The Peak Oil Crisis: A Meeting to Remember

…As the increase is not supposed to start for another six weeks, it will be several months before we have much insight into what is actually happening. Most analysts believe that only the Saudis have the theoretical capacity to increase production by more than token amounts. Some are skeptical the cuts in Saudi production over the last year were entirely voluntary. Riyadh is spending a lot of money on increasing capacity, but most of this involves the reworking of oil fields and many are skeptical of how successful they will be at achieving sustainable increases in productive capacity.

This 500,000 barrel increase could turn out to be a real test of just how close Saudi oilfields are from going into decline and the real prospects for future world production.


Closer to home, the Department of Energy has released the stocks report for the week ending September 7. As this period included the Labor Day weekend, the full reduction in demand for gasoline that comes each fall will not be apparent until next week.

The bad news is that our crude oil stockpile dropped by 7.1 million barrels last week. This was probably caused by the hurricane that went through Mexico