I'm doing everything I can. It should be a done deal though.

 

HAHA , nice

 

Thanks Nostradamus, can you name one independant E&P company that does not have it's own retail arm (gas stations)? How about 10? There are hundreds, and they all exist off of assets that larger companies cannot make profitable because of their higher overhead.

Here is the simple explaination of why what you say will not happen under the current capital market:

The larger the company, the harder it is to be economically feasible, given the limited nature of the resource and the fact that o&g companies are valued by the market on how much resource they have for development. Larger means more overhead. More workers, more facilities, more equipment. But when it comes to oil, you cannot just make another factory, or another retail location, or what have you. You have to find more oil. But that is not easy. So in an effort to remain profitable, they constantly shed assets that do not help a large company remain profitable. Those are picked up by small companies that can make them profitable, because the company has less costs. This makes them more money and in turn their investors win. Money goes where it can grow best

Now, you are correct about national oil companies being big, all encompassing entities in charge of their country's energy needs. But we do not have a national oil company. This is not Venezuela. They are also historically slow, inefficient and lack oversight, which does not add up typically to effectively getting resource to a populace. Look at nations that have an NOC...they are not exactly model capitalist countries with happy citizens that have whatever they want. They are the anti-oil company in many regards, given their governmental control. Lately, NOCs have been different, but I suspect this is because they are flush with cash.

Whether or not we should have one is a different discussion. Our country's energy priorities are not in line with other countries, and some would argue, the importance of the resource. But that is a talk about should our energy gathering concern be nationalized.

That said, this is America. Me, Hawgs and a couple other guys could get together, get a lease, secure a rig and be drilling by end of the month if we wanted to, with either privately raised capital or a float. You know whose old prospect we would drill? Odds are it would be something that had previously been held by Exxon, Chevron, BP or Shell at one point.

Back on point - I am not seeing merger as much as divesting of assets. If OP can shed some light on this, that would be great. But it sounds like BP is interested in reducing its operations and Shell needs reserves, and less of a "merger."

 

ya I can name some, a lot. my dad is a geophysicist with a phd that has been in the industry since the late 60's (meaning he's the guy that finds more oil as you correctly pointed out that is the first thing one has to do). worked with companies as large as bp and pennzoil, and companies as small as pioneer and meridian. not to mention my company does some work in the o&g industry, so knowing what is going on industry-wide has an effect on us. I say these things to tell you that i'm not some cluless idiot stating an opinion on somethin i know nothing about. maybe my opinion of a worst case scenario is wrong and wont happen. oh well, its just my opinion based on things i know, have learned from people within industry, and general direction our world is going. i hope we dont end up like venezuela one day, that would suck. thank you for the enlightnement on some points.

 

Interesting. So you were just playing devil's advocate. Fair. But you have to remember some people actually do not know the inner workings of E&P, and saying things like "end of oil companies/governmentalization" might actually get people worried and speculating over things you and I know cannot change without bizzare and unlikely legislation.

 

First look for the sell off of downstream facilities. BP wants E&P, NG and Solar.

Hmmmm a top Shell exec is now going to run BP Texas City Refinery starting Jan. 1st.