Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Demand for unconventional oil is expected to reach 10.31 million bbl in 2008, up from 8.59 million barrels in 2003 at an average annual growth rate (AAGR) of 3.7%, said Business Communications Co. Inc., Norwalk, Conn.
Off the West African coast, the sharks are circling the sleepy “chocolate islands” of Sao Tome and Principe, eager to bite off slices of billions of dollars of hoped-for oil revenues.
Matt Savinar of lifeaftertheoilcrash.net answers some questions about the theory of abiotic oil.
Henry Kissinger once quipped, “University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.” While Kissinger has achieved a level of amorality not conceivable to most of us mere mortals, to my knowledge he has never been accused of being stupid. The recent debate over Peak Oil has certainly been laced with plenty of bitterness, but in this case the stakes are incredibly high. The reality, or lack thereof, of imminent Peak Oil directly affects nearly every person currently drawing breath on this planet.
Oil fuels 95 percent of all transportation and a significant portion of global food production. Industrial societies are dependent on a vast, steady flow of inexpensive petroleum for just about everything we make and do. Disrupt this flow, and modern society as we know it is inconceivable.
Crude oil prices set a record high Tuesday on fears that top exporter Saudi Arabia was vulnerable to terror attacks while soaring grain prices also pushed commodity price indexes back toward multiyear highs.
Today, much of the world is convinced the Bush Administration did not wage war against Iraq and Saddam Hussein because of threat from weapons of mass destruction, nor from terror dangers. Still a puzzle, however, is why Washington would risk so much in terms of relations with its allies and the entire world, to occupy Iraq. There is compelling evidence that oil and geopolitics lie at the heart of the still-hidden reasons for the military action in Iraq.
Sharp increases in the price of oil preceded four of the last five recessions.
Defense officials have recently spoken of the need for security and stability in the Gulf of Guinea, in part because of the growing number of offshore oil operations there.
MIDDLE EAST CRISIS SPURS OIL PRICES… WORRIES DEEPEN OVER WORLD OIL RESERVES… WIND AND SUN: THE ENERGIES OF THE FUTURE. Sound familiar? Those are headlines from 1974, yet they might just as well have come from newspapers today.
The country’s oil consumption has doubled in the past decade, and China last year surpassed Japan as the world’s second-largest user of petroleum — consuming about 6 million barrels a day.
Terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia yesterday prompted fresh oil price jitters before this week’s crucial meeting of OPEC oil producers aimed at increasing production.
