[familyop]

"imho, oil/gas related economic activity will keep the economy from going negative. But that’s all happening mid continent —away from the coasts."

That's good to know, because demands might be higher in the near future. It might be a good idea for field managers and employees in northern and higher elevation areas to prepare for possibly greater cold fluctuations rougly between 3 and 9 years from now with further adjustments in clothing, equipment (e.g., propane pressure drops, bury-able tanks or heat tape blankets, antifreeze mix better than 50/50 and lighter oil in vehicles) and heating systems (polyisocyanurate insulation only on outsides of travel trailers--not insides, actively vented catalytic heaters with thermostats,...). Those measures might cut future costs and raise morale whether we see unusual weather events or not.

[ckilmer]

for possibly greater cold fluctuations rougly between 3 and 9 years from now with further adjustments in clothing,
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US oil production this year and next will go up a million barrels@ day and so far predictions are for 500k barrel @ day increases for 2016-2020. I don’t think this will break the price of oil because demand for oil is high and going higher overseas. The USA and Canada are the only producers increasing oil production. Everywhere else in the world is flat to down.

but sometime after 2020 likely increasing use of natural gas trains trucks cars and buildings —plus electric cars if Tesla forces the worlds car companies to shift production to electric cars as seems more and more likely given the intense talk in the automobile industry — ... these will suck out the demand for oil so that by 2030 oil prices will be about 1/3 of what they are today. or about $35@ barrel which on a btu basis is where natural gas and coal are today — and where oil was from 1940-1970 ... priced in 2014 dollars.