End of the Petroleum Era!

arkmundi

arkmundi

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I was reading this article Warming May Not Be Needed, But U.N Leadership Is at the New York Times and came across
The Rockefeller Foundation announced that it would disinvest all its assets in fossil energy starting with $100 billion. Over 180 institutions, organizations and pension funds have begun to follow.
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I was like, WHAT??? Yea, that Rockefeller
Wikipedia said:
John Davison Rockefeller, Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He was a co-founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry, and along with other key contemporary industrialists such as Andrew Carnegie, defined the structure of modern philanthropy. In 1870, he co-founded Standard Oil Company and actively ran it until he officially retired in 1897.
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Oil did peak in 2005 and we've been on an undulating plateau of production ever since. The saving grace for humanity has been energy-efficiency, especially fuel-economy standards, as we're getting farther on less. But the divestment movement is picking up steam and this signal of its maturation does not bode well for the petroleum industry.
 
Market capitalization has a great deal to do with a corporation's ability to venture, as in an oil giant's ability to do new petroleum exploration and extraction. Its not just the income from the pump. The steady erosion of stock value will undermine the industry. Its a shift. Capital moves. It'll be reinvested in alternative energy plays.
 
arkmundi said:
Market capitalization has a great deal to do with a corporation's ability to venture, as in an oil giant's ability to do new petroleum exploration and extraction. Its not just the income from the pump. The steady erosion of stock value will undermine the industry. Its a shift. Capital moves. It'll be reinvested in alternative energy plays.
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Ahh, the beauty of capitalism is that it flows wherever there is a return. Rockefeller's shift will simply allow other sources of capital to flow in where it leaves.

What you may want to watch is where the lobby money is concentrated. Rockefeller's shift is probably closely correlated.
 
that is not how the world works. you guys just have a tainted view of how investors make decisions that is based on your own individual type of brainwashing. it has nothing to do with reality. oil will continue to be the basis of the economy until it is all gone. as the price of the remaining oil increases then the banks will loan more money to invest in drilling new wells to tap the remaining reserves as we exhaust all of the oil available and use tertiary recovery techniques to recover oil from reservoirs that are now uneconomic to produce from. there will still be oil that can be produced from these reservoirs for another 100-200 years because the price will climb enuff to make the recovery financially feasible as the price climbs past $800-$1500/bbl.

ALL of the major oil deposits and formations have already been discovered. there will not be more of these huge major discoveries and the low price of oil now is due to the inability to move oil from the bakken and permian basin to the international markets so the price of fuel in the US is 20% below the international cost.

this is why the US is exporting so much product now. we are the world's major gasoline and propane exporter now. refineries are running at 95% utilization. unprecedented levels.
 
dnmun said:
that is not how the world works. you guys just have a tainted view of how investors make decisions that is based on your own individual type of brainwashing. it has nothing to do with reality. oil will continue to be the basis of the economy until it is all gone. as the price of the remaining oil increases then the banks will loan more money to invest in drilling new wells to tap the remaining reserves as we exhaust all of the oil available and use tertiary recovery techniques to recover oil from reservoirs that are now uneconomic to produce from. there will still be oil that can be produced from these reservoirs for another 100-200 years because the price will climb enuff to make the recovery financially feasible as the price climbs past $800-$1500/bbl.

ALL of the major oil deposits and formations have already been discovered. there will not be more of these huge major discoveries and the low price of oil now is due to the inability to move oil from the bakken and permian basin to the international markets so the price of fuel in the US is 20% below the international cost.

this is why the US is exporting so much product now. we are the world's major gasoline and propane exporter now. refineries are running at 95% utilization. unprecedented levels.
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Dnmun, I'm not sure you know how the world works. It used to be that for every dollar invested by big oil, they received $100 on their investment. Today, with the oil harder to retrieve out of the ground, they receive $20 on that one dollar investment. And that number is certain to go lower as the oil is harder to get. Think of the Canadian tar sands which until now, they largely avoided. With the difficulty of extracting that oil I wouldn't be surprised if their return on investment goes below $10. This at a time when investment dollars are more important than ever. Kind of the beginning of a tail spin if you ask me.
 
then you don't really follow the cash flow problems the producers are now facing to drill out the Bakken and Marcellus. maybe you don't follow stock prices. Forest oil just got a going concern letter from ernst and young and is gonna have to merger with a bigger houston producer since they cannot meet earnings guidelines on their loans. it really is too bad that people do not understand how much it costs to produce the oil they assume is free. Saudi arabia can flood the world with oil because it only costs $12/bbl to take it from the huge oil fields they have, but producing the same barrel from some spots in the Bakken does not make money at $80/bbl. the reason the oil is so cheap inside the US is because it is now hard to get it away from the producing areas to the international markets where it can be sold for a higher price. natural gas that is $4/mmcf in the US is $18 in korea.
 
Total Buys Stake in Solar Firm - this back in 2011
In a deal that highlights the rapid maturation of the solar industry, French oil major Total said Thursday it would spend $1.37 billion to buy a controlling stake in SunPower Corp.

The deal weds a solar company that industry observers say has an attractive technology to make high-quality, high-efficiency panels with a traditional fossil-fuel company that has access to cash and credit needed to accelerate solar deployment around the world...
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Some companies get it, some are too entrenched. But this is the way divestment will happen and we'll move on to the era of new energy.
 
i don't think you understand. oil producers are in the business of finding and producing oil. Total is well known for making some of the worst investment decisions in the oil business. i think it is gonna be very hard for solar panel pv producers to make money as the european rebates are reduced and the competition from china continues.

just because you understand that the world is being destroyed by this greed to consume all of the oil in one generation, it does not change the reality of meeting the cash flow from operations when the world is flooded with excess pv panel production.

all the money is being made by the installation companies because they are making big money but the panels are cheap.
 
arkmundi said:
Total Buys Stake in Solar Firm - this back in 2011
In a deal that highlights the rapid maturation of the solar industry, French oil major Total said Thursday it would spend $1.37 billion to buy a controlling stake in SunPower Corp.

The deal weds a solar company that industry observers say has an attractive technology to make high-quality, high-efficiency panels with a traditional fossil-fuel company that has access to cash and credit needed to accelerate solar deployment around the world...
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Some companies get it, some are too entrenched. But this is the way divestment will happen and we'll move on to the era of new energy.
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That would be good if these old fossil fuel companies start investing in renewable energy sources but, how do we know they're truly investing in the future? Sometimes they're just buying into renewable energy just to appear like they're doing the right thing (green washing) or to buy carbon credits while slowly running the company into the ground and laying everyone off, doing nothing, etc. Then they say "things aren't working out as we planned, we're going to have to continue using coal and oil for a while longer".

I know BP sells solar panels but I'm not sure what their strategy is. My guess is they work to keep prices high and out of the reach of most consumers. They probably work with local governments and power utilities to keep permit fees high and difficult to get. After all, solar inverters today are so fool proof that any handyman who can install a ceiling fan can install a solar system. Heck, these panels and inverters should be laying all over the shelves at Home Depot and Lowes with pre-wired, fool proof systems that will plug into dryer outlets, wall outlets, etc.
 
edcastrovalley said:
That would be good if these old fossil fuel companies start investing in renewable energy sources but, how do we know they're truly investing in the future? Sometimes they're just buying into renewable energy just to appear like they're doing the right thing (green washing) or to buy carbon credits while slowly running the company into the ground and laying everyone off, doing nothing, etc....
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SunPower is the number one solar PV maker in the world, reputed to have the very highest efficiencies, upwards to 24% irradiance conversion. When Total came into the picture, what the brought was a great deal of expertise on making SunPower a global company, and to expand its reach. They also made the company wholly vertical, meaning they mine for the metals, make the panels, ship them, interface with customers, provide beginning to end service from evaluation to install, and even provide financing. SunPower would not have achieved this reach as quickly without Total. No, there is no green washing here - Total wanted to be a part of the future of energy and achieved their result.
 
but again, my point is that Total should not be the ones running a solar panel company. it is a misuse of corporate resources which should be focused on the business that they are set up to do. that is oil and gas exploration and production.

they do a bad job of that because they have gotten themselves into prospects late and paid way too much for assets that they had to write down later.

it would be better if the solar panel producer was capitalized by people who want to drive down the cost and extend the availability to the public consumer. as the europeans reduce the rebates for solar power it will reduce the rate of expansion of the market and the market will become saturated and prices will collapse and drive small companies under again.

so this company will eventually be dissolved when it is not a profitable part of their business and they are faced with a financial crisis.
 
dnmun said:
but again, my point is that Total should not be the ones running a solar panel company. it is a misuse of corporate resources which should be focused on the business that they are set up to do. that is oil and gas exploration and production.
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Utter nonsense. :!: Large corporations are into all sorts of things, buying, using, shelving, selling intellectual property, forming partnerships, dissolving others, buying up whole other companies. If you want to name what an energy company should not do, then why not Exxon/Mobil, Koch Industries, etc. for participation in ALEC and a full frontal attack on Climate Science and governmental intervention???? But an energy company going green and getting into the new era of renewable energy, this you want to question??? :shock:
 
dnmun said:
but again, my point is that Total should not be the ones running a solar panel company. it is a misuse of corporate resources which should be focused on the business that they are set up to do. that is oil and gas exploration and production.
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Now what will happen when they have to start paying their fair share of carbon they spew into the environment? It's going to happen. It's just a matter of time. Then things will swing the other way and they will be writing off all their oil and gas investments and counting their blessings that they're so self sufficent in solar. It might take a while, like 10 or 20 years but I will happen.
 
arkmundi said:
dnmun said:
but again, my point is that Total should not be the ones running a solar panel company. it is a misuse of corporate resources which should be focused on the business that they are set up to do. that is oil and gas exploration and production.
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Pure, utter nonsense. :!: Large corporations are into all sorts of things, buying, using, shelving, selling intellectual property, forming partnerships, dissolving others, buying up whole other companies. If you want to name what an energy company should not do, then why not Exxon/Mobil, Koch Industries, etc. for participation in ALEC and a full frontal attack on Climate Science and governmental intervention???? But an energy company going green and getting into the new era of renewable energy, this you want to questions??? :shock:
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I appreciate this thread and understand your wishing to see this as a positive event.

However, I for one will view with complete suspicion anything big oil does. Their much trumpeted investment in Green Energy is green washing.

Big oil is interested in only two things:Its profits and keeping its control over the world economy.

History has shown that it will use every trick in the play book, from advertising techniques up to and including false wars and foreign interventions, to maintain those objectives.
 
"(US) Oil council: Shale won't last, Arctic drilling needed now"
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/oil-c...rctic-drilling-needed-211401967--finance.html

Stuff like:
The study, produced by the National Petroleum Council at the request of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, comes at a time when many argue the world needs less oil, not more. U.S. oil storage facilities are filling up, the price of oil has collapsed from over $100 a barrel to around $50, and prices are expected to stay relatively low for years to come. At the same time, scientists say the world needs to drastically reduce the amount of fossil fuels it is burning in order to avoid catastrophic changes to the earth's climate.
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... and
The Arctic holds about a quarter of the world's undiscovered conventional oil and gas deposits, geologists estimate. While the Russian Arctic has the biggest share of oil and gas together, the U.S. and Russia are thought to have about the same amount of crude oil — 35 billion barrels. That's about 5 years' worth of U.S. consumption and 15 years of U.S. imports.
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I fear that the evil empire is rather malign and with all kinds of malicious intent and machinations for a fully fuelled future. I envision these evil overlords in their board rooms quietly celebrating the loss of Arctic sea ice, opening that vast new frontier to their exploitation. As they sign over another check to ALEC and the climate disinformation campaign.
 
Hehe... "about 5 years' worth of U.S. consumption and 15 years of U.S. imports."
 
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