> That wouldn't be the oil industry anymore. What is the oil industry then? I mean, there are probably a bunch of different definitions. The "oil industry" d

> That wouldn't be the oil industry anymore. What is the oil industry then? I mean, there are probably a bunch of different definitions. The "oil industry" does a lot of stuff. 1. explores for oil 2. obtains mineral rights to the oil it suspects is in the ground 3. does test drilling to determine if oil is in fact there 4. does production drilling to make it feasible to extract any oil it does find 5. sets up production equipment to extract the oil from the ground 6. establishes a logistics chain to move the crude oil coming out of the ground to a refinery (truck, train, pipeline, etc) 7. builds and maintains many-multi-billion dollar refineries 8. uses said refineries to turn crude oil into a multitude of products like various gasses, butane, naptha, grades of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, greases and lubricants, waxes and various other byproducts 9. establishes supply lines to ship finished products to various markets domestically and internationally 10. trades in the energy markets to ensure that prices across the world properly reflect transport and other costs (arbitrage by virtue of known internal costs) 11. develops new equipment, techniques and strategies to make any of the above mentioned things more efficient, cheaper, easier, etc So while I agree that 1-5 might end up changing, that's far from the entirety of "the oil industry" and thus I think my statement isn't entirely wrong.