vtsnowedin wrote:As long as the Biden administrations war on fossil fuels continues I see producers restricting capital expenditures and field development as a way to increase profit margins and a way to just wait the Democrats out.
Given that I expect our domestic production to decline steadily for the next two to five years depending on events in Washington and elsewhere and once demand exceeds that shrinking supply prices worldwide will soar perhaps to the $150/b level with $5/gal gas in the US to become common.
Even if the Republicans take control of Congress in the midterms Biden will have veto control on them so none of his anti fossil fuel policies can be undone before 2025.
Of course the Democrats could wake up and realize those policies are unpopular and will hand the white house to the Republicans in 2024 and then change track sooner rather than later as a matter of survival. But so far there is no sign of that.
You should change your channel, none of that is correct.
1) US production has been rising steadily for 18 months
2) Biden has
approved more drilling on public land per month than trump did in his first three years.
AND though he lied about being
forced to sell off leases in the Gulf so the climate activists wouldn't hang him, DOJ said he wasn't really "forced" and definitely need not have moved to sell as quickly as he did:
DOJ wrote:“While the order enjoins and restrains (the department of) interior from implementing the pause, it does not compel interior to take the actions specified by plaintiffs, let alone on the urgent timeline specified in plaintiffs’ contempt motion,”
Joe is a lifelong politician, old enough to know better than you and I what high gasoline prices mean to his presidency. He is attempting to thread the needle between oil price and GW— read that: PO & GW. Which is better than the last guy who only cared about his own ego and tried to tear down what progress has been made.
To me, attempting to transition before the peak surge in price is the only responsible path—I wrote about it in my first post here. Anyone reading here for any length of time should have at least a glimmer of what's at stake—and it is more than cheap gas.
3) capital expenditures have been falling since...trump was elected, (publicly traded cos) only starting to increase capex for the first time in the last 2 quarters after 5 years of decline.
Looking at figure 2 above you can see that those companies were running on borrowed money for 10 years, 2003 to 2013 back to '99 if you ignore the spike. And again, these are the publicly traded companies. Investors obviously got tired of throwing good money after bad. I can only imagine what private companies profits looked like, no wonder they went Bk.
The thing the pandemic did was allow us to slip unnoticed from Peak Demand right into Murphy's Energy Trap.
You can't drill your way out of GW or peak oil and you can't transition without paying the tab, just that simple. In fact part of the tab is
higher cost for fossils because transitioning itself will cost a big increase in ff demand — that IS the energy trap. We haven't seen more than a hint of that.
We know Republicans (including Mansion/Sinema) will continue being paid by the FF industry to protect their profits and that a whole section of the media will be leading the charge. Biden is at least trying for a transition while keeping the naive liberal fools who don't understand the stakes onboard. He increased CAFE standards again today.
By 2024 — hopefully not until 2028 I expect the peak to be in, if not widely recognized. If we lose the government to the know-nothing Republican fossil fuel lobbyists before that another 8 years of trumpist denial will likely cook our goose because we'll have both PO and GW.
Hard to fathom why anyone who has read on this site would be against at least trying.
https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/weekly/ar ... _print.php
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)