructure having already been put in place by the oil companies they will not go without a fight.
Oil = Money
Money = Power
The two are inseparable.
.
I was skeptical too until I started reading this book. I'm about halfway through it right now and hope to finish it in the next week or so. I think Kunstler is very balanced and this book is very well-researched. But for any of us to say that "peak oil" is just bunk is very naive because none of us on here was alive before the oil age started. Oil is a nonrenewable resource, and we've depleted roughly half of all known reserves--do the math. Bottom line, don't discount "peak oil" or what this book says--read the book and I think you'll become a former peak oil skeptic just as I have. |
Visit my new preparedness site: Preparedness.cc/SurvivalPrep.net
--Latest article: Stocking up on spices to keep food preps lively
---------------
Be prepared...and prepared to help: http://www.survivalblog.com/charity.html
Are you ready spiritually for hard times? http://www.jesusfreak.com/rapture.asp |
Edited by - Nickelless on 07/24/2008 19:52:19 |
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NotABigDeal
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
3890 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2008 : 20:52:11
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So, how many batteries to "fuel" a fully loaded 18 wheeler? Every trailer of goods requires two trailers of batteries? Long extension cords will be in high demand....
Deal |
Live free or die.
Plain and simple.
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your council or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams |
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swusc
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
553 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2008 : 22:22:34
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quote:
Originally posted by NotABigDeal
So, how many batteries to "fuel" a fully loaded 18 wheeler? Every trailer of goods requires two trailers of batteries? Long extension cords will be in high demand....
Deal
Exactly. Everyone keeps saying you can use stuff forms of energy, but what? Anything that you are using to make electricity is great, but using that for cars isn't going to work out just nice and easy.
Yes, getting a large % of gas use for cars to electricity would be very helpful in lowering demand. You aren't going to do away with oil use anytime soon. Trains are having higher usages due to the price of using trucks. That is a diesel to coal switch.
We need something that is energy rich and that can release energy quickly to fuel somethings.
I still like the using heat and pressure to turn organic trash into oil. There is no problems in using the oil with the current structures in place. We have a lot of trash that we need to get rid of as well. Seems like a nice kill two birds with one stone. |
`Everybody is ignorant. Only on different subjects.' Will Rogers
"This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard." Alan Greenspan, 1966. |
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swusc
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
553 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2008 : 22:33:18
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Why hate on the oil execs? They are just doing their jobs. It isn't their job to make sure everyone in the U.S. has cheap gas. Cheap gas isn't a right. I am pretty sure that their job is to make their boss (shareholders) the most money they can. It is a business not a public service.
If they can get a better return on capital by buying back their stock than finding new oil, then that is what they should do. If they can't get a good return on either one, then they should pay it out in dividends.
No one is forcing anyone to buy oil based products. You don't have to have gas to live. The human race survived a long time without it and some parts of the world survive today without it. If gas isn't worth $4 a gallon, then you can walk or ride a bike. I think most people would decided that gas is worth $4 a gallon over walking/riding a bike for 25 miles. If the physical work of traveling your body that far isn't even to say it is worth $4, then you would also need to do it in 40 minutes if you make $6 an hour. That is moving at about 38 miles an hour... i don't think anyone walks or rides a bike that fast. The simple truth is $4 gas is still a bargain when you consider the amount of "work" it does. If it wasn't a good deal, then people wouldn't be buying it. |
`Everybody is ignorant. Only on different subjects.' Will Rogers
"This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard." Alan Greenspan, 1966. |
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starwarsgeek171
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
651 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2008 : 02:36:03
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We'll be laughing at $4 a gallon someday. $10-14 within a decade is very possible.
"horses!" |
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NotABigDeal
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
3890 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2008 : 06:22:20
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Four dollar gas, the new one dollar gas....
Deal |
Live free or die.
Plain and simple.
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your council or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams |
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redneck
1000+ Penny Miser Member
1273 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2008 : 08:00:49
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Here's just one article that has come out recently concerning new oil finds, debunking "Peak Oil",and the Oil companies billions not financing exploration.
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The 'Peak Oil' Myth: New Oil Is Plentiful
by: Jason Schwarz posted on: June 22, 2008 | about stocks: BRGYY.PK / CVX / IYE / OIL / PBR / RDS.A / STO / UNG / USO / XLE / XOM
The data is becoming conclusive that peak oil is a myth. High oil prices (USO) (OIL) are doing their job as oil exploration is flush with new finds:
1. An offshore find by Brazilian state oil company Petrobras (PBR) in partnership with BG Group (BRGYY.PK) and Repsol-YPF may be the world's biggest discovery in 30 years, the head of the National Petroleum Agency said. A deep-water exploration area could contain as much as 33 billion barrels of oil, an amount that would nearly triple Brazil's reserves and make the offshore bloc the world's third-largest known oil reserve. "This would lay to rest some of the peak oil pronouncements that we were out of oil, that we weren't going to find any more and that we have to change our way of life," said Roger Read, an energy analyst and managing director at New York-based investment bank Natixis Bleichroeder Inc.
2. A trio of oil companies led by Chevron Corp. (CVX) has tapped a petroleum pool deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico that could boost U.S. reserves by more than 50 percent. A test well indicates it could be the biggest new domestic oil discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay a generation ago. Chevron estimated the 300-square-mile region where its test well sits could hold up to 15 billion barrels of oil and natural gas
3. Kosmos Energy says its oil field at West Cape Three Points is the largest discovery in deep water West Africa and potentially the largest single field discovery in the region.
4. A new oil discovery has been made by Statoil (STO) in the Ragnarrock prospect near the Sleipner area in the North Sea. "It is encouraging that Statoil has made an oil discovery in a little-explored exploration model that is close to our North Sea infrastructure," says Frode Fasteland, acting exploration manager for the North Sea.
5. Shell (RDS.A) is currently analyzing and evaluating the well data of their own find in the Gulf of mexico to determine next steps. This find is rumored to be capable of producing 100 billion barrels. Operating in ultra-deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the Perdido spar will float on the surface in nearly 8,000 ft of water and is capable of producing as much as 130,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
6. In Iraq, excavators have struck three oil fields with reserves estimated at about 2 billion barrels, Kurdish region's Oil Minister Ashti Horami said.
7. Iran has discovered an oil field within its southwest Jofeir oilfield that is expected to boost Jofeir's oil output to 33,000 barrels per day. Iran's new discovery is estimated to have reserves of 750 million barrels, according to Iran's Oil Minister, Gholamhossein Nozari.
8. The United States holds significant oil shale resources underlying a total area of 16,000 square miles. This represents the largest known concentration of oil shale in the world and holds an estimated 1.5 trillion barrels of oil with 800 billion recoverable barrells – enough to meet U.S. demand for oil at current levels for 110 years. More than 70 percent of American oil shale is on Federal land, primarily in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. In Utah, a developer says his company already has the technology to produce 4,000 barrels a day using a furnace that can heat up rock using its own fuel. ``This is not a science project,'' said Daniel G. Elcan, managing director of Oil Shale Exploration Corp. ``For many years, the high cost of extracting oil from shale exceeded the benefit. But today the calculus is changing,'' President George Bush said. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said the country has to do everything it can to boost energy production. ``We have as much oil in oil shale in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado as the rest of the world combined,'' he said.
9. In western North Dakota there is a formation known as the Bakken Shale. The formation extends into Montana and Canada. Geologists have estimated the area holds hundreds of billions of barrels of oil. In an interview provided by USGS, scientist Brenda Pierce put the North Dakota oil in context. "Of the current USGS estimates, this is the largest oil accumulation in the lower 48," Pierce says. "It is also the largest continuous type of oil accumulation that we have ever assessed." The USGS study says with todays technology, about 4 billion barrels of oil can be pumped from the Bakken formation. By comparison, the 4 billion barrels in North Dakota represent less than half the oil in the Arctic National Wildlife refuge which has an estimated 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil.
The peak oil theory is a money making scam put out by the speculators looking for high commodity returns in a challenging market environment. Most of the above mentioned finds have occurred in the last two years alone. I didn't even mention the untapped Alaskan oil fields or the recent Danish and Australian finds. In the long term, crude prices will find stability at historic norms because there is no supply problem. How much longer will investors ignore these new oil finds? Probably until they can find other investment alternatives which won't happen in the broad market until financials (XLF) stop hemorrhaging. Respect the trend but understand that this is a bubble preparing to burst. When oil hit it's high of $139 it represented more than a 600% increase in crude since the bull market began, returns eerily similar to the dot.com craze.
There are many theories that sound good but just aren't true. Take Al Gore's global warming crusade. It sounded great, it made perfect sense but there was just one problem, the facts didn't support it. It seems that the masses who were loudly calling for a global warming crisis have shifted their energies to oil. We are bombarded on a daily basis by those who tell us that we should be fearful. They spin good news into bad. The latest absurdity had Goldman Sachs telling investors that China's 18% price increase will actually increase demand! That's a new one. Just like global warming, the rationale for peak oil sounds great, it makes sense, but there is just one small problem,
the facts don't support it.
In case you didn't add up the numbers,thats approximately
One Trillion barrels of oil.
1,000,000,000,000.00 Barrels of oil...
And thats only the ones that the author could find for this article.What about the ones he missed or have yet to be released
or all the "existing" known reserves.
How many barrels would that be...?
Come on, you guys are smarter than that.
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starwarsgeek171
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
651 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2008 : 13:29:40
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| 1 trillion barrels...sounds impressive, doesn't it. That's not even 12,000 days (32 years) of world oil consumption combined, redneck. Doesn't sound that promising to me. So my kids will have to suffer instead of me!? How nice... |
Edited by - starwarsgeek171 on 07/25/2008 14:32:44 |
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Nickelless
Administrator
USA
5580 Posts |
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redneck
1000+ Penny Miser Member
1273 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2008 : 00:38:42
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quote:
Originally posted by starwarsgeek171
1 trillion barrels...sounds impressive, doesn't it. That's not even 12,000 days (32 years) of world oil consumption combined, redneck. Doesn't sound that promising to me. So my kids will have to suffer instead of me!? How nice...
It seems rather odd though that it doesn't bother you to have stock in XOM,
instead of stock in a "say" alternative energy co. so your kids won't suffer down the road...
quote:
Nickelless Posted - 07/25/2008 : 14:00:53
quote:Originally posted by starwarsgeek171
1 billion barrels...sounds impressive, doesn't it. That's not even 12,000 days (32 years) of world oil consumption combined
And that's at current rates of consumption. Factor in massive growing demand in India and China alone and you see how grim this really is unless something fundamental changes soon.
According to Chevron,
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quote:
The world has produced 1 trillion barrels of oil to date. Over the next century or so, approximately 2 trillion barrels more are expected to be produced from conventional proved reserves, unconventional resources and as-yet-undiscovered conventional oil. Even more will be produced by Chevron and others from unconventional oil resources, such as extra-heavy oil in Venezuela, bitumen in Alberta and shale oil in the United States.
The world currently uses approximately 83,000,000 barrels of oil per day. In 2030 it will be using approximately 100,000,000 barrels.
If I did the math correctly at the current estimated amount of oil,we will have approximately 60 yrs. till we run out.
So, if true, plenty of time to come up with alternatives.(the sooner the better)
But wait...
Could this be the answer to peak oil...?
Abiotic Oil
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Replenishing Wells
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Russian deep wells;
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A video;
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If the above is the case, then it will probably never ever run out...
And then theres Motiva;
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quote:
Motiva Enterprises LLC today will officially break ground for its recently announced 325,000 barrel-per-day (b/d) refinery expansion in Port Arthur, Texas. The expansion will increase the refinery’s crude oil throughput capacity to 600,000 b/d, making it the largest refinery in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world. The upgrades and modernization will lead to new supplies of transportation fuels for U.S. markets, add jobs to the local economy and decrease the refinery’s ozone precursor emissions from present day levels.
600,000 (b/p) x 365 days = 219,000,000 barrels per.yr.
This is a 7 Billion dollar upgrade.It would seem that if they believed the end was near they wouldn't spend that much for a asset that would decline,but rather milk out what it already had since the peak had been supposedly reached and is heading down hill.The refineries we currently have left have supplied us up and threw the peak.Why build more now?
Remember that all the figures quoted were given buy the oil industry
and governments who each have their own vested interests and are questionable at best.
I do believe we need to use alternative energy if only to break the strong hold on energy by the power brokers and money changers.But it won't come easily or without a fight.
So in the case of "Peak Oil",I still, just don't buy it.
Its late, time to go to bed...
(and by the way, congratulations on your stock pick, new home and furnishings,XOM is definitely a winner for the time being)
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Nickelless
Administrator
USA
5580 Posts |
Posted - 07/28/2008 : 02:52:56
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Skepticism about "peak oil" is understandable, but there are two things to consider: First of all, the very basic truth is that oil and every other fossil fuel is a non-renewable resource. It's going to run out. But second, and more important I believe, is that IF all the powers that be already had a viable alternative to oil when the oil runs out, they will want to bring that out sooner rather than later. The last thing that world leaders want is literally billions of people rioting if they perceive that their leaders are suppressing what they need most to live and survive, namely a source of affordable energy. There will be plenty of conspiracy theorists saying that The Man has it out for us, and there's no way to convince people like that otherwise, but I don't think that every leader of every major country is willing to commit political suicide by not rolling out viable, adequate energy alternatives if those alternatives exist. And the very compelling case made in the book The Long Emergency is that those alternatives to oil pale in comparison and are going to leave a lot of people in some major hurt when the oil is in fact economically inextractable.
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redneck
1000+ Penny Miser Member
1273 Posts |
Posted - 07/28/2008 : 08:28:47
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quote:
First of all, the very basic truth is that oil and every other fossil fuel is a non-renewable resource.
The basic truth "is" we don't actually know for sure how the Earth forms oil.
Just because we have been taught the theory in school that oil is a fossil fuel does not make it the definitive answer.
Man has had to go back and adjust his understandings of the world throughout history.
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But second, and more important I believe, is that IF all the powers that be already had a viable alternative to oil when the oil runs out, they will want to bring that out sooner rather than later.
Why would they want to shoot the goose that lays the golden eggs when it still has eggs to lay?
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The last thing that world leaders want is literally billions of people rioting if they perceive that their leaders are suppressing what they need most to live and survive, namely a source of affordable energy.
Divide and Conquer,tell the people that these alternatives don't exist and that we just need to get used to the high cost of energy if that doesn't work create a new more urgent problem like a war or lack of food.
Rioting is already happening in many parts of the world over food and energy, maybe not billions but millions.Nothing has changed in those countries.The governments in those countries have not fallen and their leaders are still in power.
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There will be plenty of conspiracy theorists saying that The Man has it out for us, and there's no way to convince people like that otherwise
Do you think what Governments say is like the gospel? They tell us everything? The good, bad, and ugly? If you ask me it is a good thing that some of us conspiracy theorists are around to help tend the flock (sheepell).
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I don't think that every leader of every major country is willing to commit political suicide by not rolling out viable, adequate energy alternatives if those alternatives exist.
Lets see a leader once said that "Either your with us or against us".
(works in this instance also)
Committing political suicide would be the last of their worries.
Now things like, suddenly and strangely dying in your sleep,assisted suicide(Vincent Foster),food poisoning(Russian Alexander Litvinenko) ,your plane falling out of the sky(Ron Brown) and being shot by a so called extremists(insert your favorite here) might tend to be of higher priority.
It's much easier to just take the bag of money and plead ignorance.
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And the very compelling case made in the book The Long Emergency is that those alternatives to oil pale in comparison
Try this,instead of relying on the authors opinion solely, do some research on your own .When you start doing that you will start to see the discrepancies that are hard to ignore.
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and are going to leave a lot of people in some major hurt when the oil is in fact economically inextractable.
Computers were once the size of a house, we now have laptops with more computing power getting more powerful and costing less and less every year.
Economically not extractable today does not = Economically not extractable tomorrow .
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Oil companies’ billions not financing exploration
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