Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
T. Boone Pickens’ prediction: Oil production is reaching its peak
Elizabeth Souder, Dallas Morning News
When T. Boone Pickens talks, oil traders listen.
The legendary oilman, who runs a multibillion-dollar commodities hedge fund in Dallas, appears frequently on CNBC to predict oil prices. He’http://www.guardian.co.uk/busin/2008/may/25/oil often correct.
… “I think you’re going to see $150 before the end of the year,” Mr. Pickens told CNBC viewers Tuesday.
… Mr. Pickens is one of several Texans who are pushing the Peak Oil theory of oil scarcity into the mainstream. He believes humans will soon use up half the oil they can extract, and oil production rates will drop, never to recover.
The controversial theory gives oil investors reason to bid prices to record levels and has prompted some local officials to create contingency plans.
Oil company executives try to assure investors and consumers that there will be plenty of oil for many decades to come, so there’s no reason for oil prices to have doubled during the last year. Oil traders don’t seem to be listening.
(25 May 2008)
IEA probes fears that oil will run out
Inquiry will examine ‘narrow margin’ in 2012
Richard Wachman, UK Observer
The International Energy Agency has ordered an inquiry into whether the world could run out of oil, The Observer has learnt. It will consider whether fears about global shortages are real.
… Lawrence Eagles, head of oil markets research at the IEA, said the situation was complex but added: ‘Our findings will form part of short- and long-term forecasts that we intend to publish in July and November. Up to now we have believed that supply can cope with demand. One caveat is that we don’t know for certain whether estimates of reserves in countries such as Saudi Arabia are entirely accurate.’
… The IEA is worried about an extremely narrow capacity margin by 2012, when demand is expected to have reached 95 million barrels a day. At that point spare capacity could be at just a million barrels a day – which may not be enough to make good any sudden interruption of supply from volatile countries such as Nigeria or Venezuela – or Iraq, which is now estimated to have overtaken Saudi Arabia as the largest holder of reserves.
(25 May 2008)
The fear is that “oil will run out.” Using this phrase makes it difficult to talk about the real problems – high prices, declining supplies, peak production. -BA
50 MPs sign Peak Oil Commons Motion
All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil (UK)
London – A cross-party group of MPs including former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell have signed a Commons motion urging the government to review its estimates as to when global oil production will peak and begin to decline.
As crude oil hit another record high of $135 a barrel on Wednesday, and as UK motorists notice the impact of sustained high prices at the petrol pumps, MPs are beginning to mobilise around the idea that current high oil prices may just be the beginning of a permanent trend. Experts at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) have warned of an overall liquid fuel peak likely between 2010-2012, while the International Energy Agency (IEA) have predicted an oil ‘supply crunch’ in 2012.
John Hemming MP, who tabled the Early Day Motion (1453) said that ‘the government is failing to address the reality that we are reaching the limits to growth in global oil production. The implications for the way we run our society and economy are profound, but the government refuses even to initiate a contingency study. Rather than making futile appeals to OPEC to raise production, Gordon Brown must recognise that we cannot carry on with the same old assumptions of endless growth in world oil production’.
Hemming chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil (APPGOPO) which was founded in July 2007 to review estimates of future oil production and consider the consequences of declining world oil production for the UK and world economy.
Link to the EDM here: edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=35715&SESSION=891
(23 May 2008)
