Most Important Oil And Gas Story For 2015

Tectonic shifts in the oil and gas industry.

From 2010 - 2015, the most important story was the shale revolution.

In 2015, the biggest story is the fact that Saudi Arabia is transitioning to a refining economy. Huge. The reason this is so big:

• Saudi Arabia export numbers are now "shifted"; it will take time to sort out KSA petroleum export numbers
• one could measure Saudi Arabian exports; no one outside KSA can independently verify refinery activity inside the kingdom
• in other words, KSA crude oil production and export numbers will be much, much harder to interpret

****************************

Setting Us Up For $200 Oil

Reuters/Rigzone is reporting:

Oil firms trying to sell ageing North Sea oilfields are considering shouldering hundreds of millions of dollars in future dismantling costs to help find buyers.

One of the world's oldest and most important offshore oil and gas production basins, the UK North Sea faces dwindling output and a growing number of redundant platforms that require decommissioning in a scale and complexity never seen before.

The near halving of oil prices over the past year to below $60 a barrel has forced the industry to slash spending, increase efficiencies and sell or shut down assets that are least profitable or which do not fit their portfolios. But despite a large rise in the number of assets up for sale in the North Sea in recent months, only a few deals have been completed.

Decommissioning, which involves plugging wells with cement on the seabed and removing obsolete platforms and pipelines, has proved to be a major stumbling block for deals.

Think about where "we" would be had there not been the Bakken revolution. All that talk about "peak oil" might have taken on more ... I can't think of the word.

By the way ... just a reminder. And we all survived "2009."

******************************

For The California Readers

Cool Water, Gaither Vocal Band