19 ms·

Watch Four Years of Oil Drilling Collapse in Seconds

49 points by headShrinker 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ianamartin 12y ago
I don't see how that visualization is in any way useful at all. In fact, it's full of a bunch of visual noise that has nothing to do with any salient point: counties where drilling is no longer active. That number grows even as the total number of rigs grows, and it continues to grow as the number of rigs declines. It's not correlated with anything. It's just a bunch of jittery, jumpy, distracting noise.
- nni 12y ago
  while it's nice to look at, I had the same impression - maybe there's a critically missing additional note or something that would help clarify this.
  - ianamartin 12y ago
    I'd say there is definitely something missing here: a link bait disclaimer.
- lqdc13 12y ago
  Another issue is performance. I tried the site on a phone and on a desktop and it slowed both down to the point that the browser became unresponsive. I think people should think twice before including that much data on the graph.
- frandroid 12y ago
  The second chart does a much better job to deliver the point.
pothibo 12y ago
There is something very weird with the collapse of the oil prices. It doesn't make sense. I know mainstream media have talked about offer/demand being the reason for this crash but it doesn't make sense. It says China didn't grow as much as expected, etc. Well if that'd be a simple offer/demand, the price would have not collapsed so rapidly. Oil is not like housing where bubbles comes and go. It's usually pretty steady unless something happens (9/11, 1982, etc). Also, price seems to be recovering now which indicate, to me, that it's not an offer/demand issue. The oil collapsing and recovering in a ~6 months period is just plain weird. If I had to bet, I'd say it's due to ISIS and their access to oil and selling it at a quarter of the ongoing prices. I read a story about that a few months back how they had access to major oil field and were selling it insanely cheap on the black market to finance their operations. Those are all wild ideas. But things are just weird, I'm telling you.
- CapitalistCartr 12y ago
  Capitalism is prone to this. Oil stays high for long enough, lots of people jump in, drilling for new product. Each individually is smart, but collectively they over-saturate the market. Because there is this lag at each step, at each step the people collectively overshoot the optimum. Sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot.
- valisystem 12y ago
  My favorite hypothesis is that the saudis want to punish the US for investing (and subsidies) too much in oil production. It put them in debts, and destroys their margins, but they can afford it, while the US cannot really afford to invest in oil rigs that have a too long ROI.
- autokad 12y ago
  The US uses companies like GS to inflate or deflate commodities prices to suit its will in the global arena. Oil spent most of its time trading above 90 or even 100 a barrel for the most part of the last 5 years, when the real value was probably around 75-80. I imagine at some point some important guys at big US firms got a call to drop oil. I also dont think the lower oil prices are a huge boon like they are said to be. global commodities have been in a near state of deflation. for something getting cheaper to be useful to someone, they actually have to be using it a lot. furthermore, these things dont happen in a vacuum. no sooner does gas drop to low prices, politicians begin talking about gas taxes raised. currently, retail and restaurants are doing really well though (as you would expect in cheap oil). but it seems it hasn't resulted in higher wage growth just yet.
mrbill 12y ago
I got laid off after twelve years with a major energy services company back in January, and I'm really glad to be out of that industry now. Lower gas prices at the pump usually meant that layoffs were probably coming, 2-3 times a year.
eco 12y ago
I had a theory (completely unsupported by evidence or even a vague understanding of the industry) that OPEC's recent decision to not fix prices was targeted at hitting the weaker new American producers that were contributing to the recent production boom by America.
malchow 12y ago
This is exceedingly meaningless. Horizontal fracturing rigs can be reanimated relatively easily. And new wells are still being dug at a feverish pace -- they just are not being finished and activated. There really has been a sea change in the petroleum world; and the productive pace can now, with fracking, be feathered ever more delicately with respect to global market prices. It'll get even better if a GOP majority ends the ban on U.S. oil exports. Here's a better article this weekend: http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-producers-ready-new-oil-wave-1426288890?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-producers-ready-new-oil-wave...
- kbutler 12y ago
  The best line from the original article was "The fracklog has become America’s de facto backup storage." That's the key take-away: There's a huge inventory of readily available oil. Supply isn't coming down any time soon, which is great news for everyone who isn't in the oil industry.
  - danieltillett 12y ago
    I don’t think it is good news for anyone. Burning all this oil is not going to do the environment much good.
punee 12y ago
Whoa, look at this chart, it's almost like there's no active oil rigs at all!!! Whoops, looks like it's just a "data scientist" who conveniently picked the origin of the vertical axis to mislead readers. My bad.
- spuz 12y ago
  If you were not fooled by the scale of the y axis what makes you think anyone else would be? It belies an underlying arrogance to think that others would be misled where you were not.
  - punee 12y ago
    What makes you think I wasn't fooled? What makes you think that's not precisely why I wrote the comment after originally feeling misled? What makes you think that's not exactly what my comment attempted to convey? I fail to see where there's any arrogance in my comment, very much unlike in your ridiculous white knight posturing. "Others" have not reported feeling slighted until now, thank you very much.
godgod 12y ago
You can thank Obama and the US State department for directing OPEC or more specifically Saudi Arabia to tank the price of oil. The price of oil was artificially dropped because the US wants to put the hurt on Russia. This is all a game to weaken Russian economy. Saudia Arabia also wants to crush the US fracking industry because it's eating into their profit. What you are seeing is the drop of mom and pop oil rigs. Unfortunately for the US oil worker, it hurts us too meanwhile countries like Saudi Arabia get even richer off the petro dollar. Wake up...this is classic manipulation.
shire 12y ago
Does this mean looking for work in the oil rigs is meaningless?
- mrbill 12y ago
  Right now, yes. TONS of people in the industry just got laid off.
  - shire 12y ago
    wow that's horrible. Will things go back to normal? What if you have a CDL.
phazmatis 12y ago
It would be nice if they had thought to include natural gas drilling. The fact that they didn't leads me to believe that natural gas production hasn't also declined, and would have made their little timeline rather boring.

49 points by headShrinker 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

I don't see how that visualization is in any way useful at all. In fact, it's full of a bunch of visual noise that has nothing to do with any salient point: counties where drilling is no longer active. That number grows even as the total number of rigs grows, and it continues to grow as the number of rigs declines. It's not correlated with anything. It's just a bunch of jittery, jumpy, distracting noise.

nni 12y ago
while it's nice to look at, I had the same impression - maybe there's a critically missing additional note or something that would help clarify this.
- ianamartin 12y ago
  I'd say there is definitely something missing here: a link bait disclaimer.
lqdc13 12y ago
Another issue is performance. I tried the site on a phone and on a desktop and it slowed both down to the point that the browser became unresponsive. I think people should think twice before including that much data on the graph.
frandroid 12y ago
The second chart does a much better job to deliver the point.

pothibo 12y ago

There is something very weird with the collapse of the oil prices. It doesn't make sense. I know mainstream media have talked about offer/demand being the reason for this crash but it doesn't make sense. It says China didn't grow as much as expected, etc. Well if that'd be a simple offer/demand, the price would have not collapsed so rapidly. Oil is not like housing where bubbles comes and go. It's usually pretty steady unless something happens (9/11, 1982, etc). Also, price seems to be recovering now which indicate, to me, that it's not an offer/demand issue. The oil collapsing and recovering in a ~6 months period is just plain weird. If I had to bet, I'd say it's due to ISIS and their access to oil and selling it at a quarter of the ongoing prices. I read a story about that a few months back how they had access to major oil field and were selling it insanely cheap on the black market to finance their operations. Those are all wild ideas. But things are just weird, I'm telling you.

CapitalistCartr 12y ago
Capitalism is prone to this. Oil stays high for long enough, lots of people jump in, drilling for new product. Each individually is smart, but collectively they over-saturate the market. Because there is this lag at each step, at each step the people collectively overshoot the optimum. Sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot.
valisystem 12y ago
My favorite hypothesis is that the saudis want to punish the US for investing (and subsidies) too much in oil production. It put them in debts, and destroys their margins, but they can afford it, while the US cannot really afford to invest in oil rigs that have a too long ROI.
autokad 12y ago
The US uses companies like GS to inflate or deflate commodities prices to suit its will in the global arena. Oil spent most of its time trading above 90 or even 100 a barrel for the most part of the last 5 years, when the real value was probably around 75-80. I imagine at some point some important guys at big US firms got a call to drop oil. I also dont think the lower oil prices are a huge boon like they are said to be. global commodities have been in a near state of deflation. for something getting cheaper to be useful to someone, they actually have to be using it a lot. furthermore, these things dont happen in a vacuum. no sooner does gas drop to low prices, politicians begin talking about gas taxes raised. currently, retail and restaurants are doing really well though (as you would expect in cheap oil). but it seems it hasn't resulted in higher wage growth just yet.

mrbill 12y ago

I got laid off after twelve years with a major energy services company back in January, and I'm really glad to be out of that industry now. Lower gas prices at the pump usually meant that layoffs were probably coming, 2-3 times a year.

eco 12y ago

I had a theory (completely unsupported by evidence or even a vague understanding of the industry) that OPEC's recent decision to not fix prices was targeted at hitting the weaker new American producers that were contributing to the recent production boom by America.

malchow 12y ago

This is exceedingly meaningless. Horizontal fracturing rigs can be reanimated relatively easily. And new wells are still being dug at a feverish pace -- they just are not being finished and activated. There really has been a sea change in the petroleum world; and the productive pace can now, with fracking, be feathered ever more delicately with respect to global market prices. It'll get even better if a GOP majority ends the ban on U.S. oil exports. Here's a better article this weekend: http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-producers-ready-new-oil-wave-1426288890?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-producers-ready-new-oil-wave...

kbutler 12y ago
The best line from the original article was "The fracklog has become America’s de facto backup storage." That's the key take-away: There's a huge inventory of readily available oil. Supply isn't coming down any time soon, which is great news for everyone who isn't in the oil industry.
- danieltillett 12y ago
  I don’t think it is good news for anyone. Burning all this oil is not going to do the environment much good.

punee 12y ago

Whoa, look at this chart, it's almost like there's no active oil rigs at all!!! Whoops, looks like it's just a "data scientist" who conveniently picked the origin of the vertical axis to mislead readers. My bad.

spuz 12y ago
If you were not fooled by the scale of the y axis what makes you think anyone else would be? It belies an underlying arrogance to think that others would be misled where you were not.
- punee 12y ago
  What makes you think I wasn't fooled? What makes you think that's not precisely why I wrote the comment after originally feeling misled? What makes you think that's not exactly what my comment attempted to convey? I fail to see where there's any arrogance in my comment, very much unlike in your ridiculous white knight posturing. "Others" have not reported feeling slighted until now, thank you very much.

godgod 12y ago

You can thank Obama and the US State department for directing OPEC or more specifically Saudi Arabia to tank the price of oil. The price of oil was artificially dropped because the US wants to put the hurt on Russia. This is all a game to weaken Russian economy. Saudia Arabia also wants to crush the US fracking industry because it's eating into their profit. What you are seeing is the drop of mom and pop oil rigs. Unfortunately for the US oil worker, it hurts us too meanwhile countries like Saudi Arabia get even richer off the petro dollar. Wake up...this is classic manipulation.

shire 12y ago

Does this mean looking for work in the oil rigs is meaningless?

mrbill 12y ago
Right now, yes. TONS of people in the industry just got laid off.
- shire 12y ago
  wow that's horrible. Will things go back to normal? What if you have a CDL.

phazmatis 12y ago

It would be nice if they had thought to include natural gas drilling. The fact that they didn't leads me to believe that natural gas production hasn't also declined, and would have made their little timeline rather boring.