OJ,
Nice special on the network news tonight about how the domestic producers aren't revving up because they are still recovering from a 20 month beating. Banks not anxious to lend to them either. Nobody believes oil prices will stay north of $25.
The news also covered the severe shortage of skilled workers in the oil fields as most of them left, permanently, for greener pastures during the recent long layoff many of them had. Possibly they all became daytraders VBG. This was one of the few instances where the TV news hit it right on, but all facts the Strictly Drilling thread knew for months You will see an increase in domestic production, but it will be agonizingly SLOW compared to demand.
Also note that closed wells do not come back with a flick of the switch. For many domestic stripper wells, from which the US gets a lot of its production, ten dollar oil was the final straw, many will never restart again, as the well never produces as well as it did before without expensive recovery techniques. Iraq may be currently having this problem, BTW.
Natural Gas is an even better proposition, demand is growing steadily, new power plants running NG to meet environmental standards are coming on line (literally hundreds of them) to meet increasing peak electrical demand. No OPEC to worry about for quite awhile with NG, how many NG(LNG) unloading terminals left in US? Check it out, though one is being built, operational in a few years I believe.
OPEC? 1.5million tops and 1.2 more likely and they'll squeeze the leaking a bit too. Do the math, 300% more $$ for 7% less of your finite resource, what would you do?
As for political pressure, Gulf War was nearly a decade ago
and things change.
I'm with Lee, OPEC will give it to us all right, the hard way. After all, they've done it twice before.
Best Regards,
Roebear |
