World oil supply debate between ex-Shell chief and ASPO-USA professor

February 16, 2012

NOTE: Images in this archived article have been removed.

Image Removed

Video of a spirited debate on peak oil between John Hofmeister (Shell) and Ted Patzek (University of Texas and ASPO-USA).

The former president of Shell Oil Company debated Tad Patzek, Chair, Dept. of Petroleum Engineering, University of Texas on Feb 14 at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. The subject was: “The World Oil Supply: Looming Crisis or New Abundance?”

Gasoline will hit $5 per gallon this year predicts John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil Company, the U.S. subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell. He points to rising demand by developing countries, especially China and India, and says that the recent increase in U.S. oil supply rates and decrease in demand is not enough to offset global trends, and that prices will continue to creep upward, unless there are major changes in public policy to substantially increase domestic U.S. supply.

Gasoline prices could suddenly spike even higher, and though increases in U.S. domestic supply may be important, no realistic U.S. increase will offset declining yields from other nations, according to Professor Tadeusz Patzek, chair of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and Vice-President of the ASPO-USA Board of Directors. He highlights that declining output from most oil-exporting nations over the past decade, in the face of rising global demand, is likely to create a lasting drop-off in global availability of oil-spelling serious consequences for all oil-importing nations, including the United States.

Regardless of who is right, this issue needs to be examined with seriousness and urgency, which has been the driving motivation behind the collaboration of multiple University of Wisconsin and local Madison groups that are co-sponsoring this event.”

John Hofmeister
Former President, Shell Oil Company
Author, Why We Hate the Oil Companies
Member, US National Energy Security Council
Founder, Citizens for Affordable Energy http://www.citizensforaffordableenergy.org/

Dr. Tadeusz Patzek
Chair, Dept. of Petroleum & Geosystems Engineering, University of Texas at Austin
Co-author, Drilling Down: The Gulf Oil Debacle and Our Energy Dilemma
Vice-President, Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas USA
http://www.utexas.edu/opa/experts/profile.php?id=1411

About Dr. Alan Carroll (Moderator)
Professor, Dept. of Geoscience, University of Wisconsin – Madison
Associate Editor for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin
Former Senior Geologist, Exxon Production Research
http://www.geology.wisc.edu/people/display.html?id=9

Sponsored by:
University of Wisconsin Energy Institute
Madison Committee on Foreign Relations
U-W Energy Hub
Madison Peak Oil Group
Wisconsin Union Directorate-Society & Politics Committee
U-W Center for World Affairs & the Global Economy
The Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies (U-W)


Tags: Education, Energy Policy, Fossil Fuels, Oil