Crude Oil

There is, or used to be, a tax break called "oil depletion allowance." Times change, so maybe some clever lobbyist can dream up an "oil repletion allowance" instead.

You heard it here first....

Fredski, is that you?

This price collapse is good for all of us who drive big V-8 gas guzzlers, and everyone who is poor. (I didn't win the Powerball either)

But that comes with a long term price in the form of more business failures, unemployment, less disposable income, more drains on government resources and a general drag on the economy.

Be careful what you wish for.

V8.. PSHHH... I drive a V10!

It feels like it has less power than the V8's but makes up for it with the fuel milage of big rig truck 10 times its mass!

I tell ya you just can't buy that sort of engineering overseas!

I drive an in-line six (sometimes) It only has 340 HP ( and 800 lb-ft of torque)

We get about 7.5 - 8.5 miles per gallon.

This price collapse is good for all of us who drive big V-8 gas guzzlers

Not all who do. The price collapse is hurting the small time oil producers (stripper well fields where the wells produce 10 bbl per week or less) and drillers in NW Pa big time, and I know they all drive 15 year old 4 wheel drive pick-ups. Been there with them, but got out in the last major price drop.

Nothing lasts forever.

I make less than 50% of the salary I made in the good old days. In six months I'm retiring and then I'll be living in relative poverty.

We've all had to adjust and these guys will too.

In inflation adjusted dollars, I've never come close to making what I made in 1985 as a well logger (analyst), my highest paid year in the oil field. My wife and I together are just about making that, and she is paid 1.6 times what I make. So, I'm making 45% of what I did then.

Even working for small time operators and a second class well logging company, the work in the oil field paid very well. These rough neck and riggers for the small timers will never get close to what they were getting just a few years ago, if oil doesn't come back up.

I personally know what shape they are in financially, because I was there. I guarantee they have spent what they made to help ease the pain of working way too many hours per week in not very good conditions.

So now we all are hurting from this. That's a big hit to the retailers around here when the oil field can't spend anymore.

Then there is the oil field suppliers. Hoover had just opened a local store when the drop came, and I am watching their stock of tanks and jacks and not seeing any being sold.

Yeah, cheap gas is great if you live in Arizona, but not so good if you live in NW Pa, NE Ohio, southern WVa, ND, Texas, Oklahoma, NW Kentucky, SE Illinois, and I'm sure I've missed a lot of other places taking a financial hit.

"Yeah, cheap gas is great if you live in Arizona, but not so good if you live in NW Pa, NE Ohio, southern WVa, ND, Texas, Oklahoma, NW Kentucky, SE Illinois, and I'm sure I've missed a lot of other places taking a financial hit."

I would not worry too much about ND. Drilling and fraccing may have slowed down but we are still putting a pile of money and work into oil field and general infrastructure so when things pick up all we have to do is open some valves and flip some switches and we will be back up and running again!

My brother did logging for Schlumberger for almost 10 years. Rough work, good pay.

Fact is oil field workers are going to have to adapt. They aren't making any more oil and sooner or later they may figure out that fracking is doing more long term damage to the earth that can't be repaired. Regardless of propaganda to the contrary, it is certainly contaminating ground water.

By the time it is recognized/admitted and finally stopped, big oil and tcmtech will already have made their money.

I actually realize that. I watch the stock market, and the tertiary support industry to oil has taken a huge hit. Not to mention the mom and pop operations. This will have a ripple effect.

And I stand by what I said, the only one that will survive is big oil.

I agree, the survivors will be big oil. Enjoy it while you can.

And then there is this...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-10/billions-of-barrels-of-oil-vanish-in-a-puff-of-accounting-smoke

About a month old, but the economics will hit with 10k Reports that will publish in Feb./Mar.

It's just moving money around, money that would have been spent on gas will be spent on something else...Goods and services....we can finally get some of these Cavaliers back on the road haha...People want to make a big deal out it, but it's really just a pshole in the snow for the average Joe....The main effect will be to reduce income to nations that depend on the oil money to run their oligarchy.....

http://www.vox.com/2014/10/14/6975977/which-countries-suffer-most-when-oil-prices-plummet

Maybe the day will come when we can tell the whole middle east to just go rape a camel.

Resource and technology wise we could easily do that now.

It's the politics/politicians and their buddies that are the problem.

It's the money they are being paid by big oil. Let's see, who did you just work for?

Big oil.

Maybe camels are even better than sheep.

Ooh, even llamas, alpacas, and vicunas would surely be seduced by that.

Here's a clue: no-one wants it any more.

All i know is it is killing the steel industry. We haven't produced any heavy bases for off shore drilling rigs in over 2 years.

On the Haliburton issue - have you ever worked in the oil field? I assume not. I did for 11 years, and when a customer said to do something, you did it, or the competition was called in immediately to replace you. And, yes, Haliburton does have competition, and I do realize that in this one case, an immediate replacement may not have been feasible, but on the next well, the competitor would be there. You are blaming Haliburton for what was most likely one of their engineers, or group of engineers in the field protecting his/their own job. Oil field service companies ALWAYS please the customer in order to survive. For the employee, the pay is so great you do not ever want to lose your job. As a controls engineer with 28 years experience, I currently make around 45 to 60% of any year I was in the oil field, in inflation corrected dollars. In straight unadjusted dollar to dollar comparison, my pay did not meet my 1985 pay for oil field service work until 2010. So don't be too harsh on the field engineers involved in this.`

As a service company engineer, I "tweaked" many well logs (well analysis tool recordings) to make it what the customer wanted, because if I didn't, another logging company would be there ASAP, and my superiors would have me replaced as well.The only time I refused was on a diameter measurement of a disposal well for a chemical company where my 60" long arms went totally horizontal in a limestone section. Definite proof they hadn't neutralized the disposal fluids. I survived that only because management did not want the total truth coming out in a lawsuit over unfair firing. (yes - I kept a copy of that log just in case) However, the base manager did redraw this log for the customer so that the well looked to be only 8" in diameter. I did get moved on to a less favorable base and never had any advancement after that.

This all said, I agree with BP footing the entire responsibility on their own. The end customer calls the shots in the oil field.

We call them "The Company Man"

Yes indeed. You sell your life and soul to the oil field for the promise of a hefty pay check. Eventually, you wear out and have to find a normal job. A few pay checks from normal engineering work, and your wife goes out and finds a job too. The oil field is one work place left where the wife can sit at home and be June Clever.