Royal Dutch Shell plc (RDS.A)

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  • commenter
    Phil Obal
    Sep 23 10:40 AM
    My Website
    Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy [view article]
    Even with higher crude prices, there are major time delays before a well is spudded. First, find it and make sure has good prospective reserves (time), Second, get leases (times). Third, get the equipment, people, roads, infrastructure to begin drilling (time).

    There is NOT an infinitie number of rigs to go around... So you have two major constraints (rigs available for that type of operation) AND time it takes to get permits and permission.     Reply
  • commenter
    paultaut
    Sep 23 10:34 AM
    Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy [view article]
    Why are all of you picking on this guy, he writes children's books, he likes to fish. Reply
  • commenter
    User 202870
    Sep 23 10:05 AM
    Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy [view article]
    The answer is "all of the above" as Sarah Palin says. Reply
  • commenter
    cjwirth
    Sep 23 10:03 AM
    My Website
    Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy [view article]
    The McCain drilling strategy is a win for the Republicans, maybe just in time for the November elections.

    More drilling will the lower the rate at which the U.S. is increasingly dependent on imported oil at some time in the distant future.

    Drilling for oil in ecologically sensitive areas is a partisan political issue.

    The impacts of Peak Oil, however, will soon shift the focus of debate toward how to survive high oil prices, maybe as soon as an attack on Iran.

    Increasingly, average Americans will not be able to afford both fuel oil for heating and gasoline for commuting to work (starting in to be felt more in November). When unemployment increases in the ever worsening global recession, a larger and larger percentage of people will not be able to pay for fuel oil to heat their homes. These realities will shock the nation with big increases in home heating bills this winter (starting in November). Oil prices will be higher for the winter of 2009.

    In such an environment, the Democrats are making a mistake with their “no drilling” position on this issue. As Peak Oil becomes more widely known as the cause of economic malaise, public attitudes will shift away from environmental concerns and toward more drilling.

    According to energy investment banker Matthew Simmons and other independent forecasters, global crude oil production will now decline, from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time demand will increase 14%.

    This is equivalent to a 33% drop in 7 years. No one can reverse this trend, nor can we conserve our way out of this catastrophe. Because the demand for oil is so high, it will always be higher than production; thus the depletion rate will continue steadily until all recoverable oil is extracted.

    Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment.

    We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel trucks for maintenance of bridges, cleaning culverts to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables, all from far away. With the highways out, there will be no food coming in from “outside,” and without the power grid virtually nothing works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated systems.

    This is documented in a free 48 page report that can be downloaded, website posted, distributed, and emailed: www.peakoilassociates....

    I used to live in NH, but moved to a sustainable place. Anyone interested in relocating to a nice, pretty, sustainable area with a good climate and good soil?
    clifford dot wirth at yahoo dot com or give me a phone call which operates here as my old USA-NH number 603-668-4207. survivingpeakoil.blogs.../
     Reply
  • commenter
    User 202870
    Sep 23 10:03 AM
    Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy [view article]
    The answer is "all of the above" as Sarah Palin says. We need to drill and increase nuclear energy, etc etc etc. This is not a them or us decision. It must be "all of the above". Reply
  • commenter
    Paul B.
    Sep 23 07:58 AM
    Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy [view article]
    Tim,

    Your basic analysis is flawed. Since most of the drilling in the last fifteen years has been to develop gas wells, any sound analysis must include gas production also. There are other factors currently impacting the success of the drilling activity including 3D seismic, horizontal drilling, shale fracing techniques, and accelerating declines in large older fields. If the analysis is to have validity it must also delineate production for newly found oil in current production.

    I would like to see some modification of your data, to include gas production at a minimum.

    Regrettably, the analysis does not yet arrive at a conclusion to the "great debate" of the decade.

    Nice try though!     Reply
  • commenter
    Peppio
    Sep 23 04:05 AM
    My Website
    Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy [view article]
    Timothy, how stupid can you get ? Of course if we don't drill, there won't be a drop of oil 10 years down the road. If we start now, there will be oil, 5, 13 years, doesn't matter, there will be oil. Just like saving for retirement, if you don't start putting a few dollars in, you won't have anything. Instead, you keep asking "if I start saving now would I have enough money to retire ?" How dumn !! Reply
  • commenter
    Alan von
    Altendorf
    Sep 23 02:24 AM
    My Website
    Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy [view article]
    Thanks Cajun. I wanted to add my highest sincere respect for the G&G work done in the 70s by geologists, engineers and exploration managers at Sun, Amoco, Arco, etc -- excellent companies that were wiped out in the 80s along with most of the rig owners. I swear to God, there's no one left who can read and correlate 1" paper logs. When we plot them out from digi files, the cubicle people scold us for "killing trees again!" Reply
  • commenter
    happycajun
    Sep 22 11:16 PM
    Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy [view article]
    Alan makes an excellent point - "drilling technology" in the last decade has not really made the old process cheaper - the developments in horizontal drilling and particularly in completion methods have improved the economics of development in certain circumstances, but "drilling" is certainly not cheaper. Lost expertise and increased demand have increased the cost of drilling. A conventional vertical completed well in a traditional oil sand has not become cheaper as a result of technology in the last ten years. I would appreciate hotforoil citing his/her sources for those assertions.

    Improved seismic interpretation (which dates back more than 10 years) has permitted discovery and development of relatively small oil reserves. But these are all incremental technologies that improve what has always been done, and the loss of expertise has more than offset the improvement. Horizontal drilling has been more of a paradigm shift in allowing development of the gas shales such as Barnett, Haynesville, Fayetteville, etc.

    I personally believe that real technological innovation will come from smaller companies (largely using "retired" expertise from the majors) taking risks, and then the larger producers using M&A to acquire the fruits of their efforts - not unlike the model that larger computer tech leaders have done (Oracle, Microsoft, AMD for example). As we used to say, sometimes it is more economical to acquire reserves with the checkbook than the drillbit, but it is always better to "find" oil.     Reply
  • commenter
    prospect1
    Sep 22 10:47 PM
    Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy [view article]
    Nowhere is it mentioned that the natural gas production in Texas has been increasing at a rate of 1% per month. Who says drilling doesn't work? Most of the easy oil has been found but new fields like the Barnett shale field in the Ft. Worth basin (drilled through for years) is now a long life source of gas. Reply
  • commenter
    Alan von
    Altendorf
    Sep 22 09:42 PM
    My Website
    Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy [view article]
    I concur with the data and analysis presented in the article, but not the concluding thesis about alt energy. Oil is vital for heavy transport, rail, OTR, jet aircraft, construction, mining, etc. There will never be a solar Dreamliner.

    hotforoil wrote: "The lack of success for the current drilling is because they can't drill where the untapped fields are."

    Correct. Offshore California, offshore Washington State, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, and the Bering Sea/offshore western Alaska have significant potential. However...

    hotforoil continues (wrongly): "Todays Drilling technology is miles ahead from ten years ago. Wells are drilled in a quarter of the time required than then and the new enhanced recovery techniques and production proceedures are vastly expanding the amount of hyrocarbons recovered from new field discoveries."

    Drilling costs have risen exponentially in the past decade, partly because remaining reserves are offshore in deeper plays, partly because exploration and construction costs ballooned, but more importantly because the oil business has sacrificed and blunted its scientific and entrepreneurial edge. Candidly, the geologists (now retired or dead) who explored in the 1970s were far superior to the high tech boat anchors and touchy feely corporate "team members" who survived the merger frenzy of the past decade. I know this to be a stone fact. We routinely see bad work at the majors. Exploration has become a lost art, and billions are being wasted attempting to make phony Monte Carlo guesswork into profitable production. That's why the majors have cut back on E&P. They fired or retired their best people.

    Ultimately, what the domestic oil business needs is better financing. M&A deals do not grow production. If the US musters the political will to drill "environmentally sensitive" prospects, there has to be a change in tax laws, too. Make it profitable for VC start-ups to wildcat.     Reply
  • commenter
    carbonates
    Sep 22 09:18 PM
    Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy [view article]
    Yet another example of how your premise is so WRONG, North Dakota, which has also experienced new levels of drilling activity in the past couple of years, is setting new records of oil production (natural gas is NOT included in these numbers). North Dakota produced 5,324,274 bbls of oil for the month of July compared to the 4,985,773 bbls of oil produced a month earlier. These are all-time high levels for North Dakota, and the direct result of DRILLING. Proven reserves for North Dakota are on the upswing, showing that through effective modern exploration it IS possible to reverse long-term declines. Both new engineering technology and new geologic concepts made it possible to recover tremendous amounts of oil from the Bakken, which has been drilled through and ignored for decades. Many more examples exist, and the new wave of oil drilling is only beginning to be apparent to the investing community and even much of the oil industry. You know very little about what you are talking about.

    EOG Resources, the principal operator of Parshall field, reported production of 854,119 bbls of oil from 53 wells in July. NONE of these wells existed two years ago.

    Large percentages of these new record production levels in North Dakota are being produced from Federal leases. This is something you would have us stop leasing, since apparently 5 million barrels a month isn't enough to matter to you. At only $100 per barrel, that translates into $500 million dollars of revenue that went into the US economy; new wealth created by US oil companies, and money that was NOT part of the US trade deficit. That $500 million of revenue also may have provided as much as 12 1/2 percent of the gross revenue (the Federal royalty payment) to Federal tax coffers, effectively reducing the need to tax US taxpayers by millions of dollars (which would have been needed if we had bought imported oil instead.)

    You really need to rethink your numbers.     Reply
  • commenter
    kblake
    Sep 22 07:59 PM
    Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy [view article]
    I totally agree with carbonates where would nat.gas production be if we didn't have this extra drilling. I've heard just a few years ago that we were running out of nat gas. Now all of the sudden we have a 100 year supply. Reply
  • commenter
    carbonates
    Sep 22 07:15 PM
    Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy [view article]
    Okay, record rig counts this year in the US have only produced 8% year on year production increases in natural gas, creating the possibility of lower natural gas prices for some time to come. Most of those wells were not even planned over two years ago. Many of them weren't even planned a year ago. Current estimates of total natural gas reserves in the US are up dramatically from only a year ago.

    I think your premise is radically WRONG. It seems to me the facts are already there to support more drilling as both a way to increase domestic production, drive down prices for hydrocarbons (already happening for natural gas), and reduce the trade deficit. Increases in production this year certainly support that. You don't seem to understand that the period you are using to prove your data includes significant periods of oil prices near $12 a barrel and longer periods below $25. Next you are going to tell me that having sex does not lead to more babies.

    I think you've done a good job of choosing your data in such a way that it matches your hypothesis. As an exploration geologist, I disagree with most of your "facts."     Reply
  • commenter
    Energy
    Analyst
    Sep 22 07:04 PM
    Why "Drill, Baby, Drill!" Does Not Translate Into Effective National Energy Policy [view article]
    I would hope everyone noticed the author’s investment position in alternative energy, and the need for all energy prices to remain high in order for his companies to have any chance of a big return. Many of these firms may become the failed dot.com’s of this decade. To use his own words, alternative energy “is not the basis of a reasonable strategic energy policy, it is simply the chant of special interests (like Tim) who want to make money for themselves” while steering us down a grossly overpriced and underpowered road of alternative energy. Beyond that fact, his statistical analysis misleadingly and nefariously focuses on just US oil production, and attributes the “Drill, baby, drill” statement to increasing just US oil production, which is a massive misrepresentation of the phrase. I know, I was on the floor at the RNC in Minneapolis, leading the cheers as a Texas delegate, which were not just yelling to drill for US oil. We were calling for US drilling in general, and thus for US natural gas drilling, as well. Clearly, natural gas drilling is probably the biggest threat to the economics of the author’s alternative energy companys' investments. In fact, most rigs in America today are drilling for natural gas, not oil.

    Let’s be clear about one certain fact: if the incredibly manipulative Democrats in Congress (and the White House) 10-15 years ago had lifted the ANWR & other Alaska coastal plain (NPRA) drilling prohibitions, as well as the offshore moratorium, the Alaska pipeline would probably be filled today to its old capacity of 2 million barrels/per day, with nearly an additional 1 million barrels/per day (5% of US oil consumption).

    If you go to Boone’s website, and see his goal of displacing that amount of foreign oil with “alternatives” (which his biggest one is clearly stated as natural gas) , we’d already be there. What’s even more absurd in the energy debate is the fact that Boone also correctly states on his website that every one of his giant wind turbines produces energy equivalent to just 12,000 barrels per YEAR; yea per YEAR, not per day. That equals the equivalent of 32 barrels per day per windmill, nearly equal to a stripper well in America today. That means you’d need 31,250 giant wind turbines 24/7 year round in constant wind, to equal 1 million barrels per day. What a farce! Where would we put 31,250 wind turbines???? The greenie freaks would scream “Not in my backyard” (NIMBY) across America. In response to many questions, he publicly states his main push is truly for more natural gas drilling, and windpower is secondary to that.

    What’s even worse is that if we had lifted the offshore moratoriums 10-15 years ago, our major eastern/midwest US cities and manufacturing businesses would right now have billions of cubic feet of more offshore natural gas available daily, and prices for that commodity would likely be lower. Remember, the five producing platforms off Nova Scotia Canada produce a whopping half a bcf per day. Our offshore East & Florida coast areas likely contain many dozens of trillions of cubic feet of gas, when combined with similar giant onshore natural gas resources, could power America’s electrical utilities, manufacturers, and residential communities for half a century. Just imagine another hundred or so of those platforms randomly scattered up and down thousands of miles of our East and Florida coastline, and you’ll understand the true intent of the phrase “Drill, baby, drill”, of those of us that yelled it: to benefit our oil AND natural gas supply.

    Ultimately, the substitution effect of energy economics should drive each energy application in the economy toward the lowest priced fuel, whether it be coal, natural gas, oil, or nuclear. You’ll notice, I did not mention any so-called “alternatives”. That is because they are still frightfully expensive, even inconvenient to use, and require high oil and gas prices. Sadly for the economy and citizens of our great country, Democrats, liberals, and most all greenies quietly want to keep oil (read: gasoline) and natural gas prices high by restricting access to new natural resource supply sources all across America. They believe that this is the critical foundation of making many alternative energy applications magically economic. Horribly and devilishly, they continue to use the power of government to restrict our access to new, cheaper supplies (large (very economical) undiscovered reserves) from historically more economic sources, in order to try and make widespread use of alternative energy sources artificially commercial. Thankfully, the market for energy from coal, gas, oil, and nuclear, could save us from their high prices, if we only reject their nefarious leadership.

    However, Biden/Obamaites are already telling us that paying much higher prices for energy/alternative energy products (electric cars etc.) is somehow “patriotic”, like Biden’s statements on higher income, capital gains, corporate, and estate taxes. Most all of the alternative energy applications will be hard pressed to be economic for major, widespread applications to our nationwide industrial, commercial, and residential consumption. That is why America must continue to “Drill, baby, drill”, as one of the few, reasonable energy engines for our economy for decades to come. To produce pages of statistics, as was done for this self-serving article by an alternative energy investor, just proves once again, the old adage of “Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure”. Beware America! Coal, nuclear, and “Drill, baby, drill” are our only real hope for decades to come. We’ll need the cheapest BTU’s we can generate, and no alternative is likely to contribute in a major way, without government market manipulation to raise the cost of historically more cost effective sources. Drill, drill, drill, drill (oil & gas), dig, dig, dig, dig, (coal), and build, build, build, build (nuclear)!
    Reply
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