| What the author of that piece misses is that perhaps the oil market has indeed balanced already, just not at a level he expects -- IMO, this current oil market has settled into a new normal barring large scale geo-political disruptions, and even then, our shale assets make that prospect much less daunting than it was 10 years ago... also, as others point out, operations in the sweet spots in the various fields are profitable now that OSX costs have decreased significantly compared to 10 years ago... and lastly, the major shift away from oil to ng and the resulting build out of ng infrastructure is also in play... Mexico, once one of our top 2-3 suppliers of oil is now a net importer of US oil and in particular ng... due to the drug cartel moves to control Mexico's energy assets and operations, it is likely going to result in outsiders (i.e. US companies) who will contract to actually develop that new large discovery... peak oil due to lack of economically recoverable assets in the ground is dead... the supply side of the equation isn't the question, the demand/consumption side is -- peak demand/consumption will occur before any shortage of supply/production happens -- and I don't see that happening in my life time -- granted in the best case, my life time probably ends in 2-3 decades... but still... the real play, IMO, now and going forward is more about midstream infrastructure to support the vast potential for increasing production, etc., economically. |
