Love Those Low Oil Prices?

And what happening to alternative energy development?

Not much with cheap oil.

The bigger question is what is happening to all the cash that Joe 6-pack and you and I paid for the petrol we had to buy to get to work.

It was not reinvested! It's in some foreign bank or a sheltered investment leaving us with The Scariest Number For The Oil Industry: ...

Who will pay the debt? Yep! We will.

The view is only clear if you are at the top of the food chain.

Oil IMHO is only a small part of the big picture.

One tries to feed us that we have a new 2008- like crisis coming.

I rather draw a parallel to the 1989- 1991 period where the goal was to bring down the CCCP (USSR) and with success. The controlled oil price by Saud was the last nail for the coffin of the Soviets, whose economy relied on 70% export of their oil.

This trick is being replayed now, only Russia now, according to the latest info has the oil contributing for only 13%.

The strategy doesn't seem to work this time.

While everyone is suffering and paying a high price in this game, the end result is not that obvious yet for the "controlling" powers. This is the dirtiest game ever.

I hope the madness will end soon, because only the strong will survive (economically).

The problems should be solved for the benefit of all the people?

http://www.tvraaca.org/texacoi.htm

Your partially correct,.... The USSR oil revenues were down, which aided in the collapse. But it only aided, the USSR collapse was imminent. And the verbirations started back in 1980's actually the 70's with internal infrastructure problems.

With no bread on the shelves, yet grain rotted in storage. It rotted the storage it had was filled with grain. They could not move the grain to the mills.

There was a lot more missing than bread on the shelves. We (will soon) see a similar scenario in Ukraine. It is just no perestroika this time but a maidan. We see Russia had a strong recovery, that we have not anticipated.

If you analyze who/what was behind all the wars against then: Napoleon, revolution, WW's etc. This is going on now for hundreds of years.

A strong currency is destructive, in the first place for ourselves, especially when the trading balance is negative.

bread lines was an example.... staples as a whole. Russia had a high producing bread basket in their grain belt, that production could be equivalent to the United States. But not paying the right people off, and the fraud. The grain that was harvested rotted.

There was quite a bit of corruption in the USSR, but at least the corruption to a certain extent was 'controlled'. Not its just a mob.

And a lot of the fraud is similar to the politic we have here in the United States, if a foreign government would like a favor, just donate to a charity and the state department will make it happen.

Say what you will, I'm loving lower prices...I guess you refuse to shop in Walmart because they have lower prices,,,opt instead for a 7/11...? Shop at the most expensive stores? So the money not spent on oil will go someplace else...More people will be able to afford insurance and getting their cars fixed, and food, and heating oil, and new clothes, and baby food and diapers...I guess you're against EV's and hybrids that use less oil, and high mileage hatchbacks....You want somebody to feel sorry for the drillers that ruin the landscape and poison the environment, good luck with that...

Nothing more than selfish short sightedness.

There has to be a balance here. Where there is no balance only the strong will survive, which is not always a good thing.. The strong is Big Oil. Remember it was not all big oil that gave us low prices now.

We need the small independent oil company's to keep big oil honest, otherwise, big oil will have your pants down and the only thing left for you to say is, "Thank you, may I have another."....

Being in Texas and in the steel industry, our sales are 50% of what they were two years ago. We laid off 50% of our workforce and every day is a fight to keep the company alive.

ahh, texasron, you just beat me to reinforceing my post on the effects.

Welcome to the club. That happens among all industries all the time. It's called life.

Sometimes it's just the business cycle, sometimes it's a major event like the U S steel industry collapsing back in the early 1970s.

As an example, trucking companies have been struggling for years to maintain a profit amid the ever-rising price of fuel. Shipping costs for everything have gone up (food, clothes, building materials...), with those prices passed on to the consumer. With lower fuel prices, the trucking industry is finally getting it's break.

as long as they're not shipping to/from oil company's. that's mean.....

I believe I mentioned this on another post. The domino effect can be overwhelming. When you look ant the tertiary companies they supply the oil companies, they are ailing.

And to get a finicial health on these companies, just look at the stock market software (*etrade and the like) they have the financials that these companies are suffering.

Now there was a time, can't recall where I read it. But it was an analyst that looked at the effect a manufacturing company has in the area. And it went something like this, For every person a manufacturing company employs, there are 7 people employed by tertiary companies.

This can be material suppliers, tool suppliers, grocery stores, home improvement stores, ect... this list go on.

So yes, I agree, this has to stabilize, or no good will become of this.

A study done at Boeing in the mid 80s said it was a 10 to 1 ratio. During a massive layoff i remember a sign as you exited Seattle which read "will the last person leaving please turn the lights off".

I am thinking of the big picture. Energy is not getting cheaper to find and we need a significant source of energy to support our modern economy. When energy does become expensive again it is going to be an even bigger blow. You think the oil industry is hurting now? Imagine all the manufacturing companies that have energy as a significant part of their budget and what will happen to them when it gets expensive again. I forsee it will get expensive with a sharp incline that will shutter many factories leading to a bigger economic crisis.

Drew K

We still have plenty of coal.

And there is trainloads of petcoke being shipped to Mexico where it is burned in power plants. They sell it at a minimal profit there because the EPA would prefer that the pollutants from the petcoke come across the border in the atmosphere instead of being burned in more efficient cleaner power plants in the U.S.

I also foresee a time when coal is king again; once all the easy oil has been squeezed out through fracking coal gasification and jet fuel from coal will gain in popularity. As will wood gasifiers and possibly steam engines will finally be developed and vehicles will run on heat instead of expanding gasses from combustion (remember, heat can be recovered and used to improve efficiency where turbines are the only way I see to use modern internal combustion engines waste.

Drew K

So very true. The energy market, like all markets will adapt to the situation at hand and it will continue to evolve. People have thought that market will simply follow an ordained path, but technologies have a way of disrupting that. I never thought I would see gasoline for $1.60 per gallon after the 2008 crash. I figured we were $3-4 gallon and up forever. Easy to be wrong.

a lot of that high pricing was due to our refineries capability... They were out dated and running at capacity with no plans to build new ones....

that had significant plus's,... easily control the supply, and blame the effort it took to get the environment impact permits it would cause for a new refinery..

If the bean counters are paying attention, they will be pooling some of the windfall they are getting. After the other shoe falls they will have a better chance to stay healthy.

I definitely love the lower gas prices. Filling up the old SUV isn't so bad anymore.

Road trip!

While a few are celebrating the low oil prices, the saying comes to mind.

When your neighbor is out of work, that's a recession, but when you're out of work, that's a depression.

When the effects of the lower oil prices hits closer to home to those that are celebrating, I'll still feel bad for them.

Crude Oil Prices Are Making It Tough on Recyclers

Sometimes if you factor in the savings from spending less on landfill costs, it still makes cents to recycle. Our county here in Maryland would probably still pull the plastic even if they got zero for it. If not, we should ship that plastic to a Wheelabrator facility and burn it to make electricity.

If she weighs less than a duck . . .