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packman

(16,296 posts)
Fri Aug 28, 2020, 12:24 PM Aug 2020

After 92 Years, Exxon Dropped From Dow Jones

Source: Crooks and Liars

Climate campaigners on Tuesday marked a major milestone in the fight to eliminate the use of fossil fuels and transition to a green energy economy as ExxonMobil was dropped from the S&P Dow Jones Industrial Average after nearly a century.

The oil giant, the oldest member of the Dow, was replaced on the index by software company Salesforce as more than 100,000 people were displaced by wildfires raging across California, a third year of global Fridays for Future climate action protests kicked off, and the Republican Party was rebuked for failing to even mention the planetary emergency on the first night of its national convention.

....



In April, oil prices fell below $0 per barrel for the first time on record, prompting calls by climate action advocates to nationalize the oil industry rather than continuing to prop it up.

Meanwhile, the solar and wind sectors have grown at a rapid rate in recent decades, with job growth in the renewable field outpacing oil.

Read more: https://crooksandliars.com/2020/08/after-92-years-exxon-dropped-dow-jones



"Below $0 per barrel"?? Does this mean they aren't pumping oil any more? And why is it they are going to open a national park in Alaska for drilling?

Makes no sense (If it ever did)
18 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
After 92 Years, Exxon Dropped From Dow Jones (Original Post) packman Aug 2020 OP
Futures dropped below $0 for a few hours a few months back ... mr_lebowski Aug 2020 #1
They continue to believe that Miguelito Loveless Aug 2020 #9
True though even if we did go full electric worldwide oil would probably still be needed for some cstanleytech Aug 2020 #12
Oh, lots more than that Miguelito Loveless Aug 2020 #14
While Most Lubricants.... ProfessorGAC Aug 2020 #15
Fantastic news. This is a huge signal that the economy is shifting away from legacy industries jpljr77 Aug 2020 #2
Some of those land acquisitions are placeholders procon Aug 2020 #3
Below $0 was a very technical event since nobody had room to take delivery of the oil contract. Lucky Luciano Aug 2020 #4
Meanwhile Dolt45's administration opens the Artic wildlife refuge to drilling csziggy Aug 2020 #5
The carbon bubble is to the mortgage bubble Miguelito Loveless Aug 2020 #6
exxon and the companies before it helped with the demise of the streetcar. good riddance . AllaN01Bear Aug 2020 #7
Oil companies have opposed all forms of public transportation in this country Yeehah Aug 2020 #13
"'Below $0 per barrel"??'" - you missed the big thread on that BumRushDaShow Aug 2020 #8
Opening ANWR to drilling is nothing but a big "FUCK YOU" Warpy Aug 2020 #10
Oh Trump boasted hard about low gas prices last night IronLionZion Aug 2020 #11
Kick ck4829 Aug 2020 #16
Implications that need to be considered melm00se Aug 2020 #17
I guess they lose money on each barrel but make it up on high volume? lagomorph777 Aug 2020 #18
 

mr_lebowski

(33,643 posts)
1. Futures dropped below $0 for a few hours a few months back ...
Fri Aug 28, 2020, 12:29 PM
Aug 2020

All the US capacity to hold oil was basically full because they kept pumping while way fewer people were driving.

Opening the national park in Alaska to drilling is a freaking travesty, man ...

Miguelito Loveless

(4,438 posts)
9. They continue to believe that
Fri Aug 28, 2020, 01:12 PM
Aug 2020

oil prices will "rebound" to $100+/bbl.

The problem is, if it does, they are just as screwed as if it doesn't.

Say oil does rebound, and heads to $120/bbl. Then that points to gasoline at $5/gallon. This causes people to stop driving SUVs/Pickups, causing people to stop buying them, and looking at EVs to lower driving costs. Each person moving to an EV translates into "demand destruction" for oil. Once people start driving electric, it is unlikely they will ever return to gasoline. No, demand, oil supplies glut the market and prices fall, oil producers lose money, and start going bankrupt.

cstanleytech

(26,082 posts)
12. True though even if we did go full electric worldwide oil would probably still be needed for some
Fri Aug 28, 2020, 02:12 PM
Aug 2020

things such as lubricate.

Miguelito Loveless

(4,438 posts)
14. Oh, lots more than that
Fri Aug 28, 2020, 03:49 PM
Aug 2020

Plastics, pesticides, fertilizer, pharmaceuticals, etc. But as a market share, transportation is huge. Also, they are still safe in the AvGas segment for another few decades.

ProfessorGAC

(64,425 posts)
15. While Most Lubricants....
Fri Aug 28, 2020, 04:33 PM
Aug 2020

...can be synthesized (actually superior to direct petro based products) the ethylene, propene, and butene used for these (& many plastics) are still the product of petroleum cracking processes.
The overall usage is small compared to fuel usage, but 5-8% of more than a 1&1/3rd trillion pounds of petroleum is still huge!
Fun consumer science fact: nearly all of laundry detergent brands have active ingredients that are 30-80% derived from petroleum based raw materials. A lot of cleaning products fit that description.

jpljr77

(1,004 posts)
2. Fantastic news. This is a huge signal that the economy is shifting away from legacy industries
Fri Aug 28, 2020, 12:33 PM
Aug 2020

and into modern times. Fossil fuel companies can't die quick enough, imo.

procon

(15,805 posts)
3. Some of those land acquisitions are placeholders
Fri Aug 28, 2020, 12:37 PM
Aug 2020

for future development. Big Oil will make the minimum improvements on the property, like an access road or a tool shed to give evidence of their development of the site. Then they disappear until the price of oil makes the expansion profitable.

Extraction of shale oil, fracking, and deep sea wells, we're all prohibitively expensive back in the day, but the oil extractors will secure a lease to hold the site for a later time when technologies and prices will be more attractive.

Lucky Luciano

(11,242 posts)
4. Below $0 was a very technical event since nobody had room to take delivery of the oil contract.
Fri Aug 28, 2020, 12:37 PM
Aug 2020

That was for a contract that only had a couple days to expiration and therefore only a very small open interest. The vast majority of the open interest was in the contract for the following month. Still - it was a remarkable event nobody would have thought possible.

Now it is $40ish per barrel.

Drilling in Alaska should absolutely be banned in park land though.

csziggy

(34,120 posts)
5. Meanwhile Dolt45's administration opens the Artic wildlife refuge to drilling
Fri Aug 28, 2020, 12:53 PM
Aug 2020
Trump administration to approve Arctic wildlife refuge for oil and gas drilling

By Laura Geggel - Associate Editor 11 days ago

The refuge is home to polar bears and 135 species of migratory birds.

The Trump administration announced today (Aug. 17) that it plans to open up part of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a 19 million acre (7.7 million hectares) refuge about the size of South Carolina, to oil and gas leasing — a move that paves the way for drilling in the region, according to news reports.

ANWR has long been a battleground between environmentalists and industry. In 1960, the U.S. government began setting aside land for ANWR, "the only conservation system unit that protects, in an undisturbed condition, a complete spectrum of the Arctic ecosystems in North America," according to a 1987 report.

However, while ANWR is home to Arctic animals such as polar bears, caribou, fish and 135 species of migratory birds, it's also rich in oil and gas. In particular, the so-called 1002 Area, a 1.5-million-acre (607,000 hectares) zone located along the refuge's Arctic Ocean coastline, is thought to hold about 10.4 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil, according to a 1998 report by the U.S. Geological Survey. This makes it the largest onshore oil reserve in North America, The New York Times reported.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt made the announcement today, saying that the government will likely begin leasing parts of ANWR to oil and gas companies within months, according to Arctic Today. "There certainly could be a lease sale by the end of the year," Bernhardt told reporters during a news conference, as reported by Arctic Today, adding that he would "move forward expeditiously."

More: https://www.livescience.com/oil-drilling-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge.html


Miguelito Loveless

(4,438 posts)
6. The carbon bubble is to the mortgage bubble
Fri Aug 28, 2020, 12:59 PM
Aug 2020

what the Sun is to the Earth.

Oil prices fell below $0 because futures contracts came due. People either had to take delivery of the oil, or pay other people to take delivery. There was such a glut of oil that storage was in short supply, and thus storage prices were exorbitant. So, traders were literally paying $30+ per barrel for other people to take delivery.

Prices could go negative again, if the pandemic goes really bad in the next few month, or if refinery capacity is damaged by hurricanes.

At the moment, EVERY fracking operation is losing money, and quite a few "conventional" drilling ventures.

Every EV that is bought by a consumer for daily use, translates into 500-800 gallons of gasoline going unburned. EV sales, though down because of the pandemic, are doing much better than ICE sales. Solar gets cheaper every quarter, while conitnuing to improve in efficiency. Wind turbines are pretty much at par with FF generation costs, with ZERO fueling costs. Solar/wind are much cheaper than coal/nuclear at this point.

Change is coming, whether the oligarcs wants it or not.

Yeehah

(4,524 posts)
13. Oil companies have opposed all forms of public transportation in this country
Fri Aug 28, 2020, 02:41 PM
Aug 2020

Money in politics means we can't have nice things.

BumRushDaShow

(127,315 posts)
8. "'Below $0 per barrel"??'" - you missed the big thread on that
Fri Aug 28, 2020, 01:08 PM
Aug 2020


I think the lowest was something like -$37/bbl (contract).

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213319463

What it supposedly meant was that the sellers were offering to PAY people to buy due to the glut (and no place to store it). This was the fallout of the Saudi-Russia "oil war" where they were competing with each other to see who could produce and dump the most on the market, AND doing that in the midst of a pandemic (when far fewer were using oil/gasoline due to lockdowns). And as a side-effect, it would help to kill (punish) the U.S. oil production market.

As a sidenote, "Exxon" was originally "Esso" (a name still used in Canada and other places) for almost half of its life on the Dow.

Warpy

(110,913 posts)
10. Opening ANWR to drilling is nothing but a big "FUCK YOU"
Fri Aug 28, 2020, 01:26 PM
Aug 2020

to Alaskans, environmentalists, native Americans, Democrats, and everybody else who isn't a white male Christian Republican greedhead. Nobody's interested in sinking any wells there, not yet, because the deposits aren't huge and the oil is "bunker oil," which can't be handled by most US refineries. This is a pure spite vote on the GOP's behalf, a "we can do whatever we want and you can't stop us, you pointy headed nerds."

As for Exxon, the problem isn't the low price of oil, it's back over $40/bbl and has been for some time, ever since Russia and Saudi Arabia got over their little spat. The problem is that the company is loaded down with debt from reckless stock buyback programs designed to make the executives and majority shareholders richer quicker.

The truth is that we're still drowning in oil, demand hasn't gone up that much since the rush to reopen during a pandemic. People aren't traveling and a lot of people aren't working.

I'm not surprised they were dumped.

IronLionZion

(45,261 posts)
11. Oh Trump boasted hard about low gas prices last night
Fri Aug 28, 2020, 01:44 PM
Aug 2020

as if he had something to do with it.

Fabulously wealthy oil companies decided not to save cash for a rainy day or global pandemic disrupting transportation. But ordinary Americans are told too bad, you should have worked harder to get rich.

melm00se

(4,974 posts)
17. Implications that need to be considered
Mon Aug 31, 2020, 08:57 AM
Aug 2020

Direct employment by the oil and gas industry: 1.9mm

Indirect employment supported by the oil and gas industry: 9.8mm

Taxes collected on oil and gas: while nailing down an exact number is a challenge, in Texas for FY2019, the gas industry paid $16 billion in state and local taxes and state royalties (or >7% of the total Texas budget). Some states would be hit harder than others due to their production status. Also, don't forget the gasoline excise tax at both the federal and state levels which fund a lot of transportation projects. The implications of this to state and local services are rather significant.

Costs - as mentioned up thread, petroleum is used for a lot of items and any changes in the industry could have significant financial repercussions.

I am certain that there are many others that are not listed here.

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