NOWHEREMAN

The Oil Price Conundrum

There is plenty of oil, hundreds of years of it. Coal gasification, Coal to liquids, Shale, Tar Sands, whatever you want to call it, still untaped waiting to be used.

Peak Oil just referred to the easily found and extracted variety. That epoch has come and gone. Peak Oil has come and gone but no one paid any attention to it because high prices saw the use of extreme but expensive technologies which would have obviated the effects.

Low oil prices have stopped the use of these new techniques, hopefully they will be revived in the US via Government mandate. If Not then we will be back to square one and the price rise will be greater but not really that much faster since Opec will have a much greater level of Spare Capacity.

Peak Oil should not be confused with Refinable Oil. State of the Art Refineries are quite capable of handling the heavy and sour grades that are in abundance. The fact that there aren't enough of them doesn't mean that there isn't enough oil.

At least 50% of all of the oil pumped out of the ground in the US over the last 200 years still rests underground in those same locations. The technology to eke out another 10-20% out of them did not exist when they were capped, it does now.

Its a matter of extraction costs vs price levels. If the price is right, there will be plenty of oil. If Refineries capable of handling the heavy/sour grades are built, there will be an ample supply of product. The Technology is here and available.

Peak Oil referred to the WTI, Brent, Louisiana Light grade oil fields which are as scarce as hen's teeth.

IMO