Answer to all of our problems..

[SMEGMA STENCH]

I know.. and the Bible also speaks of fighting in that area of the world until the world ends. So far, that has been right since Cain/Able days.

I just want to be able to watch and laugh while they kill each other, and have us not be the slightest bit dependent on them. For anything. Be just fine with me. If we just completely let them all do whatever they wanted, their population would be dramatically reduced. All those little countries would be constantly conquering each other, until finally someone irradiated the whole area and no one could live there. That would finally bring about the end of all their stupid bullshit.

[Strychnine]

What makes you think that our oil supply is run dry or running dry? I can show you 1000's of well heads in Oklahoma that have been drilled and capped since the 90's. There is oil down there a bunch of it too. The main problem is that our government and mainly the EPA make it so damn difficult to produce oil in our on country.
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Sure, there are capped wells but what is their production capability? We may not run dry, but we surely can't support ourselves. The average well in TX/OK may produce for a long time, but the flow rate is just not comparable with other parts of the world. You might get some in the 500-1000 BOPD range but they are not common.

Food for thought... average production (barrels per day per well):

United States: 10.1
The highest BOPD/well number the US has ever seen was 18.6 in 1970.

Saudi Arabia: 4073

In the end, the US only has 1.58% of the world's proven reserves. Technology and market fluctuations allow that "proven" number to adjust and move, but we're not going to make up the 15 million barrels per day gap between domestic production and consumption.

[Avery'sDad]

I know.. and the Bible also speaks of fighting in that area of the world until the world ends. So far, that has been right since Cain/Able days.

What's Santa's role in all this? Will Zues be a part of the world ending as well? Will we finally get to see the invisible pink unicorn?

[Woods Racing Transmission]

Sure, there are capped wells but what is their production capability? We may not run dry, but we surely can't support ourselves. The average well in TX/OK may produce for a long time, but the flow rate is just not comparable with other parts of the world. You might get some in the 500-1000 BOPD range but they are not common.

Food for thought... average production (barrels per day per well):

United States: 10.1
The highest BOPD/well number the US has ever seen was 18.6 in 1970.

Saudi Arabia: 4073

In the end, the US only has 1.58% of the world's proven reserves. Technology and market fluctuations allow that "proven" number to adjust and move, but we're not going to make up the 15 million barrels per day gap between domestic production and consumption.

I don't buy that 1.58% for one second. Is this coming form the same people that said the world would run out of oil in 30 years 30 years ago? Yes the flow rates on our wells are lower but the quality of our oil is better than most of the OPEC oils. We have mostly light sweet crude like Lybia has which is turned into fuel. This is why there "1-2%" global supply is critical and is effecting the price of fuel so much.

There are 5 pump jacks across the road from my land in Oklahoma that have been pumping 24/7. My dad was born in 1945 and says that they where there long before he was, so they must be on top of a pretty deep well.

The fact is until we loosen regulations on drilling and refining oil and come up with a long term "all of the above" energy police for this country we will be at the mercy of some towel head.

Remember the last time oil was high and Bush lifted just a few bans and regulations the price went down? They know we have oil and they also know that our government has made it a pain on the ass to get it, therefore oil companies buy it from them. We need to change that.

[mustangguy289]

What's Santa's role in all this? Will Zues be a part of the world ending as well? Will we finally get to see the invisible pink unicorn?

Whether you believe in a god or not has nothing to do with my post. The Bible talks about fighting in that area of the World from the creation of man until the end of the world... whether you believe in the Bible or not... it was spot on with that assumption.

[Nash B.]

Sure, there are capped wells but what is their production capability? We may not run dry, but we surely can't support ourselves. The average well in TX/OK may produce for a long time, but the flow rate is just not comparable with other parts of the world. You might get some in the 500-1000 BOPD range but they are not common.

Food for thought... average production (barrels per day per well):

United States: 10.1
The highest BOPD/well number the US has ever seen was 18.6 in 1970.

Saudi Arabia: 4073

In the end, the US only has 1.58% of the world's proven reserves. Technology and market fluctuations allow that "proven" number to adjust and move, but we're not going to make up the 15 million barrels per day gap between domestic production and consumption.

Get out of here with your numbers and logic and fancy ratios!

[Strychnine]

I don't buy that 1.58% for one second. Is this coming form the same people that said the world would run out of oil in 30 years 30 years ago?

No, that data is not from the "peak oil" crowd from decades past.

"Proven reserves" is not the same as "future supply."
Proven reserve refers to known oil that can be produced economically. Of all the oil in the world being econimically produced at this moment, <2% comes from the US.

That is not the same as EUR, or "estimated ultimately recoverable" oil. As price per barrel increases some of these deposits that are more costly to produce suddenly become viable, thus shifting some of the EUR and unconventional to proven.

Right now the middle east is holds somwhere around 55% of the proven reserves and ~40% of the ultimately recoverable reserves (Saudi Arabia ~16% EUR)

According to USGS (a bit more reliable than DOE, OPEC, etc), North America has approx 398 billion bbls of the world's 2.27 trillion bbl EUR... or 17.5% of the world's estimated ultimately recoverable oil. More than the 5.4% (North American total) proven we're working with now, but still low.

http://www.radford.edu/~wkovarik/oil/2worldoil.mideast.html

Yes the flow rates on our wells are lower but the quality of our oil is better than most of the OPEC oils. We have mostly light sweet crude like Lybia has which is turned into fuel. This is why there "1-2%" global supply is critical and is effecting the price of fuel so much.

I get what you're saying, but the Libyan situation is a spedbump. We should be looking longterm, and you just can't ignore the fact that we (we're talking about the US and our solutions) are not at the top of the oil producing food chain.
Having less sulfur content in the crude we bring up doesn't make up for the fact that our consumption outstrips our production by 300%.

There are 5 pump jacks across the road from my land in Oklahoma that have been pumping 24/7. My dad was born in 1945 and says that they where there long before he was, so they must be on top of a pretty deep well.

10 bbl/day * 66 years = ~241,000 bbls total.
That's around 50 days production of the avg Saudi well.

At some point you just can't make a well produce any quicker; you risk damaging the formation and killing the well entirely. The geology of areas of the US dictates that we just won't be able to support ourselves when we are consumning a full 1/4 of the world's oil.

The fact is until we loosen regulations on drilling and refining oil and come up with a long term "all of the above" energy police for this country we will be at the mercy of some towel head.

Very true.

[SMEGMA STENCH]

Whether you believe in a god or not has nothing to do with my post. The Bible talks about fighting in that area of the World from the creation of man until the end of the world... whether you believe in the Bible or not... it was spot on with that assumption.

Doesn't matter. It could have been dead right with an investment prediction in these times, but that dildo would insist it was dead wrong.

[AnthonyS]

We don't exactly have a majority of the world's oil reserves. The fact of the matter is, our easily exploitable oil sources are dwindling in the US. The, "drill here," crowd doesn't seem to grasp that we'd just be pounding sand. What we need is better exploitation of our coal and natural gas resources now, with the intention of getting to the next energy and raw materials technology.

Actually oil production in the US is on the rise for a first time in a very long time. The states where this new oil is being discovered have unemployment in the very low single digits too. The better news is that they are just beginning to scratch the surface of exploration and production in this area too.

Our real problem is the way we produced are fields during WWII to help the rest of the allies out. We raped our own assets to help the UK and Russia. In return we didn't even get a thank you for it.

The oil fields in Baku and Bulgaria also got raped during the war by the Russians and Germans.

Our best bet long term would be to develop our resources (reopen CA for one), develop deep drilling technology that is safe and effective, and make friends with our neighbors that have oil too.

We could also start buddying up to poor countries in Africa that have tons of oil too.

We have resources, we just have decided not to use them.

We've destroyed our economy in order to hold some "strategic" advantage. On top of that we've become a welfare state. These strategies are incompatible.