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Strategies & Market Trends : MDA - Market Direction Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Casaubon who wrote (34024)	11/23/1999 10:15:00 AM
From: pater tenebrarum	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99985

Casaubon, avoid away! <ggg> btw, there's a Synfuel refinery in South Africa that is designed to produce oil from coal in a process not unlike the one you describe. it was built in the sanctions era...however, the process is not profitable at current crude prices. regards, hb

To: Casaubon who wrote (34024)	11/23/1999 9:50:00 PM
From: TimbaBear	Respond to of 99985

Casaubon....the genesis of oil really isn't that important....the earth is only so big and therefore the supply is finite....with increasing consumption, it will likely follow supply/demand cycles and present opportunities for profitable plays....don't let the philosophical issues of "chicken or egg" blind you to the economics. By the way, I have a two year degree in Petroleum Engineering,(which, along with 40 cents might get me a cup of coffee somewhere) and I come down on the side of organic genesis....there were a lot of really huge trees and plants for a tremendous period of time(the dinosaurs ruled for 650 million years alone and I can't see man being able to deplete that kind of production in 1000 year let alone 100. IMO it is really not about reserves though....it is about how hard it is to find them (getting much, much easier and more accurate), producing them, and how much can be gotten of the reserves that are found (unless the reservoir rock is really porous, an awful lot is unrecoverable)....it's about the other economic issues as well. Like any other commodity, the money is in understanding of the cycles and then playing them.