Hold My Beer, I Can Fix This

The yahoos in the photograph above are tired of cutting their respective country's oil production only to watch the US shale oil industry grow its production and steal their market share. The world is swimming in crude oil, the price is headed for $15, or worse, and the EIA says the American shale oil sector is set to bring on another 18,000 BOPD in April. Look at the chart below and you'll get a better understanding of why these two guys are pissed off. But low oil prices are killing OPEC and Russia, just like America. With any conciliatory gesture and ensuing agreement from the United States to take oil off the market to help raise oil prices, OPEC and Russia would cut production and oil prices would rise. I'll bet the ranch on that. That gesture of cooperation is NOT going ...

What Can Collapsologists Learn From the Coronavirus Disaster?

------------------ This time, it is for real! -------------------- Guest post by Herbert Krill March 23, 2020 These are interesting times for collapsologists and for anyone interested in collapse. For many years, we all studied the past, historic collapses like the Fall of Ancient Rome, and speculated about future collapses. We studied Joseph Tainter, Jared Diamond, read the Blogs of Dmitry Orlov and James Howard Kunstler, re-read "The Limits to Growth" and "Overshoot", enjoyed "The Long Descent" and so on ... But now, something that could end in collapse is really here. There is a very fast decline of things as we speak, a "cliff" just as Seneca and Ugo Bardi and others have described. Is the Coronavirus disaster our collapse? Is that "it"? It might not "the Big One". But it's a big, fat Black Swan. And big enough to learn a lot from it. ...

US and Saudi Arabia Talk Oil Stabilization

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo revealed Wednesday that he recently spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud and they agreed all countries need to work together to stabilize energy markets. Spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud regarding the #coronavirus and we agreed all countries need to work together to contain the pandemic and stabilize energy markets. Thankful for #SaudiArabia’s partnership in the face of the threats posed by #Iran’s regime. — Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) March 25, 2020 In a statement posted on the U.S. Department of State’s website, government spokesperson Morgan Ortagus outlined that Pompeo stressed in a phone call with the Crown Prince that the Saudis have a “real opportunity to rise to the occasion and reassure global energy and financial markets when the world faces serious economic uncertainty”. Ortagus also stated that the secretary ...

COVID-19 Demonstrates the Importance of Plastics

Over the span of just a few weeks, the world’s priorities have shifted significantly. COVID-19 has made it abundantly clear that not only do we still need oil and natural gas, but the world would not be able to tackle this threat without products that are made possible by these resources, including plastic. Cities and states are changing course on banning single-use plastics during the COVID-19 pandemic, as are some stores that were moving away from plastic bags. While some of these initial efforts had been well-intentioned policies meant to make our lifestyles more sustainable, the current situation has brought to the forefront the important role plastics play in people’s daily lives. For instance, many retailers are finding, single-use plastics can give more certainty to employees that they are handling objects that have not been contaminated. Further, plastics are a necessary component ...

The End of Civilization?

Governments all over the world are using the alleged threat of a COVID-19 pandemic to shut down the world’s economy. Daniel Lacalle, an authority on energy economics, writes: “The decision to shut down air travel and close all nonessential businesses is now a reality in major global economies. The United States has banned all European flights as Italy enters a complete lockdown, Spain declares a state of emergency, and France closes all nonessential public places and businesses.” Further, he points out, governments can’t solve the problems they have created through massive spending programs and bigger deficits. These policies make things worse: “Governments will implement large demand-side policies that are the wrong answer to a shutdown of the economy. Most businesses will suffer from the collapse in sales and subsequent working capital build, and none of that will be solved with deficit spending. ...

Nate Hagens: An Overview of the Systemic Implications of the Coronavirus

With the exception of some public talks, I’ve largely been quiet the last five years on social media and other venues with respect to describing our societal situation, despite having strong opinions on what is happening and what is going to happen. I’ve mainly been working behind the scenes on responses to the coming end-of-growth situation and have chosen to not be a perpetual buzz-kill to real people I care about who (mostly) prefer to ‘watch a different movie’. Alas, the world, and particularly this virus and the response to it, has accelerated the timeline a bit, and we are now amid a dress rehearsal (hopefully that only) of the larger events I see unfolding before 2030. Given all the unknowns – rather than put a % on various outcomes and make a slew of predictions – I’d prefer to provide what ...

COVID-19: How Corona Broke the System

By Marc Saxer International Politics and Society No one knows how long the pandemic will last, how many people will fall ill, how many lives the coronavirus will claim. But the economic and political consequences of the outbreak are already emerging. Measures to contain the pandemic are disrupting public life around the world. Starting with China, production has come to a standstill in one country after another. Global supply chains are broken. You don’t need a lot of imagination to see a wave of bankruptcies approaching in many industries where every last cent counts. In the past few days, panic buying has dominated media coverage. However, anxious consumers tend to postpone larger purchases. When shortages appear, consumption also drops. These upheavals are likely to cause the already sluggish European economies to slide into recession. The sudden slump in Chinese demand has shaken the commodity markets. ...

Richard Heinberg: How Does Pandemic Change the Big Picture?

As of 2019, the Big Picture for humanity was approximately as follows. Homo sapiens (that’s us), a big-brained bipedal mammal, had spent the Pleistocene epoch (from 2.5 million years ago until 12,000 years ago) developing its ability to control fire, talk, paint pictures, play bone flutes, and make tools and clothes. Language dramatically enhanced our sociality and helped enable us to invade and inhabit every continent except Antarctica. During the Holocene epoch (the last 12,000 years), we started living in permanent settlements, developed agriculture, and built state societies with kings, slavery, economic inequality, full-time division of labor, money, religions, and armies. The Anthropocene epoch (more of a brief interlude, really) dawned only a couple of centuries ago as we humans started using fossil fuels, which empowered us dramatically to grow our population and per capita consumption rates, mechanize production and ...

Kunstler interviews Gail Tverberg of Our Finite World

Gail Tverberg is an analyst who has been researching the connection between oil limits and the economy for nearly 10 years. She writes a widely-followed blog called Our Finite World. Her background is as an actuary, working as a consultant to insurance companies. She also has a foot in the academic world, where she has lectured and written academic articles, and taught at the China’s University of Petroleum in Beijing. This chat focuses mostly on the corona virus situation and the ensuing mess in the economy and the financial sector, which Gail also has been covering extensively on her blog. The theme music for the podcast is the Two Rivers Waltz by Larry Unger. Direct Download: http://traffic.libsyn.com/kunstlercast/KunstlerCast_327.mp3 Kunstler

Covid-19 triggers 20% drop in oil demand

Early figures are suggesting that the outbreak of Covid-19 could have a significant impact on global oil demand, with Arij van Berkel, a director at US-based research firm Lux Research claiming that “early indications by traders suggest a 20% drop in demand.” “In a sense, the current demand decrease is a preview of demand projections for 2030 and beyond,” he continued, noting that the outbreak could simply be accelerating a trend many have already predicted. “As an example, Barclays projects a global peak in oil demand between 2030 and 2035 followed by a steady demand reduction. “We should watch how oil companies respond, as it will reveal vulnerabilities to decreasing demand and consistently low prices.” OT