ecugringo

Houston for the most part. Its not that exciting though. Working with pipelines etc..There aren't as many as there use to be. I work for a tech vendor, its been fun. Not without its challenges but better than anything else I've done.

As mentioned there are a lot of factors in the price of oil. It is a globally traded commodity and the US doesnt dictate how much Oil Exxon can extract from the Permian or Bakken. What they can do is force heavy taxes on these companies for their green policies. Just recently P66 and Holly Frontier shut down 2 refineries and they will be converted to bio diesel. There is a lot of debate over how green bio diesel is and how good it is for engine components. Nevertheless, Holly saved over $60mm/yr in taxes by doing this. There are also fees and taxes for green house gas emissions. There are incentives for auto makers to make more efficient vehicles or EV. I think Ford will be 60% EV by 2035. Reservations for the E F-150 sold out in 15 minutes. Its an $80k truck. The state level has its own set of penalties. In CO they want to limit how far you can put a well from a structure. SOme of hte proposals would basically outlaw any new wells based off this distance. O&G is still a major industry in teh state and is a huge revenue source for education. Too bad a lot of people there are far left and want to shut it down. I had a mid school teacher tell me at a neighborhood holiday party that I can just work in another industry. NY and CA want to ban gas ranges and gas heating. More states will join. But we have oceans of natural gas under the US. We dont have the infrastructure to make it usable at the moment. Politicians will add red tape as their constituents wish making capital investment more and more difficult. Good luck trying to start a nuclear plant. Interesting note. CA shut down their nuke plants but buys energy from Palo Verde in AZ. I think you could easily replace coal with Natural gas which is 40-60% cleaner but the incentives being pushed for solar/wind will make it too challenging. Sad thing is there are great jobs in Oil and Gas. I have done better than I ever thought I could. All i needed was military experience since nobody wants to go into this industry. I work with a lot of engineers from very prestigious schools. A lot are Aero Engineers. THey tell me Exxon pays over 2x what Lockheed, Boeing etc....pay.

You are only speculating on his demands. I dont underestimate Putin at all and I think he's the strongest player in this chess match. Everyone needs to figure out what his end game is. As you stated he prepped for sanctions. He knew taking Ukraine would isolate him on the global playing field. Do you really think Ukraine is the end zone? my guess is no. He wants to make Western Europe his bitch and control fuel/gas prices they must buy. I think he also wants a bigger say in how oil prices fluctuate globally. His population is dying. In his mind if he doesnt expand Russia will be nothing more than Ft. McMurry is in Canada in 50 years.

Didn’t know Russia applied. agree. I don’t think anyone knows what his end game is. He’s not dumb. He’s out maneuvered our presidents. I can’t envision Putin not seeing the sanctions and thinking we’ll I’ll take Ukraine and a month later they’ll be more focused on the kardashisns by then. he’s been on their border since November. This is just a piece of the grander scheme.

The question will be for the west: do u let a free nation become destroyed and annihilated in your back yard? There is interest. Natural gas flows through Ukraine. Kazakhstan has a massive oil play. It needs to go through Ukraine or the Black Sea to reach market. We can’t ship enough lng for demand in Europe. If we had balls we’d stop Russian crude from market and increase production ourselves but Biden is too focused on trying to look green. Putin is all in. Theres no going back now. Conquer Ukraine just to be economically isolated isnt a win.

Nobody put a gun to their head and made them join. They made that decision as a free nation. I understand Putin being WTF? But throwing a tantrum isn’t the right way. Maybe realize you’re the dick in the room and figure out how to benefit the most from the game.

Interesting review of Russian tactics. Better than the TEAM meeting i was on while watching it. Russo-Ukraine War: What the West Doesn't Understand EP 3 - YouTube

I agree. He's been pretty brilliant as far as achieving his goals in his role. He seemed to be 2 steps ahead of everyone else the whole way. What I cant figure out is what his own intel on his own forces was. Did he know he could barely move his army 400 miles? Did he know his logistics were that poor? Or is this all part of his ruse to draw in more nations? Russia is taking heavy losses we needed to step up...oh btw you were funneling arms in through Poland so thats mine now? The other big question is what is victory for him at this point? He is interested in marking his legacy. If he concedes and only takes a chunk of Ukraine and goes home, but the costs was isolating Russia from the global economy worth it? No statues of himself for that. If he is defeated in Ukraine and goes home then hes a total failure. At this point the only glimpse of a victory would be inflicting as much damage as he can on his way out. I dont see how he or Russia recovers.

Highway of death 2.0.

17-mile-long Russian convoy reaches outskirts of Kyiv (yahoo.com) 17 Mile long convoy on the outskirts of Kiev.

There was an article I saw on MSN or somewhere how the Russians were being forced into this and they had mobile incinerators to cremate their dead on site to hide the true # of KIA. Crazy to think about.

Wasnt Hillary's deputy SOS on video marching in Kiev with anti Putin demonstrators?

So how does this differ from the Gulf War? You have 2 sovereign nations invaded by an aggressor. Bush rallied the international community to free Kuwait. What is Biden going to do? Sanctions? China is already buying Russia exports to alleviate that pressure. Russia/Belarus controls a massive amount of components for fertilizer going into the growing season. Factor that Ukraine will not be able to export wheat as well and it could set up a global crisis.

Isnt Russia one of the fastest dying populations in the world? I remember reading something like the birth rate is extremely low and in something like 40 years their population will be less than 1/2 what it is today? I do think Putin wants to expand his sphere of influence into Europe and push the US out. If the EU gravitates towards Russia for resources in enhances Russia's survivability long term.

Very true. I work in Oil and Gas. Been to Bakersfield more times than I would like.

Yup. I work remote or travel to see customers. Never really used our small office there. Cashed out and moved to the south. The way people handled covid was pretty amazing. Blindly follow whatever Polis said. If you questioned anything people would think you were pretty stupid. Had someone at Costco yell at me for not having my 2 yr old masked up.

Good Video! I lived close to Boulder, CO. Beautiful city hyper liberal. They built a green belt around it to stop housing development. No new homes can be build only tear downs. They wanted all utilities from green sources as well. WHat this did was make utilities the highest in the state and housing one of the highest in the country. Unless you want to be really house poor or are really rich you cant afford to work there. So the working bees must commute in or live in a small overprices apt. Its actually pretty insane. You get people like Gov Polis the Billionaire GOv of CO and people of that wealth acting as champions of hte working class but enabling policies to make them live elsewhere just to preserve your own neighborhood.

My neighbors when I lived in CO moved from the Bay area. They all said they were tired of the homeless issues and how $$$ CA was. But their Facebook page was full of AOC, Sanders etc.....CO is basically CA at this point.

Been an interesting read here. Russia is pulling troops back. My guess is that Putin doesnt invade, Biden claims a diplomatic victory. Putin gets a guarantee Ukraine never joins NATO. NordSea Pipeline approval. Meanwhile the media was distracted from inflation/economy the last few weeks.

Was unaware of Powell's health issues. The media conveniently left out those details. We just had covid go through our home. I'm 40, 160lbs, better health than when I was in the AF from 25-29. I've been sicker, I know for some it's pretty shitty. My company wants everyone to get the shot. I work remote and visit clients across the US so it's had to really justify. Not against the shot, I just dont think its the silver bullet some think it is. Also, I dont think business travel or office environments will ever be the same again.

Just read Colin Powel passed from Covid and was fully vaxed. I read last week some guy who won an emmy who was like 53 passed as well from COVID and vaxed. Then I also saw a college kid at UGA died as well and was vaxed. I live in CO, 24% of all 900 hospitilizations are fully vaxed. If the other 76% were, would they be in the hospital or is it just bad luck? CO is one of the most vaxed states yet we are in our 2nd biggest wave. We also have a city cop suing the city over forced to be vaxed who is not paralyzed. I know there is a 33 yr old woman in Pittsburgh who also was paralyzed from the vaccine. I personally know a college girl who was on scholarship and now has the heart inflamation from the vax. At this point with all the breakthrough/need for boosters cases you can legitimately question the effectivness of shot. The shot also doesnt end this. It might help the burden on hospitals but thats really it.

Thats shitty. I know there is a NHL Assnt Coach well now former that medically could not get the vax. He was forced to quit. Which is crazy, if everyone else has the shot, then he should be ok. At least you think. I work in Oil and Gas and Im being backed into a corner to take it. Our company isn't forcing ppl to take it but you can't go to the office, and our customers (Chevron, Exxon etc...) are all requiring you to be vaxed to visit. Its an honor system at this point but if you get caught lying then you're done. Being in sales my job was to be in front of customers and travel when necessary......Also being in O&G there aren't a lot of younger healthy spring chickens so I can see why companies are doing this.

If they didn't know the vaccine would wane after 6 months, what else do they not know about it?

I'm not pro or anti VAX but I have questions on the VAX. This vax was available for testing within like 4 months of the pandemic. After like 6 months it was the silver bullet vs Covid. But now there are ppl that have the vax and being hospitalized. Jesse Jackson and his wife, Oscar De la Hoya just to name a few celebs. There are many other break through cases. We really dont know what the make up of hospitalizations is because there is a good chance they will never admit how many breakthrough hospitalizations there are because then they lost all credibility. (not like we haven't been lied to before, Vietnam, Iraq, AFG, etc....)My 38 yr old healthy cousin is vaxed but still got pretty sick, not hospitalized. Most likely same symptoms vaxed or not. Now they are calling for boosters cuz the vax wears off. The US is in the 2nd highest case peak and climbing last i checked. Maybe, just maybe this vaccine sucks and they didn't have adequate time to really test it? Bring these questions up to a hard left pro vaxer and you basically get labeled as a racist deplorable trump supporter. There is literally no conversation. Just look at this thread. The position I am currently in is that my odds are low of dying of Covid. The VAX may or may not reduce my chance of hospitalization but even that my odds are still low of requiring a bed. I am not confident what the long term effects of hte vaccine are at this point. I am aware I will most likely need the vaccine to continue my job in hte civilian sector. Side note: We have an office in Calgary. Im pretty close with a guy there and I asked a while ago why Canada is so crazy over shut downs. Apparently they only have 250 ICU beds in Alberta which is like 4.5mm ppl. Compare that to my state of CO where we have like 2k....makes you glad you dont have govt run health care and makes sense if that is the case in Australia why they are freakign out over 5 cases. They simply pissed away tax payer money vs building the health care infrastructure.

Moving forward what will be interesting to watch. 1. NATO: Will the alliance hold strong or will there be more of a EU focus on cooperation? Difficult to predict with Brexit and other Euro nations only being half in. 2. Russia: Will Putin test NATO/EU on Ukraine, Baltics, Poland? Will Putin fill in a gap that the US leaves? The former Soviet block nations were Trump fans. Will they turn on Biden? 3. China: How hard do they push in the Pacific and Taiwan? I think they have a small window to seize as much power as possible given their population structure. 4. Islamic Fundamentalism: There is a very strong push to move away from Oil. Saudi Arabia is trying to diversify their economy but if Oil is no longer the global commodity it is today, what happens to the Gulf states? The younger generation will have a bleak future if they can't bet on oil. With the Taliban supported by China holding strong, will many youths look to AFG to be radicalized again? They can spin their misfortunes on the West for their lost desire for oil.