Gas price forecast

[zahntech]

Very Well put xsn, my Father, Sister and I studied and visited the soviet union in the 80s and the assertion that the union collapsed because of energy production is very simplistic at best.


Energy production and use is a huge factor in every global economy, however the soviet union had other issues that doomed it to failure from the start.


In 1917 the anti WWI movement took hold due to the tsars commitment to the war and the average citizen living in poverty and famine conditions, the bolshevik political party set up the first post Tsar soviet government in 1922 after a bloody civil war, the first government was smart enough to boost food production by letting the farmers sell their production over a set level on the open market,however energy and factory production didn't enjoy such freedom and prosperity.


The government held tightly to those industries and spent the next 68 years trying to keep production up to "the peoples" needs in the 40s,50s and 60,s they had some success but eventually human nature and poverty ended the union with many of the factors that started it in the beginning.


In the 1930s the soviet union was the world leading producer of grain..in the 1970s they were buying it from the USA... oil wasnt the only thing they were having difficulty producing...JZ

 

[NCC-1701D]

Gas prices up again here in Edmonton Alberta Canada
102.9 CND for 1 liter of regular

 

[NSX-Racer]

Now over 1.30 Euro here for one liter premium - you better get used to that kind of prices for the future...

 

[djdrock]

I don't want to sound insulting, but don't you think you should be fully educated on the oil market before making comment on why you think prices are so high?

No! Fully educated??? Is anyone fully educated in anything? I am simply voicing my OPINION.

Should you be fully educated on the mechanics on the NSX before you comment on it?

 

[liftshard]

The Chernyobl reactor incident was in early 1986, and the Cherobyl plant and all the reactors operating at the time of the accident were built and brought online through the late '70s and early '80s.

Your retelling of Hubbert's Peak Oil position is interesting, but you are far too casual with your assignments of cause and effect throughout.

You can review the USSR's oil production curves throughout the period in question. They were aware of their own Peak as it had already happened to the United States and the same forecast models that Hubbert used were widely known among those in the business.

The USSR was simply awash in oil, for them to have been constructing nuclear plants while remaining a net oil exporter would have been ridiculous. They knew about Peak and roughly when it was coming and were "attempting" to take measures to prevent energy shortfalls. In order to do so, they rashly constructed crap reactors one of which exploded and prevented them from really deploying anymore capacity in that regard.

 

[liftshard]

No! Fully educated??? Is anyone fully educated in anything? I am simply voicing my OPINION.

Should you be fully educated on the mechanics on the NSX before you comment on it?

I do not presume to comment on the mechanics of the NSX as you have presumed to comment about the reasons why oil and gas are priced the way that they are.

An analogy would be if I said the NSX ran on diesel. I would be voicing my opinion. And, my opinion would be wrong, as yours was regarding O&G market mechanics.

People should keep uneducated opinions to themselves.

 

[djdrock]

I do not presume to comment on the mechanics of the NSX as you have presumed to comment about the reasons why oil and gas are priced the way that they are.

An analogy would be if I said the NSX ran on diesel. I would be voicing my opinion. And, my opinion would be wrong, as yours was regarding O&G market mechanics.

People should keep uneducated opinions to themselves.

I am not here to argue. Evidently you are. It seems that you missed my point, but I not surprised based upon the intelligence of your first post to me. And the last time I checked, we are entitled to voice opinions, and not just facts.

 

[xsn]

You can review the USSR's oil production curves throughout the period in question. They were aware of their own Peak as it had already happened to the United States and the same forecast models that Hubbert used were widely known among those in the business.

It seems like you are still trying to force the facts to fit the theory.

While actual construction did not begin until 1972, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant project was approved in 1969. Certainly some research took place before the location was selected and the funding was approved, which means they were looking into it even earlier.

US peak was not until 1970, so the peak had not yet happened in the US when they decided to build Chernobyl.

Further, nobody would be sure US peak had actually occured until they were able to look back at it after 1970. You can't tell you were at the peak of production until you have begun the decline.

The concept of peak oil is generally sound, but it is almost useless if you do not know at least roughly when it will happen.

Hubbert was right about the timeframe for peak US oil production, but he was wrong about world oil production which he predicted would peak in the late '90s. Proponents of his theory have made predictions of peak oil all over the place, from over the late '80s to the '90s to the '00s, other estimates run as far as 40 or 50 years from now.

The point is nobody has done a good job of predicting the peak for world oil production. As the price of oil goes up and technology advances it will also become feasible to extract oil from non-conventional sources, which are not figured into most of the existing predictions.

 

[ExoticMD]

Damn, gas prices are getting high. I heard in Iraq they are paying a nickel a gallon.:biggrin: When I was in Europe in 2001 and Japan 2000 they were paying close to $5.00 a liter :redface: Perhaps we should all move to the Atlanta area were they have the cheapest gas in the United States.

 

[Dave Hardy]

Damn, gas prices are getting high. I heard in Iraq they are paying a nickel a gallon.:biggrin: When I was in Europe in 2001 and Japan 2000 they were paying close to $5.00 a liter :redface: Perhaps we should all move to the Atlanta area were they have the cheapest gas in the United States.

Not any more. For the first time ever, our gas is higher than the national average.

 

[the nsxnut]

of course, that means that we're getting reamed by the mega-corp oil companies and retailers. The advantage that the GA market supposedly has is that the state taxes at the pump are lower than most states, which one would hope might translate to lower retail pump prices. Not so. The wholesalers/retailers are just marking it up to match neighboring states and the nat'l avg. In the Atlanta metro area, there is also the added complication of using EPA mandated 'summer blend' low-sulpher fuel, since ATL is among the top 10 worst metro air quality in the US.

Bottom line, the consumer is getting punished at the pump. Record profits for the large oil companies says it all. And they just got more subsidies from the federal govt in that preposterous energy bill. Unbelievable.

 

[zahntech]

The Canadians are now removing the oil from millions of tons of oily sand,previously it was not financially reasonable to do this but with oil over 60$ a barrel it is.


Yes the saudis are pumping sea water into the oil fields to boost oil removal, however the world does not get all its oil from one location so to predict when "Peak oil" for the entire planet is going to occur is pretty much impossible...If someone can do it ..maybe they can pick me some lottery numbers too :smile:

 

[NSX-Racer]

When I was in Europe in 2001 they were paying close to $5.00 a liter

I don't know in which part of Europe you where but I can't imagine that your number is anywhere close to the truth. We now pay about 1.35 Euro for one liter (not gallon) best quality which is an alltime high here (update from my previous post).

 

[gheba_nsx]

Actually in 2001 I was paying 1.40 CHF/Liter (I kept an XLS for my first year of NSX ownership)... that was less than 1$/L at that time (premium 98 of course).

 

[Jin1976]

Its a good thing our country is producing own oil and gases (cheap). What say you guys move here to Brunei. J/K. :biggrin: The more the merrier.

 

[heySkippy]

People should keep uneducated opinions to themselves.

LOL! If that happened, the world would be a dramatically quieter place.

 

[liftshard]

It seems like you are still trying to force the facts to fit the theory.

While actual construction did not begin until 1972, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant project was approved in 1969. Certainly some research took place before the location was selected and the funding was approved, which means they were looking into it even earlier.

US peak was not until 1970, so the peak had not yet happened in the US when they decided to build Chernobyl.

Further, nobody would be sure US peak had actually occured until they were able to look back at it after 1970. You can't tell you were at the peak of production until you have begun the decline.

The concept of peak oil is generally sound, but it is almost useless if you do not know at least roughly when it will happen.

Hubbert was right about the timeframe for peak US oil production, but he was wrong about world oil production which he predicted would peak in the late '90s. Proponents of his theory have made predictions of peak oil all over the place, from over the late '80s to the '90s to the '00s, other estimates run as far as 40 or 50 years from now.

The point is nobody has done a good job of predicting the peak for world oil production. As the price of oil goes up and technology advances it will also become feasible to extract oil from non-conventional sources, which are not figured into most of the existing predictions.

Chernobyl itself was not necessarily at issue, however the USSR was in-process of massively nuclearizing their power grid with shoddy reactors of RBMK design. Chernobyl, the accident, forced the USSR to reverse course both on construction and operation of their reactor grid. It is inaccurate to say that the construction of the Chernobyl facility itself was a Peak-Oil inspired decision, but the replication of this error, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, culminating in the 1986 accident and subsequent immense domestic pressure to make all the similar reactors safe placed the USSR in a position where its tenuous industrial model could not sustain the blow caused by Peak Oil. Our currency has declined some 90% since USA Peak, mostly because we decoupled foreign accounts from a gold standard. The reason we did so is because we knew that it would be impossible for us to *actually* pay for our newfound oil import needs in real wealth. In essence, we print money to pay for oil. At the point the USSR had to do that, it collapsed. Energy shortages coupled with a worthless currency = collapse of society.

Recall that there was no revolution to overthrow the Communist Gov't. The society itself essentially just went into the sh!tter. When you cannot power the production and you cannot print currency to pay for someone else's energy, you have no supportable industrial economy. Our sole savior through our own Peak was our position as the "world's reserve currency." We printed the dollar into craptivity to support a burgeoning trade deficit which is showing no signs of slowing at least as long as we can con foreign dollars holders.

 

[liftshard]

The Canadians are now removing the oil from millions of tons of oily sand,previously it was not financially reasonable to do this but with oil over 60$ a barrel it is.


Yes the saudis are pumping sea water into the oil fields to boost oil removal, however the world does not get all its oil from one location so to predict when "Peak oil" for the entire planet is going to occur is pretty much impossible...If someone can do it ..maybe they can pick me some lottery numbers too :smile:

This is absurd. Geologists have taken tar sands oil into account in their forecast models. All of the major fields, the vast majority of the significant production sites, are well known. Forecasting their peak is within the realm of the feasible.

As I originally stated, wells, countries, and the world as a whole, ALL follow similar oil production curves.

The tar sands are a PERFECT example of how peak oil works. The easiest to get at sands, requiring the least energy, are extracted first. As one goes further, more and more energy is required to extract oil. If you treat it as an energy product, as the producers do, BOE (barrel of oil equivalent), then you can easily see how production can rise and then fall. It starts to take more and more energy, after Peak, to extract the same amount of oil. So, you NET less production. SOMETHING has to be running the pumps. In the case of tar sands, it's the generation of high-temperature steam and they are currently burning natural gas at ungodly rates to produce such steam. NG is FAR too valuable as a feedstock for oil, gasoline, fertilizer, plastics, and a host of other essential products, to be burning like this. Alberta was supposed to have begun construction of a nuclear plant to provide the energy; that is the only feasible long-term solution. But, you should see that we're basically chasing our tail here, trading one form of energy which is currently in higher abundance, for another form. It's all about energy and the rate you can deliver it, i.e., power.