I do not see a great future in oil, with the growth in renewables and the investment in renewables, the UK is planning a pilot scheme to harness tidal power. A new technology that could provide 10% of the UK electricity in the future.
Second it seems to me that the new natural price for Oil is around £55, that is because of market forces within the industry - with the advent of shale the dynamics of the industry has changed completely.
Your opinion concerning the future is welcome
Decommissioning all The P&A work will keep everyone busy for next 15 years....except expensive slb.
trump will make america great again.
There are also some interesting articles on www about opinions on the possible end of the oil era. Good views on what the Saudis are thinking and the aramco share float (for the first time). Are they cashing in before it's too late?
I know it's a sad thought, but it's the end of an era. I'm pretty sure most of us invested and relied on the oil and gas industry as the source of our wellbeing. There might be more shockwaves, burst of hiring and other layoffs in the future, but I doubt is going to be again like it was in terms of employment, at least for the demographics. Our tools last longer and longer, they are rebuildable to death and they are becoming cheaper too. Add the fact that we are going to see another round of mergers which will reduce again the number of available companies, and wipe out most of the smaller ones.
As today, on indeed there are 8 job postings by SLB. All but one require at least a BS, they prefer a MS and some even a Phd, and experience. According to the latest statistics, less than 35% of the american population hold any kind of Bachelor degree, about 12% hold a Masters, and less than 2% has a Phd.
True that SLB is not the only employer in the country and it might not be representative of what is out there, but we are working, were working, for the company and that is what the company offers. That means that potentially, 65% of the population can fight for 12% of the job openings and only 35% have the minimum qualifications (less, if we consider the required experience) to apply to 78% of the job openings (and none of these positions sponsor work visas.)
I remember the times where educational attainments were waived in exchange of related experience, if you know how to do something, a piece of paper to the wall was just an emergency strip of toilet paper in most cases.
These times are gone.
A strategy, not necessarily the best, but a strategy, can be to think in terms of "work hard" but not related to getting our muscles sore by the fatigue, but our brains. Not everyone can get a BS, even less can obtain an MS or a Ph.D. but, we should try to work hard for piece of papers to hang to the wall, because in the current, and future, job market, these are the keys to get the foot into the door.
So, now we have about 65% of people without a degree, if this number goes down, the people unable to complete a degree will have less peers to compete with for that single job opening. People which already hold a BS, will feel more pressure to try to move up because they are not "that special" anymore, so will the others.
Unintended benefit.
Most of the foreigners come here already with a degree, (maybe even a sketchy one as defined in another thread,) and play the game of getting an advanced degree from a reputable school in the US. If we double the number of americans with a Masters, that will close the door in their face because companies would have very little excuses to prefer a foreigner for a job position just because this person has more qualifications attached to the wall. Moreover, if we double the amount of people with a doctorate, unless they, (corporations and universities) invent another level of degree beyond doctorate/post-doctorate, will create an educational wall against this invasion, actually, we might even be able to reverse the flow, with Americans going oversea to take the best positions, applying a "Marshall plan" based on educational attainment and excellence instead of money.
It might be a long shot, it might be costly, but we have to understand that the war changed its rules and the only way to win is to accept the new rules and fight accordingly.
The Roman once had the biggest empire on Earth because they had the strongest militia and the best fighting tactics. Then Genghis Kahn applied a completely new way of fighting using horses and speed and he held the biggest empire. In more modern times the British empire used an incredible fleet to gain the superiority of the oceans and employed also mercenaries to fight its enemies.
These "contracting agencies" that today employ only foreigners are enemy's mercenaires and are used to create a wedge between us. They break the walls of our job securities and then start flooding the positions with their own peers while we look in awe how they can get away with that without any intervention.
We need to change.
FIRST thanks for your replies - many good comments and points.
I agree with this point
This is an important point because unlike Paal the recognition of a change in technology as changed the whole oil industry. OPEC no longer control oil and its value.
"I don't ever expect oil to go above $60 a barrel again. As soon as it gets close, the amount of available profitable fracking will offset any pressure for further price increases. So far every attempt to jack up the price above $50 has petered out at $55."
I agree with
The points concerning electric cars, also hybrids and any alternative forms of energy for transport. Much the world is literally sick of pollution and sick from pollution. Again suppressing the value of oil.
This point in conjunction with the electric cars supports the idea that people want to stop polluting the planet
"Soon there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish and, if this is not a concern, then we should continue doing what we're doing and wipe out all the sea life so it becomes the future generations' problem not today's."
Oil I agree will never go away until it is no longer viable to drill, because of the chemical industry and the heavy reliance we have upon it, such as Jet Fuel.
"Can you plug in a jumbo jet or any airplane?
Will the demand for plastics in all forms be less or more tomorrow?
Oil has a future. Natural gas even more so."
But how big a future?
HOWEVER:
"This is something which will inevitably go into decline with the investment in renewable energy and hybrid/electric vehicles."
Very thought provoking indeed I like this
" 2000+ years ago, the Romans invented the aqueduct, which, autonomously, delivered water without any significant human assistance. Mechanized farming and food processing, disconnected us from the food chain."
Again thanks for your input unlike many threads on this site I feel your replies are thought out and intellegent.
Furthermore, you don't even need electric vehicles, in a way, just a F* prius which delivers 40+ mpg, replacing a car which delivers a honest 25mpg is enough to cause a massive drop in overall consumption of fuel. The part where electric cars can be more disruptive is because you will see gas stations disappear, all the jobs related to delivering gas disappear too, and even the large distribution go progressively down. We will have an increase in maintenance jobs and constructions on electric power lines, but not enough to offset the other job losses.
The same goes with self driving vehicles. As soon as it becomes safe and reliable, say goodbye to a lot of jobs like long haul truck driver and so on. We will still need jobs as postman and home delivery driver because not all the mailboxes can be "standardized" in a way a robot can safely handle them and because you don't want a truck driving on your front porch to deliver you something coming from Amazon. But in the same way big online retailers keep killing brick and mortar shops, the future will kill a lot of these "low hanging fruits".
Machines disrupted farming works, and independently from cost, because the time saved offset almost any time saved there and reduced human variations. It happened in mining too, and in general manufacturing. The future is not bright for a lot of manufacturing jobs, like it wasn't bright for farmers at the beginning of the last century. In a very bleak way, we are willingly disconnecting ourselves from what we really need to survive. 2000+ years ago, the Romans invented the aqueduct, which, autonomously, delivered water without any significant human assistance. Mechanized farming and food processing, disconnected us from the food chain. Increased robotization in manufacturing is disconnecting us from the production of goods. Meanwhile we are also polluting the air that we breath in the name of jobs, but while we might need a job to live a long life, we need air to survive 3 minutes. As we need water to survive 3 days, and food to survive 3 weeks. But we focus on something that might give us an expectation of 78 years. Let this soak in a minute.
It will always have a future as mentioned above for some industries for jet fuel and plastics. The debate should really be about the future scale of the industry.
This is something which will inevitably go into decline with the investment in renewable energy and hybrid/electric vehicles.
As an example, to cause another Oil crash. Electric vehicles would not need to replace every conventional vehicle on the road. They would only need to displace enough vehicles to create a surplus in the market. Such scenarios will see the industry as a whole start to scale back over time and will accelerate with the advent and development of new technologies.
People thought oil will never be below $100 when we were pushing $150. Now the same chicken little crowd says we won't get above $60 ever again. Reality is we don't know sh--.
Soon there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish and, if this is not a concern, then we should continue doing what we're doing and wipe out all the sea life so it becomes the future generations' problem not today's.
Can you plug in a jumbo jet or any airplane?
Will the demand for plastics in all forms be less or more tomorrow?
Oil has a future. Natural gas even more so.
I'm not an economist but my crystal ball tells me that as soon as big cities get tired of not being able breathe (we see that already) and the push for electric cars accelerates (within the next decade), oil demand will fall sharply initially in the global warming-savvy fraternity. Where is the economic sense for heavy investment in oil with lower future demand which can be met by fracking and some other low cost developments. I can't see much appetite for anything other than low cost / reasonable risk.
I don't ever expect oil to go above $60 a barrel again. As soon as it gets close, the amount of available profitable fracking will offset any pressure for further price increases. So far every attempt to jack up the price above $50 has petered out at $55.
Demand for oil could easily start to decline:
Extra renewables are coming online all the time.
We are becoming more energy efficient .
The U.S government (at least briefly, pending the future president's agenda) has acknowledged that climate change caused by burning fossil fuels is a genuine threat to human civilization.
I think the odds are against any future oil boom. Another mini-collapse is more likely in the short term.