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Goatseye on 26 April 2016
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mornelithe said:
Goatseye said:

Are we gonna compete with Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and the newly and hungry candidate Iran? Good luck with that.

Also, you really think oil lobbyists will let government subsidize renewable energy without a fight? 

Quite easily, actually.  You're thinking traditional oil (oil rigs) sources.  However, the advancements in Shale oil recovery, the US actually has considerable amount of oil and natural gas, on it's soil.  There's a reason why gas prices have dropped as far as they have.  Shale oil and natural gas production in the US has helped directly attack OPEC's stranglehold on the industry.  Both sides basically were pumping out as much as possible to see who'd flinch first.  The thing is, the further oil and natural gas prices go down, the more harm to Russia's economy, which OPEC may not be interested in, but the US certainly is.

Actually, correction, it would appear that their may be some kind of kerfluffle inside OPEC, as there are articles all over suggesting that Saudi Arabia and the US were colluding to drive oil prices down to harm the Russian economy.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/23/investing/saudi-arabia-opec-revolt-oil-prices/

"The real game changer here has been the U.S.

OPEC didn't see the shale revolution coming and now it lacks appealing options to respond to the resulting oil glut.

OPEC also seems to have underestimated shale's resiliency and flexibility. Last year's decision to keep production steady has not been a knockout punch to shale. And shale producers remain ready to ramp up production as soon as prices go higher.

"Shale technology has changed this industry forever. It's not going to disappear. It can only get better because it's based on technology. Time is not on OPEC's side," said Gheit, the Oppenheimer analyst.

The Saudis would love to get U.S. producers to agree to stop flooding the market with oil. The problem is that the U.S. energy industry, unlike OPEC, is not a cartel designed to fix prices.

"There is no Mr. Shale that Saudi Arabia can call. In the U.S., it's everybody on their own," said Bloomberg's Chladek."

That's all nice and dandy; however, the technology is expanding beyond US. India, one of worlds biggest oil consumer, is on the verge of digging multiple shale oil wells enough to cut their foreign depence on oil starting 2017. From now on, it's not just Russian economy that's gonna be expecting low returns on oil sales.