GREEN NEW DEAL = BLIZZARD OF LIES

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

56 minutes ago, Ecocharger said:

And includes only about 1/3 of the California vehicle market, which is why it is not useful.

It must be tough for you seeing report after report documenting the demise of ICE cars. Today's new car market is tomorrow's used car market. It doesn't work any other way.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Jay McKinsey

[kshithij Sharma + 78]

15 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

Really?

I'm not an oil man nor am I American but I doubt the above statement is in any way accurate. I will leave it to those oilmen that have the experience in this.

One thing I would say is you started by saying oil would run out in the next decade or so and much later in Russia etc. However we have had shale and that wasnt accounted for back in 1970 so that alone has added a very large percentage of US oil production in the last few years that wouldnt have been factored in back then.

i still think youre way off on your predictions, but we clearly arent going to agree on this so I'll leave it there.

I have already covered the topic of shale fields in USA being developed in 1970s. USA closed the fields to conserve oil as it had reached an alliance with GCC for petrodollar. That is also why USA was suddenly able to find and drill so much oil in the aftermath of 2008 crisis. Normally, exploration, feasibility assessment and infrastructure development take 10 year time before full scale production. The fact that shale production started immediately after 2008 oil crash shows that USA had already done extensive studies for these fields

14 hours ago, Eric Gagen said:

I'll talk about Ghawar here, then talk about the oil exploration bit in a different response.

 

The estimates you give for Ghawar neglect a bunch of different things.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghawar_Field  the amount of oil initially in place was originally estimated at 170GBL.   at 55% recovery, this means 94 GBL can be recovered.  However the production to date has been ~ 100 GBL, meaning that there is nothing left.  Current production rates are ~ 3.0 MBL a day, leaving negative 6 years of reserves left.  Obviously that isn't right, and the assessment of Ghawar field having 170 GBL of oil in place hasn't readily been disputed by anyone.  

 

Now here is where things get tricky. http://energy-cg.com/OPEC/SaudiArabia/OPEC_SaudiArabia_Ghawar.html This all hinges the recovery factor of 55% being correct, and clearly it isn't.  .Obviously there is at least SOME basis for the upgrade - otherwise the field would already be depleted, since 55% recovery of 170 GBL yields only 93 GBL of producable oil . It may be possible that through a combination of excellent reservoir characteristics, good quality water and gas flooding to do better than 55% recovery - if ever there were a field where there is value in being thorough in doing these things right,  this is the one, so maybe and ARAMCO is claiming they will achieve 75% recovery - that would suggest that total reserves started at 128 GBL, leaving 28 left to be produced right now, which would last 28 years at 3 million bbls a day.  but ARAMCO claims that Ghawar has about 45 GBL left  https://www.hydrocarbons-technology.com/projects/ghawar-oil-field/#:~:text=Ghawar reservoir details&text=The field was estimated to,reserves as at December 2018.  in liquid oil at the present time - for that to be correct, they would have to get a recovery factor of 87% and that is physically impossible based on the permeability of the rock, residual oil saturation caused by contrasting viscosity versus the injected water and gas, and other related factors.  

However, historically nobody has ever even gotten to 75% recovery of the oil in place for a carbonate reservoir.  It has been done in a few special cases in some sandstones, but never in a carbonate.  Reality suggests that 75%recovery is more like an ambitious stretch objective than a reasonable number - i.e. good to plan to try to achieve, but probably not achievable in practice.  Maybe they will get really close and get 70%, which is 93% of conformance with the plan - astonishing level of performance in the highly uncertain world of reservoir engineering.  Sounds great, until you realize that if that is the case, the remaining reserves at Ghawar are only 19 GBL - 19 years of production.  That would be a huge difference from the 'back of the envelope' estimate of 28 GBL or the official number of 45 GBL.  

 

 

Can you tell me how KSA produced 100GBL oil from Ghawar? The oil production from fields have always been kept a secret. The total oil produced by KSA has been to the tune of 160GBL. Saying that 100GBL has been from Ghawar is implying that 64% oil is from Ghawar. Saudi Arabia has several fields developed. Though Ghawar is the biggest field, there is little evidence to say that over 60% of KSA production is from Ghawar alone. It is more likely to be 50% implying another 10+GBL is left to be extracted. Also, considering the EOR being done with injection of natural gas in recent times, it appears that Ghawar may already be at the end stage with about 8-10GBL left.

Also, the figure of 55% was given by Saudi oil minister himself. So, the 70% extraction is unlikely. As you said and according to my own research, there has never been 60% or more extraction from sandstone reserves. And the Saudi minister has no reason to downplay oil extraction considering how KSA exaggerates its oil reserves

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

On a different note

UK scientists set new record for generating energy from nuclear fusion with reaction '10 times hotter than the sun'

https://news.sky.com/story/uk-scientists-set-new-record-for-generating-energy-from-nuclear-fusion-but-commercial-application-still-years-away-12536956

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

54 minutes ago, Rob Plant said:

On a different note

UK scientists set new record for generating energy from nuclear fusion with reaction '10 times hotter than the sun'

https://news.sky.com/story/uk-scientists-set-new-record-for-generating-energy-from-nuclear-fusion-but-commercial-application-still-years-away-12536956

Oh goody, another "fusion" experiment which we knew before hand would use MORE power than it generates, yet did it anyways...  At this pace, another several hundred years and we might break even....

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

40 minutes ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Oh goody, another "fusion" experiment which we knew before hand would use MORE power than it generates, yet did it anyways...  At this pace, another several hundred years and we might break even....

Is your world still flat?

[Eric Gagen + 713]

6 hours ago, Boat said:

I read a fascinating article a few years ago about drilling in old fields. Fracking has advanced since then, imaging has advanced since then and lastly the power of computers to handle increasing mountains of data. I don’t follow this stuff but to me the implications seem to have a lot of potential. I had read about large fields where maybe they could only get to 30% of the oil. As tech advances I would guess many of the old fields will become viable one again.

Many miss on just how fracking has changed since 2003-2005. Seems like it caught a gear around 2012-2015. The Permian was less than 100 per day well avg. Today they drill 4+ wells and successfully drain an entire area. Several thousand barrels per day in a good spot. Simply amazing.

If I were to guess a long sustained high price period would push the tech one more time and unlock a bunch of missed oil. 

That is correct, but I was trying to focus on exploration only.  Fracturing is a technology which is utilized to develop and exploit what has been discovered.  You are correct that it can, and has been used to redevelop/rejuvinate older fields which were considered 'depleted' and restore production.  This has been less common than you might think however.  Many older fields have characteristics which make fracturing less useful (indeed they basically got developed because they could produce without it) and past production practices often make it difficult to redevelop with a whole new process. 

[Eric Gagen + 713]

3 hours ago, kshithij Sharma said:

SNIP

Can you tell me how KSA produced 100GBL oil from Ghawar? The oil production from fields have always been kept a secret. The total oil produced by KSA has been to the tune of 160GBL. Saying that 100GBL has been from Ghawar is implying that 64% oil is from Ghawar. Saudi Arabia has several fields developed. Though Ghawar is the biggest field, there is little evidence to say that over 60% of KSA production is from Ghawar alone. It is more likely to be 50% implying another 10+GBL is left to be extracted. Also, considering the EOR being done with injection of natural gas in recent times, it appears that Ghawar may already be at the end stage with about 8-10GBL left.

Also, the figure of 55% was given by Saudi oil minister himself. So, the 70% extraction is unlikely. As you said and according to my own research, there has never been 60% or more extraction from sandstone reserves. And the Saudi minister has no reason to downplay oil extraction considering how KSA exaggerates its oil reserves

The 100 GBL figure comes from Saudi Arabia itself based on historical production + an estimate of additional production since the last published date (which IIRC is 2016). It was in the links of my response.  The production at any given moment/day has always been secret, but the past amount already produced is not/cannot be secret.  Each barrel sent out has to be noted as what type/blend/grade it is so that it can be sold at the correct price, and gets metered by 3rd parties for sale.  I am not sure where you got the 160 GBL figure from,  but did you update it to the current date/year?  And did you update the data for cumulative production from Ghawar to current date/year?  Current total produced from Saudi Arabia is more like 180 GBL, making Ghawar 55% of overall production, which IS about what everyone considers.

The fact that 70% extraction is unlikely was my point, and validates your estimate that the actual amount remaining to be produced at Ghawar is in the range of 8-10 GBL (my guesstimate is more like 20 GBL) where as ARAMCO officially lists it as 49 GBL.  Clearly ARAMCO's number must be wrong.  

[Eric Gagen + 713]

3 hours ago, kshithij Sharma said:

I have already covered the topic of shale fields in USA being developed in 1970s. USA closed the fields to conserve oil as it had reached an alliance with GCC for petrodollar. That is also why USA was suddenly able to find and drill so much oil in the aftermath of 2008 crisis. Normally, exploration, feasibility assessment and infrastructure development take 10 year time before full scale production. The fact that shale production started immediately after 2008 oil crash shows that USA had already done extensive studies for these fields

SNIP

Only one shale field in the USA was developed in the 1970's and that was the Bakken.  https://archives.datapages.com/data/mgs/mt/data/0045/0003/0003.html However this was extremely limited, and focused on specific geologic areas where natural fractures in the formation aided in creating areas of easier production.  These fields were developed and are still on production never closed in.  A variety of experiments attempting to establish production were attempted in the late 90's and early 2000's were attempted - basically vertical wells with frac packs similar to Spraberry wells (see below), but the level of production from each well was too low to justify the cost of drilling, and further attempts were not made.  

The Spraberry trend in West Texas actually predates the 1970's: Original reporting from the early 1950's: http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,859404,00.html

Subsequent history of the Spraberry

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spraberry_Trend#:~:text=The Spraberry Trend is itself,Midland in the early 1950s.   https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/spraberry-dean-sandstone-fields

These wells are/have been traditionally developed as vertical wells with frac packs, and have been moderately developed for decades.  This area had a 'boom' in the 1970's and early 1980's as a result of the extremely high prices, but there was no order to 'close the field' to conserve oil then or at any other time - rather when the prices dropped, it was no longer profitable to drill these wells, and activity stopped.  

The reason for the takeof of oil shale in 2008:  Large scale exploitation of shale gas predates 2008 - The Barnett shale is the first/earliest wide scale shale play https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_Shale and it is for natural gas.  The reason oil shales in the US started up so quickly in 2008 was because of the previous decade or so of wide ranging experience with operations in shale gas plays.    The start of the oil shale business was in 2008 when the eagleford shale was first prospected for natural gas, on the assumption that it was analogue to the Barnett shale, and they accidentally produced oil instead.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Ford_Group#Oil_and_natural_gas_production From there it was simply a matter of repeating the series of successful innovations developed in the Barnett in the Eagleford, which allowed a rapid increase in production.  The fact that this all happened to take place at the time of an economic crisis was coincidental - nobody planned it that way.  

[Ecocharger + 1,463]

8 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

You didn't put that quote in to a post until you edited it in a few minutes ago. Not my job to go back and look at your edits to old posts.

No, it is your job.

[Ecocharger + 1,463]

8 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Those recalls were in 2021 for 500K cars. However Tesla produced 900K cars in 2021, Try again.

GM globally produced 6.3M in 2021 but they recalled 8M in 2021.

https://media.gm.com/content/dam/Media/gmcom/investor/2022/janhttps://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North America/US/2022/02/03/financials-fy-ford-21.pdfq4-earnings-deck-and-cy-2021.pdf

 

Ford global production in 2021 was less than 4M but they recalled 5.4M in 2021. https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North America/US/2022/02/03/financials-fy-ford-21.pdf

 

A total of 8 million GM vehicles were determined to be potentially affected by recall reports, while Ford finished in second place with 5.4 million, the Detroit Free Press reports. 

https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-products/auto-news/gm-ford-take-top-spots-for-the-most-auto-recalls-in-2021/

Here is the statement from the link above, note that these cars were produced before 2021, so the comparison is made to 2020 production numbers.

"The outlet reports that Tesla recalled as many as 475,000 cars in the US because of rear camera and trunk issues. Around 356,309 are Model 3 vehicles made between 2017 and 2020, and 119,009 more are Model S cars assembled in 2014. Bloomberg reported that Tesla will fix both issues for free. On Tesla’s website, the company reported that in 2020, it delivered half a million vehicles — just about as many as it’s now recalling."

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

2 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

Is your world still flat?

In your flat world, you learn via osmosis eh?  Headlines from dumb ass anti science sources is your idea of actual science?  They all knew going in it would not produce more energy than put in.   Everyone knew this years ago, where the F' have you been? Its a Tokamak.  Is this the first you have ever heard of it?  Its a slight variation to get plasma data to help their magnetic models.  Everyone has done them in said Tokomaks around the world and no one has achieved consistent data as everyone keeps trying to achieve ever higher magnetic plasma containment yet no one knows how to do it. Likewise no one can feed enough power to said reactors fast enough for anything other than short bursts. 

It is hoped that if we can create accurate models we may in the future be able to model a reaction in real time enabling us to control the fusion reaction assuming we can achieve a high enough dynamic magnetic force in 4 dimensions with some unknown magnetic engineering marvel which does not exist yet.  Also need a miracle to happen in capacitors. 

[Ecocharger + 1,463]

18 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Tesla Model Y now the second best selling car in California.

Plug in vehicles now at 12.8% market share.

https://www.cncda.org/wp-content/uploads/Cal-Covering-4Q-21.pdf

It shows electric at 9.5%, which is 9.5% of less than 1/3 of the vehicle market.

So the real percentage is probably under 3% of total vehicle market. And that is assuming that trucks are included in this calculation, if not, then a very small percentage, less than 1%.

That does not move the needle.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

1 minute ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

In your flat world, you learn via osmosis eh?  Headlines from dumb ass anti science sources is your idea of actual science?  They all knew going in it would not produce more energy than put in.   Everyone knew this years ago, where the F' have you been? Its a Tokamak.  Is this the first you have ever heard of it?  Its a slight variation to get plasma data to help their magnetic models.  Everyone has done them in said Tokomaks around the world and no one has achieved consistent data as everyone keeps trying to achieve ever higher magnetic plasma containment yet no one knows how to do it. Likewise no one can feed enough power to said reactors fast enough for anything other than short bursts. 

It is hoped that if we can create accurate models we may in the future be able to model a reaction in real time enabling us to control the fusion reaction assuming we can achieve a high enough dynamic magnetic force in 4 dimensions with some unknown magnetic engineering marvel which does not exist yet.  Also need a miracle to happen in capacitors. 

IT should be noted to eventually get this to work we will need superconductors at room temperature at minimum to advance to the next stage of experimenting as everyone is plum out of ideas with current tech capability.  This has been true for well over a decade now. 

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

47 minutes ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

IT should be noted to eventually get this to work we will need superconductors at room temperature at minimum to advance to the next stage of experimenting as everyone is plum out of ideas with current tech capability.  This has been true for well over a decade now. 

So because it isnt yet invented we should all give up trying by your logic. thank God most people dont think like you.

"Robert the Bruce, who failed in war but who is remembered for the phrase: “If at first you don’t succeed: try, try again!”  Bruce was King of Scotland in the 14^th century, fighting long battles with the English for control of Scotland. He was defeated in battle many times and eventually ran away to a remote island off the coast of Ireland where he lived in a cave.

One day, while sitting depressed in the corner of the cave, he watched a spider trying to start to weave a web. The spider launched itself across the cave to reach the other side and start to spin the web. Time and time again the spider failed to reach the other side of the cave, almost reaching his goal. But it didn’t give up and kept trying.

After many attempts, it was successful, clung onto the other side of the cave and started to spin its web."

Here endeth the lesson!

[notsonice + 1,255]

can you say peak oil is happening right now? Tesla will get buried by Ford. The real money is in the market for commercial vehicles.

Ford's Kansas City plant begins deliveries of all-electric E-Transit cargo van

Jordyn Grzelewski

The Detroit News

 

View Comments

Ford Motor Co. this week began shipping its new all-electric E-Transit cargo van from its Kansas City Assembly Plant in Missouri to customers across the U.S., the Dearborn automaker said Tuesday.

Shipments of the electric version of the popular van kicked off as Ford said it had netted more than 10,000 orders from 300 customers of varying sizes, including 1,100 orders from retail giant Walmart Inc. Already, the automaker said Tuesday, it's working to increase production of E-Transit to meet demand as it aims to boost annual electric vehicle production capacity to 600,000 by the end of next year.

 

E-Transit is the company's second all-electric vehicle, following the launch of the Mustang Mach-E in late 2020. The F-150 Lightning, a battery-electric version of America's best-selling truck and Ford's flagship product, is slated to launch this spring (including the version aimed at commercial and government fleet customers) with some 200,000 orders on the books.

E-Transit also is the first vehicle to launch under the umbrella of Ford Pro, the standalone commercial vehicle business Ford launched last year as it centers its turnaround strategy on its strength in the commercial vehicle segment, electrification and connected vehicle services. The automaker has committed to spending $30 billion on electrification through 2025, with E-Transit falling under that investment.

“E-Transit is a testament to the fact that an electric commercial fleet is no longer a vision of tomorrow, but a productivity-boosting modern reality,” Kumar Galhotra, president of the Americas & International Markets Group for Ford, said in a statement.  

 

With the launch of E-Transit, Kansas City Assembly in Claycomo, Missouri, became Ford's first plant in the U.S. to assemble both batteries and all-electric vehicles in-house. The company invested $100 million in the plant and added about 150 full-time jobs in vehicle and battery pack assembly to support E-Transit production.

“Today’s production shipping announcement of the 2022 Ford Pro E-Transit vans to customers marks the beginning of a new era emerging from the Kansas City Assembly Plant,” Chuck Browning, United Auto Workers vice president and director of the union's Ford department, said in a statement.

“By producing both gas and the electric versions of America’s best-selling commercial van, members in Claycomo are working to meet current demand while transitioning to a strong EV future," he added. "UAW members are proud to take part in Ford’s commitment to build a quality new technology product that adds jobs and investment in Kansas City.” 

 

Ford and some of its competitors are placing big bets on commercial and government fleet customers becoming the leaders in the electric and digital transition transforming the automotive industry. 

General Motors Co. has launched an electric delivery van business. Stellantis NV has lined up Amazon.com Inc. as the first buyer for an electric version of its cargo van. And both automakers have electric versions of their popular pickup trucks planned.

Ford, meanwhile, has signaled that its commercial business is at the forefront of the company's growth strategy. Ford Pro is targeting revenue of $45 billion by 2025, up from $27 billion in 2019. Executives have said that commercial customers recognize the potential cost and productivity improvements that electric, digitally-connected vehicles offer.

 

Reuven Noyman isn't sure yet whether it'll save him money by switching from gas-powered vehicles to electric, but the owner of New York-based cleaning company On Time Steam Cleaning placed an order for two E-Transits due to environmental considerations.

"I placed the order for the electric ones because we're a green company," he said. "We haven't used chemicals since 2008. It's better for the environment and it just fits my company."

Noyman operates a fleet of six vehicles, a mix of Ford Transits and Nissan NVs. He plans to eventually order six E-Transits and maintain a fleet of battery-electric and gas-powered vehicles until EVs improve to the point where they're just as convenient for his company's needs.

"I wanted a cleaner truck to get away from gas, and plus my guys idle a lot when they're on jobs," he said. "Once the electric gets better and better, we'll switch all of them to electric."

E-Transit's lithium-ion battery has 68 kilowatt hours of capacity and has a targeted estimated range of 126 miles on a single charge. It starts at $44,990, including destination charges. It comes available with Pro Power Onboard, which allows drivers to use their vehicle as a mobile generator with up to 2.4 kilowatts of available power.

Charging solutions are available to E-Transit customers via Ford Pro Charging. And various connected subscription services, including telematics data, are available via Ford Pro Intelligence, the cloud-based platform underpinning Ford Pro's digital services. E-Transit comes standard with a 4G LTE modem and Ford Pro E-Telematics is complimentary for three years. E-Transit is available in eight configurations.

jgrzelewski@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @JGrzelewski

Edited February 10, 2022 by notsonice

[kshithij Sharma + 78]

3 hours ago, Eric Gagen said:

Current total produced from Saudi Arabia is more like 180 GBL, making Ghawar 55% of overall production, which IS about what everyone considers.

I used the data produced by OPEC itself. KSA total production is about 160GBL. OPEC regularly publishes that data.

[Ecocharger + 1,463]

So again, we have Biden & Co. going cap-in-hand and begging for more oil....yes, these are the same guys who declared war on oil just a few months earlier....go figure.

Demand for oil is ramping up to new high levels, and will continue to increase going forward. Economic logic requires that.

Biden & Co. are still emitting the old anti-oil canards about market-fixing and still trying to bait the oil producers, portraying them as predatorial vultures...how is that going to help get more oil out of them?  Seems like rather weird policy-making.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Biden-Saudi-King-Talk-About-Oil-Prices.html

"Psaki went on to add that "Nobody should hold back supply at the expense of the American consumer, particularly as the recovery from the pandemic continues, and oil producers around the world have the capacity to produce at levels that match demand and reduce the high prices."

As for the talks between President Biden and King Salman, a statement issued by the White House following their call focused on the Yemen situation and the wider Middle Eastern political context, with a sentence towards the end saying, "Both leaders further reiterated the United States' and Saudi Arabia's commitment to ensuring the stability of global energy supplies."

Saudi Arabia is one of few OPEC+ members that have the spare production capacity to make up for shortfalls among other members where underinvestment or other problems are preventing them from pumping to their quotas. In the past, the Kingdom has demonstrated reluctance to do so, prompting Washington to announce a release from the strategic petroleum reserve to rein in prices at the pump.

The move was as unsuccessful as analysts expected it to be: the effect of the news on prices was short-lived and as crude oil continued up, so did retail fuel prices in the U.S. and elsewhere."

Edited February 10, 2022 by Ecocharger

[Eric Gagen + 713]

16 minutes ago, kshithij Sharma said:

I used the data produced by OPEC itself. KSA total production is about 160GBL. OPEC regularly publishes that data.

can you share a link to that?  I'd like to see that.  I wonder how it counts oil used for internal purposes, and condensate.  These are often quite large fractions of total liquids produced - Saudi Arabia in particular has a long history of gas condensate production amounting to nearly 1 million bbls a day, and I believe OPEC doesn't count it as liquids production.  

[Boat + 1,323]

On 2/9/2022 at 1:06 AM, Andrei Moutchkine said:

It is kinda funny, how once in a while there are an article about sources reporting that Gwar is getting thin. Followed by an avalanche of opposite reports that it is as good as new. The moment the Saudis pass the peak, they are over and done with.

They've got no secrets left, because Tema was there. This guy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemy_Lebedev

He's what I call a "hacker tourist" A walking national security threat of astronomical proportions without even knowing it. Claims to be the only Russian to have had visited all 193 countries in the world. This is almost true. Considering that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Indian_Ocean_Territory

is not a country, but a place (Chagos Archipelago) annexed by UK, ethnically cleansed of local population and currently hosting US/UK Diego Garcia airbase. Tema is on a no-entry list there, so somebody else noticed.

This is what he dug up. Ever heard the story about US reinforcing the Saudi highways, so that transport aircraft full of military aid can land there in a pinch? Bullshit. They've got a modern 6-lane highway connecting Riadh to Mecca and Medina, but it is only open to Muslim pilgrims. The rest of the country has only got a single road shaped like a Greek capital Pi, with up being. North and legs running along the coasts.

It possibly only has one lane in either direction, throughout. How do the locals get to hidden oases they allegedly have? They take a large SUV and simply start driving where they want to go through the desert. Popular destinations contain vast tracts of trash, because the locals simply throw it out of the window. There is no provision to pick the trash up, so whatever the Saudis threw out of the window, is still out there littering the desert. Since the time of King Saudi, for all I know. Another good use for large SUVs is herding camels. You roll down the window and poke the camel with a stick. Problem solved!

The open stretch between two legs of the Pi are connected by a coast-to-coast rail link, carrying bomb trains loaded with petrochemicals. Obviously, game as soon as Houris receive moving target firmware upgrade out of Tehran.

Now, remember the time when the main Saudi refinery and all the attached storage was taken out? By alleged "drone attack"  Which is quite an understatement, considering what the "drones" were

https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1208062/meet-the-quds-1/

Quds means Jerusalem in Arabic. In its former life, a Soviet Kh-55, a solid superpower level asset from the 70-ties. Originally launched off a strategic bomber. Today, off a Yemeni pickup truck. All courtesy of independent and free country of Ukraine. The original's range was 2500km. The substitution of the original engine for a lighter Czech one likely lost some speed and gained range. So, we've got ourselves a Kh-55-ER. Can follow a preprogrammed route, hit waypoints, etc. Basically, a very close equivalent to American Tomahawk drone. So, the place got hit by 20 Tomahawks, of which only 2 were lost (to Oerlikon SkyGuard perimeter defense system controlling a bunch of CIWS robot guns) This very likely destroyed all the oil at this site. Did it change anything? I didn't notice.

From the above, we can conclude that the Saudis are very unlikely to keep their reserves on land. Because, a) They've got no infrastructure anyway, except for pipelines. b) They cannot defend a land site against skimming munitions. And it is actually official. The minimum effective attitude is cited as 200m.

On the other hand, it is still possible that what Patriot cannot, naval Aegis can. This make the safest place to store the oil on FSRO's moored in the Gulf, close to US warships. Incidentally, this is what everybody has been doing anyway! Gets the stuff loaded/unloaded faster.

Therefore, you can count all the Saudi reserves by simply observing all the tankers which sit motionless near Saudi coast. They got to be lots. The larger they are and less they move, the more storage-like. Incidentally, explains the armada of tankers sent to US shore to hang out there. Makes it hard to tell which ones are the Saudi anymore. With a local observer you can do even quicker than this. You can always tell by a tanker how full they are, they got special marks. The more oil, the higher they sit. The less oil, the more ballast water, which is denser than oil. Travelling "empty" is thus more expensive than full.

However, thanks to the 3-way tussle between US shale, Saudis and Russians we know their most sacred secret - "budget rule" equivalent amount. The price, at which the Saudi state budget turns from surplus to deficit. Turned out to be something like $73/brl, which is way high. So, Saudis need the oil to cost at least that much to break even. Probably is somewhat transient, due to getting into a dubious dick swinging contest with Apple Computer as to who's got the larger market cap, Apple or Aramco. For which purposes a very high dividend commitment for Aramco was made, rather untimely so. Anyhow, the "IMF budget rule" the Russian government implements causes the national budget to break even at an oil price no less than $43-something/brl ($44.20 this year) What if more? The Bank of Russia confiscates the extra profits. This means that in Russia, this is the average export price of oil for the year ahead. Or else. Noting for oil price to report on. What $90/brl. (It is actually interesting that they used to have a ticker for the Urals till very recently. What changed? For most of the benchmark's existence, it traded at a discount to WTI/Brent light crude. On par, lately, I think.

Does anybody who is not myself care to explain why is heavy crude traded at discount to light? Seems irrational at the first sight. After all, you can make full spectrum.of fuels from Urals - gasoline, kerosene and diesel. Only gasoline and lightest kerosene parts from light.

Another thing that fascinates me. Everybody is suddenly so excited about North Stream gas, yet entirely mum on the subject of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druzhba_pipeline and its various extension? How come? It is a much bigger business. Who is the Kremlin agent in the midst of civilized European nations? How is us imminently attacking Ukraine affects the future prospects of being in oil transit biz together?

Incidentally, Power of Siberia was simply added to an existing oil pipe called ESPO

https://www.hydrocarbons-technology.com/projects/espopipeline/

Oilprice seems to have a separate benchmark for it still, dunno if it is heavy or light. Here are all of them

https://en.transneft.ru/pipelines/

Over 70,000 km of pipes for oil, which absolutely dwarfs the gas network. (Transneft is 100% government owned and has a near absolute monopoly on all oil transits. The only expectation seems to be KPK pipeline (Rosneft+Lukoil) which is how oil gets out of Kazakhstan. Does not do any exploration. Which, oddly, makes it satisfy the unbundling requirements of the EU's Third Package, no?

Or could it be due to variation of the

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law

(which postulates that the value of any network is proportional to the square of the n

odes)

Fun fact of the day. There is a functional pipeline pumping ammonia from the town of Tolyatti in Russia, to Odessa. Over 6000km?!? Inexplicable were the ways of USSR

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TogliattiAzot

Plausibly deniable from the above, which says it only goes to Taman, a sleepy village without running water. Running ammonia though?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Taman

Appears to be identical with onramp to Crimean Bridge. Ooopsie-daisie. Anyhow, I digress. The Eurofags will, of course, be assimilated and potty-trained. What was going to save them? Lithium? Got lithium. It's just nobody has ever tried to find mine the stuff in Russia before. Sibur found some conventional rich brine in Irkutsk. Rosatom found an odd lithium-rich mineral on Kola which nobody previously considered an ore. Potentially, lithium reserves at about #3, behind Bolivia and Chile.

Now, I was kinda expecting that it would be Saudis who would be thrown under the bus, not US shale. Alas, too much debt. It is, however, not over yet. Mr. Sechin informs that complete eradication of those fuckers is impossible due to the unique property of US Permian basin - they can actually throttle and/or turn off a rig for a while and lay low. Usually, this does not work. The more annoying it is that it is specifically the Americans who refuse to participate in collective production planning, aka OPEC+. Which is not really Russia, Russia, Russia, but a block of following countries.

Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, South Sudan, and Sudan.

Note the presence of two Gulf  kingdoms and a remote Sultanate. Obviously having more faith in Russia than brothers in faith. Safe to say, OPEC+ is actually about selling oil, while OPEC alone is also about medieval Arab activities. Being the most maneuverable of the bunch, should it be the US shale guy who would be offering it as service. Like in electricity trade. Everybody else got base, they got peak. Worth some premium.

But of course, the US government has no meaningful way to affect how privately owned enterprises conduct their business. Except abroad. Because the Biden administration seems to have no qualms about demanding specific price targets from OPEC+ The capability of Yankee mind to reject any kind of self-reflection never ceases to amaze me

If the Saudi national budget is really balanced at $70+ still, they are royally screwed. US shale can easily survive that this price level indefinitely.

Shale was adding drilling rigs when oil was in the $40/range a few years back. As demonstrated by Covid demand, shale can match domestic consumption easily. However there isn’t enough money in shale to provide peak for the world. 

I will watch with interest who gets kicked out of producing when Lybia, Iran, Shale, etc gets rolling. Add decreasing demand due to electric cars. 

[TailingsPond + 875]

23 hours ago, Ecocharger said:

 ICE auto makers do not recall more vehicles than they produce, only Tesla.

 

My ICE Toyota has had at least three recalls already...

Airbags replaced, a window switch needed more grease, and something else I forget.

[Eric Gagen + 713]

9 minutes ago, Boat said:

Shale was adding drilling rigs when oil was in the $40/range a few years back. As demonstrated by Covid demand, shale can match domestic consumption easily. However there isn’t enough money in shale to provide peak for the world. 

I will watch with interest who gets kicked out of producing when Lybia, Iran, Shale, etc gets rolling. Add decreasing demand due to electric cars. 

The more likely scenario is that places like Libya and Venezuela will never see any significant fraction of their remaining reserves produced due to their inability to provide a stable regulatory structure and safe physical working environment.  Even Mexico is having trouble with issues of that type, and it's in far far better condition than those two basket cases.  Iran is sort of in a middle ground, as it's problems are political, but mostly external to Iran, so it's conceivable that policy changes elsewhere could fix it.  

[TailingsPond + 875]

10 minutes ago, Eric Gagen said:

The more likely scenario is that places like Libya and Venezuela will never see any significant fraction of their remaining reserves produced due to their inability to provide a stable regulatory structure and safe physical working environment.  Even Mexico is having trouble with issues of that type, and it's in far far better condition than those two basket cases.  Iran is sort of in a middle ground, as it's problems are political, but mostly external to Iran, so it's conceivable that policy changes elsewhere could fix it.  

Plus Canada is safe and has excess production capacity.

[kshithij Sharma + 78]

41 minutes ago, Eric Gagen said:

can you share a link to that?  I'd like to see that.  I wonder how it counts oil used for internal purposes, and condensate.  These are often quite large fractions of total liquids produced - Saudi Arabia in particular has a long history of gas condensate production amounting to nearly 1 million bbls a day, and I believe OPEC doesn't count it as liquids production.  

Yes OPEC only considers crude oil production, not the condensate. Attached is the annual production data of OPEC since 1960 to 2020. KSA production has been very low in 1950s and you can take entire KSA oil production prior to 1960 as 3GBL.

Simple formula for calculating cumulative oil production in MBL is to sum all annual production and multiply it by 0.365 (use this formula in excel =SUM(B64:BJ64)*0.365). The link for data is table 3.5 in : https://asb.opec.org/data/ASB_Data.php

T35.xlsx

[specinho + 467]

12 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

It must be tough for you seeing report after report documenting the demise of ICE cars. Today's new car market is tomorrow's used car market. It doesn't work any other way.

Errr… if putting the number aside.......... Modern EV might still have much to catch up with an ICE produced in the 70s?? Are we regressing but still proud of our perceived progress.......?

 

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

5 hours ago, Ecocharger said:

Here is the statement from the link above, note that these cars were produced before 2021, so the comparison is made to 2020 production numbers.

"The outlet reports that Tesla recalled as many as 475,000 cars in the US because of rear camera and trunk issues. Around 356,309 are Model 3 vehicles made between 2017 and 2020, and 119,009 more are Model S cars assembled in 2014. Bloomberg reported that Tesla will fix both issues for free. On Tesla’s website, the company reported that in 2020, it delivered half a million vehicles — just about as many as it’s now recalling."

I have debunked all four of your claims, that is my job:

"ICE auto makers do not recall more vehicles than they produce"

"GM and Ford recalls are only a tiny percentage of production". 

"That still puts Tesla below the others."

"whereas for Tesla the recall rate as a proportion of production was over 100%"

You are citing recall of 475K but even if we go with your arbitrary 2020 Tesla produced 509,737. https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-q4-2020-vehicle-production-deliveries

---

GM globally produced 6.3M in 2021 but they recalled 8M in 2021.

https://media.gm.com/content/dam/Media/gmcom/investor/2022/janhttps://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North America/US/2022/02/03/financials-fy-ford-21.pdfq4-earnings-deck-and-cy-2021.pdf

 

Ford global production in 2021 was less than 4M but they recalled 5.4M in 2021. https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North America/US/2022/02/03/financials-fy-ford-21.pdf

 

A total of 8 million GM vehicles were determined to be potentially affected by recall reports, while Ford finished in second place with 5.4 million, the Detroit Free Press reports. 

https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-products/auto-news/gm-ford-take-top-spots-for-the-most-auto-recalls-in-2021/

 

Edited February 10, 2022 by Jay McKinsey