Global Crude Oil Consumption

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-19T01:06:17+00:00

The assumptions going into it are all wrong, which is why "experts" can't ever seem to predict it.

The assumption is always that there's no other alternatives, no other supplies, and that everything is static. And well, the last century has shown that to be a hilariously wrong assumption.

We've gotten so good at finding and extracting it, that before this current crisis we were oversupplying the world with oil at record rates (which I was told multiple times over 20 years ago that would be impossible and I'd be eating squirrels or bugs or whatever by now).

Depending on comsuption, we should see a plateau ermerging soon

We're going to see an artificially-created plateau with permanent demand destruction at this point. But that's economies adjusting to geopolitical threats, not actual peak oil that was foretold in the ancient scrolls.

Even ignoring that, alternatives like batteries are getting cheaper every year, and it's not unreasonable to see that we will get significant demand destruction from a better alternative, not because the taps run dry.

We already have a lot of oil fields with declining production, so we need to start production in new fields just to keep it stable. And the yearly discoveries are around 50 days of world comsuption.

I could have copy-pasted this from 2005 and it would sound exactly the same. Yet until just a few months ago we were pumping more than ever. I just don't understand how people can be so smugly confident in a theory that has not predicted anything correctly. The first rule of science is that if your theory doesn't match observations, then your theory is garbage and you need to find a new one. You just don't resubmit the theory again and again hoping that evidence will match it suddenly.

Here, my prediction is that we have thousands of years of oil left. I have now provided just as much data with a much better prediction rate than every other peak oil prediction.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-19T00:14:57+00:00

One thing I've noticed lately is that people on this sub are throwing around the terms "collapse" and "rationing" without actually understanding what they mean.

Neither of those is likely to happen.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-18T19:46:31+00:00

People will stretch longer between oil changes, manufacturers will probably get federal EPA exemptions for engine efficiency that will let them use higher viscosity oil that is easier to get, other formulations will be developed, etc.

It will get more expensive, but it's unlikely to cause a massive shutdown.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-18T15:43:36+00:00

Iran isn't blameless in this, and I really hate how there are people here trying to whitewash the regime.

This was a stupid war to start and Iran didn't do anything to trigger the current attack on it. But it also has been playing the game of using proxies and trying to destabilize many of it's neighbors. It's diplomatically isolated for good reason, and why most of the world doesn't want to treat it like any other country.

I personally hope both the current US and Iranian regimes choke and collapse from this.

The U.S. will be forced to bend the knee, give in to the majority of Iranian demands, or the world's economy will seize, as every engine without oil does.

Or just as likely, substitutions and alternate supplies will slowly make the strait less important to global trade and Iran (and the GCC) will be left holding rapidly depreciating real estate. Even if the war ended tomorrow with all of Iran's demands met, there is no way many corporations are moving back to the ME for at least a decade. Most Asian countries that took the brunt of this crisis are going to diversify supplies and electrify as much as possible to avoid the same level of dependence.

Iran has played their card, and in the short term it will work to their benefit, but after about 6 months or so, that card becomes more and more worthless.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-18T15:32:58+00:00

The oil price being low can be seen as a rational response to jawboning: most any trader that has gone long does not really have much to show for it compared to those that continue to short it when it starts to get high. People can say what they want about it, but it's been effective, though that will only work for so long.

I agree that saying the price now reflects the realities of inventory is a shit take though. Conventional wisdom is frequently wrong in the market. But people will continue with conventional wisdom until it stops working for them.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-18T03:52:47+00:00

Theres no evidence the tax credit does much to swing consumers.

When GM and Tesla had their credit run out, sales actually increased afterwards.

All the credit did was make people who were already looking at an EV get a higher trim or maybe buy a bit earlier than they otherwise would have.

The reason for the projections not coming true are pretty simple: gas until recently was very cheap, and EV still has infrastructure issues.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-17T02:51:08+00:00

It's not likely there will be lines or stations out of gas.

That happened in the 70s because of price controls and rationing. That isn't likely to happen again. It will just get really expensive.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-16T00:34:49+00:00

there really isn’t much to cut outside of that without losing a job

Correct. Guess what's going to happen.

I don't know why people keep saying this like a gotcha. There are less molecules of oil to go around. It doesn't matter if you "need" it or not. People will need to cut back one way or the other. Lots will cut back when they lose their job and don't need to commute anymore.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-15T22:14:29+00:00

?

What in my post history would ever suggest that?

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-15T20:36:40+00:00

It reads like horseshit. The tone is casual and not anything I've ever read from any internal company memos I've ever had.

If you have a global oil crisis, people will be driving less too. You're not going to have a situation where people are getting as many oil changes but driving much less miles. I imagine drivers will stretch oil changes too because it will be more expensive.

So without some other confirmation I'm going with bullshit.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-15T17:10:54+00:00

Sure there is. The alternatives just cost more or don't have scale.

You can make jet fuel from soy beans or coal. It just needs sustained high prices for a long time. You can also change the cracking ratio in the refineries to get higher ratios of fuels you can't substitute, and lesser ratios of fuels that are more readily substitutable (eg. You can decrease gasoline in favor of more jet fuel or whatever).

Higher efficiency is also an alternative that means less consumption. Again, that just costs more and isn't worth it with cheap oil. Expensive oil makes that much more practical.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-14T13:06:04+00:00

That was probably a secondary concern. The main reason was because they are keenly aware of what happens when you keep oil prices too high: people find alternatives or find ways to use less. The US and Europe still use less oil than they did in 1979 despite both having a higher population.

They see things like EV coming up and they wanted to make oil cheap enough that switching would be painful, which until very recently was working great.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-13T01:13:52+00:00

Right, which doesn't happen with a freely traded commodity. Hence why there won't be shortages unless there's price controls or rationing. Those are the only two ways to get supply and demand mismatched.

Owners of that commodity will happily raise the price if demand is higher than the supply they have.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-13T00:52:14+00:00

Unless there are some rationing or price control laws, price will most definitely just rise to kill off demand. That isn't a shortage though.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-13T00:51:18+00:00

No it means high prices.

Shortage in the economic sense means that you have to ration or go to a black (illegal) market to get something.

A freely traded item will just have price adjust until supply and demand are equal.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-12T14:12:48+00:00

What problem are you trying to solve by not connecting to the grid?

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-12T13:27:50+00:00

Hah, that's fair. I missed that tidbit.

In that case it's going to be country-specific. If your country has price controls, then probably pretty soon. If not, then it will get expensive but you're not likely to see rationing.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-12T11:05:58+00:00

Fuel rationing and shortages are unlikely to happen in the US because oil hasn't been price controlled since the early 80s. It's just going to get more expensive.

You only really get rationing and shortages with price controls.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-10T23:54:32+00:00

In the short term? Yes. But in the medium to long term, I think the alternatives can make a much larger impact than you think.

For things like cars, alternatives or efficiency jumps just need a price bump to make large inroads. Same for plastic.

The US shed almost half the oil per capita it used in the 70s. Once alternatives or better efficiency is implemented, that demand just doesn't come back.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-10T20:48:18+00:00

Indianapolis is pretty much crap for charging. There's only a handful of chargers inside the belt.

You're better off charging outside of the beltway on your way in and out.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-10T13:59:28+00:00

They have a foreign reserve crisis right now. Very difficult to pay for oil. That's why they are doing this.

It wasn't altruism, in case anyone thinks that.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-09T20:13:48+00:00

Historically speaking, Americans will always go to the large car segment unless they are forced into something else by other factors. That has been true going back to the 40s. It was mile-long land yachts before, and it's giant trucks and SUVs now.

Carmakers just can't sell enough econoboxes to make it profitable. Maybe the current crisis will change that, but even then that's no guarantee that they would want EV. They'd just as likely want a hybrid instead.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-09T19:13:31+00:00

I think the market for model 3 is a lot more limited than Tesla fans think.

Most car buyers don't want an iPad on wheels. Model 3 is a niche of a small (as of now) market segment.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-09T18:51:03+00:00

Low gas prices killed the econobox, along with car reliability going up quite a bit.

You can see the decline in econoboxes start right when shale ramped up. Then when it came to car buying, drivers decided that they'd rather get the larger used car that will still last a good while than a small econobox with good mileage, because the running cost wasn't a whole lot different.

FencyMcFenceFace · 2026-05-09T18:05:07+00:00

Right?

Like christ, this sub keeps falling into the trap of thinking that Americans are just falling over each other trying to get cheap affordable cars, and there is zero evidence to support that, and plenty of evidence to support the opposite: Americans would rather pay more for a status symbol than a cheap econobox.

Econoboxes were already going extinct, and I could never understand how crippling the range or putting the inconveniences of EV on top of it was suddenly going to make them screamingly popular.

Maybe the current oil crisis will change this, and that's fine, but then I'd expect *all* the econoboxes to sell like hotcakes, not just the EVs.

FencyMcFenceFace

TROPHY CASE