Could fracking change the world? Relevence to our owners?

[Skashion]

I'm sure Sheikh Mansour is shitting himself.

 

[Mikeegrini]

I didn't say $70 per barrel was simply the cost of getting out of the ground ...it's what is called the break even or gate cost of oil (this is all processes from extraction to refining). You then have some additional variables that can't be easily quantified generically, these are building the infrastructure to extract (the shale reserves could be sitting under a city for example making extration vastly more complex and thus expensive) and the ongoing fluctuations in energy costs.

In the absense of any alternative to oil good old fashion supply and demand dictates that the market will support whatever price the producers need.

Isn't that the gist of the article though in the future there may well be an alternative?

You mention shale oil. I thought that was produced by open cast mining and the bigger costs are extraction of the oil from the shale and the returning of the environment to its original state?

That only remains viable while the cost of a barrel of oil are high.

Why are you using the cost of that as an example of the economies of oil and gas production from fracking?

No expert here I just looking understand?

The article was about shale oil and the title of this thread included "relevence to our owners", the point I was making to Chris's question is that shale oil needs a high per barrel price to make it viable (for whatever reasons) as such this means that oil will not suddenly become "cheap" it will remain at a relatively high price thus the impact to our owners is muted...the standard of living for residents of the middle east isn't likely to suddenly change and bring with it revolution as a result of shale oil.

Will the US withdraw military from the region? Unlikely IMO they won't want the Russians or Chinese in there doing the policemans job on account of a distinct lack of trust of either of them on the part of the Americans.

Thanks for the reply.

My confusion appears to come from the term ''shale oil'' and my lack of understanding that apparently shale oil can be drilled for or fracked. I had thought that the only way to extract oil from shale was by digging it out and then processing it but that appears to be shale sand.

From the article.

''The US is the home to vast shale oil and gas deposits made commercially viable by improvements to a 200-year-old technique called fracking and by the relentlessly high cost of crude.

Exploitation of fields in Appalachian states such as West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and further west in North Dakota, have transformed the US's energy outlook pretty much overnight. Professor Dieter Helm, an energy expert at Oxford University, said: "In the US, shale gas didn't exist in 2004. Now it represents 30% of the market."

The author changes terminology from energy, to shale oil, to shale gas, which also didn't help.

Cheers

 

[MCFCTrick]

I'm sure Sheikh Mansour is shitting himself.

Lol, am I wrong in thinking that though his family wealth certainly originated in oil, his huge wealth now is mostly through property and other interests?

 

[yankblue]

Fracking is still a bit controversial to say the least. I live in Pennsylvania (in the eastern part) but they do a good bit of fracking in the west of the state in the mountains and more rural areas. It has upset a lot of people because of damage to the environment and contamination of people's water supplies. There was a pretty negative documentary that came out about it only a year or two ago, it's worth the watch if you have any interest in the subject. It's called "gasland" I believe.

 

[metalblue]

Isn't that the gist of the article though in the future there may well be an alternative?

You mention shale oil. I thought that was produced by open cast mining and the bigger costs are extraction of the oil from the shale and the returning of the environment to its original state?

That only remains viable while the cost of a barrel of oil are high.

Why are you using the cost of that as an example of the economies of oil and gas production from fracking?

No expert here I just looking understand?

The article was about shale oil and the title of this thread included "relevence to our owners", the point I was making to Chris's question is that shale oil needs a high per barrel price to make it viable (for whatever reasons) as such this means that oil will not suddenly become "cheap" it will remain at a relatively high price thus the impact to our owners is muted...the standard of living for residents of the middle east isn't likely to suddenly change and bring with it revolution as a result of shale oil.

Will the US withdraw military from the region? Unlikely IMO they won't want the Russians or Chinese in there doing the policemans job on account of a distinct lack of trust of either of them on the part of the Americans.

Thanks for the reply.

My confusion appears to come from the term ''shale oil'' and my lack of understanding that apparently shale oil can be drilled for or fracked. I had thought that the only way to extract oil from shale was by digging it out and then processing it but that appears to be shale sand.

From the article.

''The US is the home to vast shale oil and gas deposits made commercially viable by improvements to a 200-year-old technique called fracking and by the relentlessly high cost of crude.

Exploitation of fields in Appalachian states such as West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and further west in North Dakota, have transformed the US's energy outlook pretty much overnight. Professor Dieter Helm, an energy expert at Oxford University, said: "In the US, shale gas didn't exist in 2004. Now it represents 30% of the market."

The author changes terminology from energy, to shale oil, to shale gas, which also didn't help.

Cheers

What I do like mate is the fact that some "poorer" countries should be able to benefit - obviously corruption and resource rape permitting.

 

[Anonymous]

I think i'm goin' frackers after readin' that !

 

[TCIB]

They have used the wealth fund very well and have their fingers in every pie going.

If you mean financially will it affect them, no as all the excess cash will be in banking and who knows what else.
Far away from what has currently made them so rich imo.

I think this was basically the idea behind the fund and to not just have vast sums of hard currency lying around.

 

[City Raider]

my god what is wrong with me, my first thought was the impact on our owners, not the implications for the planet/us! :)

 

[Damocles]

Shashank Joshi, a fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, said: "The Gulf Arab political order for almost the entire post-war period has depended on US interest in the region.

"The monarchies endured for so long not because of any sort of popular legitimacy but because they could depend on enormous external support. Those regimes, which have already had to deal with a high degree of domestic mobilisation will come under unbearable stress and they cannot survive without the technical advantage of western weapons."

Not sure I agree with this. Many monarchies survive the popular revolution, you only have to look at ourselves and in particularly the Japanese to see this. Keeping your monarchy and running a constitutional government is a sensible revolution. Removing the monarchy gives the resistance to the new government a cultural figurehead to stand behind and put up posters of, to seem more legitimate. Secondly, there's a traditional route in the Arab nations and the Islamic religion that kings such as Abdullah II of Jordan actually descend (or claim to in varying degrees) from the prophet Mohammed, so slaughtering one of Mohammed's grandkids probably isn't in the best interests of the Muslim world. Thirdly, you get to keep all of the organisational structures currently in place and get to appeal to a national heritage that stretches back hundreds of generations and binds the people together into a more cohesive society. The King's supporters feel that the changes are ok because otherwise the King wouldn't be involved and their detractors say they have no real power and he's a puppet so everybody wins. You have both an appeal to history and an appeal to the modern.

Most of the revolutions that have displaced a monarch have ended badly. The French gave us Napoleon, the Germans gave us (eventually) Hitler**, keeping a monarch is pretty vital as a transitional period post-revolution and I'm pretty sure that these revolutionaries are smart enough to figure that out on their own. External support may hold off the actual power in the country which I accept but this person seems to have majorly overstated the US influence on the region (compare that influence to say, the influence of the Islamic texts, and see which has the greater), and seems to have said that these monarchs only exist due to the US, which is a pretty US-centric way of viewing events.