The Investment Blog

Thomas Boone Pickens, Jr. (born May 22, 1928) is an American businessman who chairs the hedge fund BP Capital Management. With an estimated current net worth of about $3 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 117th-richest person in America and ranked 369th in the world.

Pickens was one of the first independent oilmen to grow his company by acquisitions rather than by just exploration.[citation needed] Before reaching the age of 40, Pickens led Mesa’s first big acquisition, the Hugoton Production Company, which was 30 times the size of Mesa.[5]

By 1981, Mesa had grown into one of the largest independent oil companies in the world, and Pickens shifted his focus to acquiring other oil and gas companies. This made Pickens a celebrity during the ‘deal-making’ 80s. His most publicized deals included attempted buyouts of Cities Service, Gulf Oil, Phillips Petroleum, and Unocal.
Since 1980, Pickens has made over $5 million in political donations.[2] He was a financial supporter of President George W. Bush and contributed heavily to both his Texas and national political campaigns. In 2004, Pickens contributed to 527 Republican groups, including a $3 million contribution to the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth attacking Bush’s rival, John Kerry, and $2.5 million to the Progress for America advocacy group. In 2005, Pickens was among 53 entities that contributed the maximum of $250,000 to the second inauguration of President George W. Bush.[12][13][14]

On July 16, 2007, Pickens wrote an article for the National Review supporting Rudy Giuliani for President. "In Rudy Giuliani, a gracious and committed public servant I’ve known for many years, we see that rare blend of big-picture vision and proven track record of achieving the “impossible.”
Last week, we reported Lester Brown’s comment that oilman and corporate raider T. Boone Pickens responded to a question about why he was investing in the wind-power industry by saying, "Because I’m tired of reading oil depletion curves."

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/environment/archives/143104.asp

He knows the energy business – especially oill -he has ‘bankable’ success, and he’s putting his money where his mouth is and his proven business sense takes hime!

Love him or hate him, he is not a dummy and has access to information we will never have.

I think he is right about this, not just because he is Pickens, but because of seeing over 50 years of geology reports.

There are no huge discoveries to be made. There are not even any likely places to look for them.
When you look at fields like the Bakken and realize this supposed huge reserve is only 25% extractable at best, and that is at a wellhead cost of over $75 a barrel (add refining)
you start to recognize the reserves problem.

When you think about the increasing demand for oil in other countries it gets even worse.
Mexico has pretty well quit exporting.
Canada has depleted the conventional oil to the point they are going after deep tarsands oil. They are hoping they can extract using horizontal drilling and steam extraction instead of strip mining it like their three biggest tarsands plants do.
Alberta has actually put limits on natural gas extraction because it has reduced the underground pressure on the remaining oil to the point it interferes with getting the oil out.