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This is a temporary blip due to COVID depressing demand for transportation. That said, it's also a continuation of the long-term trend of the US replacing impo

This is a temporary blip due to COVID depressing demand for transportation. That said, it's also a continuation of the long-term trend of the US replacing imported oil with domestic fracking, so it's not saving the Earth as much as you might think.

boh 6y ago
This trend is likely to diminish in the future. Fracking was never profitable and was completely reliant on capital inflows that were drying up even before COVID. Since COVID the industry is essentially collapsing.
- hajile 6y ago
  Increasing prices for an item increases supply. Increases in technology can also increase supply while decreasing prices. Oil sands were long considered unusable, but when oil prices got high enough, it was profitable to start mining them turning Venezuela into an oil rich country. Once they started working, they found more efficient ways to extract the oil, so they could complete up to a point as prices stabilized and later dropped. We see the same thing with fracking. As oil prices increase, it becomes profitable. As they get better at it, the minimum profitable price decreases. Today, subsidized or not, you'll see fracking continue as it's much more efficient than it once was.
  - boh 6y ago
    Oil prices are likely to decrease in the next 30 years (this according to the oil industry's own estimates). The capital requirements for fracking are unlikely to change much (since this isn't software). Pushing water through hard rock is expensive and technology isn't magic. They haven't gotten much better at it for the decades they've been doing it. Most of the output from a fracking site is extracted the first year, and then you have to find another site and setup again--this is expensive. The perceived success of fracking is due to private equity being able to fund a non-profitable business and then selling their share of the non-profitable business on the public markets that eat the losses. This trick hasn't been working lately, so unless the price of oil dramatically increases, the fracking industry is going to have a difficult future.
    - beerandt 6y ago
      Sorry, but this is delusional. Almost everything in this statement is wrong. The only thing that might be right (price fortune telling) isn't the problem you think it is. Oil prices have decreased over the last 30+ years, with steady increases in overall production until covid. I'm paying the same numerical dollar amount for gas that I did 20 years ago, for a product that's only increased in quality and regulatory costs (ethanol, refining requirements, safe production costs, etc). Fracking technology improving is exactly why it exists and has until recently, boomed. Wells drilled with 1950s technology (which was still the same basic drill, inject, penetrate & pressure as today) are all of a sudden profitable again, because you can re-fracture, and squeeze more from extant wells. That's improved technology, efficiency, and economics. >Pushing water through hard rock is expensive and technology isn't magic Not magic, chemistry. Thats why they let the chemical reactions create pressure. The pumping is to get the figurative vinegar and baking soda down the hole to start the the science fair volcano. As to markets, if anything public markets are irrationally dumping profitable oil and infrastructure due to somewhat successful intimidation tactics by the environmental movement. For instance, Shell is selling or shutting down almost all of its smaller US refineries because they're not "green ready." They're giving away profits on a political calculation, not a financial/economical one.
      - bob29 6y ago
        I like the part where the fossil fuel industry gets bullied around by the uber powerful environmental groups. Its funny because besides being the scapegoat for every failure of the fossil fuel/nuke industry, these environmental groups seem to lose every other battle they care about.
        beerandt 6y ago
        I don't mean it as scapegoat- I mean it's more effective than people realize, and at a large financial cost to public companies. These groups have been calling for putting principles over profits for years. When they finally start doing it, it's not fair to also point to lower profits as a reason the industry might be in decline, when it's at least partially result of voluntary behavior done for appeasement. But fracking isn't a long term investment activity. If it's actively being done, it's because it's profitable, short term and real time. The profits just get shifted elsewhere and to other companies.
jdhn 6y ago
I don't think we're going to see a lot of importation of oil from Saudi Arabia the way we historically have. As electric car marketshare grows, the need for oil will go down, even if people start driving again. Combine that with domestic fracking, and imports from Saudi Arabia will probably remain lower than before covid.
- Schiendelman 6y ago
  Is electric car market share increasing faster than the growth in all cars?
  - sunstone 6y ago
    Is the electric car market share going to increase faster than the growth of all cars?

boh 6y ago

This trend is likely to diminish in the future. Fracking was never profitable and was completely reliant on capital inflows that were drying up even before COVID. Since COVID the industry is essentially collapsing.

hajile 6y ago
Increasing prices for an item increases supply. Increases in technology can also increase supply while decreasing prices. Oil sands were long considered unusable, but when oil prices got high enough, it was profitable to start mining them turning Venezuela into an oil rich country. Once they started working, they found more efficient ways to extract the oil, so they could complete up to a point as prices stabilized and later dropped. We see the same thing with fracking. As oil prices increase, it becomes profitable. As they get better at it, the minimum profitable price decreases. Today, subsidized or not, you'll see fracking continue as it's much more efficient than it once was.
- boh 6y ago
  Oil prices are likely to decrease in the next 30 years (this according to the oil industry's own estimates). The capital requirements for fracking are unlikely to change much (since this isn't software). Pushing water through hard rock is expensive and technology isn't magic. They haven't gotten much better at it for the decades they've been doing it. Most of the output from a fracking site is extracted the first year, and then you have to find another site and setup again--this is expensive. The perceived success of fracking is due to private equity being able to fund a non-profitable business and then selling their share of the non-profitable business on the public markets that eat the losses. This trick hasn't been working lately, so unless the price of oil dramatically increases, the fracking industry is going to have a difficult future.
  - beerandt 6y ago
    Sorry, but this is delusional. Almost everything in this statement is wrong. The only thing that might be right (price fortune telling) isn't the problem you think it is. Oil prices have decreased over the last 30+ years, with steady increases in overall production until covid. I'm paying the same numerical dollar amount for gas that I did 20 years ago, for a product that's only increased in quality and regulatory costs (ethanol, refining requirements, safe production costs, etc). Fracking technology improving is exactly why it exists and has until recently, boomed. Wells drilled with 1950s technology (which was still the same basic drill, inject, penetrate & pressure as today) are all of a sudden profitable again, because you can re-fracture, and squeeze more from extant wells. That's improved technology, efficiency, and economics. >Pushing water through hard rock is expensive and technology isn't magic Not magic, chemistry. Thats why they let the chemical reactions create pressure. The pumping is to get the figurative vinegar and baking soda down the hole to start the the science fair volcano. As to markets, if anything public markets are irrationally dumping profitable oil and infrastructure due to somewhat successful intimidation tactics by the environmental movement. For instance, Shell is selling or shutting down almost all of its smaller US refineries because they're not "green ready." They're giving away profits on a political calculation, not a financial/economical one.
    - bob29 6y ago
      I like the part where the fossil fuel industry gets bullied around by the uber powerful environmental groups. Its funny because besides being the scapegoat for every failure of the fossil fuel/nuke industry, these environmental groups seem to lose every other battle they care about.
      - beerandt 6y ago
        I don't mean it as scapegoat- I mean it's more effective than people realize, and at a large financial cost to public companies. These groups have been calling for putting principles over profits for years. When they finally start doing it, it's not fair to also point to lower profits as a reason the industry might be in decline, when it's at least partially result of voluntary behavior done for appeasement. But fracking isn't a long term investment activity. If it's actively being done, it's because it's profitable, short term and real time. The profits just get shifted elsewhere and to other companies.

jdhn 6y ago

I don't think we're going to see a lot of importation of oil from Saudi Arabia the way we historically have. As electric car marketshare grows, the need for oil will go down, even if people start driving again. Combine that with domestic fracking, and imports from Saudi Arabia will probably remain lower than before covid.

Schiendelman 6y ago
Is electric car market share increasing faster than the growth in all cars?
- sunstone 6y ago
  Is the electric car market share going to increase faster than the growth of all cars?