Official (Alberta) Oil Discussion Thread

[Frequitude]

We do not need a bailout. It's not going to incent anyone to drill at a loss. Companies need to go bankrupt and people need to lose their jobs. It's what happens and its healthy for the overall oil and gas market.

Would I like a handout to my industry? In a vacuum of course. But what a tremendous waste of political capital...political capital that needs to be spent on getting pipelines built. That's how you help this industry, Alberta and Canada for a long long time.

[VladtheImpaler]

We need a credible separatist party - you either cash in by threatening to leave and collecting bribes or... you leave and live happily ever after. Given the location of the votes, we will never have a say in anything.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler

We need a credible separatist party - you either cash in by threatening to leave and collecting bribes or... you leave and live happily ever after. Given the location of the votes, we will never have a say in anything.

Uhh leaving the country and completely removing any incentive for the federal government to try to force the other provinces to play nicely is easily the dumbest idea out there.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Uhh leaving the country and completely removing any incentive for the federal government to try to force the other provinces to play nicely is easily the dumbest idea out there.

Bah. First, the real trick is to almost leave to extract maximum concessions. Two, we can get a couple of senators from the guys down south.

[stampsx2]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Uhh leaving the country and completely removing any incentive for the federal government to try to force the other provinces to play nicely is easily the dumbest idea out there.

Seams to work for Quebec. Are you calling Quebec dumb?

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Uhh leaving the country and completely removing any incentive for the federal government to try to force the other provinces to play nicely is easily the dumbest idea out there.

If you leave the country you don't have to worry about the other provinces, it's N Dakota that becomes the only conduit

[HOWITZER]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

(...)We take for granted things like reading by a lightbulb when the sun goes down, or having a refrigerator for perishable food, or having a washing machine that will work in our homes instead of going to a filthy river. LOTS of people in the world still live to this standard, and want what we have (...) we still aren't satisfied and are driving for more innovation to improve quality of life, and to have that high quality of life for an extended period of time. IT ALL NEEDS ENERGY.

(...) If people only understood what goes into delivering our energy, or the true nature of the demand (...) Renewables are expensive, unreliable, will have a huge footprint and have a tremendous amount of radioactive and chemically toxic co-product when made. None of the promoters of this "grand solution" seem to take that into account and discuss a serious plan for addressing these problems.

You had quite a number of excellent points! Even the amount of energy required to have this conversation is staggering once you take into account all of the background processes. I definitely agree with your point on renewables, but one of the points I'm trying to make is that using renewable energy as a way to displace traditional resource extraction itself is more complex; As we understand systems to this point, increasing complexity increases required energy, much the same way fracking/oil sands is more complex than old gusher oil. The notion that we can replace all of our current energy demands with a different source is not reasonable.

Originally Posted by heep223

I have a friend who did his masters degree in environmental science. He said to me the other day: "I mean, let's just replace all fossil fuels with renewable energy. It's so simple but it's BS oil companies and politicians won't let that happen. So we have to protest the pipelines."

This highlights a major problem in a conversation like climate change, and large systems of systems: not all of the stakeholders are properly educated and aware of secondary, tertiary, etc. impacts of changes. I'm not advocating that status quo is better, but without considering the holistic impacts it is difficult to advocate a position when the people you're advocating to have information that doesn't match yours.

Originally Posted by Regorium

The issue is that no other industry considers upstream/downstream impacts.

Thanks god someone brought this up. You can put me in the camp of people that think that someone making a proposal should carry the burden to reasonably illustrate upstream/downstream impacts resulting from their project and justify why their project is okay regardless. It is the responsibility of the government to review these impacts, analyze if the company has properly prepared their information and approve/reject accordingly. It's no different than writing an academic paper for review by a journal.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler

Bah. First, the real trick is to almost leave to extract maximum concessions. Two, we can get a couple of senators from the guys down south.

So you're not separating, but joining the U.S.? Because that political ####show is something you really want to be a part of.

Originally Posted by stampsx2

Seams to work for Quebec. Are you calling Quebec dumb?

It works for Quebec because they have a whole lot more political clout than Alberta does.

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

If you leave the country you don't have to worry about the other provinces, it's N Dakota that becomes the only conduit

Well considering the U.S. government has been even more bullish on Alberta oil than the provinces have, I don't think your chances are very good. Plus, last I checked North Dakota was also landlocked, so it wouldn't just be dealing with them. Unless your plan is just to connect to one of their myriad of pipelines and run it through there, but I imagine the U.S. would be taking a heavy cut of anything that runs through their pipeline system.

[_Q_]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

This seems like as good a place as any to ask the question:

What are some predictions for the exchange rate? CAD continue to tumble? It's been rising slightly over the past week.

I think this is a dead cat bounce.

Price of oil is going to continue to drop along with the Canadian Dollar. My predictions? WTI at $18 by this spring, making WCS close to worthless and Canadian dollar close to 60 cents. Then we'll see a long and slow recovery. I think end of 2016 we'll see oil back up to current levels then back up to the 40s some time in 2017. The recovery will top out at 60-70 and that's it in my opinion. I think it holds steady at that level until the late 2020s and then the final crash to oil prices as the world becomes more energy efficient.

This is all, of course, my opinion.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

Aren't the royalty review results supposed to be published this week?

I thought it was last week, or

last month, or

last year.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by _Q_

I think this is a dead cat bounce.

Price of oil is going to continue to drop along with the Canadian Dollar. My predictions? WTI at $18 by this spring, making WCS close to worthless and Canadian dollar close to 60 cents. Then we'll see a long and slow recovery. I think end of 2016 we'll see oil back up to current levels then back up to the 40s some time in 2017. The recovery will top out at 60-70 and that's it in my opinion. I think it holds steady at that level until the late 2020s and then the final crash to oil prices as the world becomes more energy efficient.

This is all, of course, my opinion.

a dead cat bounce has to bounce, not flatten out. We have yet to see if it even rises significantly. This would also be the second "dead cat bounce", since there was one back in March.

[stampsx2]

Originally Posted by _Q_

I think this is a dead cat bounce.

Price of oil is going to continue to drop along with the Canadian Dollar. My predictions? WTI at $18 by this spring, making WCS close to worthless and Canadian dollar close to 60 cents. Then we'll see a long and slow recovery. I think end of 2016 we'll see oil back up to current levels then back up to the 40s some time in 2017. The recovery will top out at 60-70 and that's it in my opinion. I think it holds steady at that level until the late 2020s and then the final crash to oil prices as the world becomes more energy efficient.

This is all, of course, my opinion.

Fyi world oil dependence is increasing.

[CampbellsTransgressions]

And emissions will likely continue increasing for some time, until the developed world is experiencing an emissions decline equal to the increase brought on by the developing world. This is why the NDP's oil sands emissions cap is pointless, and why I doubt that it is rigid.

We will also need to start imposing (US backed) trade sanctions on any developed nations that do not have acceptable carbon taxation, though this may not be effective until every nation is developed.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

Interesting, I'd love to review recent information. Care to share any sources you trust?

Where to start?

Honestly it's difficult to provide essential foundational texts as things are moving so quickly.

I would recommend the energy transition podcast as a layperson entry point. (not implying that you're a layperson)

The first episode is about limits of renewables to the grid. NREL as an organization is probably then the best technical writing about renewable energy potential.

http://energytransitionshow.com/

Key point is that technical innovation and the business cases for renewables are rapidly improving the outlook for renewable integration. Meanwhile nuclear is probably the only technology in human history that appears to be a negative learning curve. The costs of nuclear energy are getting higher over time!

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by stampsx2

Fyi world oil dependence is increasing.

Laugh, no it's not.

Oil as a global share of energy consumption was over 40% in the 1970s, it's at 30% now and dropping.

[stampsx2]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Laugh, no it's not.

Oil as a global share of energy consumption was over 40% in the 1970s, it's at 30% now and dropping.

And yet the overall demand is increasing.

[Tinordi]

Yes but that doesn't look to me like we're becoming more dependent on oil. The share of oil consumption is declining globally, that's almost definitionally saying that we're becoming *less* dependent.

[Fuzz]

What year do you think we will reach peak oil consumption?

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Laugh, no it's not.

Oil as a global share of energy consumption was over 40% in the 1970s, it's at 30% now and dropping.

Yeah its really dropping like a meteor.



This graph is more concerning, total energy requirements are growing and low grade contributors aren't going to carry the day without some quantum leap in technology.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

What year do you think we will reach peak oil consumption?

I think OECD countries have already peaked or will peak in the next 2 years. Globally, the peak very much depends on kind of infrastructure investment in China and India. Probably 2030.

The key indicator to watch for is EV sales, right now they're 0.6% of total sales in the U.S. The velocity of that increase will matter greatly, if it gets to 1.2% in the next 5 years the peak in oil consumption will soon follow.