"a trillion barrels of oil...", page-2

  1. 2,834 Posts.
    oils aint oils
    [having a Trotskyite moment here. It'll pass]

    I realise that it's the WSJ, and therefore unencumbered by truth or facts where class interests of capitalists are concerned, but the engineering facts are

    - Athasbasca tar sands require substantial fixed capital (capex) and circulating capital (opex) to produce marketable oil. This is non-economic at USD20 a barrel, marginally economic at USD30 and possibly economic at USD40. Notably, to maximise the rate of profit for the capitalist firms concerned, the easiest deposits have been mined first, and the capital required for deeper and lower grade sands will be higher.

    - Venezualan heavy oil has the same issues, and the Popular Front Chavez government is rightly more concerned with feeding, clothing and educating the Venezualan masses than it is in maintaining the profit margins of transnational Big Oil.

    Ian Whitchurch, who argues for the end of Cheap Oil, not the end of Oil
 
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