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Old 05-20-2017, 12:38 PM   #15
MaddMax
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Member#: 9264
Join Date: Aug 2001
Vehicle:
2016 BMW M235i 6MT

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I work in the environmental consulting field and much of my work is with the oil and gas industry. I knew this oil glut was coming years ago when the extraction technology improved dramatically and we started finding more and more large O&G plays across the US and aboard. Also, reserves in many cases had been underestimated and/or the technology now allows us to extract more than once thought possible. There are massive reserves throughout this country; far more than anyone could have imagined just 5 years ago. This goes for many other countries as well and for places like Russia, the Middle East, and South America, it scares the crap out of those countries because they loosing their oil-controlling power. I can see wars being manufactured solely as a way to dramatically boost oil prices.

All this oil teamed with improved efficiency has been a perfect storm. 5-7 years ago, oil exploration companies in the US were making massive amounts of money and it was drill baby, drill. Our business was booming as well with the associated environmental permitting and compliance these companies had to adhere to. I kept thinking to myself, do these companies not understand that they're going to oversupply the market and crash prices? I guess not. They kept making money and they kept giving us business with little question about our pricing. I saw the writing on the wall and started taking on work in other industries because I didn't want to be without a job when the market tanked.

Right now, my private equity clients aren't terribly interested in oil. They're going gangbusters over natural gas. I'm not sure why, but the acquisition activity has been quite high for NG over the past 3 months.
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