Texas Is About to Create OPEC's Worst Nightmare

[jpak]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-21/opec-s-worst-nightmare-the-permian-is-about-to-pump-a-lot-more?srnd=markets-vp

The map lays out OPEC’s nightmare in graphic form.

An infestation of dots, thousands of them, represent oil wells in the Permian basin of West Texas and a slice of New Mexico. In less than a decade, U.S. companies have drilled 114,000. Many of them would turn a profit even with crude prices as low as $30 a barrel.

OPEC’s bad dream only deepens next year, when Permian producers expect to iron out distribution snags that will add three pipelines and as much as 2 million barrels of oil a day.

“The Permian will continue to grow and OPEC needs to learn to live with it,’’ said Mike Loya, the top executive in the Americas for Vitol Group, the world’s largest independent oil-trading house.

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[Pope George Ringo II]

1. In the short run, this is probably a good thing on balance.

Oil funds an awful lot of bad guys around the world: Putin, Salman, and Rouhani, for example. But also Abbott and Trump, and we've only got two more years of Trump.

In the long and even intermediate runs, not so much. Especially if you're Venezuelan.

[Eyeball_Kid]

2. Ooo.. We're winning the battle for fossil fuel pollution in the atmosphere!

What great news! Texas, my hat's off to you. There's no greater contributor to catastrophic climate change than the burning of petroleum products. And YOU, Texas, are proving to be IN THE LEAD of fossil fuel production. Thank you for sending us over the cliff to a better chance for extinction. Our grandchildren will be forever grateful.

[TexasBushwhacker]

32. Anyone who uses fossil fuels, directly or indirectly, creates the DEMAND

Unless your home uses wind powered electricity and you drive an electric car, you and I and everyone else is part of that demand. Someone is going to pump it out of the ground and refine it. Personally, I'd be happy to be less dependent on OPEC oil. We can still move towards greener forms of energy. Texas is tops in wind power too.

[YessirAtsaFact]

3. We would be better off long term if oil was very expensive

That would change behavior and slow down use of fossil fuels.

[Sancho]

4. OPEC's worst nightmare should be solar, wind, and sustainable energy...tax carbon now!!

Not to mention all those cattle herds for beef production...

[Ohiogal]

5. Amen to that, Sancho.

[Amishman]

8. Wind and solar can't do it all. We need nuclear for base load

There are new, much safer designs on paper but they can't get over the hurdles to build.

Liquid salt reactors would be a safe bridge until fusion is viable

[shanny]

9. do these new and much safer designs deal with their own waste?

[Adrahil]

12. Lots of misunderstandings about nuclear waste.

Nuclear facilities do not create radiation, they just rearrange it. And in fact, the decay of radioactive elements actually means LESS radiation over time.

While we do need storage facilities for spent fuel, which is dangerous to humans becuase of its concentrated radiation, you have to remember that the uranium that the fuel rods were made from were more radioactive than the rods.... they are just less concentrated.

Meanwhile, nuclear power plants are MUCH more environmentally friendly than petroleum plants, so long as newer, safer designs are used. And hopefully, fusion plants will one day be a reality! The everyone can have a free pony.

[jpak]

13. The ignorance is appalling

[Hortensis]

15. :) Good information, though some on how we redistribute

concentrated nuclear waste back to where the original commodities were mined would be welcome. (We don't want more low-income rural communities in red states waking up and discovering that wealthier states, including blue ones, thought it'd be best to send their radioactive waste of all levels to their neighborhoods instead.)

I still mourn the "loss" of kitchen fusion.

[Adrahil]

18. Well said.

[Blue_true]

16. You didn't address the issue of spent (but very concentrated in relative terms) fuel rods from

disparate plants to site that are capable of storing the material until it reaches half-life in something like 1,000 years. An accident during transport that results in the material surround the rods or the rods themselves getting exposed to the environment would be a catastrophe.

I agree that every energy source has it's drawbacks, that is why the wisest plan is a combination of sources that result in less fossil fuel being used. I believe that there is one "holy grail" energy source, but the technical difficulties of making it a reality are daunting, but anyone that figure those issues out will likely become the richest and most powerful person in history (not that that really matters in the long run). Coincidentally, because of it's nature, the energy source should also make interstellar travel more practical and likely.

[Adrahil]

19. All very real issues....

But more immediately possible to deal with, given the imminent and potentially irreversible threat of climate change due to carbon emissions.

[shanny]

21. my understanding of the nuclear waste issue is the result of living next door

to a nuclear facility for decades...and the abysmal record we have racked up so far. So. Until that gets solved, don't talk to me about free ponies.

[Adrahil]

22. Who doesn't love ponies!!!??

If fusion becomes practical, it will indeed usher in an age of clean and plentiful energy.

And I too lived within 10 miles of a nuclear power plant.

Most of the plants in service today are older, less safe designs.

It is possible to build reactors that simply cannot melt down, and given the current risks of runaway global warming, we'd be fools to not consider supporting them at least as bridge measure.

To be clear, I am in favor of VASTLY expanded wind and solar energy production.

[hedda_foil]

14. Oh look! Nnadir has some new playmates!

[shanny]

20. just...wow

[blogslut]

11. Texas is the leader in US Wind Energy production

Which is kind of what I wanted to see when I opened this OP.

[ProfessorPlum]

24. me too

[brush]

17. Spot on. What is it with energy companies? WTF aren't they taking the lead on...

alternative energy?

The head-in-the-sand stance on the environment is going to bite us all in the behind. Guess the CEOs figure they'll be dead by then so screw everyone else.

[TexasBushwhacker]

31. Unfortunately, it's all about quarterly profits

Shareholders don't want profits in 5, 10, 20 years. They want them NOW. And since capital gains are considered "long term" after only holding them a year, and they are taxed at a lower rate, it's all about short term profits. Tax ALL capital gains like wages, and strategies might change.

[uponit7771]

23. +1

[Celerity]

6. Vitol Group, the world's largest independent oil-trading house. Ultra corrupt menace to humanity

Swiss firm Vitol pleads guilty in UN oil/food case

https://uk.reuters.com/article/un-food-vitol-idUKN2058211120071120


New scandal threatens world's largest oil trader Vitol and boss Ian Taylor
Vitol faces claims it bamboozled Mozambique, the impovershed African nation, into overpaying in a fuel deal

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/new-scandal-threatens-worlds-largest-oil-trader-vitol-and-boss-ian-taylor-a7337546.html


Oil Trading Giants Glencore, Vitol Targeted in PDVSA Bribe Suit
10 March 2018, 01:01 CET
Venezuelan oil company cheated out of $5.2 billion: Boies

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-10/oil-trading-giants-glencore-vitol-targeted-in-pdvsa-bribe-suit


WORLD’S BIGGEST OIL TRADERS (Glencore and Vitol) PAID MIDDLEMEN ACCUSED IN ‘CAR WASH’ MEGA-SCANDAL, GLOBAL WITNESS REVEALS
The world’s top two commodity traders used middlemen notorious for their role in Brazil’s mammoth “Car Wash” bribery scandal

This helped usher in the ultra right wing, soon dictator, and Trump buddy Bolsonaro.

Glencore is almost as bad, and is famous because of its founder and main person was Marc Rich, who got a last minute pardon from Bill Clinton January 20, 2001, his last day in office. Mary Jo White (much later Obamas head of the SEC, and Elizabeth Warren's frenemy) was appointed to investigate the pardon of Marc Rich. She was later replaced by then-Republican James Comey. Comey found no criminal laws were broken.

small world, lolol

https://www.globalwitness.org/en/press-releases/worlds-biggest-oil-traders-paid-middlemen-accused-car-wash-mega-scandal/



Swiss oil trader Vitol accused of profiting from ties to elites in Kazakhstan

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/vitol_swiss-oil-trader-accused-of-profiting-from-ties-to-elites-in-kazakhstan/44544454



CFTC Sanctions Houston-based Vitol Inc. and Vitol Capital Management Ltd. $6 Million for Willfully Failing to Disclose Material Facts to the New York Mercantile Exchange (this will NEVER happen under Trump)

https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/pr5894-10


I could go on and on and on

[TeamPooka]

7. In his crazy statement of America First Saudi ass kissing Trump said Saudi Arabia

is the #1 oil producer in the world.
the US is the #1 oil producer in the world.
He can't even get the simple facts right.

[Achilleaze]

10. The massive, colossal ruination of water for oil is a BAD bargain

You cannot drink oil. republican policies spell STUPID DOOM.

[Bucky]

25. They're totally fracked

Petroleum and gas powered vehicles will make sense for a long time. But for large industrial needs, we're about 10 years behind the curve and converting to renewable energy sources

This is short-term thinking. This is third world thinking.

[Botany]

26. Great more CO2

Although the less $$$ that goes to Saudi Arabia is a good thing too.

[JCMach1]

27. Bust Oil is about to torpedo economies around the world

Think Venezuela x20 as oil reliant countries move into the red and stay there.

Nigeria, Saudis, UAE, Iran, Iraq and Russia among some of the favorites

[Squinch]

28. OPEC's worst nightmare will be when we learn how to get by on locally produced renewable energy.

It will be the 1%'s worst nightmare too.

Until then, though, we are just addicts who are kidding ourselves.

[JohnnyRingo]

29. The electric car is OPEC's worst nightmare.

Every manufacturer is gearing up to replace the internal combustion engine or at least make it gasoline efficient. Some countries plan to outlaw them entirely. Obviously, Texas will share the tossing and turning of a sleepless night if they put all their eggs into the fossil fuel basket.

[Buckeyeblue]

30. Can't SA make money at less than $30/barrel?

What $30/barrel prices mean is that arctic drilling is not viable. I think this hurts the Russians far more than it hurts SA.

[FBaggins]

34. True... but SA is not OPEC

More importantly, for them it isn’t a question of whether they make money at a given price point. It’s what price they need in order to continue to fund their spending.

[FBaggins]

33. Another nail in the peak oil coffin

Even the 1975 Texas peak looks like it could fall.

Will the Malthusians ever recognize their error? Of course not... they’re never wrong, just early.