US Shale Resilience: Oil Industry Experts Say Shale Will Rise Again

[ralfy + 55]

Here's another way of looking at the issue: if the breakeven price is low for U.S. shale but not elsewhere, then with low prices some companies will survive but others won't. With that, there will be a lack of oil worldwide.

One may assume that U.S. companies will sell to the public at a low price, but given that lack of oil worldwide, what happens if foreign companies offer to buy the oil at a higher price? Then the price will eventually go up until another crisis or financial speculation lowers it.

In the end, the resilience of one part of a global oil industry will matter to investors and employees, but for consumers it's the resilience of the global industry that matters in the end.

[JoMack + 549]

On 4/6/2020 at 5:16 PM, James Regan said:

RKB even Rotary Kelly Bushing.

If you have read an IADC report it would look like Chinese to some people, the abbreviations used are an art in themselves as you know Mike, quite funny its really like another language.

THIS IS A MUD LOG

[James Regan + 1,776]

2 hours ago, JoMack said:

THIS IS A MUD LOG

Thanks for the clarification, it was meant to show the abbreviations etc, but always good to know what I'm looking at.

Cheers

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 4/6/2020 at 4:42 AM, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

Just spitballing:

Suppose there's no deal and prices stay low.  Shale production dips temporarily, but stabilizes the second oil prices rise, a la 2014-2016.  Shale workers suffer, the US loses its net exporter status, and OPEC retains some market share.  Most OPEC nations can't balance their budgets at these low prices, so allowing the market to run its course merely delays their inevitable decline while introducing price instability.  Overall, not a great result for the US. 

Suppose there's a deal and prices increase a bit.  Those prices still won't be high enough to stimulate much shale drilling.  The net benefit to shale workers would be negligible, the US would still likely lose its net exporter status, and US consumers would lose the benefit of ultra-low prices.  OPEC still experiences that long-term instability.  It doesn't seem like there's much in this for the US. 

Suppose there's no deal, but the US government decides to protect its market share.  This could be accomplished through a cocktail of tariffs, sanctions, waived regulations, fast-tracked project approvals, reduced royalties, low interest rates, letting OPEC nations fall into chaos, and perhaps even actively stoking conflict.  Prices would rise little more than if the US struck a deal with OPEC, except this time the US gains market share, protects shale workers, remains a net exporter, etc.  There's a lot for the US to like about this scenario. 

All of that said, does the US really need to strike a deal?  It seems to me that we hold all the cards.  Why not lend shale oil some support while letting OPEC producers fight among themselves?  It would be easy to keep the industry afloat until the dust settles. 

On that note, there's a ready-made conflict brewing in the Middle East: Iran keeps chucking missiles at US bases.  Meanwhile, the US appears to be withdrawing troops to Western Iraq.  From this location, it's more difficult for Iran to target US troops - but those troops remain perfectly capable of unleashing chaos.  I also noticed that Trump has ordered the military to prepare a plan for striking Iranian-backed terrorist groups.  What happens to Iraqi oil production if conflict erupts on its soil?  What happens to Saudi production if there are more attacks on its infrastructure?  Bad things, I imagine.  And we're one incident away from that happening. 

Now, if I were the intelligence agencies, generals, and elites planning such disruption, I'd want to do it with a minimum of damage to my own economies.  The problem in the past was that any disruption to Middle Eastern supplies would cause skyrocketing oil prices, upsetting The Voters.  Today, that seems not to be the case.  We have plenty of new production queued up, inventories are rapidly reaching their upper limits, there's a domestic industry to protect, citizens are distracted by a pandemic, and oil traders have been conditioned out of their old panicky habits by the Saudi infrastructure attack.  If there were a time to initiate Middle Eastern chaos, the next 2-3 months would be it. 

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how the US walks away from this empty handed. 

I think the thing that everyone here is missing is that the US still imports 6-8 mb/d of heavy oil but that is currently being cut in half because of lack of US demand. Your refineries are already scaling back their runs in case you haven't noticed?

[Strangelovesurfing + 737]

On 4/5/2020 at 8:42 AM, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

Just spitballing:

Suppose there's no deal and prices stay low.  Shale production dips temporarily, but stabilizes the second oil prices rise, a la 2014-2016.  Shale workers suffer, the US loses its net exporter status, and OPEC retains some market share.  Most OPEC nations can't balance their budgets at these low prices, so allowing the market to run its course merely delays their inevitable decline while introducing price instability.  Overall, not a great result for the US. 

Suppose there's a deal and prices increase a bit.  Those prices still won't be high enough to stimulate much shale drilling.  The net benefit to shale workers would be negligible, the US would still likely lose its net exporter status, and US consumers would lose the benefit of ultra-low prices.  OPEC still experiences that long-term instability.  It doesn't seem like there's much in this for the US. 

Suppose there's no deal, but the US government decides to protect its market share.  This could be accomplished through a cocktail of tariffs, sanctions, waived regulations, fast-tracked project approvals, reduced royalties, low interest rates, letting OPEC nations fall into chaos, and perhaps even actively stoking conflict.  Prices would rise little more than if the US struck a deal with OPEC, except this time the US gains market share, protects shale workers, remains a net exporter, etc.  There's a lot for the US to like about this scenario. 

All of that said, does the US really need to strike a deal?  It seems to me that we hold all the cards.  Why not lend shale oil some support while letting OPEC producers fight among themselves?  It would be easy to keep the industry afloat until the dust settles. 

On that note, there's a ready-made conflict brewing in the Middle East: Iran keeps chucking missiles at US bases.  Meanwhile, the US appears to be withdrawing troops to Western Iraq.  From this location, it's more difficult for Iran to target US troops - but those troops remain perfectly capable of unleashing chaos.  I also noticed that Trump has ordered the military to prepare a plan for striking Iranian-backed terrorist groups.  What happens to Iraqi oil production if conflict erupts on its soil?  What happens to Saudi production if there are more attacks on its infrastructure?  Bad things, I imagine.  And we're one incident away from that happening. 

Now, if I were the intelligence agencies, generals, and elites planning such disruption, I'd want to do it with a minimum of damage to my own economies.  The problem in the past was that any disruption to Middle Eastern supplies would cause skyrocketing oil prices, upsetting The Voters.  Today, that seems not to be the case.  We have plenty of new production queued up, inventories are rapidly reaching their upper limits, there's a domestic industry to protect, citizens are distracted by a pandemic, and oil traders have been conditioned out of their old panicky habits by the Saudi infrastructure attack.  If there were a time to initiate Middle Eastern chaos, the next 2-3 months would be it. 

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how the US walks away from this empty handed. 

Well said. Going along this track I can see a realistic scenario where the US consolidates in Anbar and then, a short time later, low and behold a 'coup' occurs and a new Anbar-based Sunni dictator takes over. History is full of irony.

[Strangelovesurfing + 737]

13 hours ago, Wombat said:

I think the thing that everyone here is missing is that the US still imports 6-8 mb/d of heavy oil but that is currently being cut in half because of lack of US demand. Your refineries are already scaling back their runs in case you haven't noticed?

It's better to think of North America as being energy independent. Theres a big difference between not having any oil and not having optimized refining capacity for the oil type you're producing. Those 6-8 mb could be replaced using North American sources with some refinery modifications. After a few infrastructure tweaks, Trump could block all imports from outside of North America and it wouldn't matter. In fact, it would most likely be beneficial for all three North American economies if he did.

Edited April 12, 2020 by Strangelovesurfing
Grammer errors

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

17 hours ago, James Regan said:

Thanks for the clarification, it was meant to show the abbreviations etc, but always good to know what I'm looking at.

Cheers

No, that is the front page of the morning report sent from the rig to town. I think in DIMS format.

A mud log is a LOG!

[ks_geo + 1]

This is what a mud log in Kansas looks like.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Just now, ks_geo said:

This is what a mud log in Kansas looks like.

Correct! They look basically the same everywhere!

[James Regan + 1,776]

9 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

No, that is the front page of the morning report sent from the rig to town. I think in DIMS format.

A mud log is a LOG!

i knew what I was looking at, got to stroke the egos of certain individuals at times, did not want to waste my fingers. Not worth the reply.

Edited April 12, 2020 by James Regan

[Wombat + 1,028]

11 hours ago, Strangelovesurfing said:

It's better to think of North America as being energy independent. Theres a big difference between not having any oil and not having optimized refining capacity for the oil type you're producing. Those 6-8 mb could be replaced using North American sources with some refinery modifications. After a few infrastructure tweaks, Trump could block all imports from outside of North America and it wouldn't matter. In fact, it would most likely be beneficial for all three North American economies if he did.

Then why the heck has it not been done yet? If I was in charge of US energy policy, I would have somehow made sure that either the old refineries were converted, or built some new ones that can use LTO as feedstock. I find it very strange this did not happen years ago.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Are you familiar with the mountain of permits required to site and build a new refinery. It takes years to work through the bureaucracy. Before you can prepare and submit the required documentation, the EPA will change the rules and you are back to square one.

This is the ROOT cause why no new refineries have been built. Thank your local tree hugger.

[James Regan + 1,776]

56 minutes ago, Wombat said:

Then why the heck has it not been done yet? If I was in charge of US energy policy, I would have somehow made sure that either the old refineries were converted, or built some new ones that can use LTO as feedstock. I find it very strange this did not happen years ago.

This is the question - Why has the USA not already done exactly this, why didn't they do it years and years ago, after all the economics of doing so would have been a lot less complicated 60 years ago. 50 or 30 years ago the USA the situation was completely different within the oil Industry and the US requirement for foreign oil was also growing by the year. Knowing all the time they were sitting on the biggest reserves on the planet. Funnily this was also called the SPR in the Industry aka the Shale Oil plays. 

Us oil majors were steaming ahead full bore extracting third world countries oil at massive rates, American oil companies funding foreign tyrant governments massive amounts of money for Exploration and Production rights to extract their oil and send it back to USA. Without writing a thesis this was reproduced many many times same model different companies. By doing this you have created a business model, supply chain and economical complexities that said countries from whom oil was being extracted rely on, under the guise very often that it was doing good for that country, not the case, go check out West Africa.

So now the USA wants to shut the door and self produce use and sell oil to the world- Am I getting this idea correctly? With zero push back from the "others" - Have you not thought for a second that this was already foreseen by the "others".

North Korea is a good business model for Isolationism.

Edited April 12, 2020 by James Regan

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

31 minutes ago, James Regan said:

This is the question - Why has the USA not already done exactly this, why didn't they do it years and years ago, after all the economics of doing so would have been a lot less complicated 60 years ago. 50 or 30 years ago the USA the situation was completely different within the oil Industry and the US requirement for foreign oil was also growing by the year. Knowing all the time they were sitting on the biggest reserves on the planet. Funnily this was also called the SPR in the Industry aka the Shale Oil plays. 

Us oil majors were steaming ahead full bore extracting third world countries oil at massive rates, American oil companies funding foreign tyrant governments massive amounts of money for Exploration and Production rights to extract their oil and send it back to USA. Without writing a thesis this was reproduced many many times same model different companies. By doing this you have created a business model, supply chain and economical complexities that said countries from whom oil was being extracted rely on, under the guise very often that it was doing good for that country, not the case, go check out West Africa.

So now the USA wants to shut the door and self produce use and sell oil to the world- Am I getting this idea correctly? With zero push back from the "others" - Have you not thought for a second that this was already foreseen by the "others".

North Korea is a good business model for Isolationism.

There has been 1 new refinery that has been built in the US in the last 30-40 years. This was built in ND after a lot of struggle and now it has been shuttered and being used as an ethanol or blending facility if I am not mistaken as to the current use of that refinery.

US refining companies have added more capacity to the existing aging refineries in the last several years since the shale boom to use the shale crudes as well adding new capacity for petchem plants.

I had financed a refinery that took 10-12 years to get thru the permitting process and a lot of $$$ was spent on enviro studies and feasbility studies and the EPA kept changing the goal posts. Some 40mil$ was spent on all that over the years.

For the last few years, we have been working to get permits for 2-3 smaller capacity refineries and seems like that process is going well and once the current situation ends we will be able to get the EPA permits and proceed with construction.

[James Regan + 1,776]

32 minutes ago, ceo_energemsier said:

There has been 1 new refinery that has been built in the US in the last 30-40 years. This was built in ND after a lot of struggle and now it has been shuttered and being used as an ethanol or blending facility if I am not mistaken as to the current use of that refinery.

US refining companies have added more capacity to the existing aging refineries in the last several years since the shale boom to use the shale crudes as well adding new capacity for petchem plants.

I had financed a refinery that took 10-12 years to get thru the permitting process and a lot of $$$ was spent on enviro studies and feasbility studies and the EPA kept changing the goal posts. Some 40mil$ was spent on all that over the years.

For the last few years, we have been working to get permits for 2-3 smaller capacity refineries and seems like that process is going well and once the current situation ends we will be able to get the EPA permits and proceed with construction.

Respectfully my take away from this is that the USA was very short sighted and ill prepared while developing the LTO sector and ramping up to 13 Million Bbls a day, with no guarantee what would happen with such a massive ramp up in a short space of time. Anyone who thinks this would have been taken lightly by the others (who were choked back) wasn't thinking straight. For every action there is a reaction- The reaction is obvious at this point in time.

Edited April 12, 2020 by James Regan

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

On 4/11/2020 at 7:16 AM, Wombat said:

I think the thing that everyone here is missing is that the US still imports 6-8 mb/d of heavy oil but that is currently being cut in half because of lack of US demand. Your refineries are already scaling back their runs in case you haven't noticed?

So our demand has declined, and we can always get more from Canada.  How does that change my analysis?

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

2 hours ago, Wombat said:

Then why the heck has it not been done yet? If I was in charge of US energy policy, I would have somehow made sure that either the old refineries were converted, or built some new ones that can use LTO as feedstock. I find it very strange this did not happen years ago.

 

1 hour ago, James Regan said:

This is the question - Why has the USA not already done exactly this, why didn't they do it years and years ago, after all the economics of doing so would have been a lot less complicated 60 years ago. 50 or 30 years ago the USA the situation was completely different within the oil Industry and the US requirement for foreign oil was also growing by the year. Knowing all the time they were sitting on the biggest reserves on the planet. Funnily this was also called the SPR in the Industry aka the Shale Oil plays. 

Us oil majors were steaming ahead full bore extracting third world countries oil at massive rates, American oil companies funding foreign tyrant governments massive amounts of money for Exploration and Production rights to extract their oil and send it back to USA. Without writing a thesis this was reproduced many many times same model different companies. By doing this you have created a business model, supply chain and economical complexities that said countries from whom oil was being extracted rely on, under the guise very often that it was doing good for that country, not the case, go check out West Africa.

So now the USA wants to shut the door and self produce use and sell oil to the world- Am I getting this idea correctly? With zero push back from the "others" - Have you not thought for a second that this was already foreseen by the "others".

North Korea is a good business model for Isolationism.

 

14 minutes ago, James Regan said:

Respectfully my take away from this is that the USA was very short sighted and ill prepared while developing the LTO sector and ramping up to 13 Million Bbls a day, with no guarantee what would happen with such a massive ramp up in a short space of time. Anyone who thinks this would have been taken lightly by the others (who were choked back) wasn't thinking straight. For every action there is a reaction- The reaction is obvious at this point in time.

Is it possible the US oil situation is so screwed up because our politicians have been bought? 

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

BAKU/DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) - OPEC, Russia and other oil producing nations were meeting on Sunday in a bid to clinch a deal on the biggest oil cut ever, amounting to 10 percent of global supply, after their initial efforts to support oil prices amid the coronavirus pandemic were blocked by Mexico.

The group, known as OPEC+, was expected to start a video conference at 1600 GMT.

On Thursday, OPEC+ outlined plans to cut output by more than a fifth, or by 10 million barrels per day (bpd), but Mexico balked at the production cuts it was asked to make, delaying the signing of a final deal.

"The ministerial meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC members is a follow-up after the April 9 meeting," the energy ministry of OPEC+ member Azerbaijan said on Sunday.

(For an analysis on the reasons behind Mexico's stand-off with OPEC+ click on)

Measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus have destroyed demand for fuel and driven down oil prices, straining budgets of oil producers and hammering the U.S. shale industry, which is more vulnerable to low prices due to its higher costs.

OPEC+ also said it wanted producers outside the group, such as the United States, Canada, Brazil and Norway, to cut a further 5% or 5 million bpd.

Canada and Norway signalled willingness to cut and the United States, where legislation makes it hard to act in tandem with cartels such as OPEC, has said its output would fall steeply by itself this year due to low prices.

Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday that U.S. President Donald Trump had offered to make extra U.S. cuts on his behalf, an unusual offer by a Trump who has long railed against OPEC.

Trump, who had threatened Saudi Arabia with oil tariffs if it did not fix the market's oversupply problem, said Washington would help Mexico by picking up "some of the slack" and being reimbursed later.

He did not say how this would work and OPEC leader Saudi Arabia has so far refused to accept the fix, according to OPEC sources.

Global oil demand is estimated to have fallen by a third as more than 3 billion people are locked down in their homes due to the coronavirus outbreak.

A 15 percent cut in supply might not be enough to arrest the price decline, banks Goldman Sachs and UBS predicted last week, saying Brent prices would fall back to $20 per barrel from $32 at the moment and $70 at the start of the year.

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

Bloomberg) -- With the coronavirus choking fuel demand and the world awash in surplus crude, even the Middle East’s main oil-trading hub has run out of room to store unwanted barrels.

Terminal operators at Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates say they’re turning down requests from traders and refiners to store crude and refined products, whereas a year ago they had ample space. The port’s 14 million barrels of commercial crude-storage capacity is just a fraction of what Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi provide for their state oil companies.

Without tanks to lease, traders face costly constraints on their role as matchmakers who link a specific supply here with a willing buyer there. The global oil glut is making it harder for traders to even out imbalances in the market, and the plunge in crude, down about half this year, is making matters worse.

“If tanks are leased or blocked, then traders need to push back on taking crude,” said Edward Bell, senior director for market economics at Emirates NBD PJSC in Dubai. That, in turn, could force production in some places to halt, he said.

Demand for storage, an unglamorous but essential link in the global energy supply chain, is at its highest in years. From Singapore to Cushing, Oklahoma, tanks are brimming with crude, gasoline and other products, nowhere moreso than in Fujairah, a gateway for shipments from the world’s most prolific oil-producing region.

“The current capacity isn’t enough, for sure,” said Malek Azizeh, commercial director at Fujairah Oil Terminal FZC.

Even a deal between oil producers to trim output by at least 10 million barrels a day won’t ease the storage crunch at Fujairah. Wrangling between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners continued for a fourth day on Sunday, with Saudi Arabia trying to persuade Mexico to make proportionate cuts to reach a final agreement.

While such a cut would partly offset lost crude demand, Trafigura Group sees oil consumption plunging by as much as 35 million barrels daily -- roughly a third of normal global output -- as countries prolong lockdowns over the coronavirus.

Fujairah, which hugs a ribbon of coastline between the craggy Hajjar Mountains and the Gulf of Oman, cemented its position in the world’s oil-storage and supply network over the last 30 years. It started out as a refueling station for tankers shunting crude from the Persian Gulf to refineries in China, the U.S. and elsewhere. It also built tanks where traders could stockpile fuels.

As state producers Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. boosted refining capacity and started their own trading units, Fujairah’s storage operators benefited from the increasing volumes of crude and refined products flowing to and from the Gulf. Now that refineries are processing less crude and many of the world’s vehicles and aircraft are at a standstill, those regional flows have dwindled.

Stockpiles of fuel oil and other heavy distillates at Fujairah swelled more than 30% in the past year to 15.4 million barrels, according to the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone, which oversees the city’s terminals. Local authorities don’t provide inventory data for crude oil.

Two projects to add more than 62 million barrels of storage won’t be built until next year at the earliest.

“We are going to run out of storage because the demand declines are so steep,” Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at Energy Aspects, said in a Bloomberg Television interview.

[BradleyPNW + 282]

On 4/5/2020 at 11:42 AM, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

There's a lot for the US to like about this scenario. 

The United States is not a petro-state. We are an advanced globalized free market democracy. So are our allies. We benefit from low oil prices. We want ships, trains, planes, and trucks moving things around the world. There is nothing at all for the United States to like about oil tariffs or other interventions to subsidize a small group of equity holders and Middle Eastern monarchies. 

 

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

3 hours ago, James Regan said:

Respectfully my take away from this is that the USA was very short sighted and ill prepared while developing the LTO sector and ramping up to 13 Million Bbls a day, with no guarantee what would happen with such a massive ramp up in a short space of time. Anyone who thinks this would have been taken lightly by the others (who were choked back) wasn't thinking straight. For every action there is a reaction- The reaction is obvious at this point in time.

The shale sector was propelled very fast with a really dynamic push by companies to get as much out. Before the crude export ban was revoked, companies were investing in condensate processing plants so it could be exported but that collapsed very quickly. The  crude exports again gave another boost to the shale sector to ramp up production. Given all the market conditions to be "normal" the crude export volume would have been a lot higher, even this last month it was 2.3mm bpd lower than previous months, but if we didnt have the issues with demand destruction , the exports would have been lot higher specially going into Asia.

I dont know which companies would have chosen to scale back their production when the race for exports and market share was on and export prices were higher than domestic bench marks. Lack of discipline!!

[Gregory Purcell + 94]

On 4/5/2020 at 1:42 PM, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

On that note, there's a ready-made conflict brewing in the Middle East: Iran keeps chucking missiles at US bases.  Meanwhile, the US appears to be withdrawing troops to Western Iraq.  From this location, it's more difficult for Iran to target US troops - but those troops remain perfectly capable of unleashing chaos.  I also noticed that Trump has ordered the military to prepare a plan for striking Iranian-backed terrorist groups.  What happens to Iraqi oil production if conflict erupts on its soil?  What happens to Saudi production if there are more attacks on its infrastructure?  Bad things, I imagine.  And we're one incident away from that happening. 

Now, if I were the intelligence agencies, generals, and elites planning such disruption, I'd want to do it with a minimum of damage to my own economies.  The problem in the past was that any disruption to Middle Eastern supplies would cause skyrocketing oil prices, upsetting The Voters.  Today, that seems not to be the case.  We have plenty of new production queued up, inventories are rapidly reaching their upper limits, there's a domestic industry to protect, citizens are distracted by a pandemic, and oil traders have been conditioned out of their old panicky habits by the Saudi infrastructure attack.  If there were a time to initiate Middle Eastern chaos, the next 2-3 months would be it. 

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how the US walks away from this empty handed. 

What your missing is our Gulf Kingdom allies  are worse than worthless from a military point of view.  I would wish them to be the allies of my enemy.   In 1992 my Marine corp battalion stopped in KSA and conducted what was called a "training operation"  no actual training  happened, they showed us how pathetic their troops were for about six hours, then the commanding Prince declared it to be a huge success and two days of feasting.   

When you measure a military by how much money is spent, then KSA has the third greatest military in the world, that is a stupid yardstick to evaluate a military. Throughout  the five year war on Yemen, KSA and the Clown Prince, hired 100's of thousands  mercenaries and 15 other nations to invade the poorest country in the middle east,  that is how our allies wage war.  Yemen fought with absolute determination true grit, and what ever Iranian specialists, technician engineers, and a few key parts could teach them build their own ballistic missiles cruise missiles and drones... (there has been a full naval blockade on Yemen for 5 years which is being lead by the USA & UK)     Guess who is winning that war. 

Iran, Hezbollah, Syria, Yemen, and a good chunk of Iraqi Shia.....   they call themselves the "Axis of Resistance", hating them will not defeat them.  Launching a war with them will collapse the Sunni Gulf Kingdoms,   

     

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

On 4/6/2020 at 6:08 AM, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

The difference is that the countries Britain "plundered" tended to end up wealthier, healthier, and more technologically advanced than Britain found them.

Would you say that about Egypt?   The Sudan?  Palestine? The villages of the Hindu Kush?

It would seem the British, with their very imperial and arrogant attitude of superiority and view of all natives as "wogs," did their colonizing on the cheap, mostly for their own benefit and the hell with the natives.  These guys were not exactly promoting the red cross, now were they? 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

10 hours ago, Wombat said:

Then why the heck has it not been done yet? If I was in charge of US energy policy, I would have somehow made sure that either the old refineries were converted, or built some new ones that can use LTO as feedstock. I find it very strange this did not happen years ago.

But you don't live here!  If you did, you would not find it strange at all!

Welcome to America, a country run by lawyers, who sue each other's projects for sport and profit. And even if you got a Permit, you could never build it, as then you would be inundated by the Antifa Anarchists, those guys with the bandannas over their faces and gasoline bombs in their hands, ready to burn all your equipment.  I invite you to try building a pipeline, that should be interesting. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

8 hours ago, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

Is it possible the US oil situation is so screwed up because our politicians have been bought?

No.    You overlook the power of incompetence.