# Domestic oil production shares drop



## CHamilton (Nov 29, 2014)

"Uneasy investors dumped energy stocks. Among the hardest hit were U.S. domestic oil producers including Continental Resources Co., the biggest producer in North Dakota's Bakken Shale. Its shares plunged on Friday nearly 20%..." http://online.wsj.com/articles/energy-world-quakes-as-opec-stands-pat-1417209813

That can't be good news for BNSF.


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## Blackwolf (Nov 29, 2014)

Here's a link to the related CNN article that is not behind a paywall (Sorry Charlie!)

http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/28/investing/opec-oil-price-us-shale/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Could be interesting indeed. I know the State of California is STRONGLY looking at the Bakken oil being shipped by rail through the state, especially after a derailment earlier last week in the Feather River Canyon of a grain train (Bakken Oil has been just recently started to be shipped along this route, causing much consternation about safety and assurances about risk. Had the train that went to the ground been an oil train, we'd be witnessing one of the worst environmental rail disasters in the last 50 years right now as the Feather River is the headwaters for the California State Water Project.)

Here's the derailment from last week:


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## Bob Dylan (Nov 29, 2014)

Where are the Drill Baby Drill! Advocates when these Enviromential Disasters happen? Basic fact, there is no such a thing as "Clean Coal and Oil!"

I'm on the side of the Environmentalists and NIMBYs when it comes to shipping Hazardous materials or building pipelines through sensetive areas!


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## CHamilton (Nov 29, 2014)

Thanks for finding that, Blackwolf. I happened to see the WSJ article in print this morning, thanks to the hotel where I am staying. It's sad that passenger rail is beholden, even indirectly, to an energy industry that will likely not survive the 21st century, just as buggy whip manufacturers did not survive the 20th.


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## jis (Nov 29, 2014)

That got me thinking. I wonder how many industries routinely survive more than a century without undergoing some gross transformation which makes it so dissimilar to its previous form that it becomes difficult to characterize it as the same industry?

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum


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## CHamilton (Nov 29, 2014)

Very true. I can't think of one. Restaurants and hotels might be close, but even they have undergone huge transformations.


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## AmtrakBlue (Nov 29, 2014)

I can think of one. Oops, you said industries, not professions.  h34r: :help:


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## Bob Dylan (Nov 29, 2014)

I'd say that Bars, Gambling Venues, Armenent and Munitions Trade, Vehicle Business ( Cars and Trucks), Shipping and Railroads are businesses that have lasted more than a Century! Also Religions, which are a Huge Money Maker,have lasted for Thousands of Years!


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## neroden (Nov 29, 2014)

Accounting -- right, that's also a profession, not an industry.

The clothing industry, actually. Weaving is still done pretty much the way it was when the first automatic looms were invented. Sewing is done with sewing machines which are pretty much the same as the 19th century sewing machines. Fashions change but the industry hasn't changed much since the Industrial Revolution.


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## Anderson (Nov 29, 2014)

I would argue that the telecom industry went about a century without much change...and indeed, a lot of hardware-oriented industries have not really changed, and the same applies to utilities in general. Transportation is a similar case, at least on the freight side (air freight being largely a niche market).

Granted, a number of industries underwent upheavals in the last few decades...but at the same time there's a tendency to simply watch as deckchairs are rearranged in a lot of cases. You've had some new industries created (social media comes to mind), but the same general structures do tend to prevail in a given industry over time (i.e. natural monopoly, oligopoly, limited competition, or open competition) absent significant government intervention.

I think it _is_ fair to note that prior to roughly WWI, a lot of stuff hadn't taken shape yet simply because in 1900 the "developed world" arguably consisted of much of the US, the UK, France, Benelux, and Germany. A number of major powers (Russia, the Ottoman Empire) had at best spotty development (widespread telegraphy was a maybe in many areas, widespread telephone service often only found in some major cities), and the US was still closing the frontier (OK, NM, and AZ weren't yet states) while Canada was a good way off (Alberta and Saskatchewan were still barely populated...you probably didn't have more than 200,000 people between Manitoba and British Columbia, the NWT included). Basically, there was still an openness not likely to be repeated in the foreseeable future (and let us not contemplate what would get us there considering what had to happen to allow that openness last time around).


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## NorthShore (Dec 1, 2014)

Railcar builder, Greenbrier, is down 20%, over twelve bucks a share, since Thanksgiving.


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## John Bredin (Dec 1, 2014)

Anderson said:


> I would argue that the telecom industry went about a century without much change...and indeed, a lot of hardware-oriented industries have not really changed, and the same applies to utilities in general. Transportation is a similar case, at least on the freight side (air freight being largely a niche market).


Regarding surface freight transportation having "not really changed" in about a century, I would demur with one word: containerization.


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## jis (Dec 1, 2014)

Anderson said:


> I would argue that the telecom industry went about a century without much change...and indeed, a lot of hardware-oriented industries have not really changed, and the same applies to utilities in general. Transportation is a similar case, at least on the freight side (air freight being largely a niche market).


I probably use a narrower definition of what is considered to be "not changed". In my mind, all of the industries that you mention have changed in ways that would make them essentially almost a totally foreign concept should someone from a hundred years back come back to life and take a look at such.
Morse keys are very different from an iPhone I'd submit, and the support systems that go with them are likewise. Even Alexander Graham Bell would be completely flummoxed to see what we have today. Having worked in that industry for almost 15 years at Bell Labs, I find the statement that the "telecom industry" went a century without much change, frankly quite astounding. So I suspect it is a matter of interpreting what is considered change and what is not.

The biggest enabling change after wireless, was going digital, PCM and cellular technology, which stood the entire business of personal telecom on its head, basically destroying most of the traditional land line service where they existed, and where they did not, entire states in the developing world simply skipped that part and went directly cellular.

Similarly for transportation, even rail, indeed - multi-modal containerization is what I would demur with too. I would grant you that in general all vehicles on land still have wheels and some even still run on rails, and ships still float on water, and planes still have wings to fly on and wheels to land on.


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## CHamilton (Jan 10, 2015)

The shale oil revolution is in danger



> Oil producers and Wall Street analysts claim the setback in the fracking industry brought on by the collapse in oil prices will be brief and minor. Don’t believe them.


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## jis (Jan 11, 2015)

At least that should improve the OTP of the EB


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## Nanook (Jan 12, 2015)

Solve ALL these problems - finish building Keystone!

Oh wait....


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