Analyst warns of Saudi oil dropoff
Saudi Arabia, the world’s safety valve for oil, may soon lose its ability to make up production shortfalls from other countries.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s safety valve for oil, may soon lose its ability to make up production shortfalls from other countries.
While there is no doubt that global oil output will attain peak levels, the current rise in prices reflects a more worrisome phenomenon: America’s growing dependence on imported petroleum from unstable and unfriendly countries.
Oil prices have surged to record highs above $54 as a fire at Nigerian export pipeline becomes the latest threat to consumers’ efforts to build winter heating fuel inventories.
Saudi Arabia produced 9.5 million barrels per day in September, about 250,000 b/d below earlier estimations, Geneva-based tanker-tracker Petrologistics said in its latest report.
Brazil has been one of the countries where oil production has been constantly rising for the past 30 years. They are one of the countries taking up the slack for declines elsewhere. This field by field analysis of the biggest Brazilian deepwater fields, which is where most of the increase is coming from, shows that there is a limit to this growth in the not too distant future.
China will formally launch its strategic petroleum reserve program next year, as learned from related departments. An oil reserve base in Zhenhai, Zhejiang Province is now under construction, which will be able to hold more than 5 million cubic meters oil when its first-stage project is completed next year.
A union leader threatened Tuesday to extend a four-day nationwide strike in Nigeria that has helped push world oil prices to record highs.
Oddly enough, I’ve been cheering on a “Marxist Dictator” of late. Not that I’m a no good pinko commie red mind you… no, but I am rooting for Hugo Chavez as he’s poking the Plutocratic forces at play outside Venezuela.
Those who believe that abundant deposits are waiting to be discovered are misguided, said Mr. Buckee, who holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Oxford University. “There is precious little in the world now that isn’t known about or hasn’t been tried,” he said. “I don’t think there is going to be any new Middle Easts or Saudis hanging around. There aren’t many unexplored basins.”
Oddly enough, I’ve been cheering on a “Marxist Dictator” of late. Not that I’m a no good pinko commie red mind you… no, but I am rooting for Hugo Chavez as he’s poking the Plutocratic forces at play outside Venezuela.
There has been suggestion the U.S. import ‘cheap’ (i.e., nearby supplies priced at variable cost) LNG into the U.S. as a way to apply downward pressure on domestic natural gas prices. However, The U.S. will not be able to attract substantial volumes of spot LNG because there is little supply not committed to firm European and Asian contracts through 2005.
The fact is UK oil and gas, which has given a big boost to the economy for the past two and a half decades, is running out fast. At current rates of extraction, the last drop of oil could be sucked out of the North Sea fields in about 10 years’ time.