{"id":26443,"date":"2017-10-03T17:01:30","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T22:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26443"},"modified":"2017-10-03T17:01:30","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T22:01:30","slug":"welfare-kings-study-finds-half-of-new-oil-production-unprofitable-without-government-handouts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26443","title":{"rendered":"Welfare Kings? Study Finds Half of New Oil Production Unprofitable Without Government Handouts"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 id=\"page-title\" class=\"page__title title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2017\/10\/03\/welfare-kings-half-current-oil-production-unprofitable-without-government-subsidies\">Welfare Kings? Study Finds Half of New Oil Production Unprofitable Without Government Handouts<\/a><\/h3>\n<article class=\"node-12176 node node-blog node-promoted view-mode-full clearfix\">\n<div class=\"field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/styles\/full_width_blog_image\/public\/blogimages\/welfare.png?itok=QNv836YZ\" alt=\"Oil derrick with 'welfare' spelled on Scrabble tiles\" width=\"826\" height=\"427\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"new-horizontal-social-bar clearfix\">\n<div class=\"new-horizontal-share-wrapper new-horizontal-email-wrapper clearfix last\">A <a href=\"http:\/\/nature.com\/articles\/doi:10.1038\/s41560-017-0009-8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new study <\/a>published in the peer-reviewed\u00a0journal Nature Energy found that 50 percent of new\u00a0oil production in America would be unprofitable if not for government subsidies. The study, performed by researchers at the Stockholm Environment Institute\u00a0and Earth Track, Inc., found that, at prices of $50 per barrel,\u00a0light oil produced by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/fracking-the-future\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hydraulic fracturing (\u201cfracking\u201d)<\/a> was heavily dependent on\u00a0subsidies.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p>In fact, forty percent of\u00a0the Permian basin in Texas would be economically unviable without subsidies, and for\u00a0the\u00a0home of Bakken crude production, Williston Basin,\u00a0that number jumps to 59 percent, according to the\u00a0researchers.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, the study highlights what this additional fossil fuel production means for\u00a0impacts to the\u00a0climate:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"dquo\">\u201c<\/span>\u2026continued subsidies for oil investment could produce oil (and associated gas) that, once burned, will yield <span class=\"caps\">CO2<\/span>emissions equivalent to nearly 1 percent of the remaining global carbon budget for all sectors of all\u00a0economies.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>At current oil prices,\u00a0perhaps the most effective <a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2015\/12\/10\/climate-justice-activists-announce-global-break-free-campaign-civil-disobedience-set-2016\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201ckeep it in the ground\u201d strategy<\/a>\u00a0might be\u00a0to stop\u00a0subsidizing oil\u00a0production.<\/p>\n<p>But\u00a0what happens with these subsidies when\u00a0the price of oil is over $100 per barrel, as it was\u00a0several years ago? The authors of the study report that,\u00a0under such a scenario, government\u00a0subsidies are simply \u201ctransfer payments\u201d to oil investors. The oil would be profitable without the subsidies, which become,\u00a0at that point,\u00a0simply free cash\u00a0for\u00a0investors.<\/p>\n<p>While this study provides valuable insight into how subsidies affect oil production and the climate, it notes that its conclusions are not unique. The authors point out: \u201cAs others have found regardless of the oil price, the majority of taxpayer resources provided to the industry end up as company\u00a0profits.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welfare Kings? Study Finds Half of New Oil Production Unprofitable Without Government Handouts A new study published in the peer-reviewed\u00a0journal Nature Energy found that 50 percent of new\u00a0oil production in America would be unprofitable if not for government subsidies. The study, performed by researchers at the Stockholm Environment Institute\u00a0and Earth Track, Inc., found that, at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[1624,5317,331,412,11782,16285,3640],"class_list":["post-26443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","tag-corporate-welfare","tag-desmog-blog","tag-fracking","tag-hydraulic-fracturing","tag-justin-mikulka","tag-nature-energy","tag-permian-basin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26444,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26443\/revisions\/26444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}