Daily Oil Blog

The oil crisis in the next decade will no doubt give investors a good chance to look out for potential natural resource stocks and one of them is the canadian tar sand market.
Production from the tar sand in Canada is said to grow 5 times within the net 10 years.
However one need to realize it take energy to produce energy.
Don’t forget Oil companies use more than 600 mill cubic feet of natural gas per day in their operations.Think of what they need when production double.Triples!
This provides investors a chance to invest in new technologies like nuclear or others that will replace natural gas in the process.I believe that though new devices can assist in the development of potential energy sources.It ultimately cannot replace the Tar sands and oilfields.Energy must come from somewhere, it cannot be made out of thin air!
We can blame the OPEC, governments for the high oil prices but this leads to nothing.Might as well to invest and cash in on this window of opportunity.I know that the environmentalists will not be pleased about the ecological effects from the mining and processing of tar sand in Alberta but seriously it’s about jobs and economy that will sway any major decision in regards of the exploration.People tend to be more focus about the energy and financial returns rather than mother nature , that’s where big oil giants will be providing.
My advice for investors is that do not invest in tar sand directly but the peripheral industries that will be supporting it.This is a safer bet

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As you know , our world is beset with many problems like economic, social and ecological issues.This is all interconnected , a society just doesn’t collapse due to war or famine. this all are just dots connecting to an imminent collapse.
We all can see examples like somalia, rwanda and some other Third world societies collapsing leading to death and refugees en masse.
Though fossil energy decline could be one of the major factors leading to a collapse in our modern societies. others like food shortages and lack of medicine will pin the human race to the cross of populace rapid decline.Reasons cause mankind have never wrapped the food and medical supplies so tightly woven around fossil energy in the past but now the scared cow is being killed, and there’s no turning back.
What can one do if oil barrel hits 100usd and beyond?Cut down on driving and take public transport and if that’s too expensive, cycle and stay at home.Food too pricey, grow your own.There’s no easy solutions, man have distanced himself away from the source of life so long he does not know how to respond in this kind of circumstances that our forefathers have taken at a daily level whether they like it or not.

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The world’s biggest market currently enjoying the biggest boom in this century, many foreign companies and investors have been rushing in to a slice of this enormous potential in the last decade.
China ranks third in timber consumption cause wood provide 40% of the nation’s rural energy in the form of firewood and hence almost all the raw material for the paper and pulp industry.But a growing gap has been developed between china’s growing demand for wood and it’a declining domestic supply.
This has contributed to a sixfold increase in wood imported from other countries.In the end China and japan thru conserving their forests has led to a exportation of deforestation elsewhere in our planet.
Without sufficent rainforests to absorb the carbon dioxide man produced in their daily lives to convert into oxygen, the world will be a more hazardous place for us and our children.Sustainable timber plantations already  are on the way but  the supply will not meet the demands of big markets like China and India where environmental regulations may not be as well enforced compared to the western world.
With China’s entrance to the WTO.those timber imports are expected to increase more cause tariffs on wood products are reduced from 20% to 3 % .First world growth and free market ended up mass deforestation in other countries who aspire to be like China.

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Many of you guys out there heard and some even saw the movie “Titanic” about a big luxury cruise liner was crashed carrying all the rich and poor passengers wth her.
This is how the First World living aspirations would drive us straight into if we do not pull back and think about how to allocate our limited resources more wisely.
There’s a fallacy out there due to economic and political concerns that the First World governments unwillingness to admit that the third world huge populace impossible path to arrive and maintain First World standard of living.
So it would seem that the problems seem to be make more complicated that developing nations like south korea,Singapore ,hong kong and taiwan have already succeeded in reaching the goal.
Many more countries would come on board in the near future and this would be less of a problem provided our planet has never ending supply of fossil energy and other natural resources to feed this insatiable growth of ours.
We can’t stop countries to arrive at the so called first class seats of the ship and it would be hypocritical to demand they stop growing while developed nations do not.. while we continue to trumpet free market would lead to a better life for the masses.
Even if third world populace cease to exist, current first world nations would find it’s not possible to maintain it’s present course of life by depleting it own resources as well as imported from third world countries without the steady rate of replacement.

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I’ve found out the main culprits hindering the recovery of our environments and the better usage of our current energy supplies are global capitalism headed by faceless corporations worldwide who’s only objective is the bottomline.
There may be another way of looking how we run our economy in light of the fossil energy decline in the future.One of which is called the Gift Economy.

Gift economy can be also called a sharing economy where goods and services are given without any form of agreements of immediate or future returns.This can only happen in a society that placed high values in honour, loyalty and gratitude, somethings that’s sadly not predominant in our modern societies.Imagine a world with no money and wage labour.
People are motivated to give by social status or pleasures of giving.

Take farming for example. Producers would see no advantage in overusing their land. Instead they would seek to conserve their agricultural and environmental resources; to ensure their ability to live well in the future and to continue to be able to gain status by giving farm produce to others. In a capitalist economy it makes sense for entrepreneurs to market anything that can be sold, regardless of the effect on the environment. It also makes sense for consumers to purchase these goods, since they are already tied into a life of forced labour. These factors cause overproduction and overuse of land and other resources. In a gift economy people’s efforts in production would be tempered by the desire to enjoy a leisured existence and a beautiful and healthy environment.

Creativity and options, which now only find an outlet in leisure, would be here turned to creating a productive process which was also environmentally benign. In terms of farming, a sustainable agriculture based on polycultures is the ideal complement to such an economic system. Creating and harvesting a stable polyculture is an enjoyable appreciation of the bounties of nature as well as a sustainable mode of agricultural production.
To me, this is really a chicken or egg issue, which will come first, consumer or producer?

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Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable.For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told-and become upset if they are exposed to a different view.the characteristics human trait is not awareness but conformity..other animals fight for territory or food, but uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their beliefs.
The reason is that beliefs guide behavior , which has evolutionary importance among human beings.But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction.
We are stubborn ,self destructive conformists.Any other views of our species is just self delusion.By Michael Crichton

I’ve to agree to some extent that our human unwillingness to change cited by Mr Crichton
will lead us to a major catastrophe in light of our lack of energy supply in the near future.
Though I’m a cautious optimist that we will not go the way of dinosaurs given our shorter history and ingeniuty of men, mass dieoff is  something that’s  a possible scenerio too.

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Enjoy them while you can…with the rising price of oil, and the coming bio fuel caused commodities scarcity, beef may become an environmental and socially prohibited product.

Two recent statistics that have stuck in my head are that the amount of oil needed to bring a cow to market is the equivalent used by a small passenger car while driving across the continent from New York to Los Angeles, and that it takes 14 kilograms of grain to grow one kilogram of cow…and when the inedible parts of the cow are factored in, that figure grows to a nearly 20 to 1 ratio!

When environmentalists also warn that methane from cows is one of the leading causes of global warming and that increasing amounts of rainforest and other forested land are burned yearly for grazing land for American destined beef, it makes you wonder if it’s all worth it.

I mean I love a good steak, and a burger when done just right is a little piece of heaven…but when the social costs of cattle ranching are so extreme, maybe the way out of our current predicament is partially through a switch away from such an inefficient means of food production.

With political will mandating increasing percentages of domestically produced ethanol to fuel our cars, the prices of ethanol related commodities has been rising, and causing rising commodities prices across the spectrum of agriculture. With economists already predicting food shortages in some poorer countries as a result of these rising commodities prices, and we are as well limiting amounts of crops actually grown for food, perhaps we need to reserve the grain we have left to actually feed people, and not feed cows.

Although the world is not facing anything close to food shortages at the moment, market fluctuations and commodities prices will surely raise the price of the grain needed for the grain fed marbling in a good steak, and maybe with rising beef production costs, the demand for beef will diminish naturally…but I doubt it.

Driving cars and eating burgers, and eating burgers while driving cars…quintessentially American habits that may need to change as we strive to feed our expanding population in the world after peak oil.

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Canadian oil sands stock bargains?

The Canadian Athabasca Oil sands, home to more than 300 billion barrels of oil trapped in the unique sands of the region, are currently producing about 1 million barrels of oil daily, and that number is expected to climb up to 2 million by next year, and climb substantially from there, with 2015 estimates calling for a daily production of 15 million barrels of oil per day.

The problem with the oil trapped in the sands is that the man power and expense required for the extraction of a barrel of oil is hugely more costly than that commonly seen with underground oil reservoirs. To compare the two, a barrel of oil produced in Saudi Arabia costs roughly $2 to produce, and an oil sands produced barrel is $15 or higher. Until very recently, when oil prices started consistently topping $40 a barrel, the oil sands were simply not a profitable place to extract the oil needed…but that has since changed, and US politicians have recently been talking up the possibility of getting most of the oil they need from their political ally to the north.

So what does this mean for investors, and is it a good time to jump on oil sands stock bargains? Maybe, although there are still a number of problems with the technology required to increase the daily yield up to an acceptable level, and one of the biggest drawbacks of the proposed extraction plan is both the massive amounts of natural gas and water required to heat and clean the sands in the extraction of the oil embedded within. It has been estimated that it requires 70 barrels of energy equivalent natural gas, just to get 100 barrels of crude ready for market. This has some environmentalists fuming, and wondering why we are burning clean natural gas at an alarming rate to extract dirty crude oil!

The political and corporate will exists to transform these oil sands regions into the domestic oil solutions for the next century, and as such stocks on the periphery of the oil sands industry seem sure to be a strong long range performer. Transportation and industrial support corporations in the province are sure to benefit.

But the biggest long term earners are likely to be any companies with access to the sands, and these companies have already seen price explosions, with a lot of room left before they hit their ceiling. The average oil sands stock has more than doubled in value over the last couple of years, and as infrastructures and development money continues to pour in, yields seem sure to grow.

Look at natural gas, oils sands stocks, and anything else needed to support the huge workforce that going to be spending a lot of cold winter nights in northern Alberta.

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Peak oil is coming, and once our oil supplies reach that critical point at which inexpensive supply begins to fall short of demand, the truly pervasive influence that oil currently exerts in all aspects of our daily lives means that we are all going to face some major lifestyle changes.

Consider the clothing that we wear. An average pair of cotton pants requires just under 1 kg of oil produced nitrogen fertilizer to produce, and when you factor in the transport of that cotton for processing, and the transport of the processed thread to the garment factory, and the transport of the finished pants to the wholesaler, then transport to the retailer, and finally transport to your home; the hidden oil in a pair of pants begins to mount substantially. This is of course no problem today, when oil remains relatively cheap, but when oil prices skyrocket, those $20 pants may just get a lot more expensive…if they are even available at all!

So back to polyester?

Current alternatives, such as nylon, polyester and rayon (which in addition to being unbearable on a hot day!) are in fact made from petrochemicals, and as a result carry an even heavier petro chemical footprint, and are not viable alternatives.

So what’s the answer?

Ecologically minded people are already promoting the purchase of organically grown cotton garments, and in fact manufacturers appear to be interested in supporting such “greener” production, as each year’s production of organic cotton falls significantly short of demand; but another option often touted is to shift away from energy intensive cotton to alternative materials. Hemp and bamboo, which both require very little fertilizer for growth, are often touted as the most sensible alternative to cotton; and activists swear that clothing made from these fast growing plants is not what you’d expect. The current public perception of incense fragrant hippy looking folk wearing scratchy rough hewn natural fibers needs not be the reality swear proponents of these materials, and they boast that both hemp and bamboo can be made to manufacture very soft and fine clothing, just as attractive and comfortable as those currently made from cotton.

We shall see anyways, as it looks increasingly likely that a gradual shift away from energy intensive cotton needs to occur, and with the rising price of oil, will occur of its own accord.

For now, if you’re reluctant to buy bamboo shirts, experts recommend buying second hand and vintage shirts, and buying with an emphasis on quality over price, in an effort to only buy clothing that you will use for a significant period of time.

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What does solar panel and oil have in common?
It seems like one is the alternative energy and one isn’t and hence solve all our energy problems and everyone is happy..
But wrong guys..solar panels are made from plastics and as you all know plastics are made from oil.How are we going to manufactured solar panels worldwide without oil?
I’m always shocked when people told me about alternative energy sources like solar panels and wind turbines.But they failed to realize the mother of this are fossil fuel.
And even if we can.make panels without oil, can we replaced the energy consumption at the rate we’re going now with alternative sources?
And there you get a market of solar companies sales talk that just trying to create a whole new energy industry with again no clear solution to solve the energy woes.
We must face the facts that no alternative energy can replace the fossil fuel that is supporting our present way of life.No techno quick fix for this one I’m afraid:(

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