US Congressman says GAO report points to arrival of peak oil

A draft US Government Accountability Office report finds that, though it is difficult to assess whether the world has reached “peak oil,” a large number of experts surveyed for the report believe the world may have reached the peak for conventional petroleum supplies, said Representative Roscoe Bartlett, Republican-Maryland.

Bartlett, who has raised concerns that the world has produced more oil than remains in reserves, ordered the report from GAO — the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress — and will release it within the next month.

He said the report authors did not get a fix on how much oil is left in the world because principal oil suppliers would offer no information about how much oil they have left.

“They have no reason to tell us and little reason to be truthful,” Bartlett said, so it is “very difficult to determine a date specific” when the world will reach peak oil.

But he added that the GAO report found that “the largest number of [experts] believe that it has occurred, that conventional supplies have peaked.”

See original article at Platts for the rest of the article.