From: Glenn Morton (glenn.morton@btinternet.com)
Date: Fri Aug 23 2002 - 00:32:18 EDT
Today's Oil and Gas Journal web page has an editorial article written by the
editors of the O&G Journal which predicts the peak of global oil production
somewhere between 2006 and 2016. The article begins:
"HOUSTON, Aug. 12 -- The world is drawing down its oil reserves at an
unprecedented rate, with supplies likely to be constrained by global
production capacity by 2010, "even assuming no growth in demand," said
analysts at Douglas-Westwood Ltd., an energy industry consulting firm based
in Canterbury, England. "
http://ogj.pennnet.com/articles/EdPro_Article_Display.cfm?&Section=Articles&
SubSection=Display&ARTICLE_ID=152444&PUBLICATION_ID=7&VERSION_NUM=1
It goes on:
"A 1% annual growth in world demand for oil could cause global crude
production to peak at 83 million b/d in 2016, said Douglas-Westwood
analysts. A 2% growth in demand could trigger a production peak of 87
million b/d by 2011, while 3% growth would move that production peak to as
early as 2006, they said. "
http://ogj.pennnet.com/articles/EdPro_Article_Display.cfm?&Section=Articles&
SubSection=Display&ARTICLE_ID=152444&PUBLICATION_ID=7&VERSION_NUM=1
Given historic growth in oil demand of 1.5% or so, we can probably expect
the peak to be around 2012, merely 10 years.
In another article inside the Journal another bleak outlook is provided of
the growing deficit between what we are finding and what we are pumping out
of the ground. The article says:
"The Infield Systems database shows that, over the past 5 years, some 812
offshore oil and gas fields have been bought on stream worldwide with
estimated reserves totalling 51.5 billion boe. " Roger Knight and John
Westwood,
"Special Report: Looking at Offshore Europe prospects in a global context",
Oil and Gas Journal, Aug 19, 2002,
http://ogj.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=Articles&ARTICLE
_ID=152257&x=y
BOE is barrels of oil equivalent. Only 53% of the above is oil. Thus we
found only 27 billion barrels of oil over the past 5 years! Twenty-seven
billion barrels sounds really good for discovery. In that same five year
period the world pumped 133 billion barrels out of the ground. We are in a
losing situation. One field found in Kazakhstan in the late 1990s was
claimed to be a 50 billion barrel field. The article points out that it is
now considered to be only an 8-10 billion barrel field. Even an Enron
accountant should know that replacing only 1 in every 5 barrels pumped out
of the ground means that oil is running out.
Of the area I work, the North Sea, the article notes:
"In short, the message is that while offshore activity is set to
increase in much of the rest of the world, the North Sea is now facing
decline. One result is that the major operators have already voted with
their feet and are investing an increasing proportion of their development
dollars outside Europe in new, usually deepwater, areas of the world. "
Roger Knight and John Westwood,
"Special Report: Looking at Offshore Europe prospects in a global context",
Oil and Gas Journal, Aug 19, 2002,
http://ogj.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=Articles&ARTICLE
_ID=152257&x=y
The average prospect size today is only 31 million barrels of oil
equivalent. This is hardly enough to pay for development. The future of the
global economy depends upon energy and the future of energy seems bleak.
Massive investments are required to overcome the coming problem. But the
problem is, no one in political power is awake to the problem.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
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