After issuing clear warnings on this program that sub-$50 oil prices were going to be short-lived, oil expert and geological consultant Art Berman returns to the podcast this week to explain why today's $70 oil prices will go higher -- likely much higher -- and start materially contricting world economic growth.
Art explains how the current glut of oil created by the US shale boom -- along with high crude output by both OPEC and non-OPEC producers -- is a temporary anomaly. Fundamentally, we are not finding nearly as much oil as we need to continue the trajectory of the global demand curve. And at the same time, we're extracting our reserves at a faster rate than ever. That's a mathematical recipe for a coming supply crunch -- it's not a matter of if, but when:
The price of oil has gone up 30%+ percent just here in the last year alone. There are some very good reasons for that.
In the United States, we've been drawing down our reserves, our inventory and the amount of oil we have in storage, consistently since February of 2017. We're going into the 15th month of drawing from storage each week because we're not producing enough to meet the need.
To those paying attention: the United States is right now producing more oil than it ever has in its history. We are a million barrels a day higher than the peak in 1970 -- the one that King Hubbert got in trouble for warning about. We're higher by 50,000 or so barrels per month of production. Yet, here we are, still sucking oil out of storage. What does that tell you? There is only one way to interpret that: We are using more than we are producing.
Countries like the United States and western Europe; our demand is pretty much stable. We are not a big growing economy anymore. But the emerging markets – Asia, Latin America, and Africa – they are going full bore. That is where something like 80% of world demand growth is coming from.
Never ever lose sight of the fact that the United States imports a ton of oil. I mean we are importing, on average, 7 million barrels of crude oil a day. I mean that is more than many continents use a day. Why are we importing all that when we are also producing 11 million barrels a day?
We are nowhere near energy self-sufficiency, nor do I think we will ever get there.
We're in deep trouble.
Click the play button below to listen to Chris' interview with Art Berman (60m:06s).
“After issuing clear warnings on this program that sub-$50 oil prices were going to be short-lived, oil expert and geological consultant Art Berman returns to the podcast this week to explain why today’s $70 oil prices will go higher – likely much higher – and start materially contricting world economic growth.”
It already has been hurting the economy. Zerohedge recently posted an article showing how the price at the gas pump has begun to slow the economy. Prices in parts of NYC are in the $5 per gallon and in California there are parts where $6 p/g is being felt. In SW Florida where i’m located, gas is inching to $3 p/g. I operate a specialized mobile auto repair business and back in 2008 it hit my business hard because people weren’t driving their cars as much and it was costing me more to get to places when gas was pushing $4.50-$5 p/g.
The kicker was it was the prelude to the crash of 2008 !
What I find fascinating is that Ford Motor Company has decided to sell only 2 types of cars from 2020 which is the Ford Mustang and Ford Active, everything else will be trucks and SUV’s. I don’t know the gas mileage on the Ford Active but most of their trucks and SUV’s drink gas like I do water. So Ford has rolled the dice on big heavy vehicles. Did they not learn from the crash/collapse in 2008? People were unloading their trucks and SUV’s for Smart Cars and fuel efficient Japanese cars.
One of the things we still do well, OK sarcasm is make cars. If our automakers are not doing good it further hurts the economy because it all “feeds” and “supports” a HUGE/MASSIVE supply chain. It’s the equivalent of phythoplankton to our economy.
I found this Zerohedge article slightly amusing and more confounding. It appears they are all in on Keynes economics meaning dig a ditch and fill it just to give someone a job. Better to have them do something and get paid then to stand around and do nothing.
Well it appears our Chinese friends have decided what to do with all those Ghost Cities that no one wants to rent or buy. You guessed it, they demolish them.
I guess they must think that we don’t live on a finite planet and we have endless supplies of resources at the ready.
Video included below and in article of what they do to ghost cities. https://www.liveleak.com/view?t=kE7Wt_1527325375 https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-28/visualizing-chinas-keynesian-u…
Right now oil is having a tough price correction...so we'll see where all thise goes over the near-term.
Art is talking about the long-term, but, again, the only asterisk on that story is if there's a big, nasty, demand-killing recession.
To that end, in that ZH article you linked there's a scary, demand killing chart:
oof!
See those two other red areas? 2010-2011 and 2014-2015? those were certified scary times for the central banksters.
Here we are again. Beware the negative credit impulse. :)
Interesting times...!
The housing bubble was kept levitated for longer than the fundamentals would have justified 2005-2007 by speculators and sharks creating mortgage backed securities and then trading them back and forth as their prices continuously rose. Housing prices and the global economy were kept elevated for years when they should’ve crashed and burned. Eventually, the system broke and housing prices, the global economy and the mortgage backed securities sputtered and nosed over into what looked like a fatal spiraling dive into the ground. Alas, the politicians and the central banks (especially the Federal Reserve) went into a massive amount of new debt and used most of it to buy up the dying mortgage backed securities. That saved the system temporarily and continued massive interventions by the central banks operating together have kept the system working and growing to some extent. The original problems were never solved (they’re actually worse now than in '08) but we’re still limping along well enough for many to pretend everything’s ok.
As Art said, it’s cheap financing in obscene amounts that is keeping the current energy producing sector afloat (OK, I paraphrased a little):
Art Berman: Of course, that is painful for me to say because I am a technical guy. I like to talk about production rates, EURs, reserves, economics, and all that kind of detail stuff. The hard truth is that the reason we are producing 11 plus million barrels a day today is not because of technology and not because of efficiency. It is because of money. It is because there is a ton of capital in the world that is poured into US exploration and production for a whole lot of reasons, none of which have that much to do with what a great business it is, except these guys can make a return. It is usually a coupon kind of return. I will not get into the details. If the money persists, and it will not persist forever for a variety of reasons, yeah, I mean we can easily get to 12 million a day. But at some point, I think there is always a fulcrum or a threshold. You get to a point with oil price where people decide I am not going to drive as much because the cost at the pump is killing me. As soon as that happens and as soon as demand starts to feel the effects of higher price, it takes a while to feed back through the system. Then price goes down. When price starts going south, the investors go away. They are looking to buy low and sell high or buy high and sell higher. They are not looking to buy high and sell low.
So now the situation is that energy is the blood flowing through the veins of the world economy. If enough energy is not available or if it is too expensive we will resume our dive toward econmic disaster. Personally, I suspect the politicians and the central banks will not let financing be the reason we don't have enough energy. In the crisis that will soon blossom in front of us, I fully expect the Federal Reserve will print whatever amounts of fiat currency are necessary is to save companies in the energy sector from collapsing and the oil spigots from shutting off. Even with unlimited financing, I suppose the net energy available to us will decline anyway and that itself may be our demise. Or maybe printing all that fiat currency will cause hyperinflation and economic collapse, and that may be our demise (cf. Venezuela). Or maybe a war for oil will cause our demise even though energy companies have access to unlimited financing. Or... whatever.
All I'm saying is that if a lack of cheap financing begins to seriously inhibit energy production in the US, or the number of energy companies having to shut down due to bankruptcy has the same effect, I'm convinced the Federal Reserve will pull another rabbit out of their hat and create cheap financing for the energy sector out of thin air. Call it EBS (energy backed securities). Count on it being sold to us as a matter of national security. So if I'm right about that then I can predict three more follow-on effects: 1) we'll keep producing energy at far below the REAL cost of production allowing the current insanity to go on longer than would seem possible (a la the housing bubble), 2) the crash whenever it comes will be much worse than if we had let nature take it's course today, and 3) the sharks will make a lot of money off of these shenanigans, including massive banker bonuses when the rest of us are suffering through a major depression.
"Welcome to the Hunger Games. And may the odds be ever in your favor."
I’ve been driving the length of the Perman Basin, through Midland/Odessa, twice a year for the last four years.
The activity peaks and wains. Four years ago, it was insane. Hotels were over $200 per night (in the West Texas desert plains). You had to pull over to the sholder and get in line to take the exit off the highway. Overpasses were traffic jams, lines at all gas pumps and long lines at every fast food checkout line. There were temporary RV parks, packed with trailers for workers. Rental trailers were $1000+ per month.
For a couple of years, things slacked off a bit, but not entirely.
This May the Permain was back in full swing. Hotels in Midland were $200 to $400 per night. Temporary RV parks were full again. I did a couple of samples. Traffic on the interstate was 60-70% fracking related.
Picture hundreds of miles of near bumper to bumper interstate traffic in what is one of the least populated parts of the country.
Granted, West Texas desert plains is an acquired taste, but what beauty there was, is permanantly gone. Saying it’s been raped is not inappropriate. When the fracking is done, the tanks, oil wells, steel buildings and refineries will shut down and left in place, as a permanent reminder.
Perhaps it is finally time to come to financial reality and start talking about what can be done under the current tax laws concerning the production and taxation of energy sources. As thc0655 points out, as long as governments continue to print money to finance decreasing marginal resources (i.e. oil, gas, minerals), the spiral will lead only downward with the expected catastrophic results. As long as investors are only interested in monetary yield, our society will continue to “eat-its-young” much to the detriment of future generations.
A number of years ago, a few savvy resource entrepreneurs (including people like T. Boone Pickens and others) came up with the idea on energy/royalty trusts which were not taxed at the corporate level, but rather, profits, issued as units which could be purchased by the unit holders and taxed as personal income. A great option for the small investor and “tax savvy” large investor. The production assets were not owned by the trust, but the profits (net of operational costs) were passed on to the units. Many oil folks, aware of the impending decreased output of their holdings, figured this would be a way to squeeze every last dollar out their holdings before they became non-productive. Much to their chagrin, along comes fracking and, voila’, revenues rebound and we’re-(back)-in-the money. But now, we’re seeing the limits of fracking and are facing the same situation. What to do, what to do?
Several of these royalty/energy trusts have diversified their holdings and invested in electrical generating assets (using cheaper and excess gas), solar and wind installations; thereby acquiring assets that have an increasing marginal production of energy. IMHO, doesn’t it make more sense to use existing debt to invest in sustainable energy infra-structure rather than going to bond markets to finance decreasing returns? If we PPr’s are serious about what we want from our investments, perhaps we should be less concerned about protecting our ASSes(t)s with PM’s, financials, crypto’s and the likes. It seems to me that renewables are a better bet than “pet rocks” and “magic beans”. I think it high time to make governments sit up and take notice of our future and not leave it to the bankers and “revenue’rs”. There are options out there worth exploring.
To reiterate, as thc0655 points out:
1)we’ll keep producing energy at far below the REAL cost of production allowing the current insanity to go on longer than would seem possible (a la the housing bubble), 2) the crash whenever it comes will be much worse than if we had let nature take it’s course today, and 3) the sharks will make a lot of money off of these shenanigans, including massive banker bonuses when the rest of us are suffering through a major depression.
In Gail Tverberg’s latest blog, she believe’s that the Great Depression was caused by low energy demand, globally.
”Once energy consumption growth flattens, as it did in the 1920-1940 period, the world economy is negatively affected. The Great Depression of the 1930s occurred during the 1920-1940 period. Problems, in fact, started even earlier. Coal production in the United Kingdom started to drop in 1914, the same year that World War I began. The Great Depression didn’t end until World War II, which was immediately after the 1920-1940 period.” https://ourfiniteworld.com/2018/05/30/our-energy-problem-is-a-quantity-problem/
I keep reading about an “oil demand peak” that’s either already materialized according to the most hyperbolic articles, or about to soon according to the rest.
Let’s take aquick peek at oil demand growth from 2010 to 2018 and see if we can spot any sort of a peak?
This chart is from Art Berman’s Twitter feed yesterday:
Nope. No demand peak there. Simply a very constant, almost ruler straight 1.4 mbd/yr demand growth.
Note that nearly all of that demand growth is courtesy of the non-OECD countries, all of which are trying to catch up to OECD levels of consumption.
You are 427x more likely to read an article about Norway’s rapid adoption of electric cars than you are to read an article with the above chart included and explained.
/Okay, I made up the likelihood statistic.
//But the point stands.
///The odds may be even higher than I quipped
This is fascinating. A couple of long held beliefs I took onboard during The Oil Drum days have been shattered.
No country that has passed peak oil production and progressed down the slope has ever rejuvenated production to exceed the initial peak. Well, as Art points out, America has now done it.
For a number of years prior to 2010 we appeared to be bumping along a production / demand plateau. But no longer. According to Chris’s chart global production has now exceeded 100 million barrels /day. Extraordinary!
These are indeed interesting and desperate times
This is fascinating. A couple of long held beliefs I took onboard during The Oil Drum days have been shattered.
I like to think that my understanding since The Oil Drum days has advanced. Clearly, the equation is very complex and involves geology, the cost of money, the availability (and desperation) of capital, geoplitics, and technology/process improvements.
But one thing that is pretty straightforward is that the cheap and easy oil is gone and it is being replaced, one barrel at a time, with more expensive oil.
I think this is a better representation for those intrigued by how this is all onfolding and what the future might hold:
The "100 mbd" chart is also slightly misleading int hat it comes from the EIA data and they include everything liquid in "oil" which inlcudes biofuels, NGLs, and refinery gains. I wish they'd keep all those separate.
But, this party is carrying on a lot longer than I originally thought, that's for sure.
There is a lot of talk about National Security. It would seem if the government were truly interested in such it would not be exporting ANY energy supplies.
There are I guess the most important reasons of corporate profits, and the bribes paid to those in government that have to be financed somehow. It seems to me what we are seeing is the sacking of Rome. The country is being raped and hollowed out. I can’t get the image of the Trojan horse out of my head
As Gail likes to say, the reason(s) Nations export their oil instead of using it, is that it generates revenue for the export country. That goes to fund the government, roads, and all kinds of benefits for it’s people.
"As Gail likes to say, the reason(s) Nations export their oil instead of using it, is that it generates revenue for the export country. That goes to fund the government, roads, and all kinds of benefits for it's people."
Well if Gail said it there must be ststistics to show what percentage trickles down to the wee people after corporate profits and tax write offs. With our infrastructure in need of 3 trillion in overhaul ie roads and bridges it escapes me how our fossil fuel export business is going to "all kinds of benefits for its people"
oof!
See those two other red areas? 2010-2011 and 2014-2015? those were certified scary times for the central banksters.
Here we are again. Beware the negative credit impulse. :)
Interesting times...!
The "100 mbd" chart is also slightly misleading int hat it comes from the EIA data and they include everything liquid in "oil" which inlcudes biofuels, NGLs, and refinery gains. I wish they'd keep all those separate.
But, this party is carrying on a lot longer than I originally thought, that's for sure.