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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: edward miller who wrote (105)	10/23/2000 11:30:50 PM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

There is a fantasy out there that because we found oil in response to the oil crises of the 1970's, we will be able to do it again and again. As the price of oil rises more expensive oil operations become profitable. I remember a trip to Texas following the oil boom and bust there. We were shooting pictures in an abandoned oil operation. The company guy taking us around gave us the price point for a barrel of oil to reach before the ground we were standing on became an oil field again.

To: edward miller who wrote (105)	10/24/2000 5:48:56 PM
From: quasar_1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Bozos on This Bus... Ed: Sorry I took so long to get back to you... RE: "As far as world reserves we are still swimming in oil" Is this your opinion or do you have references from people who really know I saw a figure of 1000 Billion barrels from a Penn state site. The International Energy Agency states that there are "ultimate recoverable reserves of conventional oil of 2.3 trillion barrels." So using the Penn State figures we would see oil running out around 2040. Using the IEA figures we could go considerably longer than that. All of this of course is speculation as it can't be know if new supplies will be found or oil will decline in the percentage of energy use mix. I tend to think while production seems to have peaked over a decade ago, the alternative technology outlook is becoming very promising. I also believe we will see tremendous energy efficiencies worldwide over the next 40 years. But all of this differs form my point. My point was there was not a supply problem right now to explain the oil price rise. In my opinion the increased demand should have led to $25 dollar a barrel oil. The rest of this is more closely linked to refinery problems, Mideast uncertainty, and general market psychology (panic buying). The demand side rise is purely tied to high rates of world growth. This was the core point. This was outlined to blunt some of the gloom and doom scenarios that many are starting to embrace. I'll be more than happy to look for slow growth/no growth problems. I just don't see enough evidence yet. as opposed to true free-market lunatics who think that the free market by definition will create everything we humans need and want. It seems counter productive to call a zealous proponent a 'lunatic'. I don't think the free market is the ultimate 'answer' to anything. It has strengths and weaknesses just as any other system. I do believe more in the free market than other exchange systems as it emulates the natural model. As far as what humans need, there are many things which humans need which have no basis in market systems. Things like love and compassion have no market clearing mechanism. These are what I call the "True Believers" of the free market taken to the extreme. This is a much better term than lunatic. As I said before there are weaknesses in all systems, including free markets. I've been following the energy sector for two years now. There is no indication to me that we are swimming in oil. There is a fantasy out there that because we found oil in response to the oil crises of the 1970's, we will be able to do it again and again. I confess that my 'swimming in oil' comment was too imprecise. I don't believe we have an demonstrable oil shortage for at least the next 20 to 30 years. We certainly don't have a ground assets problem today during this 'crisis'. As far as finding endless seas of oil ad infinitum I have never claimed that but it misses my point. I truly believe we are on the threshold of great things in the energy sector. If I can convey anything it must be the encouragement of all here to 'think outside the box'. Why extrapolate endless oil usage? I wish we stopped using all fossil fuels tomorrow. I want oil to remain high to bring on competitive alternatives. This is already happening. The combination of technologies that we can't even imagine both in energy efficiency and new forms of energy sources in the next 20 years will be staggering. Let's try to collectively imagine instead of swishing around in tarpits of negativity and recrimination. As much as some hate the free market, it is the profit incentive, not government mandate that will encourage this entrepreneurial vision. This has happened over and over again. By the way I predicted the current crisis the day the congress raised the speed limit from 55 mph. Everybody laughed at me. They're now all complaining about their 'powerful' low mileage SUV's. Sometimes it's amazing how predictable this all is. We can use all we want because there will always be more. This is just like the people in the 1970's who said in all seriousness, "Gas can't go over a dollar in the United States. God won't allow it. " That is an actual quote from a nightly news program which I watched. I couldn't agree more. The level of US consumption is staggering. That is one of the reasons why I made that comment about the rest of the world loathing us in an earlier post. While we tell the third world to restrain growth we grow our consumption like a group of drunken pigs at the trough. The duplicity really is mind boggling. Some people even state in print that they believe that the earth generates new oil without any dinosaurs or other organic matter as the basis. Some people also believe that OJ was innocent... The only thing that is true here is that the US economic expansion has gone on for so long that people have become vain and arrogant like never before that I am aware, and certainly like never before in my lifetime. Actually this is human nature. I've seen it many times before. We can't make hubris illegal yet... That is where you get ridiculous statements like technology will push the price of oil to under $5 permanently. This was claimed in 1998, just weeks before crude oil prices started to climb. People are always perfectly wrong at the bottom (and the top). In fact this is what creates the bottom or top. This is the crux of sentiment analysis. This reinforces my 'price begets price' psychology argument. So much for the efficient market hypothesis. But this is also true of doomsday scenarios. When everyone is talking about the oil crisis (which we are fairly close to right now) it is close to being over. My technique is to look into my own animal fear and greed states and do the opposite. More often than not this is profitable. Human history is full of wrong thinkers with influence, at least temporarily. Of course it is. Just as it is filled with brilliance, sophistry, beauty, ugliness, good, evil, love, hatred, ...all the human/animal emotions and traits that make it so fascinating to wake up every day to the new challenges that present themselves. Just another day in paradise... We humans still think of ourselves as the center of the universe, I really try not to. I believe the universe is holographic—that all information in creation exists at the smallest point, even on the atomic level. This is similar to Jung's collective unconscious of the Catholic's 'mystical body of Christ' imagery. This way I feel connected to everything, even things/people I dislike/fear. It is a holistic view of creation. for the most part, and we think that everything will always be there for us because we are all so important. We are all important. Never forget that. But we are no more important than anything or anyone else. LOL. JMHO. Don't be so humble. Your opinion is just as valid as mine. I'm glad you can laugh about it. Most of us take things to seriously. We are all Bozos on this Bus... Thanks for questions! Quasar

To: edward miller who wrote (105)	10/29/2000 3:43:39 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 74559

Hi Edward, Re: RE: "As far as world reserves we are still swimming in oil" The easy read: sciam.com The slightly harder read: usgs.gov I was living in Eugene, OR in 1973, fresh out of college and wet behing the ears. I attended a series of lectures at the University of Oregon and the speaker was a resources wonk of some stripe or other. The topic was, of course, how America was going to handle the oil crisis caused by the first assertion of muscle by a third world seller's cartel. Let me assure you, that discussion leader/wonk had absolutely everyone in the room convinced that we were running out of affordable oil within 10 years. I believed him..... Then Brent happened, Nigeria happened, Grand Banks happened, new strikes in Latin America, Southeast Asia, yada di yada. Stripers even came back into production and we had a revolution in creative prospecting. In short, we conference attendees was bamboozled by a very well meaning but misinformed ecologist/enviromentalist. The lesson of the latter part of the 20th Century is that wealth creates commodity deflation. Ask the farmers, ask the gold miners, ask the Rio Tinto Zinc crowd. They can't rape and pillage the earth fast enough to make a buck out of it any more. The price action in the crude oil market is a wonder to behold. In a nutshell, a shortfall or surplus of supply of 1MM barrels per day generally creates a 50% change in the price level. Thus, from December, 1998, when there was perhaps a 1MM bbl/d surplus of supply, we've swung back to a point where as of 01-Sep-00 the world was consuming 75MM bbl/d and the production was 73MM bbl/d. To the keen observer the price swing from $11/bbl to $38/bbl is an uncanny match for rule of thumb on price swing. Remember 1MM bbl=50% price swing. 26-Oct-00, API announced that in the most recent reporting period, the week prior, that there appeared to be about 1MM excess of supply over demand. Barring market manipulation for political purposes, etc., or an exceptional cold snap in the northern latitudes, we shall see the spot price of oil declining fairly quickly to the high $20's. Human history is full of wrong thinkers with influence, at least temporarily. We humans still think of ourselves as the center of the universe, for the most part, and we think that everything will always be there for us because we are all so important. An excellent argument for banning the Bible, the Koran and all the other anthropocentric and archaic books that weren't so harmfully out of synch with our present reality when there were vastly fewer ravenous and rapacious consumers on the planet. IMO, Ray