Further to the questions on cost, The "boom" of domestically produced oil is not cheap oil. Fracking for oil costs much more than conventional drilling. More rigs, more steel, more fluids, more people, more water. All requiring much more capital float to frack and re-frack. All for lower yields per well compared to a conventional oil well. Fracking places a new - higher - floor under oil prices. If a glut does develop in supply (i.e. the economic doldrums continue to suppress global consumption rates) and the price were to drop, the companies fracking for oil would be in economic trouble very quickly. The companies fracking for natural gas are struggling to stay afloat for just this reason - a fracked gas well produces a huge initial rush, a glut of gas in storage and market prices below production costs. They're all selling assets and pimping for new sucker-er, investors to stray afloat while they push for export permits to sell off the backlog and drive up prices. Should the economic picture brighten and global consumption rates return to say 2006 levels, we'll see that the production rates and production scaling capabilities of the fracking fields, tar sands, etc., are not in the same league as the conventional oil fields on which our economy was built. Supplies will tighten as they did in '07-'08, prices will rise, drawing in more frackers and the economy will tank. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Further to the questions on cost, The "boom" of domestically produced oil is not cheap oil. Fracking for oil costs much more than conventional drilling. More rigs, more steel, more fluids, more people, more water. All requiring much more capital float to frack and re-frack. All for lower yields per well compared to a conventional oil well. Fracking places a new - higher - floor under oil prices. If a glut does develop in supply (i.e. the economic doldrums continue to suppress global consumption rates) and the price were to drop, the companies fracking for oil would be in economic trouble very quickly. The companies fracking for natural gas are struggling to stay afloat for just this reason - a fracked gas well produces a huge initial rush, a glut of gas in storage and market prices below production costs. They're all selling assets and pimping for new sucker-er, investors to stray afloat while they push for export permits to sell off the backlog and drive up prices. Should the economic picture brighten and global consumption rates return to say 2006 levels, we'll see that the production rates and production scaling capabilities of the fracking fields, tar sands, etc., are not in the same league as the conventional oil fields on which our economy was built. Supplies will tighten as they did in '07-'08, prices will rise, drawing in more frackers and the economy will tank. Wash, rinse, repeat.