The oil glut is so bad that the price is dropping below zero due to lack of storage space

SA making their parking lot worthless is punking with Putin’s parking lot.

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If you check in with Alberta (where it costs between $48 and $70/bbl to produce tar sands oil, the current apocalyptic crash is somehow the fault of the Liberals, or possibly the Socialists, or possibly (ANYONE BUT THE OIL COMPANIES).

Albertan politics is notoriously fact resistant. They still hate Pierre Trudeau for somehow causing OPEC to increase production in 1984 (hint, he didn’t).

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I seem to recall that New York City has a lot of empty condominiums in high-rise buildings. Do you think the owners might like to get paid to fill them up with something? /s

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Can’t they just turn the rigs off for the time being or something?

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If you do that, the coronavirus wins.

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They could probably pick up a low-lying Pacific island for cheap.

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It’s still above $2/gallon in AK (I think that qualifies for being in the hinterlands :grimacing:). It’s been dropping a few cents every now and then, but we haven’t been driving much at all since February, so it isn’t really benefitting us. It is, however, bankrupting our already broke, fossil-fuel-extraction-dependent state. The fallout from this will be interesting.

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Duh, it’s always the liberals’ fault.

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Well, I will just have to observe how this free market self-regulation stuff goes.

I really will. I can’t do shit about it.

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Yeah, but then you get highly paid oil workers out of work.

Here in Norway this is a bit of a national disaster. Fortunately, unlike, say, Alaska, Norway didn’t cut its high taxes during the oil boom, or waste its money on frivolities, it has been stashing the money for decades into a rainy day fund. This means they don’t have to float bonds or borrow or print new money to address the current crisis. As someone from a country which always plays the grasshopper role in the Ant and the Grasshopper fable, this responsible approach to handling public wealth impresses the hell out of me.

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Nevermind the horrific effects on people that fracking causes, eh?

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I filled up Monday and the price was about normal at $1.49/litre here in rural NSW (Aust.). I wonder if they’ll put the price up for Easter as they do every year?

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Jesus usually demands that, so no show on the Jesus [Easter] should be no increase for the petrol.

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They haven’t for a while. As I understand it, they overextended with land grabs over a decade ago, flooded the market and bottomed out the price. Because of the contracts and infrastructure costs, they’ve been holding onto a failing paradigm waiting for a shift. The ultimate in predatory capitalism.

I can’t be bothered to research this and verify right now so take that with a grain of salt.

Ok, I couldn’t help it and googled anyway. I can’t vouch for DeSmog blog, but this article has plenty of paywalled links to rabbit hole:

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It’s impossible to think of a less critical thing to be building right now, when we’ve theoretically stopped every business that isn’t “essential.”

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KEEP IT IN THE FRIGGIN’ GROUND, ALREADY. Geesh!

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It’s difficult to label even this a silver lining. As long as our economy and infrastructure are designed and guided to burn fossil fuels, we face inevitable crisis. This is just hydrocarbon-burning-provoked climate change plus virus-provoked economic collapse.

The Saudis and Russians goose this glut to ensure that US domestic production is wrecked, so that they can raise their prices at a later time. (Only to start another boom/bust cycle of US fracking companies.)

This glut does the exact opposite of that. Lower oil prices make wind/solar even less competitive. They discourage conservation and initiatives like auto mileage standards.

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In this case I meant the Liberal Party of Canada, which in USian terms roughly equates to the Democrats, though policy wise they are more like Bernie than Joe. That said, they are the left wing of the corporate party, which alternates power with the right wing of the corporate party. Just different shibboleths.

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