Peak Oil! What Peak Oil! Islands In The Stream -- October 4, 2016

I would love to make a few comments about the American public and the oil industry, but it's late. Regardless, I don't have time. There's too much to do, and not enough time to do it all.

Is this cool or what? Caelus Energy says it discovered a major Alaskan oil field. And everyone said there were no more elephants to find. From The WSJ:

• 2 billion bbls of recoverable oil
• found in shallow waters of Smith Bay, about 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle
• a world-class oil discovery that could breathe new life into Alaska's declining North Slope
• could use barges built along the Gulf Coast (Texas, Louisiana); towed to Alaska; permanently sunk in the bay to create man-made drilling islands
• if initial estimates turn out to be correct: this would be larger than Exxon Mobil's 2015 discovery off the coast of Guyana in South America
• two Caelus wells, six miles apart, suggest as much as six billion bbls under Smith Bay
• will drill a third well in January, 2018
• requires Federal permits. And that's where this story will end. If the project requires Federal permits, it won't be drilled in my lifetime. The Native Americans will make sure of that. But at least we know it's there if we ever need it. 

How big a deal is this? This discovery may have increased Alaska's oil reserves by 80%.

The light-oil reserves were found in the company’s Smith Bay leases between Prudhoe Bay and Barrow along the Arctic shore. As much as 40 percent of the find, or 2.4 billion barrels, is estimated as recoverable.

That compares with the state’s proved reserves of 2.86 billion barrels in 2014, almost 8 percent of the U.S. total.

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

Rush Was Ahead Of This Years Ago

Updates

October 28, 2016; Folks come to NFL games to be entertained, not to be reminded of Kaepernick. Now, CBS Boston confirms that national anthem protests #1 cause for NFL ratings drop. I'm still not convinced but it is a "turn-off" to see multi-millionaires protesting the awful treatment they've received in the US.

October 14, 2016: The Washington Post weighs in. Doesn't add much to the discussion. The comments are better than the article.

October 6, 2016: the WSJ weighs in. Doesn't add much to the discussion. I agree that if the ratings do continue to fall (and level off, of course, at some new "normal") it will be due to a combination of factors. But I don't think one can underestimate the impact of the beginning of the broadcast when patriots are subject to kneeling, fists, #BlackLivesMatter, etc. Folks come to NFL games to be entertained, not to be reminded of Kaepernick. See my comment in comments below. 

Original Post

 

I don't get to listen to Rush as much as I would like. But I am aware of his prescient observations about the NFL and ratings, something he started talking about years ago. This year, his predictions have turned out to come true: NFL ratings are in the tank -- comparatively speaking. NFL football games still beat anything else that might be on TV but ratings are dropping.

Forbes has now caught up with Rush on this story.

We’re barely a year removed from the NFL setting all-time records in viewership, yet now the league is on pace for its lowest ratings in years. That’s a sharp and unexpectedly sudden turn.

Last night’s Monday Night Football matchup between the Minnesota Vikings and New York Giants drew a 9.1 overnight rating, an 8% drop from last year’s comparable Week 4 game between the Detroit Lions and Seattle Seahawks. The New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs game in 2014 earned a 9.6 rating.

Overall, MNF‘s ratings are down a whopping 19% this year.