A buddy of mine sent this to me...pretty interesting. Watch Venezuela take a big ol' crap around MAR-2016. So much for their grand Socialism experiment...

Wow..

Watch Iran beginning circa 1978

Never seen it presented like that. Thanks for posting.

A few things that jumped out at me:

the resurgence of Saudi Arabia in the late 80s was after they brought in western oil companies to revitalize and expand their infrastructure. Some of the guys that trained me were part of that and had interesting stories.

pretty cool to see the Canucks take off like that due to tar sands

narcoterrorism, corruption, and incompetence made Mexico take almost as big of crash as the Vens

the Vens were doomed when they nationalized the oil fields. Very heavy and difficult to produce fields need the creativity and resourcefulness that only capitalism can provide.

good ‘ole American ingenuity developed fracking and put the US back on top. Also, big advances in seismic technology are playing a big part too since we can find a reservoir under a reservoir under a reservoir.

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Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

USA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very interesting. Making the USA great again, with oil production. The lefties should be limited to wind & solar.

If you had asked me who was a perennial leader/contender in oil production I would have never thought Russia!

HK Ag

amazing is the jump from 30 Million to over 85 million barrels a day in production from the 60's to present...

Very neat! Thanks for sharing!

Here is the link to the UTOOB video if you want it.

Top 15 Oil Producing Countries.

quote:

Originally posted by HK Ag:
If you had asked me who was a perennial leader/contender in oil production I would have never thought Russia!

HK Ag

There's a huge amount of natural resources in Russia. One problem is their inexperience in mining those resources.

quote:

There's a huge amount of natural resources in Russia. One problem is their inexperience in mining those resources.

Inexperience is not the problem. Corruption & greed is the problem which limits the monetary resource allocation. Putin & his chosen oligarchs control those resources.

Current oil reserves surprised me. Look what Venezuela could be with a competent government! Few people understand that oil reserves are directly related to the cost of exploration & production vs market price.

https://www.worldatlas.com/art...rves-by-country.html

Very cool, thanks for posting.

That is 2016, someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe USA is now the #1 oil producer in the world. I truly believe our original intent was to use up all the oil in the middle east so that their reserves plummet and eventually we will have most of the oil and the ability to control prices, etc. Again just my opinion. God Bless

Drill baby drill.
Remember when the Democrats said it would be decades before any of that came online?
I guess they don't understand capitalism any more than they understand crime and personal motivation.

The only problem is, we (the USA) should have been building refineries out the wazoo for the past 20 years. But then again, look who was in charge for just about half that time. That's been the kick in the gonads with respect to gas prices...from what I've been told. This country doesn't have the refining capability it needs to keep up with demand. By design?? Maybe??

quote:

Originally posted by erj_pilot:
The only problem is, we (the USA) should have been building refineries out the wazoo for the past 20 years. But then again, look who was in charge for just about half that time. That's been the kick in the gonads with respect to gas prices...from what I've been told. This country doesn't have the refining capability it needs to keep up with demand. By design?? Maybe??

stick to flying planes and listen to more knowledgeable people

Gas prices are low w/o inflation and extremely low w/ inflation. If refining capacity was not keeping up with demand we'd have $4+ per gallon in Houston and other parts of the country would be even higher.

PADD 1C is the part of the country that needs a refinery (I'm not counting the asphalt plant in Georgia) the most, and it's not because of total US refining capacity. The reason I say they need one (my pick would be Georgia) is that they're totally at the mercy of natural and manmade disasters between them and the Gulf Coast. In fact, the furthest south refinery in PADD 1 is in Delaware City, Delaware.

Interesting map, TaterTodd. Never knew that New Mexico was a Gulf state.

So if refineries are not the issue, what's the issue with keeping fuel prices below the marks that we saw in Obama era years? Is increased US production the only solution to getting the gas costs where we want them? Seems I was told paying US wages to get to our reserves would cost us more than importing it. True or no?

Inquiring minds and all that...

quote:

Originally posted by slabsides45:
Interesting map, TaterTodd. Never knew that New Mexico was a Gulf state.

Trying to find logic in government deisions (in this case PADD regions) is a fool's errand. Many years ago, I gave up trying to figure out what they are/were "thinking."

quote:

Originally posted by slabsides45:
So if refineries are not the issue, what's the issue with keeping fuel prices below the marks that we saw in Obama era years?

First, we have to address this flawed premise. US gasoline pricing has been much better under Trump (odd since usually when the US economy hits the accelerator gasoline demand increases and gasoline prices increase)

quote:

Originally posted by slabsides45:
Is increased US production the only solution to getting the gas costs where we want them? Seems I was told paying US wages to get to our reserves would cost us more than importing it. True or no?

Inquiring minds and all that...

In the 90s, US refineries began switching from lighter crude slates (e.g. WTI) to heavier crude slates like Venezuela and Mexico produce. After tar sands took off in Canada, pipelines were reversed and new ones built to get the heavy crude to US refineries. The Canadian crudes were nice in that they don't come via supertanker so less weather impacts (i.e. increased reliability) on refineries receiving their crude oil. Unlike refined products (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, etc), crude oil is not fungible. If a refinery is set up for light crudes, it'll shit the bed on a heavy crude slate. If a refinery is set-up for a heavy crudes, it'll shit the bed on a light crude slate. For a generation, Americans have been having low gasoline prices due to the refineries being set-up for heavy crudes which were cost advantaged.

About 10 years ago, fracking took off in many areas that had previously been played out and those areas had lighter crude oil. A few years back, due to advances in seismic technology they discovered the Delaware Basin in West Texas under the nearly played out Permian Basin, and the Delaware Basin has massive light crude reserves. About 18 months ago, due to more advances in seismic technology they found another basin under the Delaware Basin.

When I joined the industry a little over 25 years ago, I never thought I'd see Brent trading for $4 more a barrel than the lighter WTI. Right now, the best thing for these lighter crude oils is to export them and use the cash flow to keep developing the Delaware Basin. As more and more production comes on-line the lighter crudes are becoming cost advantaged and the last year or two we're seeing the Gulf Coast refineries spend billions putting in capacity to refine lighter crudes. Truly the free market at work and hopefully the government keeps their noses out of it.

One helpful thing the Trump administration could do, is the NEPA process (multi-agency environmental permitting process typically lead by EPA, FERC, or Corps of Engineers depending on the type of O&G project and location of project) by law is supposed to take 36 months or less. Under the 0bama administration, the 36 months was greatly extended as agencies were emboldened to not follow laws. Trump's administration could really help the free market (in this case refineries build light crude oil refining capacity) by holding the federal agencies feet to the proverbial fire and insist on everything being 36 months or less.

As my disclaimer says, these are my opinions and not my employers.

Tatortodd rocks it again. Thanks for the insight. Very informative.