[Balding_Eagle]

BUT ... we have already passed the point where the oil can be pumped *cheaply* at a rate to satisfy the world. Incremental new oil is getting more and more expensive.

Yes we have.

That occured about 1925. It's become increasingly expensive to recover the worlds oil since that time.

The world is awash in oil, but by 1940 the expense to recover it began to place a drag on the use of oil.

Just imagine where we as a nation would be if only the oil price was still the same as it was in 1905.

[WOSG]

Good point. Oil was never cheaper than when 1903 spindletop strike happen.

Actually, what I was referring to specifically is that part of oil flow is now Canada’s oil sands. The cheap oil price ($10/barrel) that we had in the 1990s wont come back, because the marginal-last-barrel of oil costs about $30/barrel. If oil goes that low, they wont extract/mine that. That plus OPEC’s control keeps a floor on oil, probably in the $30-40/barrel range. This is different from the past, where exploration cost money, but pumping was cheap.

JMHO.