Posted on 03/25/2008 5:01:44 PM PDT by shrinkermd
Exxon's flat oil forecast was even more surprising because it came during a meeting when the company was trumpeting a big increase in capital expenditures -- to at least $25 billion a year going forward, up from $21 billion last year. The company also outlined a slew of big projects, 12 of which are starting up this year. These include the 600 million barrel Kizomba C development off the coast of Angola years.
But how could oil production be flat? Peer into Exxon's historical numbers and you see the problem Tillerson faces. Since 2000, Exxon's oil output from two of its largest regions, the U.S. and Europe, declined a startling 37%. That's 500,000 fewer barrels a day in just seven years. Exxon reported 100,000 fewer barrels per day last year alone due to the nature of that began producing on New Year's Day and another in a string of giant liquefied natural gas facilities in Qatar.
Exxon plans on bringing new fields online in Russia, the Middle East, and Africa over the next four years but they won't be enough to generate growth beyond what the company is losing due to the maturation of its fields in the North Sea and Alaska, the nationalization of its fields in Venezuela, and volumes lost due to those production sharing agreements with other countries. "It has always been a challenge to grow volumes when you are working off of a base as large as ours," Tillerson told the analysts. Indeed, Tillerson got more bad news on Mar. 18 when a British judge freed up the foreign assets that Exxon had sought to freeze in its ongoing dispute with the government of Venezuela
(Excerpt) Read more at news.moneycentral.msn.com ...
It’s a good thing you’re not a production planner. Take an MRPII class.
Don’t ask intelligent questions on a thread that has already decided it’s a Big Oil conspiracy.
That just proves that the free market works.
Yes, and remember Exxon plans to invest 25 billion in efforts to increase production.
LOL. You’re right, of course. It’s amazing how even many seeming conservatives believe in the ethanol HOAX. Ah, well. When I saw gasoline prices starting upward in the spring of 2005, I invested in Exxon/Mobil stock, rather than curse the darkness.
It’s not a conspiracy. It’s business. Why invest big chunks of capital to increase supply and drive down prices when you’re making record profits and seeing huge stock price increases? Exxon isn’t in the oil business, they’re in the capital investment business. And they’re making a 32% return on investment right now, without doing any more than trying to maintain their currrent output.
I see no reduction in highway speeds or traffic congestion.
Which tells me on a practical level, 3 dollar gas isn’t having much of an impact.
I can drive along in my Saturn at the 65 mph limit getting 35 mpg and 80% of the traffic flow passes me up.
Horse manure. Drill off the coasts of Florida and California. There's lots of oil there. Most of the oil that washes up on California beaches is from underwater seeps--not ship spills. Drilling wells in those formations will relieve the pressure and stop that source of pollution (natural though it is).
Well, they are investing big chunks of capital everywhere they can in order to increase production and reserves. So the premise is wrong.
And that's great that they're making a great return on investment. That's what we'd like American companies to do, unless we're anti-American or anti-capitalist.
I can count all the threads on zero fingers here that moaned when they were losing money in a low product price environment.
If you've got it all figured out, get into the oil business. It's a great time right now. It won't last. It never does.
Your source for that statistic?
Burden of proof on you, my FRiend...you’re the one who made the claims.
ExxonMobil actually buys more oil than they produce.
They refine more than twice their production.
I know... I know... but I keep forgetting that Free Republic has graduate students of the Flat Earth Society. If they had any consistenct in what they believe, they'd invest in the stocks of the Big, Eeevil Oil Companies. Which, by the way are composed of people going to work every day; unlike politicians.
That would make sense, but take an economic class. This is an inelastic market. The demand will be there, no matter the supply/price. Also, there’s the cartel issue.
So, they are making far more profit by delivering less product.
Is it criminal? I dunno. It’s certainly making a very small few VERY, VERY rich.
Elephants?
Brazil
Bakken
Falklands
Equatorial Guinea
etc, etc.
You probably aren’t going to make up enough with that stock that you’ll lose with the general ecnoomic sluggishness their actions are producing.
Why the hell would they increase production now? Prices would plummet, and they’ll be back to where they were in the 90’s before all the oil company consolidation.
It was better when ExxonMobil was Exxon and Mobil. For a good, solid economic reason.
These guys are making a trust-like killing, and dubai’s skies are going up out of proportion for what this stuff is worth like you can’t believe. Or maybe you do believe, and are in on it.. or don’t care.
They’re not delivering less product, but don’t let your faulty grasp of the truth from suggesting that something criminal is going on.
Vote Obama. That will fix everything.
Rather than studying and thinking, people just "know" because their feelings or something similar tell them how it is. They hear "record profits" then look at the pump price and just "know" they're being gouged by "BIG Oil" without having the slightest idea of what it takes to find, drill for, transport and then refine the oil and then get it to that gas pump. They are similarly clueless about the competition between oil companies and the competition between the buyers of oil products.
And lastly, they expect politicians to "fix" gas prices by sticking to the oil companies without the slightest clue of how much of that price for a gallon of gasoline is tax stuck on by the government. Politicians read these posts and know they have us all right where they want us, while we look at oil companies as the big, bad enemy. Truly, we get the government we deserve.
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