ODAC News
Wednesday 21 Nov
The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre
Peak Oil in the Media –
1a/ Oil Officials See Limit Looming on Production
(The Wall Street Journal, Mon 19 Nov)
1b/ After
peak oil
(Tehran Times, Mon 19 Nov)
1c/ The
End of Days? (The
1d/ Dubai
will be underwater in 50 years, alerts Branson (Arabian
Business, Sun 18 Nov)
Oil Prices
2/ Oil closes on $100 as
Asia drops over US fears
(The Times, Wed 21 Nov)
Economy -
3a/ House price growth to collapse next year
(The Times, Fri 16 Nov)
3b/ Credit
squeeze forces rate rise
(BBC News, Fri 16 Nov)
3c/ Paragon
warns of collapse as financing woes hit share price (The Times,
Wed 21 Nov)
Economy -
4a/ Credit
losses 'may reach $400bn' (BBC News, Fri 16
Nov)
4b/ Risk
of Full Blown Financial Crisis - Technicals at a
Critical Juncture (The Market Oracle, Sat 10 Nov)
Peak Oil in the Media –
5a/ We
face a crude awakening over oil prices (The
Telegraph, Mon 19 Nov)
5b/ How
should I prepare for life without oil?
(The Observer, Sun 18 Nov)
5c/ Economic
View: Running on empty: peak oil production is in sight, global supplies will
dwindle - and the US, for one, is ill-prepared
(The Independent on Sunday, Sun 11 Nov)
Big Oil / IEA
6a/ Big
Oil CEOs Point To Constraints On Supply Growth
(Dow Jones / Energy Bulletin, Thu 08 Nov)
6b/ Transcript:
Interview with IEA chief economist
(Financial Times, Wed 07 Nov)
7a/ WEC [World Energy Congress]: Saudi Aramco chief dismisses peak
oil fears (Oil and Gas Journal, Wed 14 Nov)
7b/ Oil
prices too high, Saudi minister says
(Globe and Mail, Tue 13 Nov)
Natural Gas – Europe and
8a/ WEC [World Energy Congress]: Eni's Scaroni says Europe runs risk of gas shortage
(Oil and Gas Journal, Tue 13 Nov)
8b/ Shell
to Continue Saudi Gas Hunt Despite Dry Wells (
Biofuels
9a/ No
More German Biodiesel Plants Likely to be Built (
9b/ Green
Dreams (National
Geographic, Oct 2007)
Food Prices
10/ After
the Oil Crisis, a Food Crisis? (Time, Fri 16 Nov)
**********************************************************************************************************
1a/ Oil Officials See Limit Looming on Production
(The Wall Street Journal, Mon 19 Nov)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119543677899797558.html?mod=googlenews_wsj WSJ link. You need to login to view article.
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=53040 Rigzone. Dow Jones
Newswires summary of the full article.
http://www.energybulletin.net/37382.html
Energy
Bulletin, with commentary from Bart Anderson of Energy Bulletin, and a few
others from the Peak Oil community.
Comment: This article was on the WSJ
front page, lengthy, now pay-to-view. See Rigzone version. Perhaps now that the
WSJ has tackled Peak Oil head on, other media outlets might follow. One of the
first suggestions of the article is that the ‘traditional’ Peak Oil community
does not know what it is talking about: “Traditional peak-oil theorists, many
of whom are industry outsiders or retired geologists, have argued that global
oil production will soon peak and enter an irreversible decline because nearly
half the available oil in the world has been pumped. They've been proved wrong
so often that their theory has become debased.” But the ‘new adherents’ do know
what they are talking about. In fact, both groups are saying exactly the same
thing – global oil production is close to peaking/plateauing.
The whys and wherefores are irrelevant (above ground factors, below ground
factors etc). Perhaps the WSJ feels it cannot be seen positively reporting on /
identifying with a group it has until now written off as a less than
respectable segment of society? Why do the mainstream articles typically have
to quote Daniel Yergin, or as in this case, Michael Lynch? Still, on the whole
a pro-Peak Oil article, which quotes Matt Simmons a lot – difficult to tell if
the authors think Matt is a traditional or new adherent
Article: [From the Rigzone version of
the article]
A growing number of oil-industry chieftains are
endorsing an idea long deemed fringe: The world is approaching a practical
limit to the number of barrels of crude oil that can be pumped every day.
Some predict that, despite the world's fast-growing
thirst for oil, producers could hit that ceiling as soon as 2012. This rough
limit -- which two senior industry officials recently pegged at about 100
million barrels a day -- is well short of global demand projections over the
next few decades. Current production is about 85 million barrels a day.
The world certainly won't run out of oil anytime soon.
And plenty of energy experts expect sky-high prices to hasten the development
of alternative fuels and improve energy efficiency. But evidence is mounting
that crude-oil production may plateau before those innovations arrive on a
large scale. That could set the stage for a period marked by energy shortages,
high prices and bare-knuckled competition for fuel.
The current debate represents a significant twist on
an older, often-derided notion known as the peak-oil theory. Traditional
peak-oil theorists, many of whom are industry outsiders or retired geologists,
have argued that global oil production will soon peak and enter an irreversible
decline because nearly half the available oil in the world has been pumped.
They've been proved wrong so often that their theory has become debased.
The new adherents -- who range from senior Western
oil-company executives to current and former officials of the major world
exporting countries -- don't believe the global oil tank is at the half-empty
point. But they share the belief that a global production ceiling is coming for
other reasons: restricted access to oil fields, spiraling
costs and increasingly complex oil-field geology. This will create a global
production plateau, not a peak, they contend, with oil output remaining
relatively constant rather than rising or falling.
... On Oct. 31, Christophe de Margerie, the chief
executive of French oil company Total SA, jolted attendees at a
... Earlier this month, James Mulva,
the chief executive of ConocoPhillips, echoed those conclusions in a speech at
a Wall Street conference: "I don't think we are going to see the supply
going over 100 million barrels a day. . . . Where is all that going to come
from?" He questioned whether the industry has enough support services and
people to execute projects to add that much oil production.
... Sadad Ibrahim Al Husseini, a former head of
exploration and production at
... Randy Udall, co-founder of the
As these uncertainties mount, there is growing hope
that
"Everyone thinks that
1b/ After peak oil
(Tehran Times, Mon 19 Nov)
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=157345
Comment: Another good Peak Oil summary
from Gwynne Dyer, but as with some of his other articles, it is not the content
that is particularly noteworthy but where the article has been published.
London-based Gwynne has focused on the effects of Peak Oil on the
Article: ... The most pessimistic of
these Cassandras, like American writer James Howard
Kunstler, predict nothing less than the wholesale collapse of industrial
civilization. In his 2005 best-seller The Long Emergency, Kunstler envisaged a
future in which the survivors of the oil peak catastrophe eke out a living in
an 18th-century-style economy: the great cities are abandoned, almost all
production is for local consumption, and the higher technologies have mostly
been lost.
Kunstler’s
great hate is the suburbs, which are mainly an artifact
of the cheap-oil era, and one gets the feeling that he would secretly welcome
any catastrophe that destroyed them. You do not have to be a Cassandra, driving
past the preposterously far-flung suburbs that have sprung up around North
American cities in the past few decades, to see them as the neo-slums of the
post-peak-oil future, but their demise does not necessarily imply the collapse
of an entire civilization.
... Certainly they can, provided they continue to
cooperate internationally and don’t panic. Moreover,
the technologies they need to wean themselves from their excessive dependence
on oil are precisely the ones they need to get their carbon emissions down and
ward off the threat of runaway global warming.
If peak oil is here, we can deal with it. And if it isn’t here yet, we should still be acting as if it were.
The sooner we start adapting our economies to a future in which oil is
increasingly scarce and expensive, the less pain and risk we will face when it
does arrive.
1c/ The End of Days? (The
http://www.ecssr.ac.ae/CDA/en/FeaturedTopics/DisplayTopic/0,1670,716-0-60,00.html
Comment: Introduction from an ODAC
contact: “This from an
An excellent article, especially considering its roots
in a
Article: On October 22nd, 2007, the
German Energy Watch Group (EWG) released a new report. This report comes after
a series of high-profile environmental awareness campaigns, including that of
former US Vice President Al Gore’s An Inconvenient
Truth, makes for disturbing reading. It is one thing to say that our
consumption of fossil fuels is choking us to death and poisoning our planet; it
is, however, quite another matter to say that we are running out of the most
important of these fuels—oil. But this is exactly
what the EWG’s report states.
... Central to EWG claims is that global oil
production peaked last year and every year from 2006, oil production will drop
by an average of 7 percent per year until 2030. The organisation’s
evidence for this is based on current industry and government exploration and
extraction figures. These figures are conservative and deliberately steer clear
of suggesting that some great undiscovered oil field lies waiting to be found
to save our fossil fuel based economies. The cited figures argue that
contemporary explorations have found only small fields in the Middle East,
Latin America, the Arctic, Africa,
... In the short term, while OPEC and non-OPEC oil
producing states might well rejoice over the guaranteed windfall coming from a
drop in oil output, monies gained from the sale of oil have not and are not
being re-invested in diversifying national energy sources or on research and
development projects designed to reduce world oil consumption on a scale that
would allow for an easy transition away from oil-based industries. Instead,
money is being spent on weaponry, war and other frivolous enterprises that will
alter our future in very negative ways. While we might all be addicted to oil,
we are equally addicted to short-term thinking, stubbornness and individual
gratification. Altruism, compassion and a sense of collective responsibility
for the state of the world is lacking internationally at the political and
corporate levels.
It is still too easy to dismiss reports like those
published by the EWG and other such organisations as simply more ‘alarmist
fodder’. As such, the EWG findings, while prominent in the news cycle at the
time of launch, were not the lead story. Other international matters such as Benazir Bhutto’s return to
… Of course such a gloomy forecast does not have to
occur especially if some of the massive profits forecast from near-term oil
wealth are re-invested in alternative energy sources in a systematic and
organised fashion. Only then can there be a basis for long-term political and
consumer confidence. Scientific breakthroughs and inspired political leadership
can change the future if they are encouraged and nurtured.
1d/
Comment: Although the article focuses
on a Richard Branson speech last weekend on the potential consequences of
climate change (flooding of
Article: The Palm and the World
projects in
... Asked whether running an airline and a space
tourism company was hypocritical while at the same time championing the need to
reverse climate change, Branson said: "We can either sell our planes to
British Airways or Emirates and watch their shareholders reap in the profits or
we can carry on and take 100% of our profits and put them into trying to
develop a fuel that will change the environment."
In June 2008 Virgin will launch the world's first
biofuel run Boeing 747 plane with 20% of the plane's fuel will be made up of
biofuels.
Sir Richard warned other Gulf countries by saying that
oil reserves were fast depleting and that they should follow the example set by
... Sir Richard added that his Virgin Galactic space
flights, that are scheduled to launch either in late 2008 or early 2009, would
fly from
**********************************************************************************************************
2/ Oil closes on $100 as
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/article2912816.ece
Article: Oil prices nudged $100 a
barrel today after surging to a record high as Asian markets plunged on the
back of the weakening dollar and the deteriorating American economy.
... The American sub-prime mortgage crisis spread to
more companies yesterday.
Freddie Mac,
**********************************************************************************************************
3a/ House price growth to collapse next year
(The Times, Fri 16 Nov)
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article2879650.ece
Article: Nationwide forecasts that
house prices will fall in real terms as the 2008 growth rate slumps from 9.7%
to zero
The property market is due to suffer its worst year
since the mid-1990s as houses fall in value across the country, Britain's
biggest building society gives warning today.
Nationwide said that house price inflation would
collapse from 9.7 per cent at present to precisely 0 per cent next year - below
the expected inflation rate of around 2 per cent, meaning that prices will fall
in real terms...
3b/ Credit squeeze forces rate rise (BBC
News, Fri 16 Nov)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7098037.stm
Article: Borrowers have been warned
that they could face higher mortgage rates amid signs that lenders are feeling
the effects of the global credit crunch.
Standard Life is the first mainstream lender to
increase its mortgage rates despite the Bank of England leaving interest rates
unchanged this month.
Standard Life said its standard variable rate (SVR)
will rise by 0.15 percentage points to 7.46% on Monday.
Other lenders could now follow suit, analysts said...
3c/ Paragon warns of collapse as financing woes hit share price
(The Times, Wed 21 Nov)
Article: One of
Trading in Paragon shares was suspended yesterday
morning after they plummeted by more than 50 per cent to 100p on the news that
the lender needed to raise cash via a rights issue after the credit crunch had
made borrowing from other banks too expensive.
The stock closed down almost 39 per cent to 125p.
If the rights issue does not go ahead and it cannot
raise money elsewhere, Paragon said that there was “significant doubt” about
the company’s ability to continue as a going
concern...
**********************************************************************************************************
4a/ Credit losses 'may reach $400bn'
(BBC News, Fri 16 Nov)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7098368.stm
Article: Financial companies' losses
due to the
The estimate by Goldman's chief economist Jan Hatzius is higher than that of the Federal Reserve but in
line with some recent independent forecasts.
Mr Hatzius predicts
leveraged investors may have to reduce their lending by $2 trillion as a
result.
"The macroeconomic consequences could be quite
dramatic," Mr Hatzius said.
He said the development could lead to a
"substantial recession" if it happened over a year, or to a prolonged
period of weak economic growth if it occurred over up to four years...
4b/ Risk of Full Blown Financial Crisis - Technicals
at a Critical Juncture (The Market Oracle, Sat
10 Nov)
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2723
Comment: A technical article full of
graphs by Brian Bloom, the interesting bit is at the end, quoted below. The
author suggests that "An unholy alliance between the Banking Industry, the
Fossil Fuel Industries, Big Business and the Politicians" just do not
understand the seriousness of the problem we have, and the links between energy
and economy. Neither, come to think of it, do economists, with a few exceptions
of course. Do not read if you do not want to know how bad the current financial
mess can get.
Article: ... My “gut feel”
(unsubstantiated) is that if the Dow breaks down, the ratio of Gold:$Indu will break up and, if that happens, the Euro
price of gold will rise to new highs.
Under those circumstances, we will likely experience a
full blown crisis of confidence in the financial markets.
Probabilities of that happening? Subjectively and
unsubstantiated, 60:40
This is no longer an intellectual game. It's real.
This is not business as usual. If the markets collapse, the entire
infrastructure of society will likely come under threat because, for example,
we have passed ‘peak oil'. If investment confidence goes, how will we adapt to
that particular problem? Guys, it's not about making money this time around.
It's about survival.
I for one do not want to witness a full blown crisis
of confidence. We absolutely need to hold it all together in order to allow
time for a migration to new energy paradigms.
... Author's comment - It appears that the authorities
have not yet come to understand the subtleties and/or the nuances of the
statement that “energy drives the world economy”. An unholy alliance between
the Banking Industry, the Fossil Fuel Industries, Big Business and the
Politicians has given rise to a life-threatening accident that is now waiting
to happen...
**********************************************************************************************************
5a/ We face a crude awakening over oil prices
(The Telegraph, Mon 19 Nov)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/11/18/ccliam118.xml
Comment: By Liam Halligan,
Economics Editor. Good to see the Economics editor of the Telegraph tackle the
often repeated myth by economists that the world economy is now immune to high
oil prices. As with probably most mainstream articles that discuss high oil
prices, rather than discuss Peak Oil / oil depletion (which would indicate
permanent oil supply problems), Liam points out (correctly) that demand is rocketing
while supply is not. But still comes to the right conclusion – demand
outstripping supply is leading to higher oil prices.
“But we are now approaching a crunch point for the
global economy - with crude costs about to become a very major problem.”
Article: .. The "given" reason
for this latest [oil] rise was Opec's positioning
ahead of this weekend's meeting in
... Unlike the price shocks of the 1970s, though, the
more gradual oil-cost escalation of recent years cannot be blamed on Opec. Between 1999 and 2006, crude prices rose from $10 to
$60. Since then, of course, they've risen more than 50 per cent again.
Oil is reaching near-historic highs not due to
politically motivated supply constraints but because the world has changed
structurally. On the demand-side, the rapidly-industrializing "emerging
giants" of the East are using crude like billyo.
... Faced with such rampant demand, supply isn't
keeping up. Between 1985 and 1995, net global oil reserves increased by 3 per
cent a year, as new fields were discovered to replace crude that was being
used. Last year, reserves grew by a mere 0.55 per cent, despite sky-high oil
prices and a desperate search for new oil. Many experts, in fact, contest this
latest number, saying net reserves actually fell.
Escalating demand and static supply are combining to
generate high oil prices. Add in the sub-prime crisis, which has seen investors
seeking refuge in commodities, and crude has surely not yet peaked.
Optimists say the world economy is now immune to high
oil prices. After all, since 1999, global commerce has boomed despite the
ever-growing cost of crude. The Western world is less energy-intensive, they
say, given our increasing reliance on service industries.
I'm not so sure. For one thing, global economic
prospects are now heavily contingent on the performance of the energy-hungry
emerging giants - whose cost bases are, in turn, heavily dependent on oil.
... To say that "oil no longer matters" is,
in truth, a convenient nostrum. It helps certain Western politicians to deny
that much of their foreign policy is explained by concerns about energy
supplies. It helps stockbrokers soothe the nerves of worried investors who have
watched crude prices rise and rise.
But we are now approaching a crunch point for the
global economy - with crude costs about to become a very major problem. Until
quite recently, the world has managed to keep on growing despite expensive oil.
The advent of cheap Chinese goods helped keep inflation at bay.
But the inflationary impact of
... In
For all these reasons,
5b/ How should I prepare for life without oil?
(The Observer, Sun 18 Nov)
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,2210342,00.html
Comment: This article was in last Sunday’s Observer magazine. The Observer is one of
the
Article: With claims that we've passed
the peak of oil production, it's not enough just to say no to plastic bags,
warns Lucy Siegle
We aren't very good at envisaging a post-fossil fuel lifestyle.
Although we happily talk about the price of organic vegetables or even the true
cost of fish, the soaring price of oil remains anathema in lifestyle circles.
Odd because there's nothing that threatens our hydrocarbon-dependent lifestyles
more.
Unnervingly, many commentators claim we've passed the
peak of oil production. According to Richard Heinberg, we sailed passed it in
May 2005 (Heinberg will give the Soil Association's lecture on 22 November:
What will we eat when the oil runs out? soilassociation.org). He suggests, in
his new book Peak Everything: Waking up to the Century of Declines, that we
need to wean ourselves off it. Fast.
It would, however, be dispiriting to wake up to this
decline alone, concentrating only on your own petro-calories.
Because while you can decide to say no to plastic bags (some 5 trillion are
used globally annually and it takes 430,000 gallons of oil to produce 100m) or
decide to run your car on biofuel to 'future proof' your own life (although
Heinberg says biofuel production also peaked last year), cutting dependency on
the black stuff needs to be a community-based project. For that reason, you can
sign up to the burgeoning
There is a blueprint: the Kinsale
Energy Descent Action Plan (transitionculture.org). Through the prism of
transition thinking, everyone is invited to take a fresh look at modern life in
the light of peak oil. And it's refreshing. The relocalisation
of energy, food supplies, building materials and even clothing is central,
crushing the 'monoculture of the supermarkets', placing the emphasis on local
food partnerships and procurement, and cutting down on all forms of food miles.
A 7 per cent rise in urban transport last year was recently attributed by Defra to the need to shop increasingly far afield - distinctly non-transition behaviour.
To enable low-impact living on this scale requires a
low-input but high-yield agricultural system, provided by permaculture - a
design system that works in harmony with nature. Ultimately, the community is 'reskilled', learning to grow produce and fend for itself to
increase its resilience.
Everyone's a winner in a town that loses its
dependency on oil...
5c/ Economic View: Running on empty: peak oil production is in sight, global
supplies will dwindle - and the
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/comment/article3149928.ece
Comment: Independent on Sunday
columnist Hamish McRae tackles Peak Oil.
Article: The oil price will go through
$100 a barrel at some stage in the next few months, maybe in the next few days.
One consequence, petrol at £1 a litre, is already with us. The climb is
surprising, at least to the oil companies, who a couple of years ago were still
expecting an oil price of below $50 a barrel, and doing all their planning on
that basis. But, in a way, it is more surprising that the world economy has
managed to carry on growing strongly despite this rise. For the oil price affects
not only energy prices; oil also is the feedstock for plastics and other
products we use every day.
... The fundamental availability of mineral oil in the
world has not changed much in recent years. No big new discoveries have been
made, though a steady stream of smaller ones has been seen and interest in
non-conventional sources of oil, including tar-sands, is rising. What has
changed is the awareness of the pressure. The principal organisation warning of
a lack of supply, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, was seen by the
main oil producers as maverick and wrong four years ago; now its views are
seriously debated, even if most geologists feel they are too pessimistic. ASPO
is talking of peak production being reached within the next five years.
... This shift in power is immediately evident in the
size of the cash balances that have become available for investment: the rise
of the Sovereign Wealth Funds. If oil supplies remain tight far into the
future, which they will, these balances will grow and grow. That changes
investment perceptions. Countries that have cash will want to deploy that cash
to their national advantage.
... The present climb in the oil price has coincided
with rising demand from
**********************************************************************************************************
6a/ Big Oil CEOs Point To Constraints On Supply Growth
(Dow Jones / Energy Bulletin, Thu 08 Nov)
http://www.energybulletin.net/36976.html
(Summary on Energy Bulletin, third item down. Original article no longer
available.)
Comment: Tony Hayward, CEO of BP,
apparently said "about half" the world's oil has been recovered,
which implies Peak is near but won’t mean much to the
average reader. James Mulva, CEO of ConocoPhillips,
seems to be following in the footsteps of Total’s CEO
Christophe de Margerie in saying that global oil production will never exceed
100 Mb/d, which also implies Peak is near.
Article: Pointing to a variety of
political and technological constraints on energy investment, chief executives
at two oil giants Thursday highlighted systemic limitations on the growth of
the supply of oil, implying that there will be high oil prices for at least the
medium term.
BP PLC (BP) Chief Executive Tony Hayward predicted
that medium-term oil prices will be in the $60-$80 range. "For the medium
term, it's very clear the era of cheap energy is behind us," the recently
installed CEO said in
ConocoPhillips (COP) Chief Executive James Mulva had earlier told a
"Demand will be going up, but it will be
constrained by supply," Mulva said. " I
don't think we are going to see the supply going over 100 million barrels a day
and the reason is: Where is all that going to come from?"
...Overall,
6b/ Transcript: Interview with IEA chief economist
(Financial Times, Wed 07 Nov)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3c8940ca-8d46-11dc-a398-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
Article: Fatih Birol, chief economist
of the International Energy Agency, interviewed by Ed Crooks and Javier Blas of the FT
Ed Crooks questions to Fatih Birol:
There was a phrase in your report that leapt out at
me: “Rising global energy demand poses a real and growing threat to the world’s energy security.” Is that your most important
message today?
That’s
a very powerful phrase: “The wheels may fall off.” What do you mean by that?
The gap of that size emerges by when?
When you say, very, very high, what does that mean?
That means, a price that is high enough to choke off demand? What price would
then bring supply and demand into balance?
So, what sort of price increase might we see?
When oil was at $110 real terms at the beginning of
the 1980s, we had a very serious global recession. Is that a real risk again?
I think you quote a figure, is it a 3.7 per cent
average global decline rate, is that right?
OK, I now understand that distinction. What I’m wondering is, are both the natural and observed decline
rates going to be significantly higher in the non-Opec
countries?
[Last question, and answer]
EC: And, we really need that action right away?
FB: Exactly, right away and in a bold manner.
**********************************************************************************************************
7a/ WEC [World Energy Congress]: Saudi Aramco chief dismisses peak oil fears
(Oil and Gas Journal, Wed 14 Nov)
Comment: Article will be pay-to-view
shortly. The content of the article is a bit suspicious in as much as Aramco
Pres. and Chief Executive Abdallah Jum'ah talks entirely about oil reserves and resources,
nothing about future rates of production which you might expect in an article
about Peak Oil (maybe he did and the OGJ did not report it, but unlikely).
Article: The global oil industry
should aim to produce at least 3 trillion bbl from conventional recoverable
resources in known fields and discoveries over the next several decades,
according to the head of Saudi Aramco.
Aramco Pres. and Chief Executive Abdallah
Jum'ah said at the World Energy Congress in
Jum'ah
said the world "seems to have over 3 trillion bbl of recoverable
conventional and nonconventional liquid fuel
resources if we opt for extra-conservative assumptions and about 6 trillion bbl
if we adopt the target scenario."
Research and development will be crucial for improved
oil recovery, and more technological work needs to be done to boost economic
efficiency and use of oil in an environmentally sensitive manner, he said. Oil
recovery stands at an average of 35% of oil in place around the world. Around 1
trillion bbl of additional reserves from known fields could be produced with
pioneering technology and aggressive targets. At the conservative end, at least
200 billion bbl could be produced from conventionally recoverable oil resources
in known fields, he said.
Peak oil
Jum'ah
said past theories of peaking oil production had failed as more reserves had
been found over time, and evolving technology meant that companies had tapped
fields previously thought to be unworkable.
"Based on total global reserves of both
conventional and nonconventional oil and the world's
current demand for oil of some 86 million b/d, we still have almost a century's
worth of oil under the conservative scenario…and
nearly 200 years' worth under the target scenario," he stressed.
... Estimates of conventional oil in place around the
world vary between 6 trillion bbl and 8 trillion bbl depending on whether
figures are conservative or at the higher end of the spectrum...
7b/ Oil prices too high, Saudi minister says
(Globe and Mail, Tue 13 Nov)
Comment: An ODAC contact writes:
“One of topics [name removed] mentioned to me on a bus trip following
Full article pay-to-view.
Article: The world's biggest oil
producer thinks the price of crude should be closer to $60 (
“The price today really has no relation whatsoever
with the fundamentals. The fundamentals do not support the current price,” Ali
al-Naimi, Saudi's
Mr. al-Naimi's expansive
thoughts on the volatile oil market – for which he blamed “pessimists,” “gurus”
and “experts” preaching Peak Oil that are “agitating the speculators” – were
one of several factors that sent oil tumbling $3.45 or 3.6 per cent to $91.17
Tuesday after nearly hitting $100 last week...
**********************************************************************************************************
8a/ WEC [World Energy Congress]: Eni's Scaroni says
Comment: Login required.
Article: Paolo Scaroni,
chief executive of ENI, called for a reduction of natural gas in Europe's
energy mix to ensure that
Scaroni's
recommendation, made during a formal address at the World Energy Congress,
would mean building nuclear capacity of about 115 Gw
by 2020 and a push for renewable energy sources, especially solar power.
Gas accounts for a quarter of all the energy used in
... Gas imports in
... Scaroni admitted that
the outlook for renewable sources is "bleak" because
8b/ Shell to Continue Saudi Gas Hunt Despite Dry Wells
(
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=45306&newsdate=14-Nov-2007
Comment:
Article: Royal Dutch Shell plans to
push on with drilling for gas in
"We will complete our plan to drill seven
wells," Shell Saudi Arabia Country Chairman Robert Weener
told Reuters at an oil exhibition in
Shell is part of a joint venture with Total and state
oil giant Saudi Aramco called South Rub al-Khali
(SRAK). SRAK had an exit option after three consecutive dry wells.
None of the four consortia of European, Russian and Chinese
firms exploring for gas in
The companies are hunting for gas fields that also hold
high value condensates to compensate for the cheap domestic prices they would
garner for dry gas. The companies were awarded gas exploration blocs in the
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9a/ No More German Biodiesel Plants Likely to be Built
(
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=45319&newsdate=14-Nov-2007
Article: A new round of tax increases
planned on German biofuels means no more biodiesel plants are likely to be
built in the country, the chairman of German oilseeds industry association UFOP
said on Tuesday.
Many biodiesel producers are likely to find themselves
in "severe financial trouble" if
At a time when the European Union wants to increase
biofuel use to stop global warming,
A second round of tax increases on biodiesel is on the
statute book and scheduled to be imposed in January 2008. The government so far
has refused calls to reconsider this...
9b/ Green Dreams
(National Geographic, Oct 2007)
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-10/biofuels/biofuels.html
Comment: Lengthy article on biofuels.
Article: Producing fuel from corn and
other crops could be good for the planet–if only the
process didn't take a significant environmental toll. New breakthroughs could
make a difference…
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