Falling oil prices....really the work of the Saudis?

[derspiess]

Or Marketing.  Took me two layoffs to figure out I needed to get out of that racket.

[celedhring]

My buddy is in the Geophysics division that does geological surveying.  So his workload is determined by the number of clients that want to know how much oil is "down there" and whether it's feasible to drill.  Obviously that is going to drop off a bit, but I would think that some companies would still want to continue to poke & prod just to have an idea of where they could drill, should it become economically feasible to do it at some point in the future.

Or since new well development is not going to be feasible at these prices, they may decide it's not worth to keep a big surveying operation at the moment.

[The Brain]

Geomancy isn't real anyway.

[CountDeMoney]

Geomancy isn't real anyway.

Save it for the break room, Captain Atom.

[derspiess]

Or since new well development is not going to be feasible at these prices, they may decide it's not worth to keep a big surveying operation at the moment.

Yep, who knows. 

[Martinus]

By the way, do failing oil prices in any way affect the viability of the Keystone pipeline construction?

[MadImmortalMan]

No. Obama would veto it under any market condition, I think.

[Sheilbh]

By the way, do failing oil prices in any way affect the viability of the Keystone pipeline construction?

No. It's politics now. The Senate spent a large amount of time debating a pipeline that at current prices would barely ever be used

[crazy canuck]

By the way, do failing oil prices in any way affect the viability of the Keystone pipeline construction?

No. It's politics now. The Senate spent a large amount of time debating a pipeline that at current prices would barely ever be used

That isn't accurate.  If anything low prices make a low cost method of transporting oil more important.  Although the environmental argument that the pipeline will contribute to carbon release is stronger in a low price environment because of the economics of transporting oil by more costly methods such as rail.

[MadImmortalMan]

Good point, cc. The pipelines have been busier if anything during the glut and price bottom in natural gas in recent years. But Warren Buffet doesn't own the Keystone, he owns the railroad.

[KRonn]

We need the pipeline. The spice must flow!! 

[Grey Fox]

The spice will flow no matter if there is a pipeline or not.

It will just use trains instead.

[Berkut]

The entire pipeline idiocy is useful to show that even in the world of the Tea Party, where the dumbshit right has most of the spotlight for being ignorant dumbasses, there is still room for the dumbshit left to get in there and show how moronic they can be as well.

[derspiess]

So Berkut are you pro- or anti-pipeline?

[mongers]

I'm pro-pipeline, generally have zero environmental impact after a few years; cycled past a substantial one today and I'm probably the one in a hundred people who know its there, one place a week ago kids were playing on part of it's above ground structure and I bet they or their parents didn't know what it was either.