Ration Gas
 

Are they going to ration gas again. In the 70's we where out of gas, we had to ration gas even plate's get gas on ever even day's. Odd number odd day's. My father said as soon as they get it to a 1.00$ a gallon, we would have planty, and know I have not seen any one worryed, Storm coming raise gas prices the production plants will get hert, how about know.So all the oil is just flowing, and we still have enought.
And in the 70's Diesel was 1/2 the price of gas,it was easy to make took lest time and less effort. And thenwhen there was alot of cars using. It went up to the same as gas somtimes higher.

The "shortage" that leas to gasoline rationing in the early 70s was a purely political issue. It was the result of an "embargo" by OPEC in response to the activities of Israel and the US in the mid-east.

I don't foresee anything like that in the near future, but at the same time, I can't imagine oil getting any cheaper than it is now. You can be sure new regulations and restrictions will gradually drive up the cost of production and nobody is going to want a rig in their backyard.

It will happen when a few of the world's largest oil fields go into rapid decline. Probably not too far off for a few of them. Especially Ghawar in Saudi Arabia. They over-extract by forcing water under ground.

The oil will replenish itself in a few million years. When humans are extinct and cockroaches rule the world.

The actual price of crude versus the actual cost to bring it to market are very different things driven by market forces like the NY Mercantile Exchange.

The futures market is a place that's designed to keep prices low (yeah free market) but as we've seen that same market can be used in times of economic uncertainty as a semi safe investment.

It can go down and may or may not. The futures market can only articificially inflate the price so much because actual demand drives the price.

Ghawar is not water flooded, it produces naturally. It is 5 giant fields lumped together for discussion purposes. The Saudis are tight with information so the technical data on the field is not known, most data is very old and production outside of Saudi can only be guessed.

Water flooding is also a GOOD thing. Most depletion drive reservoirs will have a maximum recovery factor of 10-15%. A strong water dive or well designed water flood can get the recovery up to 40-50%.

Recovery factor is how many barrels you can recover divided by the number in place in the ground. The flow mechanisms in the rock, the pore geometries and the capillary pressure characteristics of the rock and oil determine the recovery factor.