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A top Saudi bank expects fall in oil production
Reuters via Gulf News
Original title: “Government spending to boost Saudi Arabia GDP”
Riyadh: Economic growth in Saudi Arabia, the largest Gulf Arab economy, could accelerate this year on the back of a projected rise in government spending, Riyadh Bank said in a research report.
The kingdom’s fifth largest bank by market value expects gross domestic product to grow 4.3 per cent in 2007 compared to 4.2 per cent in 2006.
…Saudi oil production is expected to fall from an average 9.12 million barrels per day in 2006 to 8.44 million bpd in 2007. “For 2007 … we forecast oil prices to rise/fall by $3 per barrel,” it said.
8.44m: Projected oil output in 2007 (in bpd)
(1 April 2007)
Contributor Jeffrey J. Brown writes:
One of Saudi Arabia’s top banks apparently does not expect any increase in oil production in 2007. They are predicting an average production rate of 8.44 mbpd for 2007, versus a 9.12 mbpd production rate in 2006, and 9.55 mbpd for 2005. This is a 7.5% year over year decline rate in average annual production, which if continued, suggests a 50% decline in average annual production in 10 years. However, net oil exports are falling much faster.
Note that the year over year decline in Saudi crude oil production from 2005 to 2006, was only 4.2%.
To summarize, one of the largest Saudi banks is predicting that the year over year decline in average annual Saudi crude oil production will increase from 4.2% in 2006 to 7.5% in 2007. Note that year over year declines, on a month to onth basis, are usually larger than year over year declines in average annual production.
Also note the continued negative effect on net oil exports of a continued rapid increase in GDP–as oil prices remain high, or go higher, even as oil production falls.
UPDATE: Stuart Staniford at The Oil Drum has a short article up on Further Saudia Arabia Discussions.
Shell, Total Chief Executives Say `Easy Oil’ Is Gone
Stephen Voss and Tara Patel, Bloomberg
The days of so-called “easy oil” are over, making it harder to meet demand without complicated and expensive projects, the heads of two of Europe’s largest oil companies said today.
The International Energy Agency, an adviser to energy importing nations, estimates oil supply will have to rise 39 percent to 116 million barrels of oil a day by 2030 from about 86 million barrels a day now to meet world demand.
Meeting such targets with conventional oil sources will be “extremely difficult,” Christophe de Margerie, the chief executive officer of Total SA, Europe’s third-largest oil company and its largest refiner, said at a conference in Paris today. New supply will be based on “huge high-tech” projects.
Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, said countries no longer seek Shell’s help with conventional reserves, such as onshore oil or gas that’s cheaper to develop than offshore fields.
(5 April 2007)
End of “Easy Oil” = beginning of the peak oil era. -BA
Energy meeting, film draw big crowd – Carrboro (NC) gets it
Cara McDonough, Herald Sun (NC)
CARRBORO — A large group gathered at the Carrboro Century Center on Thursday night to talk about the future of oil, gas prices and the impact on local communities.
The public meeting began with a new film by local filmmaker Jim McQuaid.
“After the Peak,” McQuaid’s short, fictional film modeled as a newscast, took a look at how a shortage in oil and high gas prices could affect Orange County.
In the movie, skyrocketing gas prices force gas station owners to employ armed guards to ensure customers don’t drive off without paying. School systems would only be able to afford to transport 10 percent of students via school buses.
After the movie, which received loud applause, three panelists gave presentations and fielded questions from the crowd.
Simon Rich, a local businessman who works on the interconnection of energy and agriculture, said he felt the reality of “peak oil” — the idea that oil production will soon peak and then decline — could have disastrous consequences.
“I think you’re going to see social chaos worse than Jim portrayed in this film,” he said.
Eric Henry, who owns a local textile business, and Patrick McDonough, a board member of The Village Project, a program that promotes “walkable” communities, talked about the ways Orange County is combatting the problem.
Henry said he and his partners are working to keep their business, making cotton products, local. They make half of their products in the state.
He applauded Carrboro for being a community that “gets it.” Providing locally grown food, thus decreasing the distance the product must travel to get to the buyer, makes all the difference, he said.
(5 April 2007)
Book review of Peak Oil Prep
Carolyn Baker, Speaking Truth to Power
Peak Oil Prep: Three Things You Can Do To Prepare For Peak Oil, Climate Change, and Economic Collapse
Author: Mick Winter
Book website: http://www.peakoilprep.com/
Mick Winter, host of DryDipstick.com and BeyondPeak.com, has written an extremely practical guide entitled Peak Oil Prep: Three Things You Can Do To Prepare For Peak Oil, Climate Change, and Economic Collapse. Before I launch into a review of this no-nonsense handbook of sustainability and survival, I need to address two things: First, Winter’s book is not exclusively about Peak Oil and its consequences. Individuals who understand the daunting realities of climate change and global economic meltdown will find this handbook instructive because it offers suggestions for surviving in a world where utilities, services, and products that we now take for granted may not be available at all or where access to them may be greatly diminished.
…Early on in the book, Winter offers “The Big Three” things that almost everyone can do: 1) Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs, 2) Walk or bike instead of driving, 3) Plant a garden. While I applaud this practical, do-able formula for creating almost immediate change in one’s own world, it hardly addresses the macrocosm of collapse, and it is there that individuals and families have less power to make significant changes.
… one of the most powerful and in my opinion, necessary, are Winter’s tools for “Meeting Together.” Whether living in a compact urban environment or in suburbia, the reader can benefit from Winter’s suggestions for organizing one’s neighborhood. I hasten to add that “organizing” in this context is not about political organizing, but organizing logistically in terms of the eventualities of collapse.
…From my perspective, anything we can do to build lifeboats for ourselves and our loved ones as we move closer to collapse is essential. Mick Winter’s Peak Oil Prep is a powerful and practical guidebook for doing just that.
(4 April 2007)
New documentary: “Energy Crossroads: A burning need to change course”
Chris Fauchere, Tiroir A Films
We are a Denver based video production company. Recently, we completed a documentary on energy and the environment entitled “Energy Crossroads: A burning need to change course”. The film exposes the problems associated with our energy consumption on our environment, the global economy, and the geopolitical balance in the world today. It also brings to light concrete solutions to ease these damaging effects. The documentary features passionate individuals, entrepreneurs, experts and scientists at the forefront of their field bringing legitimacy and expertise to the core message of the piece.
The documentary will be shown for the Sierra Club Film Festival (Climate Crossroads Film Series) in Breckenbridge, Co April 10th.
On the site for the film:
Reviews
Trailer
Extract 1
Extract 2
(April 2007)
From the clips available on the website, the documentary appears to be a relatively low key, straightforward presentation on the energy problem from the U.S. point of view. -BA
