Wow.  Undeath is right.  It's much easier just to ignore TheYell than to actually try understanding what he's saying!

I was merely objecting to the incoherence.

"We won't run out of oil for generations!"

"Yeah well the price is set by the cost of production, and if that price exceeds the price of alternatives, we'll use those instead of oil!"

...What? It was pointless nonsense. It was silly. The next time I'll try to condense it to the size of this post, but I generously hoped that maybe there was a point to the rambling. There was not.

@spock
"the topic asserts that the profitability of drilling will continue well into the future. You're not disputing this, you're just pointlessly rambling."
No I'm saying, in one obvious sentence, how to calculate and prove it.

And no I do not dispute Einsteins point. Is that necessary to make a point nowadays?

... I can only affirm.

Now you know something about the topic we discuss you can either join it or you choose not to.

And stop using (royal?) plural like you represent more then one anonymous online poster, its silly.

I cried when I had no shoes, until I met a man with no arms

then I shoved him down and took his shoes

>>You implied that ROI (with a presumably made up "energy" version) would render oil less profitable than other sources. Yeah, obviously, at some point, since the consensus seems to be that oil forms at a slower rate than the rate at which we use it. So what? That's it?<<

Somebody says something you obviously agree with, and you're pissed?

to know, without knowing...

Since all technically recoverable oil is cheaper than literally every alternative, your statement of the obvious is irrelevant. Given the fact that all technically recoverable oil is cheaper than all alternatives at this time, total is not only sufficient data to reach conclusions, but it's rational to focus on for the sake of simplicity, and because it changes as reserves are found and remeasured.

Until any alternative is cheaper than any oil, EROEI isn't even part of the equation. It's presumed irrelevant because it is. Until a single exception exists because of oil scarcity or major technological development in other sources of energy, it will remain so.

It sounds like you just wanted to use the abbreviation EROEI because you heard it mentioned before.

"No, it isn't. Its EROEI will tell you whenever it is more profitable to use coal, gas, etc.... or just letting it be when you cannot afford to pump it up."

Examples, please. And bear in mind that coal and gas cannot power our vehicles. Which oil drilling methods are more expensive to fill gas tanks than alternatives?

You are factually incorrect. I won't bother with the rest of what you got wrong until you answer this simple question and provide at least a single example.

"why on earth would every gas, coal and oil producing company on earth use EROEI as an instrument?"

There is no standardized EROEI measurement used for any economic calculations. You seem to be rather unaware of this for someone flashing the abbreviation 50 times without purpose. EROEI ignores that energy has different forms and sometimes it's practical to lose energy and still gain profit. ROI is used in deciding between alternatives in the name of maximizing profits. EROEI is obviously part of this.

But just as EROEI can result in decisions to use coal over oil, coal and other forms of energy just aren't practical for many purposes. Unless you think any price of oil will result in people shoveling coal into their cars and generators, no EROEI calculations are going to make drilling for oil unprofitable any time soon. The price can go up very significantly and people are still going to pay that price to drive their cars and power many other tools. ROI results in price changes. EROEI is pretty irrelevant to this discussion beyond how it impacts economic ROI, because the demand for oil cannot be met with coal or solar or wind. And won't be any time soon.

So which companies have left the oil business because it wasn't profitable and went to other sources of energy? Who's driving coal/solar/wind powered cars because it's cheaper than gas? If your rambling about EROEI has a point, surely it's impacted at least one single decision!

"And bear in mind that coal and gas cannot power our vehicles"
so now you looked up ROEI en EROEI look up how the germans in WW2 tried to compensate their lack of oil. Also look up LPG, coal fraction and steam.

"There is no standardized EROEI measurement used for any economic calculations."
No, like there isn't a standardized measurement for TRB, as opinions differ. There is, however, a broad consensus amongst these companies ROEI is part of the equation...I mean like centuries.

"EROEI ignores that energy has different forms"
No it doesn't. Thats the point of EROEI. You have to read it all if you look it up.

"...and sometimes it's practical to lose energy and still gain profit."
All energy is "consumed" in the end. Consumed means transformed into another (useless) state. Thats the point of it all.

"surely it's impacted at least one single decision!"
Investment in eg deploying a new oil field often takes more then 10 years before production starts. EVERY FRACKING TIME they calculate those things over and over again and again and present it to potential investors. (together with predictions of the future energy market!!)

EROEI is expressed in many different ways and often used to give an idea about the quality of the oil gained. This quality largely determines its final value.

Oil is often used to fuel powerplants as is coal. At this moment Coal is by far the biggest. Many people, including me, see the new discoveries and tech innovations in this field (eg better ways of coal mining) as a serious argument to say peak oil will be significantly prolonged by it.

For reference...

Measuring the EROEI of a single physical process is unambiguous, but there is no agreed-upon standard on which activities should be included in measuring the EROEI of an economic process. In addition, the form of energy of the input can be completely different from the output. For example, energy in the form of coal could be used in the production of ethanol. This might have an EROEI of less than one, but could still be desirable due to the benefits of liquid fuels.
How deep should the probing in the supply chain of the tools being used to generate energy go? For example, if steel is being used to drill for oil or construct a nuclear power plant, should the energy input of the steel be taken into account, should the energy input into building the factory being used to construct the steel be taken into account and amortized? Should the energy input of the roads which are used to ferry the goods be taken into account? What about the energy used to cook the steelworker's breakfasts? These are complex questions evading simple answers. A full accounting would require considerations of opportunity costs and comparing total energy expenditures in the presence and absence of this economic activity.
However, when comparing two energy sources a standard practice for the supply chain energy input can be adopted. For example, consider the steel, but don't consider the energy invested in factories deeper than the first level in the supply chain.
Energy return on energy invested does not take into account the factor of time. Energy invested in creating a solar panel may have consumed energy from a high power source like coal, but the return happens very slowly, i.e. over many years. If energy is increasing in relative value this should favour delayed returns. Some believe this means the EROEI measure should be refined further.
Conventional economic analysis has no formal accounting rules for the consideration of waste products that are created in the production of the ultimate output. For example, differing economic and energy values placed on the waste products generated in the production of ethanol makes the calculation of this fuel's true EROEI extremely difficult.
EROEI is only one consideration and may not be the most important one in energy policy. Energy independence (reducing international competition for limited natural resources), freedom from pollution (including carbon dioxide and other green house gases), and affordability could be more important, particularly when considering secondary energy sources. While a nation's primary energy source is not sustainable unless it has a use rate less than or equal to its replacement rate, the same is not true for secondary energy supplies. Some of the energy surplus from the primary energy source can be used to create the fuel for secondary energy sources, such as for transportation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI