Iraq pours oil on an LNG fire

Who will continue to invest in oil production capacity without continued high oil prices? Remember that an increasing part of world oil production is high cost (eg, Canadian oil sands). Those production plans are crushed if oil prices are pushed down by cheaper production elsewhere (Iraq pours oil on an LNG fire, January 23).

The management at Inpex must be wincing right now (Iraq pours oil on an LNG fire, January 23).
They are investing $34 billion in Darwin and the Ichthys Gas Project.
Since the project was announced the price of gas has dropped and the Yen has declined in value by 19%. That has got to be hurting the project.
I wonder if they will consider mothballing the it? America is in a straight line across the Pacific ocean to Japan and has better port facilities than Darwin.
Some smart decisions now could save them a lot of money.

Before anybody gets too excited...(Iraq pours oil on an LNG fire, January 23.)
Iraq:
current reserves 143.1 Billion barrels.
New find: 1 Billion barrels.
More significant is the small size of this big news, relative to Iraq's existing reserves.

Iraq has some of the best quality, most accessible oil reserves in the world, and always has had. The sanctions on Iran are actually pushing oil prices lower, because China is buying Iranian crude at a deep discount (Iraq pours oil on an LNG fire, January 23).
Fracking is neither cheap (in energy costs), nor ecologically sound to develop. If instead of measuring energy production in terms of the lowest $$ Dollar cost per output of energy and moved to the lowest energy input per output of energy, then we might have a chance of transitioning to a low carbon economy in the 21st century. The US FED and BoJ mad money printing might just help us make the transition.

I really cannot understand what is happening here (Iraq pours oil on an LNG fire, January 23). I have it on the best authority that the world ran out of oil in 1986. Now someone is trying to tell me that not only is this not so but, au contraire, the world is awash with oil. Who is to be believed?

Hi Donald. I don't think that anyone has claimed that the world has run out of oil - but rather that it's getting harder and harder to, and costlier and costlier, to produce it (Iraq pours oil on an LNG fire, January 23). The easy pickings have largely been picked and now it's the deeper wells, heavier crudes, expensive shale products that form the largest part of the world's reserves. And pretty much the same for gas. Oil isn't going to get any cheaper and I'm afraid that living standards will be steadily eroded as prices increase.