Re: [Marxism] After the oil is gone

["rrubinelli" <rrubinelli@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Point for point, more or less:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carlos A. Rivera" <cerejota@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition"
<marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2005 2:03 AM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] After the oil is gone


>
> Actually, as a lurker, I remeber having a completely different
impression on
> Mark Jones' writting. I was actually impressed by his synthesis of
both the
> social and the geological. Then again that was some years ago, and as
a
> lurker, not someone who followed the group completely.
________________

rr: Disagree.  Mark's analysis is completely blind to the critical
components of capitalist reproduction, the relation between living
wage-labor and the "dead" means of production.
________________________
> Actually, most of OPEC is reaching peak within 10 years, most of it
within 5
> years, even by conservative estimates (some of the more radical
estimates
> have Indonesia already being a net consumer, and all of OPEC peaking
in 5).
> So the market is reacting to solid data from E&D failures in the short
term.
_____________________

rr: Just not so.  Indonesia being a net consumer has nothing to do with
peak oil theories for one thing.  And OPEC's approaching peak is
something that has been a source of speculation for 30 years.  There is
no unanimity about when that peak will occur.  As far as exploration and
development failures:  Replacement rates throughout the 90s were
consistently above 100%.  The recent decline in replacement rates is a
factor, not for exploration failures, but reduced exploration
expenditures, reduced capital spending,  AND the development of those
already booked reserves rather than new exploration-- indicative of a
conditon of overproduction, IMO.

__________
> Actually, Toyota built its current market dominance in the USA
precisely on
> this. Or you believe the oil crisis was all a towelhead sand nigger
> conspiracy? It was a crisis fuled much more by trying to make more
profit
> out of fast depleting resources than a willful and unecessary cut in
offer,
> as the USA's reactionaries argue(d).
__________________

rr:  Actually Toyota does not dominate the US auto market.  Check it
out.  The "oil crisis" was/is an attempt to offset a declining rate of
return through price mechanisms.  If OPEC didn't exist, the US would
have had to invent it.  OPEC does exist, and the US still invents it.
________________________________________

> Venezuela and the USA, two name just to major oil producers, went past
their
> peaks in the 1970s.
________________

rr:Actually, Venezuela's peak has/had nothing to do with proven
reserves.  Check it out. Proven reserves of convential sources has more
than doubled while production declined.

Unconventional sources, the Orinoco heavy oil belt is estimated to
contain extractable petroleum equal to/exceeding Saudi reserves.
Production has just come on line there, and is the target of Chavez's
increase in royalties.
______________________________

 China started consuming big time, some other stuff too, but that is the
main
> factor. Effectively China is cutting into the USA's share of oil,
hence
> driving prices up well beyond predicted levels.
___________________

rr:Absolutely wrong.  China's consumption has not at all affected
availability of supplies.  China's consumption did not dramatically
increase between 1998 when prices fell below $10/barrel and 1999 when
OPEC brought to price above $24/barrel.

China's consumption did not dramatically decline in 2002 from 2001 when
prices declined.
________________________

> LNG consumption is nowhere near crude oil consumption, hence it is
easy to
> affect the offer/demand in terms of speculative markets (ie futures)
with
> relatively little additional offerings. In other words, it is a
short-term,
> profit driven concern, not a long term, strategic concern.
______________________________

rr:   Part and parcel of the depletionist theories is that NG cannot
replace petroleum as it too is at the point of depletion, this despite
the fact the NG reserves have hardly been touched. That Mexico imports
gas from the US while it flares off its gas from petroleum extraction
since Mexico has not appropriated the money to capture and process the
gas.  Nigeria flares off its gas also, and for similar reasons.

 Gas prices are at historic highs, >$6/kcf if I recall correctly, and
this spike began some years ago exactly after news supplies were brought
to market.

Short term profit concern?  Exactly.  And the peak oil theory is that
short-term profit concern masquerading as "long term strategy," and
"science."
_______________________
>
>
> Well, a cursory, superficial obidience of your Marxist Highness
Executive
> Order shows that accross the board, oil compaines have turned
themselves
> into energy companies, and are increasing their focus on making money
not by
> selling hydrocarbons, but selling energy (and plastics) regardless of
> source. In the last ten years, besides the huge amount of mergers and
> takeovers, these companies have divest from E&D and into R&D, mainly
into
> plastic recycling and "alternative" energy.
_________________________

rr:  Good PR, bad science so to speak.  Look at the numbers, look at the
facts.  These companies have always been involved in plastics,
chemicals, and other sources of energy.  Expenditures on acreage for
exploration soared in the 90s, and that wasn't acreage for wind farms.


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