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What's the break-even price for these new finds, i.e. how much does a barrel have to sell for for these deposits to be economical to exploit? Luckily this find
by niftich 10y ago
What's the break-even price for these new finds, i.e. how much does a barrel have to sell for for these deposits to be economical to exploit?
Luckily this find is where plenty of oil infrastructure already exists. Prolonged opposition to pipelines originating in Alberta and North Dakota have led to a marked increase in shipping oil by rail, taking more volatile product into populated towns.
- flukus 10y agoPrice should be way below tar sands, if they were expected to break even then this will.
- Arnt 10y agoThey were, but I don't know about any that has reached profitability yet. I might've missed it though. Btw, are tar sands still expected to be profitable? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12554315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12554315 and suchlike seem to mention a new record price for solar power every month or two, at some point that must start to scare oil investors.
- niftich 10y agoOil is used for many things [1][2][3], not just electricity generation. At this point, the falling price of solar only really affects a small subset of oil's potential customers. [1] http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/307194/top-oil-consuming-sectors-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/307194/top-oil-consuming... [3] http://alternativeenergy.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=001797 http://alternativeenergy.procon.org/view.resource.php?resour...
- Arnt 10y agoAbsolutely. Its price is remarkably sensitive to changes in production/demand, though. Minor changes in production/demand have caused wild price swings in the past. Take away 5% of the demand and the price might drop wildly. How might that happen? According to the graphs/tables you link to, that would require that 7-15% of road-related demand shift to electric vehicles in the next decade or two, and the corresponding power generation to solar. How likely is that? Doesn't seem farfetched to me. (I'm moving some money around right now, as it happens, when it's done it'll be invested in something effectively like "index fund minus oil and coal".)
- douche 10y agoMoving oil by rail is really, really, not the greatest idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaste...