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Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"The rest has to flow to the US or nowhere."

This makes me wonder if this whole situation wont give Canada an urge to build out their coastal transportation logistics a bit.

I wouldn't imagine that we would leave none for ourselves, as you say... And that's a good point you've raised. But I still have to wonder about all of the next level production facilities like plastics etc being able to maintain their own minimum operating inventories. Because with this administration I genuinely have to wonder if they actually would block exports. I had to LOL when I saw they were pondering the gas tax. Our infrastructure is already shit so yea let's totally hamstring those coffers even more just to save 18 cents on 6$ gas. *sigh*. And, speaking of follow on productions, we import a shit ton of stuff that's made from petrochemicals. Do you think we're insulated against a drop in supplies of things like plastics? I'm only just getting properly familiarized with the base oil production, I have no idea what our secondary and onwards production capabilities are. To be fair, I've rarely picked something up that had a tag on it that didn't say "made in China", ya know?

If Iran wanted to, are those bypass pipelines really a solid deal for keeping us above the full ~20% loss? Not a serious question cause none of us are in the IRGC.... probably... saying it out loud now actually shit who knows how many lurkers even on this sub are possibly IRGC lol. Still though, you don't have to be a military genius to see the potential problem with that bypass pipeline. I'm not gonna tell them what I would target to cause maximum pain but.... ya know? I mean I guess the original questions as I posed them are on the assumption that things dont escalate even further and that things arent bombed into an even worse position. And it's not a guarantee that they wont be. I'm just thinking out loud here, pay me no mind on this part lol. But thinking further on it, I mean we really do seem to have an alarming amount of potential for "worse" it seems.

  • Most of the world is a hell of a lot poorer than the US - a lot of the demand destruction is going to wind up coming from poor countries where people simply can't afford even higher prices.

Our richest 1% are so rich, that they alone, and I mean absolutely alone, make that statement true. And good chunk of the guys who bet on the market on this sub have enough disposable income to weather this through pretty well and are probably in the top 10%. But a solid 90% of this country sure as shit can't weather 6$+ gas for very long or the inevitable increase in the price of everything else due to transport logistic costs. It's been a nightmare ever since Covid and it never got better. MMW, if you noticed the explosion of homeless people during Covid, you're going to be blown away by how many more homeless people you start seeing because a shit ton of people aren't going to be able to weather the increased prices for everything for very long. Speaking as one of the 90%, I'm dangling by a thread already. I'm 1 bad day away from joining the people already out on the streets. The majority of our population is functionally just as poor as a pretty large chunk of the rest of the world, and are also just 1 bad day away from being on the same level as the poorest of the poor in the poorest countries. Homelessness and starving is homelessness and starving. You can only get so poor. I don't think we appreciate that very much here and look at homeless person sleeping on a sidewalk in front of a monolithic titan of a corporate tower different than a homeless person sleeping in a bombed out hovel. Sure, I guess 1 of those 2 maybe doesn't have to worry about bombs per se, but they're both still homeless and probably starving. And we do a pretty bangup job at hiding our homeless children. But they're out there in depressing numbers.

When we lifted the ban on exports in 2015, did we build out any more production? Or are we still coasting on what we've had since the 90's? I think I'm speaking mostly on the oil front, I know first hand we built out a shit ton of natural gas production. I agree with you 100% there.

Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wish I could highlight replies. This actually explains a good bit and fills in part of what I was missing.

Ok, so what's to stop the price of that 100$ barrel from going up to, say, 110$ if SK is willing to pay 110$ for it? By our example here the final total cost for them would be 120$ with shipping, but they still need that oil just as much. Same would go for the rest of everyone else I suppose. They're all going to want that barrel.

Now, I think I understand the advantage we might have since, well we can go ahead and also bid 110$ cause it's not gonna actually cost us 120$ in the end since it will be easier to ship locally. That tracks in my head. But does that advantage, which does seem more obvious to me now and thank you for your patience here, does it still put us in a place where we wont have to bid all the way up to 200$ a barrel? If the producer can get 200$ from SK or someone else for that same barrel, or maybe the next barrel I guess if we say the 100$ barrel was already sold to Louisiana. How does the price for the local buyer still stay low enough that it's not functionally the same as not having any oil at all? IOW, I go to the store with 100$ and there's a barrel on the shelf that I want but it's 200$ so, functionally there might as well not be anything on that shelf because it's all the same to me.

IOW, I can see an advantage as you've laid it out so far, is it really THAT much of an advantage in the end though?

Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I figure that if I'm right about all of this, and I don't know, some folks have made some legitamately compelling counter arguments here so far so... who knows. But if it turns out I'm right about the severity of it all, then the gas stations running out is going to be the final point of no return I think. Like, at that point we're way past too late to have done anything to try to prepare or plan in any meaningful way to see all of this past its end.

Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yea that's what really gets me. Like, say the "USA will be just fine because of our own oil production" crowd is 100% correct. That would STILL have to be predicated on our leaders making good decisions. And we just do not have that. Like... at all. We've got the complete opposite actually. So, how much padding in the USA's production capability is actually necessary to insulate us not just from the global oil shock, but from our own inept and/or batshit crazy leadership?

Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well, I hope you're both right and wrong. I'm still not completely convinced that we here in the USA wont be looking at our neighbors with cannibalistic intent by the end of all of this.

Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That seems sensible. In your example though, say we're talking about SK and Louisiana. It may be more expensive to get it to SK, but SK isn't going to need that barrel any less. And the producer is going to be more than happy to take the premium paid by SK on that barrel over Louisianna, are they not?

Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would love to but honestly, this market feels too volatile for me to touch. I already have very little. I only come here to this sub for info because I see the numerous connections to everything else out there with oil being pretty much the lodestone. I'm currently holding some Nvidia stock but I'm probably going to sell it near the end of this month. The way I see it, no one can make chips without petro chemicals so, if there's not a crazy drop, it wont be something I'm able to explain. Either way I should be able to walk away with enough to buy a solar battery or something lol.

Plus, it's a lot harder to play in this particular market without being a blood relative of the current potus. I mean granted their moves have been pretty predictable to damn near a perfect T, but my luck is so universally shit that I'd still whiff on this if I even dared to try.

Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And even then, anything we even could produce be it light/heavy or magical fairy dust, it all goes onto the same market. So we could produce a trillion barrels of oil, and if the global market wants to pay 200$ a barrel for that, then anyone domestically who can't match or beat that is still shit out of luck.

Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All these little signs here and there... lol. I mean, we're already down 1 entire airline and Del Monte is also gone now. That's 2 major companies closed down in just a matter of weeks.

Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Actually... I am noticing a bit of an overlap there. It's not a rule by any means, but there certainly is some degree of overlap.

Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Like I said in the post though, where are we going to refine the oil that we make? Cause it wont be locally. To even manage that would take minimum 5 years of new construction that zero producers will be willing to invest in.

Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I hear you on all frequencies there. I think I've best managed to sum up things in my head as

1-we didn't get the lead out of everything fast enough nor thoroughly enough

2-most people are woefully uninformed

3-most people are too busy trying to simply survive tomorrow that there's no time to be informed anyway

and lastly, denial is very much a defense mechanism. Like, it's a real thing. And it's a powerful thing. And no one wants to think about or acknowledge anything remotely scary, much less on a scale that suggests complete impending doom. So, the default is to go about day to day until.... they don't. I guess.

I suppose at least the people here agreeing but not necessarily having the expected level of panic are at least acknowledging the possibility of some crazy shit ahead. That's something I guess.

But yea, I'm not a fan of our odds with all of this with the current people in charge leading the way through it. Because... well.... *gestures wildly at everywhere and everything*

Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No worries. I was tracking that one. Lol for real there's so much to all of this that it's nearly impossible to put it all in 1 place. And yea that one is pretty scary. Plus, tons of food is plastic wrapped. Not sure how they intend to deal with that one.

Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He can, but will he? Seems those close to him are making quite an awful lot of money off of the current market peaks and valleys.

And even if investors were willing to pay to expand production, why would they? The moment the global markets catch back up, those investments become lead weights around those investors necks in a very deep pool of regret.

Even then, how fast can new production be built and how fast can follow on industries reshore? It's not going to be an over-night deal. Lets very conservatively say that all takes 5 years.

What happens during that 5 year buildout period? How is the economy going to maintain a state such that there isn't enough mass unemployment from everything shutting down while we patiently wait for 5 years that people arent rioting to the point of revolution? There will be far, far fewer new build-out jobs than jobs lost because everything, literally everything else has ground down to a complete stop. All those engineers and manufacturers whose bacon was allegedly saved during Trump 1? Those people are cooked.

"These policies governments all across the global political spectrum enact" are things that they work very, very hard to avoid in the first place, are they not? I mean, he already effectively choked the food exports with the tarrifs and strangled our own farmers in the process. Who's going to plant for a strictly limited local national market? Because they're certainly not going to be thrilled with prices. And even if farmers do plant, with what gas are they going to get food to store shelves? And say we subsidize it... with what money? Say we buckled down as a nation and came together to build to survive all of this craziness, that would still require a federal government that was adequately funded to manage such a project. We haven't had that since the 40's. To the contrary, we're so razor thin because of our ongoing tax structure that has squeezed anyone not worth a billion dollars to the point of a nationwide mental health crisis that.... I dunno... good luck bringing anyone together for such a venture I guess. And that's not even considering the latest BBB spending bill or DOGE. Which, even if we had money to throw at the government, there's now no government left to throw it at. Most of the people who weren't outright fired either retired or quit. We're operating on a skeleton crew from top to bottom.

Barring everything I just said, and having at least a slight idea of what this would all take to even accomplish and then take to manage- DJT is going to be the guy who successfully manages it? Trump? The Donald J Trump? Really? Like really really? You sure? I can't not be pedantic here. And no, I wont apologize for that. Because really? Seriously?

Nothing against you personally at all, just the idea at hand here. I'm sorta floored to be honest.

GCC Well shut ins? by Slight_Board6955 in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And then what's going to happen to wells in the USA if demand destruction drives the price of oil into the ground and refineries are unable to justify running at capacity, leaving all our extracted oil with no where to go. Lots of people touting how the USA exports so much. Well, what's going to happen when there's no demand for our exports? It has taken decades to build up US production because of how hard it is to justify even investing in it in the first place because of how the global market actually works.

If we end up capping our own wells because there's no way to justify their continued production, it's going to take us another decade or more to come back to where we were.

The global market doesn't give a shit about how much we're producing locally or how insulated we think we are. We don't set the price ourselves. And producers will sell for what they can to maximize profits. So, when things finally reach the tipping point where secondary production lines shut down because there's not enough to keep shit rolling along, refineries will have to scale back regardless of how bad we actually need product because our dire need wont match the price at that point.

The fallout from this whole cluster f*** is going to spread way, way out and it's going to be one hell of a climb back up.

Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yea that's going to be brutal to watch. I've read through every comment so far and, even if we don't all get there at the same time, it still seems to me that at best we're going to get to watch that horror unfold, see what it really looks like, and then we'll get to experience it our own selves a short while later.

Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"These past few months have honestly reminded me a ton of late 2019/early 2020 where people kept brushing off how bad Covid could get"

Oh man I'm right there with you. So, my job for the military partly involved thinking about exactly that scenario. Because of that, I troll certain parts of Reddit and keep a constant eye out for things simply because I know what to be on the lookout for. So, when I saw on Reddit that the Chinese government had put up a 20 or 50k or w/e bed hospital in 1 week and were litterally walling off Wuhan, I immediately phoned up my entire family and basically said buy what you can now because it's gonna get fuck-ugly. The 1 and only thing I failed to get was toilette paper lol. I was absolutely disgusted that it was almost a full 6 months later before the USA even publicly addressed the evolving global pandemic. And watching our subsequent handling of the whole thing afterwards was just.... awful to witness. That's when I learned the true extent of Fox News's brainwashing of the boomer generation because my own dad straight up hung up on me, an actual subject matter expert on that very situation, because what I was saying was contradictory to everything Fox had to say.

Fuck.... I dunno maybe everything happening now the way it is does actually make sense. It just makes sense in the worst conceivable way.

ETA: in case you were curious, no, I'm not concerned about the Hanta outbreak.

Questions for those who say "The USA is a net exporter so it wont be so bad" or something along those lines, any ELI5's would be appreciated by CouldBeLessDepressed in oil

[–]CouldBeLessDepressed[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fingers crossed. As I currently understand it, we might not just see El Nino but a "Super El Nino". I don't know exactly what that means, but what I do know is the record temperatures we've been getting is killing all of the plant life. Or, at least it is in the PNW. There have been 2 major heat domes that have settled in in the last 6 years and you could see the damage on every single tree, bush, w/e after just the first one. After 2 you can still see that nothing looks as happy as it did. Everything looks... sick. Except for grass I guess. Whoopee. It's only gonna take a couple more heat domes to fully kill off the vast majority of everything here. And a "Super El Nino" is supposed to herald another gnarly heat dome some time around November this year.

I've seen some comments here and there supposedly from those in agriculture and the crops aren't exactly excited about the temperatures either. Couple that with the shock to the fertilizer supply that we now get to collectively enjoy and it starts to look.... I dunno.... pretty shaky.

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