I am not quite sure of the relevance of the lifting cost to peak oil.
First, if you look at the tables, the discovery costs are greater than
the lifting cost in most cases, nevermind the transport and upgrading
cost (in the case, for instance, of heavy oils.) They claim that the
cost per barrel of syncrude from the tarsands is in the $40-50 dollar
range and that was before the massive escalation of capital cost
associated with the current boom. Oil is priced at the margin and if
the cost of new sources of oil such as the tarsands is approaching the
$60-70 range, the lifting cost of Saudi Crude is totally irrelevant. In
fact, the figures I saw show that the lifting cost of mature fields
decline as their production declines. Even under the most conventional
of economics, in a case where supply is constricted, price is determined
by demand and not by cost of production except that at the highest cost
margin. So even past peak oil, average lifting cost could be miniscule
relative to rapidly increasing prices.
Paul P
Doug Henwood wrote:
Thanks. The source I saw all those years ago did it by the barrel. As
I recall, it was like $2/barrel in Saudi Arabia. I suppose I could do
the math on this, but it'd be nice if some public sector bureaucrat
had done the work!
On Jul 10, 2007, at 10:27 PM, sartesian wrote:
1995-2005 at: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/perfpro/btab17.html
Once you factor out taxes and royalties, doesn't seem to correlate
with
"scarcity" theory.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Henwood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2007 3:46 PM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] peak oil
On Jul 10, 2007, at 3:30 PM, s.artesian wrote:
Will somebody please, please look at actual lifting costs before
banging this dismal drum about running out of cheap oil?
Where do you find them? I once saw, in a BP publication I think,
comparisons of lifting costs around the world. But that was a long
time ago and I haven't seen anything like it since.
Doug
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