Facts and figures don't support the end of oil — yet

World oil reserves fell last year for the first time in a decade, according to the latest statistical review from BP, an oil company that has changed the meaning of its moniker from British Petroleum to Beyond Petroleum.

Does it herald the coming of the global apocalypse that peak oil catastrophists have prayed for? Will it bring about the end of globalization, as former CIBC economist Jeff Rubin predicts in his book, Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller?

Maybe. But oil markets are not static like theories are. Supply and demand fluctuate in defiance of our attempts to determine their direction.

Rubin seemed clairvoyant when his January 2008 forecast of $150-US-a-barrel oil nearly came to pass. It reached $147 in June last year before it crashed below $40 a few months later. He didn’t warn us about the drop. Prognosticating is a tough business.

The BP review pointed out that global oil consumption slipped in 2008 by 0.6 per cent to 84.4 million barrels a day, the first decline since 1993 and the largest since 1982. But the drop in demand was largely confined to the mature economies of the OECD. In non-OECD countries, consumption was up — by 8.1 per cent in Venezuela, 5.3 per cent in Brazil, 4.8 per cent in India and 3.3 per cent in China. In fact, China accounted for three-quarters of global growth in energy consumption.

Vancouver Sun