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If we keep the current levels of consumption, then yes, we won't need that much oil. However, if oil will stop being used as fuel, petroleum products are expect

If we keep the current levels of consumption, then yes, we won't need that much oil. However, if oil will stop being used as fuel, petroleum products are expected to become much cheaper, which could raise the demand.

tom_mellior 7y ago
But first demand would drop, making a lot of extraction less profitable than it is now. Wouldn't a lot of the oil suppliers go out of business (forever) before we could "rescue" them by buying even more plastic crap we don't need? Also, even if we started building our houses out of plastic or something, I can't imagine that covering as much use of oil as we are currently burning.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  Saudi oil is still quite cheap to extract, so Canadian oil sands producers going bankrupt wouldn't stop all production. Also, a producer going bankrupt means their assets are sold for pennies on the dollar which would enable a low cost producer to take over without the huge sunk costs of the original producer.
abathur 7y ago
Source on petro products becoming cheaper? It's the natural inference from supply and demand (so I agree it's possible), but it's worth keeping in mind that oil is a very big capital-intense business. Extraction, multiple rounds of transport, and refining all have significant economies of scale. Some of those scale advantages might break down if demand downscaled to any small fraction of current, which could make the fallout unpredictable. I'm also not sure how fungible a barrel of oil is. That is to say, is the fuel fraction of current production easily repurposed for making plastics, or is that fraction more or less destined to become fuel of some sort? If fixed fractions are just compositionally destined for certain uses, a collapse in demand for those fractions could actually increase the cost of the remaining in-demand fractions since they still have to cover the costs of production.

tom_mellior 7y ago

But first demand would drop, making a lot of extraction less profitable than it is now. Wouldn't a lot of the oil suppliers go out of business (forever) before we could "rescue" them by buying even more plastic crap we don't need? Also, even if we started building our houses out of plastic or something, I can't imagine that covering as much use of oil as we are currently burning.

bryanlarsen 7y ago
Saudi oil is still quite cheap to extract, so Canadian oil sands producers going bankrupt wouldn't stop all production. Also, a producer going bankrupt means their assets are sold for pennies on the dollar which would enable a low cost producer to take over without the huge sunk costs of the original producer.

abathur 7y ago

Source on petro products becoming cheaper? It's the natural inference from supply and demand (so I agree it's possible), but it's worth keeping in mind that oil is a very big capital-intense business. Extraction, multiple rounds of transport, and refining all have significant economies of scale. Some of those scale advantages might break down if demand downscaled to any small fraction of current, which could make the fallout unpredictable. I'm also not sure how fungible a barrel of oil is. That is to say, is the fuel fraction of current production easily repurposed for making plastics, or is that fraction more or less destined to become fuel of some sort? If fixed fractions are just compositionally destined for certain uses, a collapse in demand for those fractions could actually increase the cost of the remaining in-demand fractions since they still have to cover the costs of production.