Mad Dictators

[JohnMo]

21 minutes ago, Beelbeebub said:

There are no private "UK" only oil companies.  They are all multinational. 

That really doesn't matter, you can make a law that requires them to sell to UK PLC at a hedged price. Gas is pretty much done that way as it's the only way, once it hits landfall it is processed and made grid ready and goes into the national gas grid. Excess is then pumped to underground storage on land at lots of locations depending on spot price and released back again based on a high spot price.

 

Oil tends to be stored at a refinery or storage facility onshore and just sold to the highest bidder - that bit could easily be changed. But most of our oil is too good to be fuel oils, so is generally processed into higher value products - but we closed nearly all our refineries. So it nearly all needs to go somewhere else.

[Beelbeebub]

26 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

That really doesn't matter, you can make a law that requires them to sell to UK PLC

"UK plc" doesn't really exist so we would need to set up a nationalised oil company with storage etc and some legal framework to define who they can and cannot sell to.

 

Which is fine, but we'd have to do it - with all the attendant faff (parliament, setting up the structure, hiring peeps etc.

 

And the resource is dwindling. By 2030 it will be half what it is now. And who thinks we can set up this national company by then?

 

The time to do it would have been around 1980.

 

just to reiterate - THERE IS NO OIL AND GAS BONANZA JUST WAITING FOR US TO CLAIM IT.

 

Nobody, not even the oil industry thinks there is.  The only people who say there is are Trump, Farage, Badenoch and their circle.

[scottishjohn]

1 hour ago, Beelbeebub said:

I'm not certain the geophysics works like that.  Some fields are interconnected across national boundaries but I don't think all are and even those that are connected aren't strongly coupled. It's not a big cave of gas or oil, more like a giant sponge where the gas and oil moves slowly - which is why we need multiple wells in one field.

 

So if the UK doesn't extract from them nobody else can either.

 

"Reserved for UK use only"  is easy to say but hard to implement.

 

There are no private "UK" only oil companies.  They are all multinational.  So you'd need to set up one specially.  

 

Then what is "uk use only" - selling to a UK refinery (assuming one is set up for the oil). What if that refinery sells abroad?  What if the UK wholesaler the refinery sells to wants to sell abroad?  How far down the chain do we go?

 

 

 

 

not hard if you  really want to do it  and the  company  would be wholly or majorly held by the government 

  norway  did it when they started the oil  and gas fields  

 

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

23 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

not hard if you  really want to do it 

Will be no harder than us leaving the EU.

That was all sorted out over a cup of afternoon tea wasn't it.

[scottishjohn]

1 minute ago, SteamyTea said:

Will be no harder than us leaving the EU.

That was all sorted out over a cup of afternoon tea wasn't it.

exactly  --get the money mens fingers out of the till and its all possible

[scottishjohn]

its the same as the water companies pleading poverty to do upgrades

 

 thats where a real government could change things -fi they wanted to

maybe we need another war to make these things happen ?

 

 we need a new political party -- "i take no shit party"

 fire alot of the so called civil service and start again

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

we need a new political party -- "i take no shit party"

 fire alot of the so called civil service and start again

I take it you are unaware of the concept of civil war.

 

Here is a potted history our ours.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War

[JohnMo]

41 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Will be no harder than us leaving the EU.

That was all sorted out over a cup of afternoon tea wasn't it.

Would say quite a bit easier - no referendum needed, still have the  politicians unfortunately.

 

1 hour ago, Beelbeebub said:

just to reiterate - THERE IS NO OIL AND GAS BONANZA

But your still only reading the statics you want to see, maybe not a bonanza, but still plenty out there. Most just appear on your developed list. The plant I work on supplied the equivalent of ALL UK industrial use gas the other day, however due to tax burden and it being a 40 year old it's becoming unsustainable, due to reliability, investment needed etc. So plans are in place to cease production in 2029.

 

42 minutes ago, scottishjohn said:

we need a new political party

Yep

[Beelbeebub]

6 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

But your still only reading the statics you want to see, maybe not a bonanza, but still plenty out there.

I'm really not 

 

Those graphs are from the North Sea transition authority and the absolute difference between net zero projection and "drill baby drill" is bugger all.

 

Every single projection has long term decline.  Even the most wildly optimistic oil industry projection has decline to 25% of current production over a decade.

 

14 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

The plant I work on supplied the equivalent of ALL UK industrial use gas the other day,

This is a good example of reading the statistics you want to see...

 

 

Industry uses 10% of gas demand.

 

On current track the UK will produce enough gas to supply only industry in a decade.  If we go wild and do absolutely everything the oil industry can think of we could supply industry and others. 

 

If we go big on renewables for the grid (net zero) then the "transformation" chunk will shrink massively 

 

And if we go big on heat pumps (net zero) then the domestic but will also shrink dramatically.

[Beelbeebub]

1 hour ago, scottishjohn said:

we need a new political party

The greens have quite an extensive program of nationalising big utilities and taxing oil companies ....

[Beelbeebub]

1 hour ago, scottishjohn said:

fire alot of the so called civil service and start again

I don't think people quite understand how vital the civil service (and to be clear there are huge areas that need improvement) is to a smoothly running country - and yes the UK is a smoothly running country on comparison to alot of countries.

 

The US has recently gone on a civil service slashing spree.

 

Lots of parks and environment people fired. Cutting monitoring of diseases and food standards. Huge cuts of "dei" at the pentagon.

 

They now have raging wildfires, explosive diarrhea and salmonella outbreaks and their sailors are jumping off ships because conditions are so bad 

[SteamyTea]

34 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Would say quite a bit easier

I forget you don’t get irony.

[Beelbeebub]

11 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I forget you don’t get irony.

The speed and simplicity of the Brexit process was legendary ...

[SteamyTea]

21 minutes ago, Beelbeebub said:

The speed and simplicity of the Brexit process was legendary ...

Yes, like Yes Minister, why we are still enjoying it now.

[-rick-]

1 hour ago, Beelbeebub said:

They now have raging wildfires, explosive diarrhea and salmonella outbreaks and their sailors are jumping off ships because conditions are so bad 

 

I expected a lot of damage caused by the unthinking slashing of contracts and staff but I'm really surprised at how incredibly badly it's going. It's the Brexit 'had enough of experts' on sterioids and we are only seeing a fraction of the messes being created that will take a very long amount of time to clean up.

[Beelbeebub]

19 minutes ago, -rick- said:

 

I expected a lot of damage caused by the unthinking slashing of contracts and staff but I'm really surprised at how incredibly badly it's going. It's the Brexit 'had enough of experts' on sterioids and we are only seeing a fraction of the messes being created that will take a very long amount of time to clean up.

I'm actually not surprised.

 

The stuff that makes a country run happens pretty invisibly most of the time.

 

Roads get repaired, bridges inspected, food hygiene is checked, school busses organised, flu clinics set up, bins collected, planning decided etc and nobody really noticed *until* something goes wrong.

 

Then we notice and moan about how shit it is.

 

The civil service is like plumbing - we only think about it when it goes wrong and what is there is a confusing jumble but replacing it is a ton of cost, disruption and work and often creates entirely new problems.

[Beelbeebub]

Chesterton's Fence is very much a thing and the likes of trump, RTKjr and Hegseth have absolutely no idea what the parable means.

[MikeSharp01]

4 hours ago, Beelbeebub said:

Chesterton's Fence is very much a thing and the likes of trump, RTKjr and Hegseth have absolutely no idea what the parable means.

Good old Chesterton - basic systems theory back in 1978 building on the standard INPUT-PROCESS-OUTPUT.

 

Since then a load of other Systems thinking 101 bumper stickers: "Everything is connected to everything else.", "These who neglect History are destined to repeat it.", "Beware your baggage.", "Investment Challenges Change.", "As an attacker, winning the fight will make you the defender." and "The S curve is the pattern of Everything." Then introduce complexity & chaos theory and watch heads explode!

 

Ho Hum....

[SteamyTea]

29 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Good old Chesterton

"I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees."

[Roger440]

15 hours ago, Beelbeebub said:

I'm actually not surprised.

 

The stuff that makes a country run happens pretty invisibly most of the time.

 

Roads get repaired, bridges inspected, food hygiene is checked, school busses organised, flu clinics set up, bins collected, planning decided etc and nobody really noticed *until* something goes wrong.

 

Then we notice and moan about how shit it is.

 

The civil service is like plumbing - we only think about it when it goes wrong and what is there is a confusing jumble but replacing it is a ton of cost, disruption and work and often creates entirely new problems.

The problem is lots if that stuff doesnt happen any more.

 

Funny you mention bridge inspections. One near me, the bridge parapet collapsed into the river. Turns out nobody has done any inspections underwater since fred retired. Nearly 20 years. Yep, doing a great job.

[scottishjohn]

19 hours ago, Beelbeebub said:

Every single projection has long term decline.  Even the most wildly optimistic oil industry projection has decline to 25% of current production over a decade.

and what about all the gas+oil reserves in the solway --  

my ex brother in law was involved in exploritory drilling in the 80,s 

 

 lots found but not developed by order of the government-- its ours -- and always will  be as it so close to us -

 

it was saved for the fuure -- that may not happen - but its still there -no competition from other countires

 

 i would prefer a system like the US =when the government changes --so can the civil servants -- no knighthoods there

 

 i am not so simple as to think there are not "brown envelopes " happening there same as here 

 

 maybe a change to restrict politicans from having other commercial interests

 they have always been at it  in all parties --they are just picking on farage at the moment 

 

 

[JohnMo]

1 hour ago, scottishjohn said:

lots found but not developed

There is loads of oil and gas in the not developed category - so none of it appears on @Beelbeebub charts, because they only include developed.

 

A lot of the "not developed" sites are because they are expensive to exploit, either/and deep, sour or heavy. But at the right price a useful commodity.

[Mike]

14 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

"I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees."

Didn't look hard enough (though, in fairness, this was an 'ad-hoc single purpose subcommittee' of the full council):

 

CC BY-SA 3.0

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burghers_of_Calais

 

[SteamyTea]

7 minutes ago, Mike said:

ad-hoc single purpose subcommittee

The French copy no one.

[scottishjohn]

wouldn,t it be good if our politcians followed the burgers of calais and spontaneously combusted