
U.S. oil production booms as new year begins - kimsk112
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/us-oil-production-booms-as-new-year-begins/ar-BBHBtx6
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metaphor
> _The tax bill recently signed by President Trump allows oil drilling in the
> Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska..._

In case anyone else was wondering, this is in reference to Title II § 20001 of
the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act[1], which sets up to lease _at least_ 800,000 acres
in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge[2] no later than 10 years from now, all
strings pulled by Interior Secretary Zinke[3].

[1] [https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-
bill/1/te...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1/text)
_down at the waaay bottom_

[2]
[https://www.energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve?F...](https://www.energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=0C7062D9-1F8C-41D8-8E30-70F1A598F5FA)

[3] [https://www.doi.gov/whoweare/secretary-ryan-
zinke](https://www.doi.gov/whoweare/secretary-ryan-zinke)

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votepaunchy
The ANWR was sold out to buy Senator Collins (R-ME) vote. Maine has been
fighting for this for decades.

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lithos
For the past few years when the cost of oil was low, oil companies needed to
keep some amount of trained workers in work. So what they've been doing is
"starting" wells and then stopping the drill a safe distance, to leave
everything in a state where they can tap the well in a short period of time to
respond to prices. (Though I don't really have any knowledge of the actual
scale, since it's just from talking to people where they're going/gone after
leaving the Nuke program) Which is where some of that boom is from, since
right now OPEC is struggling to control production to raise prices.

~~~
rbcgerard
[https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/#tabs-
summary-3](https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/#tabs-summary-3)

See the “DUC” section

~~~
provost
128 fresh drilled-but-uncompleted wells in a month seems impressive (they show
94 as the change, but are subtracting 34 that were completed). Drilling
roughly four a day.

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giggidygig
[https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/drilling/pdf/upstream.p...](https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/drilling/pdf/upstream.pdf)

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woodandsteel
This is really bad news for Russia. Fracking is now profitable at $60 a
barrel, so the price of oil can never go above that. And fracking technology
is new, so we can expect to improve further and make production profitable at
a lower cost, so prices will gradually get even lower still.

It is also bad news for Saudi Arabia. But that country realizes it and is
working hard to expand its economy into other areas, whereas Russia remains
focused on oil.

Any Putin fans out there who want to argue that he really knows what he is
doing on energy?

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Fronzie
Does anyone know how the extraction cost of shale compare to the declining
cost of solar?

Are we at the point already where some oil fields become non-profitable?

~~~
nimos
Oil and solar don't really compete that much. Oil - even at $40 a barrel - is
substantively more expensive than pretty much everything else for generating
electricity and is rarely used for anything beyond small scale generation.

Oil is valuable because of gasoline/diesel which about 3/4 of the barrel goes
to. It's all about the ease of transportation that ICE/gasoline/diesel offer
that no other fuel can really compete on.

The more relevant factor is the price of batteries which might make solar and
other electricity sources viable competitors to oil.

~~~
peterbecich
Very interesting. Incidentally, about 70% of Hawaii's electricity is generated
with oil:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Hawaii?wprov=sfla1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Hawaii?wprov=sfla1)

~~~
petre
Doesn't geothermal work for Hawaii? It works just fine for the Azores.

~~~
peterbecich
You are correct; I didn't know about this for Hawaii:
[https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/clean-energy-
hawaii/clean-e...](https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/clean-energy-hawaii/clean-
energy-facts/renewable-energy-sources/geothermal)

