Quote:
Originally Posted by Evans, Marv
I agree the Saudi action right now is to keep oil shale production down. I don't think it's going to work out as a long term strategy, and you'd think they would know that. For a long time I've had a wish/suspicion/hope/etc. that we are buying up oil from around the world and saving our reserves so we would have maybe a plentiful supply when reserves start nose diving in the future. However I know our politicians and government are incapable of such long term strategic planning. I think in the far future, oil will be more valuable as a source of chemicals and products yet to be developed than for burning as fuel (though it's far from an expert opinion). When it's mostly gone, so will the economies of Russia and other oil producers around the world and yes there will be major disruptions.
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There is so much shale oil there in the US (and elsewhere), that future is a long time away, many decades. There is also very little oil storage capacity compared to consumption, so the US govt couldn't store enough reserves to make a real difference. Anyway, if oil were only used for chemicals, plastics, etc, the consumption would then be so low, the supply would last many centuries.
I think there is a huge amount of "unconventional" oil yet to be extracted, it is just a question of cost, technology, and environmental damage. Tar sands - expensive and lays waste to big swathes of Canada. Shale oil - expensive and (debatable) contamination from fracking. Ultra deep ocean - expensive and needs lots of technology. At $50-60/bbl, much unconventional oil is not profitable to produce. At $100+/bbl, lots of it is. So in the medium term, seems to me oil should tend to stay in the $60-100/bbl range. Problem is, that is a very wide range . . .