Exploring an era of oil extremes
The price of crude has reached record per barrel highs just to make sudden startling drops. Stacey Vanek-Smith talks these market extremes with Raymond Learsy, who's written a book about oil and its trends.
An offshore oil platform (Marcel Mochet/AFP/Getty Images)
Comments
Comment | Refresh
From Houston, TX, 08/06/2008
Raymond Learsy considers $50 a fair price for oil. That may be so, for the Saudi oil which was discovered 40 years ago. Unfortunately, no one outside Saudi Aramco has any real idea of how much of that is still left. Meanwhile, most production outside Saudi Arabia is declining relentlessly, even at present prices, and discovering and developing new fields costs far more than $50 per barrel, probably more than $100 per barrel. A drop in price to $50 per barrel would shut down almost all exploration, most development, and many small producers.
The only producer with any significant surplus productive capacity is Saudi Aramco, and their surplus capacity is unverified, and in any case consists of low grade crude for which there is limited refining capacity.
Post a Comment: Please be civil, brief and relevant.
Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments. All comments are moderated. Marketplace reserves the right to edit any comments on this site and to read them on the air if they are extra-interesting. Please read the Comment Guidelines before posting.
You must be 13 or over to submit information to American Public Media. The information entered into this form will not be used to send unsolicited email and will not be sold to a third party. For more information see Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.