There will be more Deep Cuts in the Majors drilling in the GoM.
[QUOTE=AHTS Master;187766]There will be more Deep Cuts in the Majors drilling in the GoM.[/QUOTE]
I would expect more deep cuts worldwide. It is simple economics. There is less demand for oil . People do not have money to buy stuff and when people do not buy things manufacturing shuts down. After the implosion in 2008 of the big banks due to their gambling and greed the world economy depended on China which was building things they didn’t need. There are cities there now with nobody in them. Now China has shut down.
When the average wage of a family in the developed world, including the USA, is just enough to pay the rent, keep the lights on and eat there is nothing left to buy “stuff” with. On top of that more and more people are using solar and other alternative forms of energy, granted it is a drop in the bucket now but the trend is increasing.
So, until the people who make up the majority of the world’s population start having enough money to buy things AND have the confidence to do so the price of oil will stay too low to encourage anyone to spend the billions it takes to develop offshore oil. The shale producers in the USA helped screw up things royally, they never mentioned their production had a VERY short lifespan but it added to the supply. OPEC or what is left of it has to keep pumping and paying their citizens or be annihilated.
Short of a war in the mid-east which hits major oil producers [ strange that has not happened, wink wink] I do not see oil prices coming back within 5 years and even then it will not be the gold rush it was before. I would not advise a young person to enter a maritime career with the thought of getting into an oil related drilling or support business with the hopes of making the wages previously paid. I also believe bulk and container shipping wages will continue to decline or remain the same due to the loss of union influence everywhere and the fact that cabotage laws being gutted worldwide in the interest of neoliberal “free trade”.
[QUOTE=tengineer1;187804]I would expect more deep cuts worldwide. It is simple economics. There is less demand for oil . People do not have money to buy stuff and when people do not buy things manufacturing shuts down. After the implosion in 2008 of the big banks due to their gambling and greed the world economy depended on China which was building things they didn’t need. There are cities there now with nobody in them. Now China has shut down.
When the average wage of a family in the developed world, including the USA, is just enough to pay the rent, keep the lights on and eat there is nothing left to buy “stuff” with. On top of that more and more people are using solar and other alternative forms of energy, granted it is a drop in the bucket now but the trend is increasing.
So, until the people who make up the majority of the world’s population start having enough money to buy things AND have the confidence to do so the price of oil will stay too low to encourage anyone to spend the billions it takes to develop offshore oil. The shale producers in the USA helped screw up things royally, they never mentioned their production had a VERY short lifespan but it added to the supply. OPEC or what is left of it has to keep pumping and paying their citizens or be annihilated.
Short of a war in the mid-east which hits major oil producers [ strange that has not happened, wink wink] I do not see oil prices coming back within 5 years and even then it will not be the gold rush it was before. I would not advise a young person to enter a maritime career with the thought of getting into an oil related drilling or support business with the hopes of making the wages previously paid. I also believe bulk and container shipping wages will continue to decline or remain the same due to the loss of union influence everywhere and the fact that cabotage laws being gutted worldwide in the interest of neoliberal “free trade”.[/QUOTE]
I agree with most of that. Except, Shale production is just getting started. North American Shale will be the big new swing producer and limit price increases, although there will be some lead time for Shale to ramp up again. Shale wells only have about a five year life, but they are cheap to drill and they seldom have a dry hole.
Deep water wells produce for a long time, but they are super expensive and very high risk with many dry holes. They can take a decade to put into production.
The easy low cost low risk Shale has to be used up before deep water is going to be attractive to the oil majors again.
The oil age will not end because we run out of oil. Just as the stone age did not end because we ran out of stones.
Something to ponder.