Jay Hanson:
>Energy apocalypse looms as the world runs out of
oil!
>Forget the Caspian bonanza. Peter Beaumont and John Hooper in Rome report on
claims that producers misled everybody
>Sunday July 26, 1998, Observer (london)
>The world faces a devastating oil crisis in the early years of the new
millennium, according to a new assessment of conventional oil reserves.
>Global production will peak as early as 2002, then decline over the next 70
years, says the analysis. As oil stocks decline, prices will rise steeply
making the oil crises of 1973 and 1979 look 'minor and transitory' by
comparison. The warnings of environmentalists in the Seventies appear now to
have been prescient.
>Forget the Caspian bonanza. Peter Beaumont and John Hooper in Rome report on
claims that producers misled everybody
>Sunday July 26, 1998, Observer (london)
>The world faces a devastating oil crisis in the early years of the new
millennium, according to a new assessment of conventional oil reserves.
>Global production will peak as early as 2002, then decline over the next 70
years, says the analysis. As oil stocks decline, prices will rise steeply
making the oil crises of 1973 and 1979 look 'minor and transitory' by
comparison. The warnings of environmentalists in the Seventies appear now to
have been prescient.
Some of you will have seen a recent article in Scientific
American argued that by 2010, the world will have used up half of all of the
conventional oil which ever existed and by about 2040 it will have used it all
because of accelerating consumption. As the oil is used up, rapidly rising
prices will bring alternatives such as oil sands and synthetic crudes into the
market. However, the article cautions that these fuels are finite as well, and
that the world could face serious energy shortages late in the 21st or in the
22nd Century. (Campbell, Colin J. and Jean H. Laberrére, "The
End of Cheap Oil", Scientific American, March 1998)
Nevertheless, official sources have not seen a
problem. The official Canadian view is contained in the
"Canadian Energy Outlook 1996 2020" published by Natural Resources
Canada (NRCan) in 1997. The Outlook sees the price of oil rising to US$20/bbl by
2000 and remaining constant in real (1995$) terms to 2020. It foresees no energy
shortage for Canada. It projects higher Canadian oil production, mainly as a
result of increased production from frontier areas and the oil sands. Supplies
from these sources are expected to more than offset the slight decline projected
for conventional oil production. Natural gas production, which has increased
significantly since the mid-1980s is expected to continue to grow, from 5.3 Tcf
in 1995 to almost 7 Tcf by 2020. "Our analysis suggests that, for both
crude oil and natural gas, Canada should have sufficient capacity to meet
growing domestic and foreign demand. Canada will remain a net exporter over the
entire forecast period." The Outlook foresees a gradually increasing
American dependence on imported oil and gas, and assumes that there will be no
problem in maintaining US import growth, relying on Middle East, Canadian and
other supply sources. Anything that can be accessed from the International
Energy Agency on the web also does not indicate a problem, but then it is
difficult to fathom what that agency's projections to 2010 do suggest.
Despite what official sources may or may not say, the current
behaviour of nation-states would seem to suggest that there is something
amiss. There is a lot of maneuvering going on around accessing the oil
resources of the Caspian, suggesting the possibility of an impending shortage
from other sources. On the other hand, there is no obvious current
shortage. Oil producing countries are continuing to pump oil into an
already glutted market despite its current low price. Various form of
large vehicles - cars, vans and pick-up trucks - are becoming increasingly
popular. And with OPEC in disarray, there appears to be little ability to
raise oil prices and curtail output, both of which would seem necessary to
conserving the resource and developing new sources of supply.
Ed Weick
