Posted on 08/04/2016 12:58:31 AM PDT by Kaslin
Saudi Arabia knew that North American shale production could potentially torpedo their hold on the energy market via oil. So, they decided to trounce the natural gas market by opening the floodgates with petroleum. It didn’t work. The Telegraph now reports that shale production has cut prices so low that they can produce at prices that are lower that what’s required to keep Saudi Arabia’s socioeconomic fabric healthy:
Opec's worst fears are coming true. Twenty months after Saudi Arabia took the fateful decision to flood world markets with oil, it has still failed to break the back of the US shale industry.
The Saudi-led Gulf states have certainly succeeded in killing off a string of global mega-projects in deep waters. Investment in upstream exploration from 2014 to 2020 will be $1.8 trillion less than previously assumed, according to consultants IHS. But this is a bitter victory at best.
North America's hydraulic frackers are cutting costs so fast that most can now produce at prices far below levels needed to fund the Saudi welfare state and its military machine, or to cover Opec budget deficits.
[…]
Scott Sheffield, the outgoing chief of Pioneer Natural Resources, threw down the gauntlet last week - with some poetic licence - claiming that his pre-tax production costs in the Permian Basin of West Texas have fallen to $2.25 a barrel.
"Definitely we can compete with anything that Saudi Arabia has. We have the best rock," he said.
And yet, Democrats can’t stand this type of energy production. They’ve banned it in New York over trumped up fears about environmental damage. The most insane being that fracking causes earthquakes. It doesn’t. Oh, and that fracking pollutes drinking water. Again, it doesn’t.
The speaker in that talk admitted that earthquakes are sometimes triggered by the underground injection of drilling fluids.
So it's not that actual fracking that is causing the noticeable increase in earthquakes in some areas. But when leftover drilling fluids and salt water from fracking operations or other types of oil and gas drilling are injected underground, that can trigger earthquakes.
No doubt the producers will improve their techniques, but it is inevitable that the shale formations will deplete.
Meanwhile, the cost of renewable energy continues to fall. Everytime you double the number of solar panels, the price of solar power falls by 26%. Everytime you double the number of windmills, the price of wind power falls by 17%.
They can only trigger earthquakes if there is already some kind of pressure build-up underground. One could argue that triggering quakes before the pressure increases to the point of letting off a natural quake decreases the intensity of the quake. Kind of like controlled burns help to decrease the damage of forest fires.
The moon’s gravitational pull triggers earthquakes, too.
Bush held the line on the 2nd Amendment. For that alone I am grateful. At that time I believed we could let the commie bastards do anything else and later we could unscrew it. Now I know this ain’t true. Zero has proven they can break things that cannot be fixed.
The world wide political status quo where arab oil money buys Western politicians is deeply disturbed by American exceptionalism again.
Per your#4: I blame our crony news media for putting blinders on Joe Public by purposely not vetting our politicians.
Quoting the late, great writer Dan Jenkins, “Better learn to pan fry them cobras Abdul”.
It was more likely a power play by Bandar and his clique to cement their hold on power and elevate them over claimants to the throne.
It worked so WELL with illegal Mexicans, that they are doubling down, worldwide, with jihadists.
WTF is that bust behind the old traitor in the wheelchair?
This is the sort of choice that is the hallmark of "fake democracies" around the world. The popular vote is then used to legitimize the advance of globalism, and all the other workings of the utterly corrupt government.
the man is not a traitor.....ass hole
Wonderful news.
eff the Sauds. They need to dry up and blow away back to their nomadic life wandering around the desert
BS
Team Globule (my name for the globalists) is deeply saddened.
Malcolm X?
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