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The Shadows of the Epic Quest for Oil

Posted on 01/14/2011 6:48:19 AM PST by Arman Z. Calbay

Do you like to read tales of chivalry? I guess many like to, especially if you are young. Published exactly 20 years ago, Daniel Yergin’s book, "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power" is one in particular. It is about the chivalrous time of the oil industry.

But what was not told on last pages of the book is that chivalrous time has come to the end. The next 20 years became a time when a new age in the oil business was beginning.

Big Oil now is huge, complex organized corporations, not yielding to state machinery in the amount of instructions and internal rules. They are similar to Standard Oil of 100 years ago, but only in size. As for the rest, however, you will find only differences. John Rockefeller’s spirit would not find a place in today’s oil corporations.

There have been no brilliant characters for a long time, unfortunately. But one should not see any tragedy in it. It is quite a natural process. It is like a mature man grows up from the maximalism of youth and begins to submit to rules made by himself. The oil business has become more boring, but its influence hardly has decreased, rather vice versa.

One can say there are always two large ages in the existence of any industry – heroic and next technologic. For instance, the IT revolution requires that companies in this industry develop as fast as possible and risk is a necessary component for development and expansion. Therefore, society needs such individuals as Bill Gates and Sergey Brin. They are the knights and heroes of the IT industry.

But some time in future, when the IT industry reaches a mature age, such brilliant characters will quit the scene and their place will be occupied by org-men in grey suits.

It has already happened in the oil industry. The era before the oil shocks of the 1970s was a time of chivalry in this business. Independent petroleum producers and petroleum kings used to act at their own risk and it was complicated to foresee how to turn the pace of events as an outcome of a joust. There was too much chance and external influences.

Therefore, there were so many knights in this field. From John Rockefeller to Paul Getty, everybody played his own game and, what is amazing, achieved success. Now this is impossible. There are no oil industry knights and there will not be.

Instead of them it will be the hired CEOs of the oil corporations, who know the business well, but they never act based on their own wishes and thoughts. They see themselves only in the corporation’s array, with all its regulations and corporate policy. The array of the corporations is mighty and uniform, and nobody leaves it for the joust.

Formerly John Rockefeller and Marcus Samuel used to treat written rules with contempt. They established huge corporations and made a fortune trampling on the rules and following their internal instincts. Once Paul Getty was driving personally throughout the oil fields of Oklahoma establishing his company; however, now the history of oil is written not in a dust-laden jeep, but in the well-furnished offices of oil top managers and governmental officials.

But do not pine for bygone days. The oil business has finally proceeded from the heroic age to the technologic one. Its description now is a language of specifications and technological terms. It has not become less interesting because of this. However, its style has changed. Now it is described in Arthur Hailey’s style, but not Byron's.

And this age of oil industry technologization will continue not for a couple of decades. It has come for a time at least no less than the industry exists. You know mass oil production has existed the last 150 years.

Taking into account that oil reserves are hardly enough for more than 150 years, then the technologic age of the oil industry definitely will last until the end of its existence.

Although the present, more organized time of the oil industry will no longer advance, as before, individual heroes, it still requires attention and stories about it. It is more predictable and much more rigid schemes function in it, and, therefore, it is easier to describe to a researcher.

However, governments as well as oil businessmen have to know about its laws and rules. At that, now even to a greater degree than 50 years ago, because at present an ability to follow the common lead is appreciated. Individualists, who spit on common opinion and try to swim alone, now expect depressing floundering in shallow water. Whereas 50 years ago, such a man would become billionaire. Paul Getty now would be a petty entrepreneur, who would possess ten wells, and that would be all.

There is also another side. Now society does not need the former oil corporations. When an industry is just beginning to develop, and expansion is the exact word to characterize it, then urgency and pathfinders’ disposition to risk are the best thing for the rising industry. When the growth limits have been reached and the only thing remaining is how to organize it, then risk has become unwanted. The internal feeling has emerged in the society that oil corporations have to become predictable and socially responsible. This in particular is occurring now.

Therefore it is time to begin writing the history of a changed oil industry. A number of books in Daniel Yergin’s style were published in the last decade and even the tools were similar. But what is actually needed is a new understanding of the oil business. You know it will remain among the first priorities of world policy for a long time.


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: danielyergin; energy; oil; vanity

1 posted on 01/14/2011 6:48:23 AM PST by Arman Z. Calbay
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To: Arman Z. Calbay

Do you have a link for this, or is this your own writing?


2 posted on 01/14/2011 6:55:15 AM PST by Admin Moderator
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To: Arman Z. Calbay
Was this translated from a foreign language?
3 posted on 01/14/2011 6:56:32 AM PST by Durus (The distance between us has grown, and I struggle to quantify it. Windage adjustments are done.)
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To: Arman Z. Calbay

Subject: Oil

About 6 months ago, the writer was watching a news program on oil and one of the Forbes Bros. was the guest.. The host said to Forbes, “I am going to ask you a direct question and I would like a direct answer; “How much oil does the U.S. have in the ground?” Forbes did not miss a beat, he said, “More than all the Middle East put together.” Please read below.

The U. S. Geological Service issued a report in April 2008 that only scientists and oil men knew was coming, but man was it big. It was a revised report (hadn’t been updated since 1995) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota, western South Dakota, and extreme eastern Montana ..... check THIS out:

The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska ‘s Prudhoe Bay, and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable... at $107 a barrel, we’re looking at a resource base worth more than $5..3 trillion..

“When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea..” says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature’s financial analyst.

“This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years,” reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette . It’s a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the ‘Bakken.’ It stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada. For years, U. S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end. Even the ‘Big Oil’ companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago. However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken’s massive reserves..... and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL!

That’s enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 2041 years straight. And if THAT didn’t throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it’s from 2006!

U. S. Oil Discovery - Largest Reserve in the World

Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006

Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world. It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. In three and a half years of high oil prices none has been extracted. With this motherload of oil why are we still fighting over off-shore drilling?

They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth.. Here are the official estimates:

- 8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia

- 18-times as much oil as Iraq

-21-times as much oil as Kuwait

- 22-times as much oil as Iran

- 500-times as much oil as Yemen

- and it’s all right here in the Western United States .

HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this? Because the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil! Again, we are letting a small group of people dictate our lives and our economy.....WHY?

James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we’ve got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East - more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped. That’s more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post .

Don’t think ‘OPEC’ will drop its price - even with this find? Think again! It’s all about the competitive marketplace, - it has to. Think OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists?

Got your attention yet? Now, while you’re thinking about it, do this:

Pass this along. If you don’t take a little time to do this, then you should stifle yourself the next time you complain about gas prices - by doing NOTHING, you forfeit your right to complain.

Now I just wonder what would happen in this country if every one of you sent this to everyone in your address book.

By the way...this is all true. Check it out at the link below!!!
GOOGLE it, or follow this link. It will blow your mind.

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911


4 posted on 01/14/2011 6:57:48 AM PST by Ev Reeman
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To: Arman Z. Calbay

BP Explosion Led to ‘Oil Spill Hysteria’
President Barack Obama in June called the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico “the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.”
The media also sounded the alarm, with the Washington Post repeatedly referring to the “catastrophic oil spill” resulting from the drilling rig explosion and Time magazine warning that ocean currents could carry the oil to the beaches on Florida’s east coast.
Reacting to the BP spill, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in December canceled previous plans for expanded offshore drilling that could have provided thousands of jobs and reduced America’s reliance on foreign oil.
But a new report asserts that the Gulf in fact suffered “remarkably little damage” from oil spewing into the water from April 20 to July 15, when the leaking Deepwater Horizon well was capped.
“Indeed, the greatest significance of the Gulf spill lies not in its ecological effects, but rather in the outbreak of social hysteria that it occasioned,” Robert H. Nelson writes in The Weekly Standard.
Nelson is a professor of environmental policy at the University of Maryland who has worked with the U.S. Department of the Interior. His latest book is “The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion vs. Environmental Religion in Contemporary America.”
In his Weekly Standard article headlined “Oil Spill Hysteria,” Nelson discloses:
• By mid-August, a month after the well was capped, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was having trouble finding spilled oil.
• Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that the half-life of much of the leaking oil was about three days, meaning that more than 90 percent would have disappeared in 12 days.
• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported in November that 2,263 oil-soiled bird remains had been collected in the Gulf, compared to the 225,000 birds killed by the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989.
• Only 18 dead oil-soiled turtles were found, and no other reptile deaths were recorded.
• Just four oil-soiled mammals, including dolphins, were found dead in the Gulf region, compared to the more than 1,000 sea otters alone that died in the Alaska spill.
• Government agencies could not find any evidence of dead fish resulting from the Gulf spill, or any evidence of contamination in live fish. In fact, the closure of large areas of the Gulf to fishing due to the spill has resulted in a surprising increase in the fish population, marine biologists found.
• By early November, “heavy oil” on Gulf beaches remained on only 30 miles of the 580 miles where oil had come ashore.
Most of the blame for the “hysteria” lies with the media, according to Nelson.
“Hysterical overreaction, frankly, sells newspapers and magazines,” he notes.
“The media actually relied less on marine biologists and oil spill experts for their information and more on environmental groups.
“The Gulf ‘disaster’ offered multiple potential benefits to these groups, including the possibility of desired policy changes.”
One such group is the Sierra Club, whose spokesperson confidently announced about the spill: “This will kill any plan to expand offshore drilling for the next decade.”


5 posted on 01/14/2011 7:09:33 AM PST by Ev Reeman
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To: Ev Reeman

Who are major shareholders, joint venture partners etc with ALL 6 TV networks which own 90+% of all TV channels? Saudis. They fund everything including enviro groups and left wing groups and Huff Po to name just a few. The US has probably 5x the oils reserves the saudis have. Lock up mostly on Fed land the Dems keeps grabbing and making fed “parks.”


6 posted on 01/14/2011 7:09:52 AM PST by Frantzie (Slaves do not have freedom only the illusion of freedom & their cable TV to drool at)
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To: Arman Z. Calbay

That history may have to be written by a Saudi and it will need to be translated from Arabic. /sarc


7 posted on 01/14/2011 7:11:00 AM PST by Tallguy (Received a fine from the NFL for a helmet-to-helmet hit.)
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To: Arman Z. Calbay
I think few people know how risky the oil business is and therefore don't really know why big oil corporations are risk averse. To give an example, it is a well known statistical fact that there is only a one in ten chance (10%) of finding a new oil field in a basin where no oil has been discovered before. Say it costs you $20 million dollars to drill a well in that basin, which is about average. Would you as an investor take that kind of risk? Delta Petroleum just finished drilling a well in Washington that cost them $50 million dollars and it is dry. Would you like to have to explain to their stockholders where their investment went? If people think it is so easy to find oil, they can try it themselves. In fact some people do, as told in this interesting story: Indiana Man Drills For Oil - In His Backyard
8 posted on 01/14/2011 7:37:23 AM PST by epithermal
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To: Arman Z. Calbay

Member since 9/6/09 - when you made your first of three posts.

Second post 1/13/11

Third post 1/14/11

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:armanzcalbay/index?tab=comments;brevity=full;options=no-change


Do you like kitties?


9 posted on 01/17/2011 2:46:20 PM PST by airborne (Why is it we won't allow the Bible in school, but we will in prison? Think about it.)
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