[Lorianne]

Peak cheap oil is not unexceptional to comment on because hardly anyone is aware of it. I hear way too often people saying they expect that the cost of oil/gas products is going to come down.

The cost of these products is not going to come down because it would be unprofitable to extract them at formerly cheap extraction costs.

It would be good for people to be aware of this.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Your point is well taken. Again, tho, experience might reduce those costs to some degree - and also increase the ability of the drillers to predict which formations can be exploited most profitably.

It is also the case that the value of maintaining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve ought to be reviewed in light of changes in production capacity created by our fracking infrastructure. Can the requirements of the SPR be better/more economically met by making sure that we have a backlog of fracked wells held in reserve?

My understanding of the SPR, which may be out of date, was that it consisted of low-quality high sulphur crude which was hard to refine. Maybe now would be the time to use that up on a non-emergency basis, possibly replacing it with crude from fracking?