"We may see some brief moves around $80 a barrel, but...the most likely move from here will be up. Not to $120 or even $110, but above $90 a barrel..." .. It’s important to realize that a decline like the one we’ve had lately is not a signal that there is a recession coming. If there was, that would be a cause for concern. But there is nothing to even remotely indicate that an economic correction is coming – actually the indicators are all pointing in quite the opposite direction. This is simply a supply/demand event. There is too much production to match what is needed and the market needs only a few months to compensate for it. That’s the way markets work. The Market Just Loves These Kinds of Producers Right Now But more conventional producers don’t have these problems. The companies that prosper during lower price periods drill traditional, conventional, shallow and vertical wells. These wells are quick in and quick out. They cost very little in comparison to complete, usually less than 10% of a deep fracked horizontal. Dry holes, therefore, are less of a problem in a drilling program that can finish wells in a week, as opposed to several months. So when oil prices drop, extraction from shallow vertical wells tends to crowd out production from more expensive competitors. Why? It’s due to one simple overriding factor. Traditional wells are often profitable at $65 a barrel, and sometimes even less. And remember, supply may be up right now (resulting in lower market prices), but demand – even a sluggish demand scenario – will still require product. So the “cheaper wells” end up grabbing a greater percentage of an existing market and the companies that drill those wells actually benefit from the falling overall price. They just grab a bigger market share. This is why both of our most recent direct investment projects – Money Map Project #2 and #2(A) - have emphasized combining already producing wells (where the operating costs are minimal) with cheap, quick, shallow, vertical drilling of new wells. In short, these projects are designed to move right into today’s oil “sweet spot” where the bulk of the profits will be made. And, of course, those profits continue for the life of the wells. That could easily be 10 or 15 years and even longer – in all pricing environments. That’s the advantage of owning what comes out of the ground, not simply stock issued by a company looking for it. Of course, oil prices are never static. We may see some brief moves around $80 a barrel, but the most likely move from here will be up. Not to $120 or even $110, but above $90 a barrel. The reason for this is pretty straight forward. As I noted earlier, lower oil prices are not an indicator of approaching economic problems. They are rather a barometer of supply and demand. Two things happen in these cases. First, the lower the price the more oil we use. It is just axiomatic that we use more of a product like oil when the price is lower. However, the second factor (and more decisive) occurs on the supply side. Lower prices discourage marginal production. That reduces the supply side of things and puts upward pressure on prices. This is going to occur regardless of the geopolitical situation (which could of its own accord result in a big price jump) or moves by the Saudis (who have “proved their point” and will be relaxing their own export price cuts). So the truth is there are plenty of ways to make money in oil these days.