A
Al_Masetti
Guest
Ya know, … I posted some legitimate questions … about “education” to reduce population, about why would the OPEC countries buy 100 jumbo and super jumbo airliners if they’re about to run out of oil, and how many refineries does Saudi Arabia have ('cause you can’t burn crude oil in airplanes). And all I got from you all was personal insults and invective.
All you had to do was to answer and / or discuss those three issues in some detail. But you chose the direction of attempting to intimidate and ridicule.
That doesn’t speak well of your interest in and your ability to persuade.
Furthermore, there is a body of discussion that suggests that OPEC is DELIBERATELY withholding petroleum off the market to drive up the price and to punish the West as part of the 1500-year-old on-going jihad.
The notion of running out of oil is part of their fear campaign.
I recommend everyone read Robert Zubrin’s book, “Energy Victory” which advocates developing METHANOL (not ethanol) and using a system of “flex fuel” to break the Saudi campaign against the Christian West.
amazon.com/Energy-Victory-Winning-Terror-Breaking/dp/1591025915/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202329519&sr=8-1
Zubrin maintains that people like Matt Simmons(2) are in on the OPEC plan to stand down on world exploration/discovery so they can artificially suppress the supply, thus artificially driving up the demand. On page 77 Zubrin says:
“At jacked-up prices of about $75 per barrel (the assumed price when Zubrin wrote the book), the world’s oil producers pulled in about $2 trillion during 2006, instead of the $500 billion or so they would have obtained in a free market. How much of the extra $1.5 trillion do you suppose they will put into exploration? No one knows for sure, but the answer is probably less than 2 percent.”
In contrast, Simmons says on page 242 of TWILIGHT IN THE DESERT:
“Aramaco is also indicating that it will step up its exploration efforts for 2005 and 2006. As reported by Kevin Morrison in a story titled “Saudi to Increase Oil Capacity” (Financial Times, February 11, 2005), Saudi Aramaco “plans to double the number of drilling rigs it operates in order to explore and develop new oil and gas fields.” Morrison quotes a “Saudi Aramaco official” as saying, “Saudi Aramaco’s target is to have 70-plus drilling rigs working by the end of 2005.” The increase is said to signal a “shift in strategy for Saudi Aramaco” toward EXPANDING PRODUCTION CAPACITY FROM SIMPLY MAINTAINING IT. Morrison also reports statements by an “oil executive who works in the region” to the effect that Saudi Aramaco has increased its exploration and development budget to $2.7 billion for 2005 from $2.3 billion in 2004, an increase of 17 percent.”
Given the above nebulous statements made by several parties and the PUNY numbers for exploration, $2.7 billion, Zubrin may be correct:
"If our goal were increased oil exploration, we would do much better to set up a program, funded at, say, $30 billion per year . . . "
Spending only $2.7 billion per year out of gross revenues in excess of $1 trillion per year is evidence that “the OPEC-inflated oil price is simply a swindle,” as Zubrin suggests.
Zubrin says that in 1999 the Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, said that his country’s “all inclusive” cost to produce each barrel of oil was $1.50 and the cost for discovering each new barrel amounted to an additional 10 cents per barrel. So, given the world price of oil today is about $88 per barrel, this is a profit of over $85 per barrel. If OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, IS selling 72 million barrels of oil per day, their net profit would be $6.1 billion per day or the sum of $2.2 trillion per year, as of 2008. Were OPEC to place oil on the market under the “free market system,” they would generate a little more than $1.3 billion per day or about $475 billion per year.
So I have to agree with Zubrin, there IS powerful incentive for OPEC to conspire to set prices by artificially limiting demand (i.e., under spending on exploration). The question is: what would be the incentive for Matt Simmons to misrepresent the situation as described above? Wouldn’t he as an investment banker make more money getting in on the ground floor of developing new energy companies, such as a universal system of flex-fuel cars based on ethanol and methanol?(3)
(1) Aramaco is Saudi Arabia’s main oil company.
(2) Simmons is a veteran oil industry analyst, investment banker and CFR member. He is also the CEO of Simmons & Company, a Houston-based investment bank that specializes in the energy industry.
(3) Is Saudi Arabia peaking or is it using people like Simmons to mislead the world in order sell oil at vast premiums? We all deserve an answer to this question because we pay for the oil and we are being asked to support Zubrin’s strategy of flex-fuel cars. I am not interested in supporting or vilifying any system just because that system is based on someone’s ideological view of Earth’s energy problem.
[Some of this post was derived from a post on Amazon.]
All you had to do was to answer and / or discuss those three issues in some detail. But you chose the direction of attempting to intimidate and ridicule.
That doesn’t speak well of your interest in and your ability to persuade.
Furthermore, there is a body of discussion that suggests that OPEC is DELIBERATELY withholding petroleum off the market to drive up the price and to punish the West as part of the 1500-year-old on-going jihad.
The notion of running out of oil is part of their fear campaign.
I recommend everyone read Robert Zubrin’s book, “Energy Victory” which advocates developing METHANOL (not ethanol) and using a system of “flex fuel” to break the Saudi campaign against the Christian West.
amazon.com/Energy-Victory-Winning-Terror-Breaking/dp/1591025915/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202329519&sr=8-1
Zubrin maintains that people like Matt Simmons(2) are in on the OPEC plan to stand down on world exploration/discovery so they can artificially suppress the supply, thus artificially driving up the demand. On page 77 Zubrin says:
“At jacked-up prices of about $75 per barrel (the assumed price when Zubrin wrote the book), the world’s oil producers pulled in about $2 trillion during 2006, instead of the $500 billion or so they would have obtained in a free market. How much of the extra $1.5 trillion do you suppose they will put into exploration? No one knows for sure, but the answer is probably less than 2 percent.”
In contrast, Simmons says on page 242 of TWILIGHT IN THE DESERT:
“Aramaco is also indicating that it will step up its exploration efforts for 2005 and 2006. As reported by Kevin Morrison in a story titled “Saudi to Increase Oil Capacity” (Financial Times, February 11, 2005), Saudi Aramaco “plans to double the number of drilling rigs it operates in order to explore and develop new oil and gas fields.” Morrison quotes a “Saudi Aramaco official” as saying, “Saudi Aramaco’s target is to have 70-plus drilling rigs working by the end of 2005.” The increase is said to signal a “shift in strategy for Saudi Aramaco” toward EXPANDING PRODUCTION CAPACITY FROM SIMPLY MAINTAINING IT. Morrison also reports statements by an “oil executive who works in the region” to the effect that Saudi Aramaco has increased its exploration and development budget to $2.7 billion for 2005 from $2.3 billion in 2004, an increase of 17 percent.”
Given the above nebulous statements made by several parties and the PUNY numbers for exploration, $2.7 billion, Zubrin may be correct:
"If our goal were increased oil exploration, we would do much better to set up a program, funded at, say, $30 billion per year . . . "
Spending only $2.7 billion per year out of gross revenues in excess of $1 trillion per year is evidence that “the OPEC-inflated oil price is simply a swindle,” as Zubrin suggests.
Zubrin says that in 1999 the Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, said that his country’s “all inclusive” cost to produce each barrel of oil was $1.50 and the cost for discovering each new barrel amounted to an additional 10 cents per barrel. So, given the world price of oil today is about $88 per barrel, this is a profit of over $85 per barrel. If OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, IS selling 72 million barrels of oil per day, their net profit would be $6.1 billion per day or the sum of $2.2 trillion per year, as of 2008. Were OPEC to place oil on the market under the “free market system,” they would generate a little more than $1.3 billion per day or about $475 billion per year.
So I have to agree with Zubrin, there IS powerful incentive for OPEC to conspire to set prices by artificially limiting demand (i.e., under spending on exploration). The question is: what would be the incentive for Matt Simmons to misrepresent the situation as described above? Wouldn’t he as an investment banker make more money getting in on the ground floor of developing new energy companies, such as a universal system of flex-fuel cars based on ethanol and methanol?(3)
(1) Aramaco is Saudi Arabia’s main oil company.
(2) Simmons is a veteran oil industry analyst, investment banker and CFR member. He is also the CEO of Simmons & Company, a Houston-based investment bank that specializes in the energy industry.
(3) Is Saudi Arabia peaking or is it using people like Simmons to mislead the world in order sell oil at vast premiums? We all deserve an answer to this question because we pay for the oil and we are being asked to support Zubrin’s strategy of flex-fuel cars. I am not interested in supporting or vilifying any system just because that system is based on someone’s ideological view of Earth’s energy problem.
[Some of this post was derived from a post on Amazon.]