Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Oil prices are going through the roof today, and gasoline prices at the pump will follow, as we get the first regime-rattling news in a major oil-producing state. What’s happening is that the sketchy news out of Libya makes the country look like it’s on fire – Col. Muammar Qaddafi may be spending his last days in power. And even though no oil supplies have been disrupted, traders are engaging in some casino behavior and bidding up prices to new two-year highs.
Brent crude surged to $104 this week as anti-government protests spread to Libya and Bahrain, prompting a violent reaction from the authorities in both countries. 24 protesters are reported killed in Libya, and in Bahrain 4 have been killed and hundreds injured. Unlike Libya, Bahrain is not a significant oil producer, but there are fears that instability there could spread to its neighbour Saudi Arabia…
A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
-Budget struggles in Washington
Were the Egyptian people that bravely took to the streets to overthrow a tyrannical regime taking part in the world’s first peak oil revolution?
Last year a German military report on peak oil was leaked: “Peak Oil: Implications of Resource Scarcity on Security.” Last month, the final report was officially released by the Future Analysis department of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center. It is available online in German. [Excerpt]
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the Global Economy
-The IEA’s Oil Market Report
-China worries the IEA
-Oil and economic growth
-Briefs
Saudi Arabia’s recoverable oil reserves may have been overstated by 40%. That was the warning sent to Washington from its embassy in Riyadh in 2007, according to a cable released by Wikileaks this week. The source was Sadad al-Husseini, former head of E&P at Saudi Aramco, who allegedly told US diplomats in Riyadh that Saudi’s claimed reserves of some 700bn bbls were overinflated by 300 billion barrels of ‘speculative resources’, and that output would peak once the kingdom had produced half of its original proven reserves of 360bn barrels. With 116bn produced so far, the diplomats concluded that on this basis Saudi’s peak could come in the early 2020s.
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Development this week
-Wikileaks
-The Guardian, Wikileaks cables and oil production in Saudi Arabia
-Saudi Reserves
-What did we learn from the Saudi cables?
-Saudi Oil Production and Reserves – Reasons Behind Wikileaks Concerns
A senior Saudi Arabian oil official said in 2007 that the kingdom has 388 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserves, about 45 percent more than official public estimates. But about the same time, a retired Saudi Aramco executive met with U.S. diplomats in Dhahran, and asserted that Saudi figures in general are wildly overblown, and that his country is headed for a production peak around 2020, followed by a slow decline, according to new Wikileaks cables. The issue is pivotal.
US diplomat convinced by Saudi expert that reserves of world’s biggest oil exporter have been overstated by nearly 40%
[excerpts]
– “Walk like an Egyptian” – the Egyptian Revolution: Jan 25, 2011 (video)
– Oil falls on unfounded Egypt report, profit-taking
– Civil unrest in Middle East, concern among investors
– We All Helped Suppress the Egyptians. So How Do We Change?
– Clinton rings alarm bells about Middle East – oil reserves running out
– Egypt and the Global Oil Market: Geopolitics Is Back
– Jan Lundberg: Arab World’s Turmoil May Spell Sudden Petrocollapse
