"Saudi Armada heading to U.S.", "Dumping" is a WTO VIOLATION.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

1 minute ago, Jan van Eck said:

Ask yourself what pours fuel on the fires of those guys.  They are not nice people, and AIPAC has been a bonanza for them, both in recruitment and in raising cash.  And therein lies the problem:  defang AIPAC, and simultaneously you deflate the Hamas balloon. 

Perhaps, but fair is fair, defang any pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian organization at the same time.

If and when the Palestinians/Hamas/PLO stop firing mortars and unguided missiles into Israel, then the Israeli’s will stop the airstrikes into Gaza. And maybe they can sit around the coffee table and sort this out.

It is pointless at this time to regress back to the debate of ‘who started it’, it is just as silly to expect Israel to give back any territory taken in past conflicts. By definition these are now buffer zones. Nobody seems to have an issue when Russia seeks buffer zones between them and NATO..

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

Just now, Douglas Buckland said:

Nobody seems to have an issue when Russia seeks buffer zones between them and NATO..

I assuredly do.

And so do the Ukrainians. 

2 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

it is just as silly to expect Israel to give back any territory taken in past conflicts. By definition these are now buffer zones.

Not at all.   For example, as a result of the Camp David Accords,  Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt - land that it had militarily conquered.

Does Israel have some inherent right to the West Bank?   hardly.  Is the West Bank a "buffer zone?"   Not remotely. 

The problems are and remain the doing of AIPAC and Netanyahu, and the Likud Party inside the Knesset.  these ideas of being "the People chosen by God" have caused more problems than any other on the face of the planet. 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

6 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

I assuredly do.

And so do the Ukrainians. 

Not at all.   For example, as a result of the Camp David Accords,  Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt - land that it had militarily conquered.

Does Israel have some inherent right to the West Bank?   hardly.  Is the West Bank a "buffer zone?"   Not remotely. 

The problems are and remain the doing of AIPAC and Netanyahu, and the Likud Party inside the Knesset.  these ideas of being "the People chosen by God" have caused more problems than any other on the face of the planet. 

Israel graciously agreed to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt....because there was absolutely no way that Israel could patrol or occupy the Sinai with the size of their military or the population of Israel! That was a no-brainer.

Israel, historically (not recent history) has as much right to the West Bank as anyone else in the area. If you consider it as ‘spoils of war’, similar to the Golan Heights, then it is theirs by ‘rights of conquest’. I believe that this was acceptable after WW2 in some regions of the world.

Russia kept a missile system out of Poland basically claiming NATO encroachment and the need for a buffer.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 4/12/2020 at 12:57 AM, Gerry Maddoux said:

I'm not Dan but I would like to make an observation about this: 1) Some pipes are full as we speak. 2) Going down to 200 rigs in America would cripple the industry forever--many of those hundred-thousand workers won't be returning, which is a lot of talent lost, and also many of those rigs would never again see the upright position again. Repeat: that would destroy the American oil industry. Shoot it right in the heart. 

The # of rigs in Canada has made a plunge similar to what you suggest for America. It's pretty obvious that Canadian oil production is on its way out . . . and just at the time that we need her heavy oil, providing we get off Saudi imports.

This is easy on paper, but in reality these folks make up the backbone of the industry and you can't train up a fresh batch at the drop of a hat. Not only that but such dialogue fits right into the Saudi playbook. On some level, Putin, ever the shrewd head, knows his limitations in America. The Saudis, on the other hand, have dicked with us for so many decades that they think they can do it over and over and over, with no regard whatsoever for trying to hurt us when we were sick. Well, they've overstepped. And I think they will be severely penalized.  

 

Don't be silly, u shld never go over 400 rigs again and u have 8000 ducs to complete when things get back to normal. Was just idiotic that USA thought it could "dominate" global O&G production, wake up to urselves.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 4/13/2020 at 12:55 PM, Jan van Eck said:

I assuredly do.

And so do the Ukrainians. 

Not at all.   For example, as a result of the Camp David Accords,  Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt - land that it had militarily conquered.

Does Israel have some inherent right to the West Bank?   hardly.  Is the West Bank a "buffer zone?"   Not remotely. 

The problems are and remain the doing of AIPAC and Netanyahu, and the Likud Party inside the Knesset.  these ideas of being "the People chosen by God" have caused more problems than any other on the face of the planet. 

No. You are just an idiot. Simple as that. You clearly watch too much CNN and not enough Fox?

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

4 hours ago, Wombat said:

No. You are just an idiot. Simple as that. You clearly watch too much CNN and not enough Fox?

Your comment richly deserves a "red-arrow" downvote.   I choose to spare you the humiliation. 

 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

4 hours ago, Wombat said:

No. You are just an idiot. Simple as that. You clearly watch too much CNN and not enough Fox?

 

7 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Your comment richly deserves a "red-arrow" downvote.   I choose to spare you the humiliation. 

 

Pretty sure this is the first time I've ever seen anyone accuse Jan of being an idiot.  Or of watching too much CNN.

Jan, gracious of you not to let fly with a red downvote arrow.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

I don’t agree with Jan on everything, Israel and Palestine comes to mind, but I’d never accuse him of being an idiot, and you do so at your own peril.

You are fortunate that he has a forgiving personality...much like mine!😂

Edited April 14, 2020 by Douglas Buckland
Uii

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

4 hours ago, Wombat said:

No. You are just an idiot. Simple as that. You clearly watch too much CNN and not enough Fox?

Oh shit if Jan is an idiot I cant possible have the brain cells to even wonder what I am

Edited April 14, 2020 by Rob Plant

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

22 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

 

 

Pretty sure this is the first time I've ever seen anyone accuse Jan of being an idiot.  Or of watching too much CNN.

Jan, gracious of you not to let fly with a red downvote arrow.

I assure you I bit my tongue on this one.  For the record, incidentally, I tossed the television out some decade or decades ago, that medium has deteriorated so far that it is worse than useless.  Who was the last serious newsman on TV - Walter Cronkite?  (I guess I date myself with that observation.)

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 minute ago, Rob Plant said:

Oh shit if Jan is an idiot I cant possible have the brain cells to even wonder what I am

Check the flagpost in the front yard.  British!  God Save the Queen!

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

1 minute ago, Jan van Eck said:

Check the flagpost in the front yard.  British!  God Save the Queen!

Indeed God bless her!❤️

She is a very smart lady!!

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

28 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

I assure you I bit my tongue on this one.  For the record, incidentally, I tossed the television out some decade or decades ago, that medium has deteriorated so far that it is worse than useless.  Who was the last serious newsman on TV - Walter Cronkite?  (I guess I date myself with that observation.)

[0R0 + 6,251]

On 4/12/2020 at 11:12 PM, Douglas Buckland said:

Israel graciously agreed to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt....because there was absolutely no way that Israel could patrol or occupy the Sinai with the size of their military or the population of Israel! That was a no-brainer.

Israel, historically (not recent history) has as much right to the West Bank as anyone else in the area. If you consider it as ‘spoils of war’, similar to the Golan Heights, then it is theirs by ‘rights of conquest’. I believe that this was acceptable after WW2 in some regions of the world.

Russia kept a missile system out of Poland basically claiming NATO encroachment and the need for a buffer.

Israel was absolutely crushed they couldn't continue to take Cairo and Damascus because the US threatened to cut them off. Just because the Soviets threatened WW III and the Saudis threatened to shut down oil exports entirely.  They already gave up enough at that point. Should have annexed the Suez canal and opened it up. 

But seriously. Israel did not want to give up the Sinai. But were pressed by the US hard. 

As to rules of war, yes, Israel got the Golan heights and recaptured Sinai and then some and had every legal reason to claim those territories for annexation. 

Russia can claim it needs "buffers: in other countries, and needs ports in the Crimea so just annexed them and ran puppet governments in the others so long as they could.They also keep claiming that they can take the Baltic states in order to have contiguous Baltic ports. It is not legitimate. Definitely by any international law. Russians deserve a constant stream of increasing sanctions till they let Belarus Eastern Ukraine and Crimea go. I would support independence for the Turkish folks in Southern Russia and secession of Kaliningrad. 

As for Jan Van Eck, AIPAC is not why Israel kept any territory. It kept it because there was no choice despite a totally lopsided international community that would readily see Israel destroyed by having indefensible borders. The UN partition based plan was never militarily defensible.  As others pointed out, CNN stopped news coverage long ago and has since moved to socialist creative writing and mouth piece for hire. You can get better news coverage nearly anywhere else. Disney cartoons come to mind as representing reality better than CNN and MSNBC do.

 

[0R0 + 6,251]

On 4/14/2020 at 4:07 AM, Wombat said:

Don't be silly, u shld never go over 400 rigs again and u have 8000 ducs to complete when things get back to normal. Was just idiotic that USA thought it could "dominate" global O&G production, wake up to urselves.

Not really an outlandish claim for the US, but the only reason it wouldn't be is Saudi expanding production. Which it really hasn't for a very long time. 

But the whole scene is shifting downwards in oil demand anyway, as gas is so much cheaper to produce in size and is now capable of displacing petrochem and shipping  fuel.

Perhaps the acceleration of supply chain duplication and the move of US Millennials into suburbia on trucks and SUVs will bring temporary increases in oil demand. 

I am still astounded by China's inability to maintain any sort of profit margin in its industry. They managed to obtain nothing from the decline of oil input costs, as output prices declined even more. That being driven by food inflation diverting income away from other consumer goods and a lack of private investment.  

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

On 4/10/2020 at 6:02 AM, Wombat said:

Just show some bloody respect. I don't profess to be an oil engineer just because I read this blog but I am an expert in geo-politics and international economics so you would do well to heed my message. I predicted the GFC, which Americans arrogantly call "the great recession" and I am telling you that this one will be much worse. It may not affect you immediately, but just wait till you retire and find that no asset class will give you sufficient return on your money to live in dignity and comfort. U might want to pray that Trump gets re-elected and that he finally stops listening to those buffoons Kudlow and Munchkin. If the Dems get in, the US will be "double-stuffed".

 

 

[wrs + 893]

On 4/11/2020 at 10:10 AM, James Regan said:

Unfortunately it's not that easy to put an Industry into hibernation, any oil rig onshore or offshore, needs to be kept warm. Newer rigs are full of PLCs which do not like to be turned off, start up costs for a stacked offshore unit is around 30+Million USD, and land rig no doubts cheaper but if a modern rig with cyber chair and said PLCs start up becomes an issue. If you're talking refineries and perhaps refineries having to be set up to receive different feedstock this again is not an overnight job. Pipeline infrastructures and transport in general become complicated the whole supply chain would be affected.

So its not the same as any other Industry at all, we are dealing with a commodity which comes from the ground under pressure, it wants to come to the surface, this in itself  is a huge dilemma no on off switch, if you turn it off you are sending everything connecting upstream home. Peak oil will not be reached due to a calamity it will be reached through a transition system which will take decades.

Unfortunately the oil industry is a 24 hours a day job.

I have been conversing on another forum for a couple of years with a guy who runs offshore rigs.  He says that offshore is shutting in bigtime now and many rigs just won't come back because it will be too expensive to restart.  He says that rigs offshore deteriorate much faster than land equipment and thus, they need skeleton crews to maintain them but that is an added expense which can't be covered if they aren't pumping.  So they just shut them in now and figure out how to P&A them later.  He says this is why offshore has been so slow to react but now that they do, their production will take the longest to recover if ever.

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

On 4/15/2020 at 4:40 AM, 0R0 said:

Perhaps the acceleration of supply chain duplication and the move of US Millennials into suburbia on trucks and SUVs will bring temporary increases in oil demand.

This is more of a side note.

I suspect millenials and younger generations - even those of us who don't buy the global warming hysteria - won't consume quite so much fuel:
1) We're familiar with $4/gallon gasoline.  We don't want to get caught with inefficient vehicles again.
2) Environmentally friendly vehicles are becoming the socially acceptable trend.  A gas-guzzing SUV was once a positive social statement; now it's negative.  At the very least, there's no social reason to own a gas-guzzling vehicle, so more practical concerns ($$$) may dominate purchasing decisions.
3) The vehicles offered are becoming more efficient.  In the past, your full-size trucks achieved 10-15mpg.  Today, they're regularly achieving 18-20mpg.  With hybrids coming down the product pipeline, that will start to be 25-30mpg.  Even the non-hybrid vehicles are becoming more efficient.  There just won't be that many inefficient vehicles to choose from. 
4) We're realizing that 30 mile commutes to the inner city are unpleasant.  I see big-city lawyers gentrifying neighborhoods close to work and less affluent professions moving offices out to the suburbs.  It's possible we've reached Peak Commute. 
5) Telecommuting.  Now that the entire country has a taste for working-sans-commute and companies realize IT is cheaper than office space, I suspect we'll see more of this. 

Even without electrification, ride-sharing, and the potential to expand mass transit, I don't see my generation guzzling so much fuel.  We just don't have any reason to. 

[0R0 + 6,251]

2 hours ago, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

This is more of a side note.

I suspect millenials and younger generations - even those of us who don't buy the global warming hysteria - won't consume quite so much fuel:
1) We're familiar with $4/gallon gasoline.  We don't want to get caught with inefficient vehicles again.
2) Environmentally friendly vehicles are becoming the socially acceptable trend.  A gas-guzzing SUV was once a positive social statement; now it's negative.  At the very least, there's no social reason to own a gas-guzzling vehicle, so more practical concerns ($$$) may dominate purchasing decisions.
3) The vehicles offered are becoming more efficient.  In the past, your full-size trucks achieved 10-15mpg.  Today, they're regularly achieving 18-20mpg.  With hybrids coming down the product pipeline, that will start to be 25-30mpg.  Even the non-hybrid vehicles are becoming more efficient.  There just won't be that many inefficient vehicles to choose from. 
4) We're realizing that 30 mile commutes to the inner city are unpleasant.  I see big-city lawyers gentrifying neighborhoods close to work and less affluent professions moving offices out to the suburbs.  It's possible we've reached Peak Commute. 
5) Telecommuting.  Now that the entire country has a taste for working-sans-commute and companies realize IT is cheaper than office space, I suspect we'll see more of this. 

Even without electrification, ride-sharing, and the potential to expand mass transit, I don't see my generation guzzling so much fuel.  We just don't have any reason to. 

So far, they buy the trucks and SUVs. If a hybrid is available they might buy it for the extra $5k cost. But the city expats I am expecting in the future are likely not going to have that kind of money to throw about going forwards. 

The typical EV is a second car for the family. Does routine commutes and small shopping. The big SUV is for handling kids and big shopping. 

The peak commute issue is rather obvious now. City real estate is dead (again). That is the only fly in the ointment for oil coming out of CV19. The trend to remove the physical movement of office workers may kill off more demand than added by the other trends. What surprises me is that anybody expected the HR people's point of control and surveillance justifying the office presence ever made sense to anyone after broadband became available widely some 15 years ago. My software salesman friend got his regional office disbanded back then and he and his colleagues worked from home with a generous pack of hardware and software to work with.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 4/13/2020 at 2:00 AM, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

I'm not familiar with that term.  How does it work? 

Probably best to google it

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 4/14/2020 at 10:50 PM, Rob Plant said:

Oh shit if Jan is an idiot I cant possible have the brain cells to even wonder what I am

Exactly. I agree. I thought I blocked you ages ago coz u have the IQ of a rotten carrot. Does that help?

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

44 minutes ago, Wombat said:

Exactly. I agree. I thought I blocked you ages ago coz u have the IQ of a rotten carrot. Does that help?

I think you're showing your IQ for what it is with your childish insults!

I see you have widened your sphere of abuse from not just paedophilia but general insults

Its pretty clear who the idiot is

Dont worry I'll block you save you the trouble!

Edited April 27, 2020 by Rob Plant

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

18 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

 

 

When someone feels the need to tell you that they are an expert...they aren’t.

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

4 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

When someone feels the need to tell you that they are an expert...they aren’t.

Yeah like Wombat!😂

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

16 hours ago, wrs said:

I have been conversing on another forum for a couple of years with a guy who runs offshore rigs.  He says that offshore is shutting in bigtime now and many rigs just won't come back because it will be too expensive to restart.  He says that rigs offshore deteriorate much faster than land equipment and thus, they need skeleton crews to maintain them but that is an added expense which can't be covered if they aren't pumping.  So they just shut them in now and figure out how to P&A them later.  He says this is why offshore has been so slow to react but now that they do, their production will take the longest to recover if ever.

You are seems that you may be confusing the term ‘rig’ with an offshore production platform. The term ‘rig’ is colloquially applied to MODU’s (Mobile Offshore Drilling Units....aka drilling rigs).

These rigs never produce oil except during a well test, and that ‘production’ is flared off.

When a drilling rig goes off contract, the drilling contractor will ‘stack’ the rig unless it is immediately moving to another contract. He will either ‘hot stack’ or ‘cold stack’ the rig. Hot stacking is with a skeleton crew who run and maintain the equipment and the rig in anticipation of a new contract shortly. Cold stacking is essentially mothballing the rig. Needless to say, hot stacking is preferred as it maintains the asset and key members of the crew, it also saves costs when the rig is put back to work.

In any case, ANY large piece of steel, resting in saltwater and open to the elements will deteriorate quickly unless it is properly maintained.