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With world in energy shock, Saudi oil cushion gets very thin


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With world in energy shock, Saudi oil cushion gets very thin

Illustration shows a model of 3D printed oil barrels in front of displayed stock graph

LONDON, July 8 (Reuters) - When French President Emmanuel Macron whispered in Joe Biden's ear last month that top global oil exporter Saudi Arabia has very little additional capacity to increase output, the U.S. President looked surprised.

Biden is due to land in Riyadh later this month, and he will likely hear the same sobering message – don't count much on Saudi Arabia to help replace Russian oil.

How much Saudi Arabia – seen as the "central bank" of global oil - can really pump is an industry secret and scepticism on this usually grows at times of high oil prices and strained global production. The kingdom, which says it can pump 12 million barrels per day, has regularly proved its doubters wrong in the past.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/with-world-energy-shock-saudi-oil-cushion-gets-very-thin-2022-07-08/

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4 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Those of us who worked on what was termed in the industry as ‘The Secret Project’ know Saudi Arabia has more reserves than it cares to admit.

So I'm guessing Hydrogen motors won't be on the market just yet?

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1 hour ago, Srikcir said:

Pump more oil to lower oil prices.

Not exactly an economic strategy that I'd think S.A. wants to follow. At least not without some serious political concessions by the West.

Well, yes and no.  Some of our members may remember the Saudi Oil embargo of the early to mid -70's.  It was largely over the support for Israel during the Israeli-Arab War.  The US was extraordinarily dependent on OPEC.  The embargo extended to a few other countries and caused major economic problems worldwide.  In the US, there were long lines at the gas stations.  To make a long, complex situation short, the upshot was that the US implemented rather drastic measures to curb oil usage.    It triggered new measures that focused on energy conservation and development of domestic energy sources. These measures included the creation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a national 55-mile-per-hour speed limit on U.S. highways, and later, President Gerald R. Ford’s administration’s imposition of fuel economy standards. It also prompted the creation of the International Energy Agency.  Money was made available to insulate houses to conserve fuel oil.    

 

Saudi Arabia and OPEC learned a valuable lesson.  Their control of oil was curtailed.  The US, and much of the rest of the world could cut back on oil usage and this to some extent put Saudi Arabia in its proper place.  Since then, the Saudis have maintained a pretty good and consistent supply to the world.  Like a drug cartel, they don't want their customers to quit using.  Now, as then, conservation is a key factor, but it's not in the best financial interest of the Saudis to have a massive and quick turn to renewables.  It's in their interest to keep it flowing and nourish the addiction.   

 

I don't know much about the situation with Saudi reserves, but I believe that worldwide we are starting to see a diminishing amount of easily extracted oil.   

 

A good friend working in Kuwait told quite some time back that they were pumping as much and as quickly as possible, but they were facing diminishing capacity in existing wells.  Perhaps the Saudis are reaching the point of diminishing capacity?

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4 hours ago, shackleton said:

What about the strategic reserve that  Present Biden was going to release to provide oil on the world markets ????

Sending a bunch of it to his partners, "CHINA".  They have him over a barrel.

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8 hours ago, Hanaguma said:

Gee, if only there was a country next to the US that could provide oil. A fellow liberal democracy, with respect for human rights, with no compromising needed. A country with 170 BILLION barrels of proven oil reserves.  

 

Wouldnt it be a good idea to try and tap those reserves, perhaps with a.... pipeline perhaps? 

 

Nah...rather go hat in hand to the head hackers in the Middle East and beg them. 

 

Great national strategy. 

 Never mind a pipeline that would take years to build. There is presently plenty of unused crude by rail capacity from Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of heavy crude more a day could be shipped that way using the infrastructure build over the last decade. Joe is sucking and blowing at the same time. Trying to keep the eco warriors happy while gas prices reasonable. 

 

Canadian Crude Oil Exports by Rail – Monthly Data

Jan/21-195k bbl per day

 

Feb/22  144k bbl per day

 

https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-commodities/crude-oil-petroleum-products/statistics/canadian-crude-oil-exports-rail-monthly-data.html

Edited by pegman
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On 7/9/2022 at 10:00 PM, pegman said:

 Never mind a pipeline that would take years to build. There is presently plenty of unused crude by rail capacity from Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of heavy crude more a day could be shipped that way using the infrastructure build over the last decade. Joe is sucking and blowing at the same time. Trying to keep the eco warriors happy while gas prices reasonable. 

 

Canadian Crude Oil Exports by Rail – Monthly Data

Jan/21-195k bbl per day

 

Feb/22  144k bbl per day

 

https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-commodities/crude-oil-petroleum-products/statistics/canadian-crude-oil-exports-rail-monthly-data.html

True to an extent, but shipping by rail is far more dangerous than by pipeline. Also more costly in the long run. The new Keystone pipeline alone would have shipped at least 800k barrels per day. But it was held up for a decade by political <deleted>wittery, culminating in John Kerry's idiotic comments that the pipeline might make the US look bad in front of the environmentalists.  

 

A missed opportunity.  And now with a President that is openly hostile to the fossil fuel industry, there is very little appetite and incentive for investors to put money into the industry. 

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On 7/9/2022 at 10:55 PM, Hanaguma said:

True to an extent, but shipping by rail is far more dangerous than by pipeline. Also more costly in the long run. The new Keystone pipeline alone would have shipped at least 800k barrels per day. But it was held up for a decade by political <deleted>wittery, culminating in John Kerry's idiotic comments that the pipeline might make the US look bad in front of the environmentalists.  

 

A missed opportunity.  And now with a President that is openly hostile to the fossil fuel industry, there is very little appetite and incentive for investors to put money into the industry. 

It's called "tar sands" for a reason. Not exactly as flammable as the jet fuel like light oil coming out of North Dakota 

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4 hours ago, pegman said:

It's called "tar sands" for a reason. Not exactly as flammable as the jet fuel like light oil coming out of North Dakota 

True that.

Edited by starky
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On 7/9/2022 at 6:24 AM, Isaan sailor said:

Interesting that America has vast proven oil reserves—yet the Biden administration attacks oil production at every step, in favor of their green energy agenda.

Meanwhile, both China and India have increased energy from coal and oil, with oil coming at favorable prices from Russia.

Amazing America.

China is a world leader in renewables and is likely to be the first big country drastically reducing dependency on fossil fuels:

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-30/china-set-to-double-last-year-s-record-solar-panel-installations

 

The Chinese don't want dependency on foreign oil and gas, Russian or from anywhere else.

 

 

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6 hours ago, gearbox said:

China is a world leader in renewables and is likely to be the first big country drastically reducing dependency on fossil fuels:

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-30/china-set-to-double-last-year-s-record-solar-panel-installations

 

The Chinese don't want dependency on foreign oil and gas, Russian or from anywhere else.

 

 

Talk is one thing.  The fact remains that China uses more fossil fuels than ever.  And they’re the #1 polluter on this planet.

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3 hours ago, Isaan sailor said:

Talk is one thing.  The fact remains that China uses more fossil fuels than ever.  And they’re the #1 polluter on this planet.

There are the no 1 polluter, one would expect that, it is the global factory and there are nearly 1.5 billion of them.

 

However having 1200GW generation capacity by 2030 only from wind and solar is a lot, considering that all sources of generation capacity of US are 1115GW combined.

 

"In 2020, the pandemic year, installed electricity generation summer capacity [14] in the United States was 1115.68 gigawatts (GW), up 16.57 GW from 2019."

 

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24 minutes ago, gearbox said:

There are the no 1 polluter, one would expect that, it is the global factory and there are nearly 1.5 billion of them.

 

However having 1200GW generation capacity by 2030 only from wind and solar is a lot, considering that all sources of generation capacity of US are 1115GW combined.

 

"In 2020, the pandemic year, installed electricity generation summer capacity [14] in the United States was 1115.68 gigawatts (GW), up 16.57 GW from 2019."

 

The green dream is just that.  EVs will need charging.  People forget that most electricity still comes from fossil fuels.  Just how many windmills and solar farms and dams would it take to replace the fossil fuels used in electricity generation in the USA?

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56 minutes ago, Isaan sailor said:

The green dream is just that.  EVs will need charging.  People forget that most electricity still comes from fossil fuels.  Just how many windmills and solar farms and dams would it take to replace the fossil fuels used in electricity generation in the USA?

No time like the present to start building them.  Not going to happen if everyone is simply talking about the pros  & cons of, and how it can't be done.

 

Who ever thought we'd be carrying a computer & camera around in our phones ... and yet

 

Or is that a computer & phone in our camera ... ????

Edited by KhunLA
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2 hours ago, KhunLA said:

No time like the present to start building them.  Not going to happen if everyone is simply talking about the pros  & cons of, and how it can't be done.

 

Who ever thought we'd be carrying a computer & camera around in our phones ... and yet

 

Or is that a computer & phone in our camera ... ????

Kind of a reality stretch—a 4 oz smartphone to a 2000 lb transportation system.  I hope you’re right, but it won’t happen without breakthrough technologies.  And you can bet China will use fossil fuels as long as they run cheaper than green energy.

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A post with altered quotes has been removed.  Please don't alter anything inside a quote box.

 

28. You will not make changes to messages quoted from other members posts, except for purposes of shortening the quoted post. Do not shorten any post in a way that alters the context of the original post. Do not change the formatting of the post you are quoting.

 

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On 7/11/2022 at 12:17 PM, Isaan sailor said:

Kind of a reality stretch—a 4 oz smartphone to a 2000 lb transportation system.  I hope you’re right, but it won’t happen without breakthrough technologies.  And you can bet China will use fossil fuels as long as they run cheaper than green energy.

China does have a problem.   Too many people, not enough sunshine, half the year????

 

Does anyone really care (except Chinese) how China gets 'their' energy, as long as they keep providing inexpensive components for alternative energy for the rest of us.

 

Without China, people couldn't afford alternatives to fossil fuels.

Edited by KhunLA
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On 7/11/2022 at 9:18 AM, Pattaya Spotter said:

Don't worry...Joe Biden is going to the murderous "pariah" MBS on bended knee to beg him to turn up the oil taps ????????????????

 

https://youtu.be/sulLEFHCi1A

Well, Donald Trump bent his knee to MBS and scuttled the Iran nuclear deal. That's a lot of oil and gas that's gone missing from the world market thanks to Trump kowtowing to the Sunni Arabs and Israel.

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On 7/9/2022 at 10:11 AM, AgMech Cowboy said:

Sending a bunch of it to his partners, "CHINA".  They have him over a barrel.

 

On 7/9/2022 at 10:27 AM, Isaan sailor said:

If true, an impeachable offense.. 

B.S.! The government did not choose to whom it was send.

It was a competitive bidding process and the oil has been sold to the highest bidders per current regulation.

Oil price is a global price so in order to decrease prices, there is no other way than to increase global supply. Be it by selling strategic reserves, by allowing Iran to sell its oil or by convincing S.A. to increase supply, the outcome is the same. It doesn't really matters who buys or sells, It's the law of supply and demand at the global pevel

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