Peak Oil Production - Happening Now

I think the crisis is over. It took a long time for the industry to accept that higher prices were here to stay, but now they should finally be putting capital expenditure into projects which would have been unfeasible at $30 a barrel.

Another thing though, is that one reason the oil price is so high is that the dollar is so low. The spike hasn't been nearly as harsh in Euros.

We weathered a perfect storm in my opinion.

 

I think we weathered the gust of wind before the storm and we shouldn't come out all smilling yet.

What happens next spring when demand is higher and there is no more supply plus futher decline in the US and areas like the North Sea.

We'll see.

 

I'm not in tune with economic ideas, could someone explain to me how that higher oil prices actuallt help a governments financial position....I'm thinking chiefly of the present US recession and the idea of war affecting oil price rise?

 

Higher oil prices don't help a government unless the government happens to own large oil companies and the country is a net exporter.

 

The US was/is hoping the war in Iraq will/would be over quickly so that it can settle down and start producing oil to its full potential, with control by US companies. Thats how it would in theory help, however nice ideas like that aren't always as easy to make a reality as little Bush is now finding out.

 

Of course since Iraqi oil companies were specifically excluded from the privatisation agenda, its difficult to see exactly how anything was going to be "controlled by US oil companies".

 

Speaking of US controlling the oil:

US 'failed to control' Iraq oil

A United Nations panel has found that the US-led occupation authority failed to exercise proper controls over Iraq's oil industry and could not say how much oil had gone missing since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The International Advisory and Monitoring Board report also said there were "important weaknesses" in the management by occupation officials of up to $20bn in Iraqi funds, mostly from oil sales.

US politicians have often accused the UN of incompetence and, perhaps, corruption in its handling of the oil-for-food programme, a scheme to alleviate Iraqi suffering under sanctions before the war. Now the boot is on the other foot.

Revenue 'lost'

The panel, which also includes representatives from the IMF and the World Bank, expressed particular concern about how large contracts paid out of Iraqi funds were given to US firms, such as the oil services group Halliburton, without competitive bidding.

Other problems identified included weaknesses in administration, inadequate accounting systems, poor record-keeping and a failure to follow procedures that had been agreed.

The panel's report says the US-led authorities also failed to deal with widespread smuggling of Iraqi oil out of the country immediately after the war. Nobody knows how much revenue for reconstruction was lost as a result. It also says there were inadequate controls to prevent the misuse or theft of funds at Iraqi government ministries.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4098729.stm




Also, a few months ago, the main artilce in national geographic was called "The End of Cheap Oil", it's a good read.

 

You seem to forget that that the pacification of the country has not yet been achieved and that this is precisely why our troops will be resident in that nation, as in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. Do not be duped into the typical denial-minded groupthink claim that simply because control has not yet been established, that it was neither the actual geopolitical pretext for our invasion and subsequent occupation nor the ultimate goal.

Similarly, one can recall PB's lame subscription to the school of thought that Unocal's claim of disengagement from its more than a decade of bribes and political wrangling to achieve the TAP (Trans-Afghan Pipeline) somehow proves that this vital interest was not the actual justification for toppling the Taliban and installing our own preferred oil and gas shill to power (under the cloak of a fraud ridden and laughably predictable electoral process).

In years to come those who bother to scrutinise will likely find that Unocal has quietly reengaged its interests in the CentGas consortium once our MIC has achieved sufficient pacification, especially in the North.

 

They haven't claimed to be disengaged, they are disengaged. Nothing is happening. All you are trying to do is make the fact that no pipeline is getting built somehow irrelevant to the theory that the war was a conpiracy for a pipeline. Which is typical.


Furthermore, the "fraud ridden" election has was scrutinised by plenty of independent analysts who found it to be valid. I'm sorry that your initial hopes were crushed and it has become clear that the Afghans succeeded in having democratic elections. I know how elated you were when the first reports of non-permanent ink came out, probably celebrating with whoops of delight. I would imagine you were utterly devastated to hear that in fact these were minor problems, and opposition candidates and international observers alike accepted the results. The sullen gloom with the America haters at Hipforums was unmistakeable. Well cheer up old chap, the Iraqi elections may well fail so you could have something to celebrate after all.

 

Once again, nothing more than the sort of dismissive drivel that we have come to expect from you. Further demonstration of how little you bother to keep abreast of events going on whilst you remain wrapped in your contrarian and smugly self-delusional world of adherence to whatever corporate PR serves as your basis for truth...

http://www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/showArticle3.cfm?article_id=10564&topicID=42

Nevermind that those who follow events and timelines with a critical eye are able, unlike yourself with your self satisfied surface comprehension, to connect the dots of Unocal's decades of maneuverings both in Washington and Kabul to achieve its precious pipeline, the exasperation of those efforts and clearly documented neocon interests in forcing those plans through in the bid for US military and economic hegemony over central asia and ultimately (with vital resource control eventually achieved) the broader international community at all costs. Thereby arriving at the present context of what Cheney has repeatedly insisted on calling "a war which will not end in our lifetimes". The geopolitical agenda being played out clearly escapes you.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/afghan/2004/1008sham.htm

Once again, you spout off about "plenty of independent analysts" without any evidence of this plethora to which you refer. As regards any external imprimatur on the validity of those elections, one can suppose your belief rests on the claims of the OSCE observers. Any report from this group taken, as you seem so desperately to do, as somehow comprehensive and authoritative against fraud, must be weighed with their similarly laughable imprimatur on the earlier Georgian elections which saw the victor (a duly pliable puppet to our western corporate interests) achieve soviet-styled 86% of the vote. A clear red light of electoral fraud by even Washington's standards, yet not a peep of objection to be seen in our corporate owned media. Quelle Surprise!

As for Afghani opposition leaders "accepting the results", too bad for your preferred sanitised view of world affairs that it is known precisely why they caved in, namely active efforts by Khalilzad to assure them of roles in Karzai's government. But then, your standards of "democracy" and self determination are so low, you think this somehow validates your view of the outcome.

Another indication of the glaring double standards of "independent" (read: OSCE) election observers can be seen in this statement made by the OSCE ambassador to Afghan opposition candidates who sought to boycott the elections due to the widespread irregularities...

http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA731.htm

This deserves a substantial "hmmmmm!" when one recalls only recently how willingly OSCE observers (along with US and EU pundits) egged on those who demanded a nullification of the election results in Ukraine. Where were the chidings of selfishness for Mr. Yuschenko and his supporters?

Not that any arguments could possibly open your eyes to the realities of geo-political manipulation and the warmongering this administration advocates when subtler mechanisms of coercion fail to achieve their ends in existing or hoped for client states. But then its clear that you have little or no real understanding of foreign policy nor the interests and aims that drive it.

A further article which touches on the duplicities PB would otherwise seek to dismiss as well as the larger geo-political interests at work behind the sanitised soudbites he accepts as reality can be found here...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/GOW201A.html

Good reading for those who wish to understand the broader chess game which forms the context for the sorts of plausibly deniable fraud and double standards we are seeing applied yet again in this year's US elections in relation to those of Ukraine and other pertinent countries.

 

You amateurish efforts and ludicrous self promotion never fail to amuse.

Maybe if your "critical eye" had actually been open you would have noticed that there is nothing thrilling about the fact that THREE YEARS after the invasion of Afghanistan, a development bank is finishing a PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS, and there is no sign of Unocal anywhere. Wow! That's really some seriously exciting stuff! And later in the article it says that "Pakistan-India relations should improve and the Kashmir dispute settled before the project comes into effect". Well only a few minor hitches then! I'll bet they can almost smell the gas in Mumbai already!

But while we laugh at the absurdity of your claims, lets also keep in mind that this is a plan to ship Turkmenistan's gas to India and Pakistan. In geopolitical policy speak, YAWN.

With regards to the election, you failed to come up with anything of substance. This was a joint United Nations/Afghan organised and administered election with OSCE and other observers. The results were upheld. I feel you pain, as I am sure you and so many others wanted so desperately for democracy to fail in Afghanistan. But the fact remains, the results have been validated, and nobody is waiting around for the socialist worker and other dinosaurs such as yourself to accept it. Cry me a river.

I also feel your pain as democracy advances in Ukraine and Georgia. The forces of stupidity and socialism are in retreat. But let's keep that for another thread. Don't worry, you'll still got Belarus!

 

Coming from the king of routine surface and unsubstantiated claims, i take that as a compliment.

And again, if you had half the ability to comprehend the train of argumentation already provided, let alone the subject of that discourse, you would have noted precisely that I made earlier reference to the pre-requisite for greater stability which underlies our continuing military presence in the region. Clearly you must be so deeply deluded by your "here and now" take on world affairs that you fail to understand the longer term machinations which lay behind not only any corporate planning along these lines, but the political interests as well. Unical's longrunning efforts and eventual exasperation over softer forms of economic inducements not only provide the underpinnings od Washington's resort to armed intervention and regime change, but also the quite obvious inevitability of their resumption of direct involvement once the ground has been cleared. Wake up plebe and get some credible arguments for a change.

Either you are making use of the Royal "We", else you are admitting that you not only suffer from delusions but from severe schizophrenia as well. As for TAP, yes indeed this was always the intended destination (proving yet further your utter lack of credible understanding of the issue) as transport to other world markets requires access to ports in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.

This is such a laughable counter argument, one which notably tries to spin it all as yet another UN initiative when the reality understood by anyone who has followed the regime change can see clearly that the reigns, both militarily and politically are held by Washington via their dual shills of Khalilzad and Karzai. Again nothing more than your routine demonstration of surface comrpehension of geopolitical realities.

Unbridled and wholly corrupt capitalistic sell outs are indeed advancing in these countries, true democracy, as understood by anyone with any respectable adherence to such values of self determination, is certainly not. How unsurprising to see how little you question matters so long as the corporate shill wins the day, regardless of the very sort of election result you find so ready to condemn as fraudulent in Ukraine or elsewhere so long as your sanitised corporate media says so.

What has become quite clear is that you are either monumentally undereducated or else, and far more likely, a simpleminded 16 year old knee-jerk reactionary here simply to troll and flame. Stay tuned little one, you'll be eating your pathetic contradictions in the years to come and wondering how you could have gotten it so wrong.

 

Like communists who believe that Marx wasn't wrong, just too early, you have defined parameters that make it impossible to prove your conspiracy theory wrong.

I said Unocal would not build a pipeline, and lo and behold years after the invasion there is no oil pipeline. To you, the fact that nobody is building the pipeline doesn't prove anything. And the fact that Unocal has explicitly stated it has no interest also doesn't prove anything. I.e. under no circumstances and as a result of no actual turn of events can your conspiracy theory be considered in any way wrong, just "too early".

No, the primary consumers of the gas would be Pakistan, and possibly India. Thus even under the orginal scenario Unocal would have the pleasure of having part ownership of a pipeline transporting gas they don't own (and whose owners have alternate export routes) to India and Pakistan, not AmeriKKKa. Therein lies the stupidity of your conspiracy theory.

Nobody is "spinning" Afghan elections as a UN initiative. The elections were administered with very close support from the UN. That's an inescapable fact. UN workers gave their lives to make these elections happen, yet you want to sneer about "spin". Utterly pathetic.

 

Yes yes PB, jaw on with your dismissive drivel. We're used to it and of course chuckle at your "here and now" naivete in world affairs. My previous expose unmasked your spurious belief that "nothing" is happening as the intellectually honest here will readily appreciate. Beyond this you merely continue to avoid what those reports themselves clearly identify as the delay in the pipeline construction, namely continued instability. Thus our continued presence to prop up Karzai in his little Kabul stronghold whilst warlords and their varied ethnic factions control the remainder of the country as they long have.

Your analogies to communism and arguments pertaining thereto are simply more non sequitors, another of your famed penchants.

So carry on little one, rest happy in your surface conceptualisations whilst events unfold precisely as I have long said they would. A "war that will not end in our lifetimes" is clearly not a matter fit to discuss further with a plebe such as yourself who cannot see the larger context and the interests cashing in on our military and political machinations.

Im sure other posters will await with keen interest your next round of excuses and evasions. BTW, someone who fancies himself as such a proponent of fact, as you do, should recognise the difference between "playing a role in" (elections) and being the "predominate power in control over the process and its outcomes". Khalilzad and Karzai were selected and installed by Washington to serve US, not UN interests. When you've learned to recognise that salient fact, perhaps you might begin to have an ounce of credibility on foreign policy issues.

 

I have nothing to excuse or evade, because you aren't even trying to make a point anymore.

Jaw on with your intellectual dishonesty Lickboy! As you and your ilk are wont to do given their naivete in world affairs! Driveling dismissively! Even as my expose has unmasked your famed penchant for spurious belief? Indeed so! Whither your analagies, merely non sequitors pertaining to whatnot, such a conflated paradigm we are loath to behold!

Merest surface conceptualisations whilst events unfold precisely as have heretofore been pronounced, indeed! This is a matter not fit to discuss further with a plebe such as yourself insofar and inasmuch your logical capacities underwhelm, whereupon your intellectual and moral superiors are obliged to elucidate the larger context!

Salient facts wither while the oracular onanist preens his pompous verbiage! Woe is upon us.

 

Bravo, your pointlessness exceeds itself! Thank you for your non-contributions to the actual discussion. At least you are consistent in offering nothing of value nor substance.

Now we return this thread to those of us prepared to discuss the issue in a mature and intelligent manner.

 

I wrote this ...

http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=727730&postcount=85


in this thread http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51584&page=1&pp=10

After reading what is meant by peak oil production in this thread is their two 'peak oil' situations or is my take on 'peak oil' a load of crap .. ask (if after reading my first link) ...if you don't know what i am babbling on about thanks (hopes to get a response).

 

What do you mean by "two peak oil's"?

There is only one issue in the larger context but you could break it down into many different aspects due to the huge influence it will have.

I suppose there is the physical situation and the economic one. A small reduction in the amount of oil available is not that bad physically but the economic effects the shortages will have are a really massive problem as our whole economy is based on growth, and that requires a growth in energy supply.

I'm interested, what are you thinking of?

 

What lucifer sam and many others are saying (i think) is that oil will effectively run dry .. well cheap oil anyway , because we won't be able to extract it any longer .. because it will be to expensive.. 'Peak oil production'

What i am trying to say is that it will be more the fact that we as consumers will not want oil any more .. we will simply either think it is a enviromental liability or just find something better (maybe in pursuit of a more enviromentaly better 'product')


We will just as humans demand that other means are used , oil i think could be ressurected again when/if in 3 generations (or more/less) time people stop panicking so much about the enviroment and a less hostile lobby admits that even though the enviroment is important we should take it from the top of the agenda..

See you should be more positive about looking for alternatives and not thinking the end of the world will occur just because people don't want to use oil anymore..IMHO people are predicting the end of oil, just so that other resources and other means can be used away from oil..this is a good thing ... so even though i am saying oil will last for a lot longer than 30 years , the benefits of going along with the notion that its all going to dry up maybe a better thing to do..

http://economics.about.com/cs/macro..._out_of_oil.htm

http://www.alternet.org/story/18421

http://hubbert.mines.edu/news/Ivanhoe_97-1.pdf

http://hubbert.mines.edu/

i would go along with

If we go back to Economics 101, this effect is clearly visible. The continual reduction of the supply of oil is represented by a series of small shifts of the supply curve to the left and an associated move along the demand curve. Since gasoline is a normal good, Economics 101 tells us that we will have a series of price increases and a series of reductions in the total amount of gasoline consumed. Eventually the price will reach a point where gasoline will become a niche good purchased by very few consumers, while other consumers will have found alternatives to gas. When this happens there will still be plenty of oil in the ground, but consumers will have found alternatives that make more economic sense to them, so there will be little, if any, demand for gasoline.

In conclusion, if markets are allowed to function freely the supply of oil will never run out, in a physical sense, though it's quite likely that in the future gasoline will become a niche commodity. Changes in consumer patterns and the emergence of new technology driven by increases in the price of oil will prevent the oil supply from ever physically running out. While predicting doomsday scenarios may be a good way to get people to know your name, they are a very poor predictor of what is likely to happen in the future.

http://economics.about.com/cs/macro..._out_of_oil.htm


Greens would like us all to believe that our planet's carbon reserves (oil, coal, etc) will run out a week next Tuesday.
The truth is very different as this explanation reveals.






Reference

http://www.bp.com/centres/energy/world_stat_rev/index.asp (click to open in new window)


The BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2001, a definitive account of worldwide status.
The full report can be downloaded as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or PDF document.

​

The key figure is the R/P one of "227" years in the last column; it is the "Reserves / Production" ratio, i.e. the length of time the current reserves (see definition below) will last at the current rate of annual production.

Total up the other carbon sources and you will get something like 500 years. The National Coal Board used to claim something like 450 years for UK coal, although the British Geological Survey thought it considerably less — they were proved right.

The World R/P ratio for oil is 40, but for some countries (e.g. UK) it as low as 5 — but a key point to note is that this ratio hardly changes over many decades.


Reserves
A key concept is to understand what 'reserves' means — non-specialists can have a major misunderstanding about it.





It normally means:

"known to exist, AND to be technically AND economically recoverable at the present time"​

Some consequences of the definition:

• The oil industry is dated to Colonel Drake's Well in about 1880 (though there had been the odd oil well thousands of years before — the Chinese could get to thousands of feet around then).
  Before Colonel Drake's Well there were no oil reserves in the world — because none were 'known to be technically and economically recoverable'!
  Similarly, before the first UK oil well in the early 1960's the UK had no oil reserves, and its R/P ratio was 0/0.
• When the UK closed its coal mines in the 1980s-1990s the UK coal reserves massively slumped (even though the coal remained in place) — because although known, and technically recoverable, they were no longer economically recoverable.
  The same thing happened to UK tin about 1880, when most UK mines closed within about 5-10 years because of cheaper tin from Malaya — the tin is still there, it is still technically recoverable, but it is not economically recoverable, so UK tin reserves are now negligible.
• Perhaps the most important point of all to grasp:
  Although the UK R/P ratio is 5, it has been at about that level throughout its 40 odd year history! In fact that is a great improvement over its starting point, which was 0/0. The same goes for the World R/P.
  How come the R/P ratio could stay at 5 over 40 years?
  Answer: we keep finding more oil at about the rate we use it, and we improve the technology to find it in more difficult places, and we improve the technology to make it cheaper to recover, so every day we add new reserves (oil known to be technically and economically recoverable at the present time).

How long can that go on for, how much oil is there ultimately?


We don't really know, though there are various models (e.g. 'creaming curve theory') that do give predictions.
The practical answer is 'How much do you want there to be?', which relates to 'How much are you prepared to pay for it?'.
You pay enough for it, and we could perhaps keep the oil R/P ratio at 40 for a couple of hundred years, but there is no point in expending money looking for it now because we can't be sure you will want it beyond about 10 years.

However, the general pattern is that oil will be substituted by a cheaper energy source, and that masses will be left in the ground (like UK coal & tin) — the Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stone, but because something better came along.



The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stone,
but because something better came along. http://www.abd.org.uk/../carbon_reserves.htm

We were also talking about the logic of this iraqi war is all about oil..(it is within the first post i posted in this thread..but thats another point i think.


</B>

 

OK, I see where you are coming from, and what you described above will happen, but what you have to understand is that it will be extremely painful.

What you are describing is not a choice but rather forced demand destruction. Our demand for oil will decrease because less people will be able to afford it, therefor less people driving, less food produced, more starvation, lower populations and finally therefor less demand in line with less production.

And while you say another cheaper energy source will take over you are technically correct but not in a useful sense. when the price of oil multiplies 10 fold and a then cheaper source of energy comes in, it will still be 9 or 10 times the price of energy our generation are used to.

You are correct that economics will sort the situation. capitalist economics are as harsh as evolution is. the economics will kill of billions of people in its demand destruction and eventually a new balance will come about where their are less people using dramatically less energy per capita. But it will be a balance found by capitalist economics.

So your arguaments are correct but you just don't see the implications of what kind of horror this means we will see in our lifetimes.

Oil and Gas are the cheapest easiest energy sources in the know universe. We will not find anything better because there are no better sources of energy than these stored ancient ones. Nothing as plentiful and cheap.

Coal is a viable energy option but the atmosphere won't take it without a serious change in temperature. ANd it will peak in production after another 50 years or so if it were scaled up to provide our main source of energy.

Name the "something better than oil and natural gas" please, that we will change to?