Re:How big oil will die
by khn1 on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @08:15PM
(#14975054)
There is a major blind spot that the author fails to address: All vehicles (ICE or EV) have a heavy dependence on petroleum products such as plastics, lubricants, and synthetic rubber. While I believe that EV's are the future, I do not think their success implies the fall of Big Oil.
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The amounts differ by an order of magnitude, or maybe even two. E.g. the EIA says 9.3k barrels/day is consumed as motor gasoline (more than half of all consumption of finished products, and the next largest categories are also burn-the-oil, possibly including 3.6k barrels/day of diesel fuel) whereas only 323 barrels/day go to petrochemical feedstocks. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbblpd_a.h...
A whopping 5% of oil isn't burned[1]. Take away burning oil, and your industry is 20x smaller. Not so big anymore.
[1]: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm/index.cfm?page...
~60% of oil is used for transportation fuel, so there will be a big impact if that goes away. Oil reserves will also last much longer once oil isn't needed for transportation.
The author acknowledges this, and says oil usage will decline but not go away. Oil is used for a lot more than gasoline. But the contraction of the market will put a lot of companies in a world of hurt.