The retreat of ‘peak oil’

nat review ^ | 6/14/15 | Robert J. Samuelson

[mountainlion]

Then we won’t get that last barrel...

That’s why I said it would cost a Billion dollars if they could find a buyer.

[Paladin2]

I was thinking more of Saudi Arabia’s reservoirs of yet unpumped crude that are supposed able to easily pump oil at a higher rate than they are currently plumbed for.

[thackney]

There are a number of old oil fields which serve in some capacity as storage for the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

All of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve are salt dome caverns. They are man-made caverns in salt domes. There are multiple caverns at each of the four sites.

The connections to each cavern are made above ground at a wellhead. The facilities are then connected to multiple pipelines and loading docks.

http://energy.gov/fe/services/petroleum-reserves/strategic-petroleum-reserve/spr-storage-sites

[Durus]

I didn't predict a crash, what I said was they increased storage to prevent a crash. Now that reserves are being diminished at slightly greater than replacement levels it indicates that companies feel that they have it under control. Oil is a completely controlled market so we aren't ever likely to see a crash until some sort of viable replacement is found. At least the myth of "peak oil" is slowly eroding.

I don't see a "recovery" to $140bbl. We simply have too much oil to justify the increase and market manipulation can only do so much. It is the nature of commodities to slowly decrease in price. Only because oil is treated like a nonrenewable resource and is highly regulated has allowed it to buck this trend.

Idiotic television aside I'm a strong advocate for cold beer and air conditioning.

[thackney]

Saudi Arabia’s reservoirs of yet unpumped crude that are supposed able to easily pump oil at a higher rate than they are currently plumbed for.

I think that is often overestimated. Hard to believe when oil was back up above $100 they wouldn't pump more then if it was easy to turn on like a storage tank.

[bestintxas]

Yep, and those salt domes has oil somewhere on their flanks.

The areas used for SPR were leached out with fresh water to create cavities