Guest “This is getting repetitive” by David Middleton
For U.S. oil companies that are recording their largest profits in years, they have a choice. One, they can put those profits to productive use by producing more oil, restarting idle wells, or producing on the sites they already are leasing — giving the American people a break by passing some of the savings on to their customers and lowering the price at the pump.
Or they can, as some of them are doing, exploit the situation: sit back, ship those profits to their investors, and — while American families struggle to make ends meet.
Remarks by President Biden on Actions to Lower Gas Prices at the Pump for American Families, March 31, 2022
Is Biden this stupid? Or is lying simply his default position? Every word that Biden uttered about the oil industry in his March 31 statement was either a bald-faced lie or a non sequitur:
It’s as if this idiot never had a real job in his life. I previously addressed the lies above here:
Biden followed this up with a lie about an oil company CEO.
One CEO even acknowledged that they don’t care if the price of a barrel of oil goes to $200 a barrel. They’re not going to step up the production.
Remarks by President Biden on Actions to Lower Gas Prices at the Pump for American Families, March 31, 2022
This lie appears to refer to the comments Pioneer Resources CEO Scott Sheffield made in an interview with Bloomberg. This is what Mr. Sheffield actually said:
Not Even $200 Oil Will Make Shale Giants Drill Aggressively
By Tsvetana Paraskova – Feb 18, 2022[…]
Some private producers have boosted spending on more drilling, but the biggest listed independents are holding the line and vow to continue doing so in the medium term.
“Whether it’s $150 oil, $200 oil, or $100 oil, we’re not going to change our growth plans,” Pioneer Natural Resources’ chief executive Scott Sheffield told Bloomberg Television in an interview. “If the president wants us to grow, I just don’t think the industry can grow anyway,” Sheffield added.
The capital discipline from the public independents in the U.S. shale patch doesn’t bode well for U.S. gasoline prices and for President Biden’s approval ratings. Yet, companies like Pioneer Natural Resources, Continental Resources, and Devon Energy are keeping discipline and plan to grow production by no more than 5 percent annually.
“We project generating flat to 5% annual production growth over the next five years as we have previously noted,” Continental Resources CEO Bill Berry said on the Q4 earnings call this week.
Sheffield said on Pioneer’s call, referring to production growth: “Long term, we’re still in that 0% to 5%. It’s going to vary. We’re not going to change, as I said, at $100 oil, $150 oil, we’re not going to change our growth rate. We think it’s important to return cash back to the shareholders.”
“In regard to the industry, it’s been interesting watching some of the announcements so far, the public independents are staying in line. I’m confident they will continue to stay in line,” Sheffield said.
[…]
OilPrice.com
Scott Sheffield did not say that he didn’t care if oil prices went to $200/bbl or that Pioneer wouldn’t increase production. In order to increase production, companies need to increase their capital expenditures. Pioneer, like most oil companies, has been steadily increasing its capital expenditures in response to higher prices. Over the past five quarters, Pioneer Resources has increased their capital expenditures (CapEx) from $328M to $1,070M, while maintaining positive free cash flow in four of those quarters.
Free cash flow enables companies to grow, pay down debt and/or return value to shareholders.
Cash Flow
Investopedia
Cash flow is the net amount of cash and cash equivalents being transferred into and out of a company. Positive cash flow indicates that a company’s liquid assets are increasing, enabling it to settle debts, reinvest in its business, return money to shareholders and pay expenses. Cash flow is reported on the cash flow statement, which contains three sections detailing activities. Those three sections are cash flow from operating activities, investing activities and financing activities.
Free Cash Flow
Free cash flow (FCF) is the cash a company produces through its operations after subtracting any outlays of cash for investment in fixed assets like property, plant and equipment. In other words, free cash flow or FCF is the cash left over after a company has paid its operating expenses and capital expenditures.
Free cash flow shows how effectively a company generates and uses its cash. Free cash flow is used to measure whether a company has enough cash, after funding operations and capital expenditures, to pay investors through dividends and share buybacks. To calculate FCF, we would subtract capital expenditures from cash flow from operations. (See “What’s the Formula for Calculating Free Cash Flow?“)
Mr. Sheffield said that Pioneer was not going to significantly change their growth plans in response to short term swings in oil prices. He stressed that shale producers are actually unable to grow production at a significantly faster rate. Three major, nongovernmental, factors are inhibiting growth: 1) labor shortages, 2) material shortages and 3) shareholder demands for greater returns on investment. Biden may not understand this, but the shareholders own the companies, he doesn’t. Shareholders and financial institutions are demanding that greater returns on investment take priority over the sort of rapid growth that occurred from 2008-2014. Back then the “shale” players responded to >$100/bbl oil by growing production at a much faster rate, only to see their legs cut out from under them when OPEC flooded the market in late 2014.
No oil company has a dial they can just turn the production volume up and down in response to changes in oil prices. In order to increase production, oil companies have to drill more wells. This requires increased capital expenditures. Pioneer and most other oil companies are reacting to the higher price environment by slowly increasing capital spending; which is increasing production in a sustainable manner.
Biden then went on to repeat the unused permits and leases canard and added a new lie to his quiver of dishonesty.
A New Biden Lie: “Use it or Lose it”
Right now, the oil and gas industry is sitting on nearly 9,000 unused but approved permits for production on federal lands. There are more than a [12] million unused acres they have a right to — to pump on.
Families can’t afford that companies sit on these — their hands.
So, to help execute this first part of my plan, I’m calling for a “use it or lose it” policy.
Congress should make companies pay fees on wells on federal leases they haven’t used in years and acres of public land they’re hoarding without production.
Companies that are already producing from these wells won’t be affected. But those sitting on unused leases and idle wells will either have to start producing or pay the price for their inaction.
Remarks by President Biden on Actions to Lower Gas Prices at the Pump for American Families, March 31, 2022
[T]he oil and gas industry is sitting on nearly 9,000 unused but approved permits for production on federal lands.
This is a lie. These aren’t “permits for production on federal lands.” These are permits to drill wells on Federal leases. No one is sitting on anything. When Biden was running for president, one of his oft-repeated promises was to halt all new permit approvals on Federal lands and waters. In response to that promise, oil companies with large lease positions on Federal lands, stockpiled enough permits to keep their drilling programs going for several years.
An APD is good for two years. At the end of that period, an operator can request a two year extension. Many of the excess permits will begin expiring at the end of 2022. The only reason why there are currently an excessive number of approved APD’s relative to well spuds, is the fact that Biden promised to halt permit approvals if he was installed in the White House.
There are more than a [12] million unused acres they have a right to — to pump on.
Another lie. No one is sitting on anything. Furthermore, the notion that we can “pump on” a lease just because it is a mineral lease, is just about the most moronic thing Biden has ever said… And that’s up against some very stiff competition.
Biden appears to be referring to onshore leases managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
About 26 million Federal acres were under lease to oil and gas developers at the end of FY 2018. Of that, about 12.8 million acres are producing oil and gas in economic quantities. This activity came from over 96,000 wells on about 24,000 producing oil and gas leases.
Bureau of Land Management
About half of the leased acreage is “producing oil and gas in economic quantities.” The other half would consist of leases no longer producing economic quantities of oil & gas, prospects that have been drilled & condemned, prospects that haven’t been drilled yet, and “trend”, “play” or “protection” acreage. Oil companies will often bid on whatever is open in hot plays and trends, with the notion of possibly working up drillable prospects. They will also lease acreage around good prospects and new discoveries to prevent other companies from “corner shooting.” Mineral leases have a primary term. A company can hold the lease for the entire primary term, so long as they comply with the conditions laid out in the lease agreement (contract). Many, if not most, of these sorts of leases will expire undrilled. The situation offshore is similar.
Rare is the occasion that an oil company bids on a “ready to drill” prospect. After leases are awarded, companies will start spending money on additional geophysical data, reprocessing existing data and performing the detailed geological and engineering work required to bring the prospect to a drillable stage. Even then, it will only get drilled if it is still economically attractive and can be budgeted by the oil company, provided the Federal government approves all of the required permits.
Rick Farmer laid the concept out quite clearly in this LinkedIn post:
Families can’t afford that companies sit on these — their hands.
Congress should make companies pay fees on wells on federal leases they haven’t used in years and acres of public land they’re hoarding without production.
We already do pay fees on federal leases that aren’t producing. Using the Gulf of Mexico as an example:
- Lease bonus: When a company submits a bid on an OCS (outer continental shelf) block in a Federal lease sale, they have to make a deposit equal to 1/5 of the lease bonus (bid amount). If the bid is accepted, they have to pay the remainder of the bonus. The 1/5 deposits are eventually refunded to companies whose bids were not accepted.
- Lease rentals: From the time the lease is awarded, until such time as production is established, the operator pays a lease rental. Annual rentals currently range from $5 to $11/acre. Most offshore leases are either 5,000 (shelf) or 5,760 acres (deepwater). Total annual rentals for an OCS block generally range from $25,000 to $63,360.
- Royalties: Once production is established, the Federal government receives 12.5% to 18.75% of the gross revenue from the oil & gas sales related to that lease. That’s 12.5% to 18.75% of the gross revenue… The government gets this right from the start, long before the operator recovers their investment in the asset. Oil & gas royalties are actually the Federal government’s second largest source of revenue, trailing only income taxes.
Was Biden (or his puppet masters) lying? Or was he just unaware of this? This information is easily accessed through the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).
Companies that are already producing from these wells won’t be affected.
[T]hose sitting on unused leases and idle wells will either have to start producing or pay the price for their inaction.
As discussed earlier, no one is “sitting on unused leases” and we already do pay a price to hold the leases. And the notion that we are sitting on “idle wells,” just beat Biden’s previous record for the most moronic thing he has ever said. When production ceases, the operator has one year to reestablish production or the lease is terminated and this happens:
Idle Iron
From the first signature on a lease, offshore operators know that they will have to clean up the area after they drill and produce hydrocarbons (oil and natural gas) and decommission the facilities and structures placed on the leased area, also called Plug and Abandonment (P & A).The most common way to reclaim a site includes removing the superstructure and often selling it as scrap metal. Other situations may require that the structure be dismantled and removed, such as damage incurred from a storm, use of different equipment on the original structure or another company using the well. Any operation that is decommissioned and is no longer “economically viable,” infrastructure that is severely damaged or idle infrastructure on active leases, are considered “idle iron” according to NTL 2018-G03.
BSEE’s Idle Iron policy keeps inactive facilities and structures from littering the Gulf of Mexico by requiring companies to dismantle and responsibly dispose of infrastructure after they plug non-producing wells. BSEE enforces these lease agreements primarily for two reasons beyond the CFR requirement:
1. Environmental effects –toppled structures pose a potential environmental hazard due to the topsides and the associated equipment, electronics, wiring, piping, tanks, etc., that are left on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. These items pose a financial, safety and environmental burden, and must be removed from the bottom
Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE)
2. Safety – Severe weather such as hurricanes, have toppled, severely damaged or destroyed the structures associated with oil and gas production. While any structure could be destroyed during a hurricane, idle facilities pose an unnecessary risk of leaks from wells into the environment and potential damage to the ecosystem, passing ships and commercial fishermen.
Idle Iron is the reason that the Western Gulf of Mexico shelf (shallow water) is pretty well permanently dead. Even if a new play was recognized, most of the infrastructure is gone. The Central Gulf of Mexico shelf will hang on for quite some time because deepwater production still utilizes much of the infrastructure.
As a 41-year veteran of the oil & gas industry, mostly working Federal leases in the Central Gulf of Mexico, I have never seen such a blatantly dishonest, corrupt and incompetent administration. For the alleged president of these United States to constantly lie about an American industry is inexcusable, particularly when his actions are hamstringing us.
A Federal mineral lease is a binding contract between the government and oil & gas companies. Only thoroughly corrupt dictators unilaterally alter the terms of a contract. Prior to Biden, this sort of lawless behavior was limited to the likes of Hugo Chavez and Muammar Gaddafi.
A Few Related Posts
- Jen Psaki: “There are 9,000 approved oil leases that the oil companies are not tapping into currently”… Aeuhhh?
- Jen, Joe… Is it 9,000 leases or 9,000 permits that oil companies are allegedly sitting on?
- Biden’s “They have 9,000 to drill onshore that are already approved” Drilling Permits Canard
Acronyms/Abbreviations/Jargon
- APD: Application for Permit to Drill
- bbl: barrel (42 US gallons)
- BLM: Bureau of Land Management
- BOEM: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
- BSEE: Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement
- CapEx: Capital Expenditures
- CEO: Chief Executive Officer
- CFR: Code of Federal Regulations
- EIA: Energy Information Administration
- FCF: Free Cash Flow
- NTL: Notice To Lessees
- OPEC: Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
- P&A: Plugged and Abandoned
- PXD: Pioneer Natural Resources Co.
- Spud: Start drilling a well
- WTI: West Texas Intermediate
Addendum: Pioneer Resources Annual Cash Flow & CapEx (2017-2021)
Dave, near the beginning of your excellent post you ask rhetorically whether Biden is that stupid or just lying? The correct answer IMO is neither. He was always that stupid, but he is now also visibly cognitively impaired. (Tells include lack of situational awareness ‘lost’, gait, anger flashes, in addition to ‘gaffes’.) Cognitively impaired means he does not know the lies others feed him to repeat are lies. He has no remaining ability to find out for himself.
And his stupid SPR ‘price lowering’ gambit already failed today. Brent went to $106/bbl while WTI went to $103. Easy to see why. He is going to release 180 million barrels of crude over six months. The world consumes just under 90 million per day. So his big plan to save his gasoline price skin in the US while jeopardizing US military fuel preparedness amounts to 3 days globally. Literally a drop in the bucket since crude is a global commodity. More proof of cognitively impaired stupidity.
I should have noted that those were very rhetorical questions… 😉
BTW, I am not a Dr. like Ronnie Jackson, who made the same observations. But my significant other has anxiety disorder (PTSD from nearly dying from anaphylactic shock) that was diagnosed 4 years ago by a neurologist at Cleveland Clinic Weston as causing very mild cognitive impairment (score was 25 of 30 on the Montreal Protocol when 26-30 is no impairment). Her treating anxiety psychiatrist just retested at my request, she scored below 20 meaning no longer mild cognitive impairment. So referral to neurologist for further diagnosis. The first meeting is soon with the local cognition neurology group here in Fort Lauderdale. Such is life.
So referral to neurologist for further diagnosis
All the best for successful treatment/mitigation measures as necessary.
We remain hopeful.
Rud,
You and your wife are in our prayers. Mrs. Middleton is also dealing with neurological issues related to a brain tumor that was removed and treated back in 2001-2004. I can definitely empathize with what you’re going through.
Both your families will be in my prayers.
I just noticed that rhubarb was beginning to sprout in my garden, so here is a rhubarbical question?
Why do people grow rhubarb anyway?
Rhubarb pie is really good… At least that’s what I remember.
Especially Bebob-a-Rebop Rhubarb Pie:
My understanding is that rhubarb is used to offset the sweetness of strawberry pie.
That and people do not care that rhubarb increases one’s ability to enjoy their own kidney stones.
Well, in the about third acre rototiled garden at my SW Wisonsin dairy farm, I planted it at the west end of the big garden. Three reasons.
My rhubarb line originated in my grandmothers garden in Michigan and I’ve been moving some of it around from house to house for almost 40 years. It’s more of a connection to the past to me, though I will on occasion make a sauce for vanilla ice cream or ask my wife to make a pie. For me, it’s often a good laxative.
I’d much rather have morels. I’ve looked for them in Colorado several times, but have not yet been successful. I suppose I should take a look around the burn scar area in Louisville. Thanks for the idea.
Rhubarb cherry crisp, with ginger in the mix, coating has brown sugar, quick oats and almonds.
Off the chart
Oh No! Peta says you’re unfit for any important decisions!
If you are searching for morels, I suggest an area where hardwood trees have fallen and begun to rot. The burn area might be fruitful even if it was conifers but is less fruitful than hardwoods like oak, elm, maple, sycamore, and poplar.
I’ll be going to my woods in a couple of weeks to go for turkey and I always have to chase off the morel poachers.
In front of my house last spring. Must’ve come along w/the little dogwood I transplanted there from the woods.
I think that there’s more to it than just Biden’s dementia rambling … this is a calculated strategy by the socialista in the administration.
Rud, David, Streetcred, and others are trying to figure out what issues are intrinsic to Biden and what idiocy is fed to him and he just (struggles) reads it. However, there are such serious signals of a cognitive dysfunction that he will either be tested or the 25th invoked. If you want to see how bad the basic issue is with Biden, google (biden goes to sleep standing up at submarine commissioning” and prepare to be shocked.
He’s playing both ends against the middle – trying to keep the climate zealots happy whilst also trying to keep the citizenry happy. This will not go well if it’s allowed to continue – something will have to give.
According to Worldometers we are using 97,103,871 barrels per day. But is an older estimate from 2016 I just saw. My question is does this amount include natural gas as BOE included in the total, or is it purely oil, and nat gas and other FF derivatives are counted separately in the fossil fuel mix?
This website has a meter like the national dept. With the amount of oil being consumed, they make it look like we will be out of oil next week some time, the thing is spinning so fast.
Maybe this site is really out of date, since has only 1.65 trillion barrels in total global reserves for a 47 year year reserve life. But now that the price is up near the Moon, we should have 3 times that much recoverable oil at these prices. And we haven’t started on the methane hydrates yet, although I suppose that is just really a whole lot more nat gas when we can recover that.
We should have at least a 100 years of affordable fossil fuels left at these prices, if not a whole lot more. And I didn’t even mention coal.
Something tells me we have a whole lot more fossil fuels than is accredited for.
https://www.worldometers.info/oil/
No. ‘Crude’ comprises only real crude plus nat gas condensate (a lot of which gets blended into heavy crude to make it lighter. Wrote about it in ebook Gaia’s Limits.
The remaining reserve estimates are a complicated multidimensional problem. Bigger question is when does all crude production (conventional plus unconventional) peak, and how fast will be the decline? Wrote aBout that also. Answers appear to be about 2025, and much slower than peak doomsayers projected, because it isn’t a logistics function, it is a gamma function.
“The stone age didn’t end for lack of stones.”
Nor did it end because some academic pinhead or government bureaucrat decided it was time to move on to the Chalcolithic Age.
Oddly enough, I think we use more “stone” now than we did back in the Stone Age… 😉
There are a lot more stones than hydrocarbons. Nice try, but logic fail.
Hydrocarbons only outnumber stones in a world where porosity is less than 100%… /Sarc
Yeah but do stoners outnumber stones yet?
Don’t forget EROI…when it takes a barrel worth of energy to get the next barrel, you’re finished with extraction for the sake of energy…although chemical feedstock extraction will likely be viable for much longer.
We don’t even think about EROEI, It’s a fake metric. $/bbl is all that matters.
I’m reminded of the problem of the current shortage of coins, brought about in part because it costs more to mint coins than they are worth.
Short-term, one can produce oil that has less energy than it took to find and refine it. But that can’t be maintained long-term unless there is abundant, cheap, alternative energy.
If that were true, I suspect solar panel production would end.
And, I suspect you are right except for niche applications such as powering an emergency highway phone in the middle of Wyoming, or providing lights for someone living off the grid.
Your statement is economically incorrect. Any production where costs exceed returns eventually bankrupts the producer. If there is an abundant alternative why waste your time/money?
Yep… I can spend about 3 times as much money to find 1 million Btu of oil than I can to find 1 million Btu of natural gas and come out with basically the same financial result.
There are certain applications that are relatively insensitive to cost, such as running tanks or fighter planes.
However, long-term, for everyday situations where things wear out and have to be replaced, if more energy is required to make a power source than it will produce in its lifetime, it doesn’t make sense to replace it.
Prices of fuel can be all over the map, changing significantly in a short time. That has nothing to do with the BTUs contained in the fuel.
When things get scarce, the price can get very high (note what happened with nickle recently). However, if something is unobtainable at any price, it doesn’t matter what one is willing to pay for the ‘unobtainium.’ Then substitutes have to be found, and they often don’t work as well as the original material, even if they cost more.
Cost has to exceed Total returns to be uneconomical. Energy cannot Directly fulfill every application. The losses due to indirect expenditures of energy are part of the cost of meeting particular end-user needs. Whether the expenditure is fixed or variable cost and front- or back- end loaded does not matter so much as the present value of the total costs.
Crude oil = $18/mmBtu
Natural gas = $6/mmBtu
1 mmBtu = 1 mmBtu
$18 = 3 x $6
EROEI = Fail
We know what we know. We have an idea about what we don’t know. We have absolutely no clue about what we don’t know about what we don’t know.
I knew that. I think.
Another question is when does Alaska North Slope crude rates drop so low they can’t keep pipeline flowing. Without ANWR and other developments to replace declines of current operations line temperature will drop to low to operate.
William Safire once said Hillary was a congenital liar & Brandon’s cut from
the same cloth. Each one has an ego that wouldn’t let them to even think
they could be doing something wrong even though it was already habitual.
Hillary Rodham has been lying to the American people and those in government ever since she tried to subvert the Watergate investigation. She will do anything it takes to keep power under her or her friends control.
It was noted the other day by an economist (on Bloomberg I think) that the US ability to move the reserves was limited to somewhere around 400-500k barrels/day.
He also noted that doing such will encourage higher prices down the road. Futures prices jumped to $125 the day of the announcement IIRC.
I was also under the impression that such action could impact other flows through the infrastructure.
His facts are wrong. Wrote about this in ebook The Arts of Truth. For weird political reasons, the SPR can be filled at a max rate of 6 million BpD, but only emptied at 4mBpD. So 1 million per day is 1/4 of removal capacity. He can do it, but shouldn’t. Weakens US preparedness AND is futile gasoline price wise. Cognitively impaired stupidity.
Yep. 4 mmbbl/d max.
Also, they haven’t released details of this 1 mmbbl/d release. Are they accelerating previously budgeted sales? Are swaps part of this?
SPR sales previously authorized by Congress will cut the SPR in half over the coming decade. Tack on another 180 mmbbl and it’ll be down to 134 mmbbl by 2032.
I had read somewhere that the initial release was sour crude and wasn’t the preferred stock for making gasoline. What happens to the economics if the SPR crude being released isn’t addressing the shortages?
All crude can be refined to produce fuels. Sour just means you have to deal with H2S.
If I remember correctly, about 2/3 of the SPR is sour crude, because the majority of US refineries were designed to process heavier, sour oil.
Interesting data Rud.
One wonders if that transfer rate is based on idle times for such, excluding current production needs on the infrastructure.
I don’t believe we have redundant unused paths across the systems, but don’t really know.
I completely agree, the SPR is for times of real national emergency, not temporary price fixing. In particular when producers will simply wait for it to run out and bounce things higher in the long run.
Perhaps that is the end game strategy of the move by the administration.
Oil Covid…..
“Cognitively impaired stupidity.”
I don’t think so. It’s all part of the propaganda, for people like Tee Shanny, who think Biden is the world’s savior. Biden is seen as doing something, however futile, for the little people, in spite of the evil oil companies. His administration is counting on the stupid people who vote for him.
Mr. Biden has been a known liar for as long as he has been in politics, so it probably doesn’t matter that he is more cognitively impaired than ever.
Anyway, Colorado’s governor postponed a new 2 cent/gal “fee” that was to be used to generate funds to promote equitable electric vehicles, and some equally pathetic BS.
Is Biden this stupid? Or is lying simply his default position?
Yes to both. And cognitive impairment. It’s a bad combination.
You beat me to the same statement.
FJB
I agree with your point. However, one correction the consumption of the world is far closer to 100 million barrels per day than 90 million:
2022 Oil & Gas Report (benchmarkcorporate.com)
Maybe just list the lies simply, and briefly in each case say why they are lies. For me this is just too much “In The Weeds”.
Rud, everybody has different needs. For me, the more detail I get, the better. Write on!
Biden unfailingly makes the wrong choice, whatever the issue and options. History does not lie. He’s also a mean SOB, as demonstrated in so many of his interactions with the (dog-faced pony-solider) public.
When asked a real question Biden smirks, which I find weird. He’s a loathsome piece of work.
Rud,
Sadly, the flashes of anger go back 30 or more years with Biden. So we have ignorance, and impairment compounded with (I believe) narcissism. This one is reminiscent of Hillary’s “At this point, what difference does it make?” comment, which was as if to say, “Who the hell are you to question me?”
https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2019/08/21/joe-biden-assailed-teachers-iq-compared-self-mlk-1987/
Not trying to be a smart-a..e, but wouldn’t 90M barrels a give 2 days globally from180M released.
Peter,
Wow. You introduce the possibility of the Biden administration exporting oil that has been held in the US, by the US to ensure our security to other nations. That’s a kind of depravity I had not even contemplated, and obviously would be right up Democrat Alley.
“[Biden] was always that stupid, but he is now also visibly cognitively impaired. (Tells include lack of situational awareness ‘lost’, gait, anger flashes, in addition to ‘gaffes’.) Cognitively impaired means he does not know the lies others feed him to repeat are lies. He has no remaining ability to find out for himself.”
There is little doubt left in my mind that Biden is not running the show in Washington due to his cognitive issues. He is just a figurehead in government who is being told what to do and say by his staff as time goes on. That staff is running the show, and Biden has admitted that he has been told what to say and do by them at speaking events.
The hard left political nature of that staff makes itself apparent and is reflected in the people that get nominated for positions in U.S. government. I don’t know if something like this is unprecedented in the Office of the President. If it is, mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure that it does not happen again. Perhaps a law is needed requiring all candidates for high political office to take and pass a cognitive skills test, especially if he/she is getting on in years.
Meanwhile, we have a VP who is putting out incomprehensible world salad at her public speaking events. The one where she talked about the “passage of time” was a real gem. The frequent personnel turnover on her staff also does nothing to instill confidence. What is the word I am thinking of here? Disfunctionality.
God help this country if it learns nothing from any of this. If we don’t, we have no one but ourselves to blame for our decline and fall, if it is in our near term future.
Flashes of anger are more indicative of mid-to late stage Alzheimer’s. Not good for the country – not good for the world.
They have copied and pasted the Jimmy Carter archives of rhetoric but in a very different situation. It sounds good in the echo chamber though.
Thanks, David.
Joe Biden is the Commode and Chief. And the commode is full of poo.
Regards, Bob
PS: I don’t recall who said, “I don’t blame Biden. I blame the people who voted for Biden.”, or something to that effect. It may have been Bill O’Reilly.
how many really voted for Biden?
We will probably never know, for the same reasons that past celebrity politicians have not been prosecuted for breaking national security laws or profiting from their positions.
As the old tootsie roll pop commercial says: The World May Never Know
True The Vote last week testified about their estimate that 4.8 Million ballots were trafficked in the 2020 election:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/04/719657/
Seriously? Have you no filter for BS. If this was even remotely true the courts would be all over it. But…. silence except from the far right BS websites.
I recall people like you screaming about Trump’s Russian collusion when Hillary lost in 2016.
Wait till after the Mid-Terms in November – I suspect a lot of filth from 2020 is going to come to light once the Dems lose control of the House and Senate.
And the Russia colluuuusion clown appears
Take the red pill PDQ, your TDS infection is fatal.
Probably not quite that extreme, but it is debilitating and publicly humiliating.
He forgot to cite Rachel Madcow and PolitiPropaganda.com.
The crew writing Biden’s talking points are probably going off what is fed them by the Green Blob. The Friends of the Earth or such know almost nothing about the industry, and lie about what they do know.
The Women’s Studies majors on Biden’s staff trust the Green Blob, as they know even less.
Agreed, this is a concerted strategy by the left.
Can we get the Women’s Studies majors to define “Woman” for the woke SJWs?
A senile 79 year old man with failing cognitive ability may not be purposefully telling lies in the way as his 57 year old counterpart on this side of Atlantic, considering neither knows or understands what they are talking about.
OK, one last time. Oil is found in little tanks in the ground. Big oil companies own all those tanks and only sell the oil when they want to. They get together and fix the price, and if someone whines they pay off some congressmen to give them big (bigger) subsidies. We end our need for all that oil by just using electricity. Also, cars would get 70-100 mpg, but the oil companies bought up the technology and are hiding it with their early data on climate change.
Doug, you forgot the /s. Or else you need to be committed as manifestly delusional
If it’s not sarcasm, this could get fun!
You’re not supposed to tell.
What was it Patton said?
“It’s not important for the men to know when I’m acting… It’s only important for me to know”… Or something like that.
I didn’t know he was so quotable. Here are more:
https://kidadl.com/quotes/best-george-patton-quotes-about-leadership
Thanks!
I thought the first one was most applicable to the debate involving AGW:
That’s a wonderful quote, given that the entire nation currently seems drunk on groupthink.
“by just using electricity.”
And everyone can just plant a few electricity trees in their garden. Problem solved! 🙂
I’m a step ahead of you. I’ve got current bushes! 😉
AC & DC; 110, 220- whatever it takes!!!
AC/DC rocks!
Talking about EVs, should reference their best song, Ride On
Is that some kind of power plant?
👍👍🤣🤣🤣
You win.
Indeed! Lemon Trees. The citric acid in lemon juice contains an acid which conduct electricity. A dozen lemons could provide the equivalent of the Hoover Dam for 42 nano seconds. A whole forest of lemon trees and now we are cooking with gas and the worlds energy problems are solved forever.
That’s nonsense! Everyone knows electricity is made in those funny little holes in the wall!
Must be the ants, then. I see them coming out of those little slots all the time.
It’s as if this idiot never had a real job in his life.
45 years in the Senate and he had an instinct for being on the wrong side of every issue. Then Vice President. Obama got caught on an open mic saying don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f… things up.”
I truly am sympathetic to Biden or anyone with dementia, but he was a very dull boy when he was well. Apparently all the Bidens are dumb
https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2022/01/23/the-dumbest-biden-n2602216
Politics & bureaucracies are all about knowing how to bully. It keeps others
afraid to push back or take on city hall!
I have no sympathy for Brandon at all, even if Herr “Doktor” Jill is letting elder abuse happen. What these idiots are doing to the country is inexcusable.
There is intrinsically dumb – and then there is never needing to be smart.
This is why so many scions of self-made wealthy people are utter, complete failures. They have the “good genes” – but they never had to use them.
Brandon has a liar and an idiot for a long, long time. And now that his brain has turned to oatmeal, he’s just a droid for the watermelons that pull the strings.
We really should stop maligning the real Brandon and address the real FJB.
I kinda miss word salad Bob telling us how great this administration is to the windmill industry.
This clown (i.e. Brandon) will lie about anything. Just today he claimed to have been 18-wheeler semi driver in times past:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/04/biden-tells-bizarre-story-big-mama-used-drive-18-wheeler-biden-never-driven-18-wheeler-video/
Maybe he confused 18 wheelers, if he actually said 18 wheeler, with daddy’s old pickup.
Or a plastic model from kid-dom.
It’s strange how often he recycles his lies. Suppose he’ll soon be talking about his career in coal mining again.
or that time he stood up to gang leader “CornPop”, that one never gets old.
Great post Dave for explaining the USA situation. I have 43 years as a PE in Oz and the Mid East and can understand everything you said. Non industry engineers have trouble understanding how it all works technically and commercially so non industry non technical people just won’t grasp anything you have said. And they are not interested in learning anything – they (and that includes some close family) are simpletons who refuse to acknowledge that all the industries in the world are actually quite complicated. The anti fossil fuel brigade, including Biden, just hate our industry because they simplistically think the oil is just sitting their for us to profit from. They hate and envy profit, unless they are making the profit. Years ago I read that the net return on funds for Exxon over the 1990s was 7.5%, hardly breathtaking given the risks taken.
Yeah… The fact that almost every principle of petroleum geology & engineering and resource economics is essentially incomprehensible to most people outside the industry, and quite a few of the non-technical people within the industry, makes communication nearly impossible… Hence the phrase, “Let the bastards freeze in the dark.”
As I non-industry semi-technical person I try to learn everything I can here.
Just to let you know David — LinkedIn terminated my account after the two posts about the air temperature record. No warning, no notice. Word is all my posts and comments have been disappeared.
Get off that platform. I have an ancient never updated CEO profile thing from 2012. Nothing further. Yet young wannabes keep trying to connect. I figure the cost of ignoring them exceeds the cost of deleting my obsolete profile. Ha!
It’s a very useful platform for professional networking. It’s the only social media platform where I am allowed to self-identify as an employee of the company I work for.
Unfortunately, elementary school music teachers can post abject nonsense about climate change with impunity; whereas, professional scientists get banned for refuting the nonsense.
When they start censoring what I factually post about the oil & gas industry, usually sourced from EIA, BOEM, BSEE, BLM, etc., in favor of kindergarten teachers opinions about penguins and polar bears living in harmony, I’ll consider closing my account.
I know… They also caused Andy May to quit LinkedIn for censoring his factually accurate posts. There are a handful of ubiquitous trolls who report any climate change posts that offend them. These “professionals” cite song writing, ski instructing and other scientific endeavors as their professions.
I wonder how long it will take them to do the same thing to oil & gas industry professionals posting articles about our own industry, allegedly one of the purposes of LinkedIn.
It is a sad state of affairs when these organizations want to act like dictators.
Social media censorship is the true modern pandemic.
I worked in water treatment and supply for a large city.
If I may make a comparison.
We could produce 130 MGD or so.
But enviro groups demanded we can’t withdraw that much water from the stream because we might effect the habitat of the Emerald Bottom Dweller.
So we are required to disable half of our pumps and cut our treatment chemical budget allocations in half.
Then a drought hits.
The MSM blames us for them not being able to water their lawns and keep them green.
“They’ve got the pumps!”
I thought that it was the ‘Puce Bottom Dweller.’
That might be the breed more commonly found in the swamps of Washington DC.
Half, you say? Sounds like you’re in California too. You may hear that 80% of California’s water goes to agriculture. This is true, after fully half (50%) of it is flushed out to the ocean without ever benefiting anyone except in the most tsngential way.
I guess I didn’t make it clear that the that didn’t actually happen to us. I thought the “Emerald Bottom Dweller” would have been enough.
But IF such restrictions were placed on us, it would be similar to what has happened to the gas and oil industry in the US.
However, one project that would have cut our electricity usage by about 25% and reduced our coagulant usage and given us protection from potential chemical spills from, say, an accident involving a tanker truck on the bridge upstream was killed by some enviro groups. (The Sierra Club was one of them.) And the city government has gone fluorescent “green”.
(It involved a water line about 5 miles long to bring water to be treated directly from a dam to our plant. No need to pump water from the creek. Gravity would do that for us.)
If you check back, Joe Biden’s entire career is about lying. He had to withdraw from his presidential campaign in 1987 because of it.
Anyone who believes anything Joe Biden says is a moron, he cannot be trusted.
It’s fair to assume oil companies want to sell oil at an affordable price and in a genuinely competitive market free of government interference that is what happens.
Was Joe lying?
Was he lying? Who the hell knows? However, he absolutely was being delusional.
Excellent article – thank you. Exposes the absolute idiocy of Biden and his incompetent Democratic Party and even more clueless media.
Washington has the final solution for you all-
Washington State Bans ICE Registrations (msn.com)
That is going to be fun to watch. Might go long on some shoe and bicycle companies in 2029.
You can say that again as their Moore’s Law theory of EVs goes the way of their climate modelling-
Tesla Model 3 Gets Insane Price Hike in Europe for No Reason – autoevolution
Big Lithium is obviously screwing you lefties!
Although worth stating, Biden’s lies about oil and gas are expected. He lies about everything.
Biteme is being fed his words via his giant teleprompter written by a staff of nitwits who couldn’t run a lemonade stand if they had to. It fits right up there with “orange man bad” type of bloviating by the left.
Most of ’em probably don’t even know how to fuel up the cars they are driven around in.
MAGA.
FJB is so out of touch with reality that he doesn’t realize that he is usually his own worst enemy.
Only 30 months left to the dooming now-
It’s over for fossil fuels: IPCC spells out what’s needed to avert climate disaster (msn.com)
Presumably the climate changers are barracking for Putin to shut down oil coal and gas supply altogether to save the EU and the world from our ignorance?
You ignorant fools. Don’t you listen to the mainstream media? Gas prices go down when there is lowering demand and they go up because “BIG OIL FAT CATS” decide to screw the peasants.
I actually heard a Fox pundit once suggest, at another time of higher prices, that oil companies should lower prices a bit. Wonder what he would say if they ordered gas stations to lower prices, which they can’t, and they would run out of gas.
you just need to stop at “Biden Continues to Lie”. His mouth was sorta moving and words came out.Those few times he is not lying, he is going to be wrong. About as wrong as it is possible to be.
I am a retired CEO, and a shareholder in oil stocks. Here is the idiocy that Biden and his minions refuse to recognize. Biden has told the oil companies that he is going to put them out of business by 2030 to 2050. The message to oil producers is that the Federal government will not allow oil companies to earn a return on the risk and massive capital required to explore and develop new supplies of oil to make us energy independent, and to bring down oil prices.
If this policy continues, capital invested in oil producing assets will become worthless. As a result, the only strategy that makes economic sense for US oil companies is to maximize the value of existing oil production by extracting as high a price as possible. Take the cash flow generated and return capital to shareholders through dividends and stock buybacks.
The usual idiots are having hearings tomorrow in Washington to berate oil company CEO’s for not expanding production, and increasing dividends and stock buy backs instead of using their current profitability to subsidize lower gas prices. As usual, these financial illiterates do not, or will not for political reasons, recognize that their policies are the cause of the problem, and oil companies are responding rationally to Biden’s energy policies.
As somewhat inelastic consumers we’re supposed to slip the costs quietly across into the Transitioning column with the vision splendid here Bill. Think of it along the lines of Mike’s Nature trick.
Biden did not lie about Scott Sheffield’s remarks. His paraphrasing was accurate. Reduced drilling = no production growth. And Mr. M. predictably skates on the fact that Sheffield went out of his way to avoid blaming the gubmint for the boring old geological and petroleum economic problems that are the actual cause of the shale pause.
As about the best shale commercializer out there, Scott Sheffield knows that the combination of reduced candidate quality – with or without the leasing of the last tiny fraction of federal lands – coupled with increasing development costs that would boom and zoom if shale production grew with increasing R/P’s, would make shale exploitation a dollar trade into the foreseeable future.
Biden’s problem is condemnation of what’s going on now. Shale producers are prudently giving those extra $ back to stockholders as dividends, buy backs, like for like acquisitions. They have no duty to drill uneconomically. They will also save money from the concomitant run offs from the referenced acquisitions.
As for leasing:
Because exploration folks like Mr. M. are mostly insulated from the actual business/operational aspects of their employers – often to the point of being on different floors/buildings – they don’t realize that producers of any size charge at least one engineer (and it is always an engineer) with generating and supporting royalty reduction begs. They have the economic/business/technical skills, along with the contacts to do so.
Separately, glad to see that Mr. M. has finally snapped out of directly or indirectly pimping for his company’s corporate welfare bid for CCS. He has seen first hand how WUWT followers feel about having the debt/deficit increased by non paid for winner picking to reduce the proven man made climate change they deny…
I give this blob-rant a 2 (out of 10).
Random words processed through Bigoilyboob’s mental blender gets a 2? For what? Length?
The inflicted mental anguish.
That’s generous. Does he owe you money?
“Uh donno wut he sayin. He uses than bag wurds an oilfield talkin’. Who he thank he is anyhoo?”
As usual, no data based refutation of any of my plainly put points. Just the usual fact free Cliffie Clavinisms….
Ok. You get one uptick for Cliff, but that’s all Norm!
“plainly put”? Seriously?
You need to take a remedial writing course, BigOilyBoob.
Remedial reading too.
Still no data based refutations. To be expected….
Google:
Since 1977, governments collected more than $1.34 trillion, after adjusting for inflation, in gasoline tax revenues—more than twice the amount of domestic profits earned by major U.S. oil companies during the same period. Oct 26, 2005
Factor in corporate income taxes, other taxes, mineral royalties and fees… And the US government collects $2 to $3 for every $1 of net income earned by major oil companies.
How do you know when Joe Biden is lying? His lips are moving.
Maybe the tight oil-market isn’t that tight and the real elephant in the room is natgas? In EU…
Oil and refined products tend to find the market. We see this already; China and India buys up RU oil and oil-products. Frres up capacity, and even offer some up. USA bought apx 490.000 b/day from Russia in March. Come on.
Natgas however is a different story. The “Biden-deal” w. EU was pure theater. FT/Bloomberg concluded later on that US LNG-export runs at 100% of capacity. EU will very very soon need natgas from RU replaced. Except the is very little available. Norway can boost 1%, maybe. That is 1,5 bcm of 155 bcm needed yearly. A 155 bcm natgas is 1.515 TWh el.energy by the way. What will Germans TRY to substitute natgas-based heating with do you think? Electricity…
So. When TTF gas has set bottom price for el traded via Nord Pool Exchange for a long time now, what will that look like when Germany needs to replace (just from RU/year) 60 TWh el made from natgas directly and ~500 TWh to heat, cook, remote-heat and for industry?
And this is unfolding right now. Natgas in RUB… Gazprom Germania GmHB closed down…Uncertain storage-situation (bc RU companies also owned a lot of infrastructure, terminals, storage-fac…), flow-issues through Yamal. Baltic states wo. natgas (oh, so you think they actually stopped it not knowing it would be anyway ?(“own the story”)).
My tip? Within one month no/little natgas to (at least) Germany from RU. War by strangulation. Whole industries are unravelling. “No commodities, no raw materials, no processed goods, parts aso. The whole Just-In-Time is failing in front of us. And all things green will get to show ppl. what a folly it indeed was…
Hard times ahead.
Methinks Biden thought the Bevery Hillbillies was a reality show.
Bonbon, Russsia is no longer a communist entity.The communists are now a minor party in Russsia.The Russia of Putin is a fascist state( total state control with privately run businesses,hence Oligarchs). All run by a megalomaniac of less than average height.(sound familiar).
The Wagner private army has a leader that sports Nazi symbols tattooed on his torso.They carry out the Kremlins dirty wars.
I realise that for a lot of French far leftists,this is something they prefer to push under the carpet.For many of those on the left the revolution was 200years too soon.
Still they can consol themselves with the triumph of “post modernism” with it’s desire to bring tiny children into the adult sexual arena. The far left intellectuals of that period were never shy writing about their desires.
” Pioneer, like most oil companies, has been steadily increasing its capital expenditures in response to higher prices. Over the past five quarters, Pioneer Resources has increased their capital expenditures (CapEx) from $328M to $1,070M, while maintaining positive free cash flow in four of those quarters.”
Intentional cherry pick. From the lowest CAPEX spend rate, to somewhat less low, during the last 15 months. Resulting in a Trumpian YUGE increase, to ~1.1$B/year. What he conveniently leaves out is that from the early teens to the pandemic, Pioneer has spent ~$2.5B/year for CAPEX. With much lower prices.
Shale industry wide, 2022 CAPEX is ~35% of that required for long term sustenance.
https://www.discoverci.com/companies/PXD/capital-expenditures-capex
Errata. Last CAPEX rate mentioned by Mr. M. was for the quarter. bigoilbob regrets the error.
More completely, PXD DOES expect to spend between $3.3 and 3.6B for CAPEX this year. This is about par with historic, inflation adjusted, and plainly not increased “in response to higher prices”.
It is telling that, even with post pandemic CAPEX restoration, Scott Sheffield has looked at at the combination of, upcoming cost increases and reducing candidate quality and has described his expected growth as essentially flat.
2018: Avg. WTI $65/bbl, PXD CapEx -$3.78B, FCF -$550M
2021: Avg. WTI $68/bbl, PXD CapEx -$3.29B, FCF +$2,82B
Same as the more complete link I posted earlier. The link that included many earlier years. Please read my last 2 posts for comprehension.
I am not arguing that PXD is not cashing in. They are. Mr. Sheffield just has enough business sense to give most of the bounty back to stockholders, Harvest Mode style. Even if he will no longer be replacing reserves.*
Also, as you probably know, the “upped since pandemic” Baker Hughes CONUS rig counts are still:
David, you can’t really accuse a person of lying when they have already demonstrated they are incapable of understanding. Repeating a falsehood that you truly believe in is not the same as repeating one you know is wrong. Biden and his administration are just too stupid to understand any business concept.
Biden is too dotty to understand anything anymore-
‘The guy looks lost’: Biden seen wandering around aimlessly at White House event (msn.com)
“It’s as if this idiot never had a real job in his life.”
Very true, he didn’t. Graduated law school (age: 22?), ‘worked’ as a lawyer. Was 29 years old when first elected to the US Senate, apparently pushed by a strong local ‘machine’. He turned 30 before the next session. He’s been a politian ever since.
“Is Biden this stupid? Or is lying simply his default position?”
I know it was rhetorical, but the answer is both, with an unhealthy dose of dementia thrown in for good measure.
It is absolutely astounding to me how many people think it’s immoral for a company to return profits to its investors/owners. That’s the entire reason a company exists! People don’t invest their hard earned money into companies just to break even, unless they are trying to be charitable (but that’s what non-profits are for) or are just plain stupid. They expect to not only get their money back someday, but to get interest on it in the form of increased share value, dividends, or both. Companies don’t exist to provide society what it wants/needs, but to create wealth for the owners/investors via profits. The goods and services they provide to the greater society is a secondary (but obviously necessary) benefit. Oil and gas companies are no different. If Oil and gas companies are evil, then so are farmers, Apple, Twitter, Ford, GM, etc.