The costs of producing an AOT have never been publicly posted. But we do know that it involves a pipe, a mesh, and a source of power to put electricity/magnetism into the flow magically reducing the viscosity and the onward ease to move the oil flow. That, I think, is probably the shortest way one can put the proposition of the AOT.
It doesn’t' strike me as particularly expensive to manufacture one. Its certainly less than $100m and almost certainly less than say, the $60,000 paid by TCPL in the first week of their testing. Seriously this is good question: how much does it cost to make an AOT? ( Why don't we know if its quantified?) If the costs are reasonable then yet more questions arise. Given one has been shipped to china, another one used at TCPL, and one at KMI (say its the same one just to keep costs to a minimum) they are not mega expensive to produce. They don't even appear in the books so we don't really know as its under Temple fees.
Such a device, or series of devices, have the potential, we are told, to dramatically cut the costs of oil transportation. These savings are of such a dramatic nature that herein lies the profitability of QSEP, which is of such a magnitude that investment guarantees wealth. This is pretty much the core sales message for investing in QSEP.
So what’s the problem? I don't buy stories that the oil business is hard to move, it got its head round fracking pretty quick, and i don't believe they would look a gift horse in the mouth. I don't buy the argument that NDAs have got in the way of a device that saves you billions a month. I don't buy the argument that the AOT is a device that works, but for some reason can't be sold, or even demonstrated. I don't buy the idea that the AOT works but TCPL didn't use it and KMI haven’t' even switched it on.
All is not well in QSEP land, and I think the fundamental proposition is the flaw. You can't make things run more efficiently by putting (electro)/magnets around them. The science has no peer support, very little peer review (which is critical in any case where it exists), and no demonstrated examples.
