I wonder, for every one gallon of gasoline I pump into my vehicle, how many were used to extract, refine, transport, store and pump it. I'm assuming it's at least 10 to 1. Maybe even 100 to 1
I bring this up because the company will fly him from anywhere in the world to where they want him to work, chopper him out to the rig, etc. etc. All of that gas consumed to get ONE worker onto the rig.
An easily acccessed oil field can easily have an EROI of 20-50, so they spend a gallon worth of energy to extract 20-50 gallons. Shale oil has a EROI as low as 1-1.5 and it's sometimes only worth it when burning the accompanying natural gas for free energy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment
What you want is Well to Tank calculations, which suggest that the process of making gasoline accounts for 15-20% of the total GHG emissions, so add 25% onto the number you get from burning the fuel in your car.
Remember, the helicopter that flies your friend out there just buys jet fuel at a regular airport. With an entire supply line that has to buy the fuel off of the open market, it’s not possible for it to require a gallon of gas to produce a gallon of gas, let alone 10 or 100.
It’s no different than guessing that the process to make 1 potato takes 100 potatoes.
It has to be more extracted than consumed to even have the possibility of a business.
It won't be exact, but it'll be pretty close. And the number is higher than you might expect!
Well, almost 40% of all ship cargoes are fossil fuels (oil, coal, methane gas):
* https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2022/01/12/almost-40-...
I do doubt that would be a realistic estimate though.
If a company has a hypothetical 10 barrels of oil on hand, and is given two choices: (1) do no work and sell the 10 barrels; (2) do work, use the 10 barrels, and have 11 barrels left over to sell or use again
Why would the company choose option 2? Option 1 is both easier and results in 10x the immediate value. I suppose over enough cycles (i.e. >10x), the "1 additional barrel per cycle" will add to more net barrels sold to market.
But with any meaningful discount rate, the time value of money would almost certainly be greater for option 1. Maybe fracking was a ZIRP phenomenon.
You have 10 dollars. You can keep the 10 dollars and then have 10 dollars. Or you can invest that 10 and earn 11.
Or, in a real situation:
Walmart had 12B in revenue with 2% profit margin for 2023. It sounds like they started with 11.9B in money, bought inventory and paid their expenses, and after selling everything wound up with 12B.
How is this different to spending oil to make oil?
1. Sell 10 barrels 2. ????? 3. Profit
After you’ve sold the ten barrels, now what? There are no more barrels and no more coming since you chose not to drill. You have to shut down and do something else with whatever money you made from the sale.