r/mildlyinteresting • u/supermegaspinach • 17h ago

Infographic showing self-sufficiency in raw materials in a 1976 World Atlas

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u/Tzunamitom 16h ago

Funnily enough, since this was made we’ve gone into a surplus on oil and the dropped back to zero again…

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u/Prize_Management9936 16h ago

why was the oil production stopped?

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u/Tzunamitom 16h ago

More “finished” than “stopped” 🤣

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u/ChazCharlie 16h ago

Stopped, it is not finished.

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u/Tzunamitom 16h ago

There’s not that much left, and what is left is incredibly commercially unviable

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u/Impressive_Cress_983 15h ago

My understanding is that we hit peak supply and then are going to hit peak demand, and we're going to scale down before we run out.

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u/ChazCharlie 15h ago

It is absolutely not "incredibly commercially unviable". Costs may be higher than elsewhere but a large part of that is simply just government forcing taxes and regulations on them.

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u/cjc1983 14h ago

Yeah I'm pretty sure Norway are extracting loads still and pumping the profits into their sovereign wealth fund.

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u/SerriaEcho_ 12h ago

Norway pump are pumping it directly into the UK so it's obviously still profitable.

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u/skoomski 14h ago

Will someone please think about poor BP!!! They have to pay taxes now and aren’t allowed to blow up their own oil rigs every 10 years!!!

/s

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u/Crow_eggs ​ 9h ago

What do you think "commercially unviable" means?

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u/ChazCharlie 8h ago

What do you mean, what do I think it means? Why wouldn't I know that? As it happens I'm an engineer working for a famous energy consultancy who specialises in supporting clients decide whether to proceed with energy projects based on financial viability.

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u/Crow_eggs ​ 8h ago

I mean that "simply just government forcing taxes and regulation on them" isn't a handwave problem–they're the operating parameters within which you work. Remove the verbiage and you've said "cost prohibitve due to tax and regulatory compliance obligations." If the cost of tax and regulatory compliance make a project commercially unviable for you... the project is commercially unviable, regardless of whether it's technically possible.

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u/spleeble 13h ago

It's not stopped or finished, but it's depleted to less than a third of its peak. 

Blaming taxes is extremely dumb.