Re:Renewed demand for the metal cobalt is breathing new life...
by sandworm101 on Wednesday November 01, 2017 @01:20PM
(#15603428)
>> ... hundreds of millions of dollar of equipment just sitting collecting dust
Much of that equipment, in a place like Canada, is a liability. It must be dealt with properly and that costs money, often far more than the equipment is worth. You cannot just leave stuff in the field. I'd be that many of these companies are happy to abandon oil equipment rather than transport and dispose of it properly.
Re:Renewed demand for the metal cobalt is breathing new life...
by giarc on Wednesday November 01, 2017 @02:32PM
(#15604145)
The equipment isn't non-functioning. If it were in Canada (or other industrialized country) it would just be moved to another project. However, as this person said, the governments see the value in this equipment, come up with some "fee" for moving the equipment out of the country and the companies just cut their losses and walk away from it.
I can't speak from experience, but I imagine a company foreseeing a large demand for a material will gladly pay more for a constant, secure supply rather than pay less for one that could be halted at the drop of a hat.
I once had a conversation with a guy in oil and gas at a party. I'm not sure what his job was but he basically said that in most African countries there is hundreds of millions of dollar of equipment just sitting collecting dust. When a company leaves, the government demands crazy amounts of (bribe) money to export the equipment, to the point where the company just walks away from it and writes it off as a loss.