BP Smacks Down ‘Peak Oil’ Fears

32 Comments on "BP Smacks Down ‘Peak Oil’ Fears"

rockman on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 1:52 pm 



“…means we may never run out of untapped energy stores, according to a leading petroleum industry economist.”. And one more assinine statement posted under “News” for whatever reason.

Plantagenet on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 2:10 pm 



If the UN climate meeting in Paris agrees to reduce fossil fuel use, and the countries of the world actually stick to their pledges, then the rate of growth of FF use might decrease slightly.

But we’d still essentially use up all the fossil fuels—it would just take a bit longer.

nemteck on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 2:33 pm 



“The International Energy Agency projects global demand will slow to 1.2 million barrels a day from the current 1.8 million”. That is quite a deceleration. Actually, the global demand is about 97 Mb/d.

BobInget on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 2:47 pm 



Exxon Mobil’s decision to hide research that confirmed fossil fuels’ role in global warming for decades amounts to “unparalleled evil,” environmentalist Bill McKibben said.

In an op-ed published Wednesday in The Guardian, the activist once called “the nation’s leading environmentalist” said the oil giant set back by decades any effective action to curb climate change when it publicly disputed the very facts its research confirmed.

“To understand the treachery — the sheer, profound, and I think unparalleled evil — of Exxon, one must remember the timing,” he wrote. “Global warming became a public topic in 1988, thanks to Nasa scientist James Hansen — it’s taken a quarter-century and counting for the world to take effective action.”

Over the past three weeks, the results of two independent investigations were published by the Pulitzer-Prize winning website Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times.

The evidence was damning.

By 1978, Exxon’s senior scientists told management that carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels warmed the planet, according to the investigations. By 1982, the company’s own analysis of climate models found temperatures could rise up to 5 degrees from the “connection between Exxon’s major business and the role of fossil fuel combustion in contributing to the increase in atmospheric CO2.” By 1991, a senior researcher at the company’s Canadian subsidiary said such temperature rises “will clearly affect sea ice, icebergs, permafrost and sea levels.”

“If at any point in that journey Exxon — largest oil company on Earth, most profitable enterprise in human history — had said: ‘Our own research shows that these scientists are right and that we are in a dangerous place,’ the faux debate would effectively have ended,” McKibben wrote. “That’s all it would have taken; stripped of the cover provided by doubt, humanity would have gotten to work.”

Yet, publicly, Exxon funded institutes to cook up reports denying the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community and, as it happens, its own researchers.

“[T]his company had the singular capacity to change the course of world history for the better and instead it changed that course for the infinitely worse,” McKibben wrote. “In its greed Exxon helped — more than any other institution — to kill our planet.”

Exxon did not return a call requesting comment.

buddavis on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 2:57 pm 



reducing FF means reducing growth, and all of these countries will react the same when faced with declining growth, shrinking balance sheets and bad economies. The goals go out the window.

BobInget on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 3:06 pm 



Nemtec, IEA downsized its ESTIMATE for 2016
Six hundred thousand B p/d.
IOW’s IEA says we will burn up 1.2 million B p/d
NEXT year. As you note, at 97 M B p/d, the world is supposed to be adequately supplied.
This most certainly will not be the case in 2016.

IEA, not taking into consideration several current wars that are expected to last well into the NEXT decade. Modern warfare is exceptionally oil intensive. Because most military are loath to admit to their overseers how much oil is actual consumed, IEA and EIA often report an estimate
in April or May of year following..

Most refined oil consumed by US military is never imported, therefore not reported.

BobInget on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 4:15 pm 



just released:

API
Crude stocks up 9.3mln barrels
Crude stocks at Cushing up 1.4 mln barrels

If accurate, I’m actually shocked at this huge up-tic .

“there’s always something”.

James Tipper on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 4:26 pm 



What this article should say:

Oil companies tell gullible Americans(or anyone dumb enough to listen) to stop believing what the data is laying out. Please ignore the fact oil has peaked in several dozen nations, likely to never return. And because you lack any knowledge of statistics, common sense, or history you’ll just eat it up.

But by all means, why would we lie to you customer? We only tried to cover up global warming for decades and now peak oil. Why don’t you trust us? We know what’s in your best interest consumer! Stop asking perfectly logical questions!

ghung on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 4:56 pm 



…. and if you think the comments get bad here sometimes, check out the comments at Daily Caller. One guy claims that oil is no more finite than water.

penury on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 5:14 pm 



I will continue to believe that as far as oil usage goes we have passed peak. Not from a shortage of FF, but a shortage of money and a real slowdown in the economies of the world. Look at the economic facts, world imports and exports, Baltic Dry Index price signals, I could go on but, everyone knows the wheels are coming off this cart most just refuse to accept that that could happen to them.

i1 on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 5:19 pm 



Unpolluted water.

JuanP on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 7:50 pm 



This article is a load of crap. I am sick and tired of people who fail to make a distinction between demand and demand growth, and use these terms as if they were synonymous. I refuse to waste my time addressing the many mistakes in this piece.

rattus on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 8:13 pm 



Reading that title feels like reading:
Vatican Smacks Down “God don’t exist” Scam.

And that makes it very hard to take the article seriously..

I couldn’t even read the article.

makati1 on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 8:36 pm 



“BP Smacks Down ‘Peak Oil’ Fears”

BP piles the bullshit higher.

Boat on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 9:05 pm 



In 1965 production was approx 30 mbpd. 93 mbpd in 2015. So in 50 years you have an increase of 1.26 billion a year average increase. China just created false demand along with the rest of the world through debt. No big deal we will have a few lean years while we pay off the bubble. Per capita the poor will not be buying many gas or diesel engines while the rich will go electric. Those cars will really accelerate.

MrNoItAll on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 1:38 am 



“Dale sees global energy demand rising 37 percent by 2035…”

MrNoItAll sees global energy demand satisfied by wood and buffalo chips by 2035…

makati1 on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 2:23 am 



Boat, LMAO! Pay off what? Total world debt is now about 4 times the total World GDP, or more. Some say much more.

That’s like saying you will pay off your mortgage, that is 4 times your annual income, in 4 years. LOL.

There ain’t gonna be any reset this time. Only more decline and contraction to the bottom. Do you have any idea where that is? Maybe $5K/year max purchasing power per capita. Maybe much less. And no middle class. Only the Lords and the Serfs.

Dredd on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 5:22 am 



A comic at BP has moved up into the ranks of propaganda.

To no avail.

Oil-Qaeda juice is finite, as is Oil-Qaeda.

So are sea ports (The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports).

rockman on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 6:11 am 



ghung – “One guy claims that oil is no more finite than water.” But isn’t that true about water? Mother Earth isn’t making any new water…just recycling a finite amount. Except if an abiotic source of water exists, of course. LOL

Now if we could just figure out how to convert GHG back into oil we could recycle too.

makati1 on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 7:14 am 



rockman, ‘Mother Nature’ will do that when the time comes, but it takes a geologic time frame. Maybe a few hundred million years. After all, she has done it before, according to the latest data and evidence. Who knows, in a billion years, the earth may even have huge pools of oil and veins of coal again but we won’t be there to start the cycle all over again.

shortonoil on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 7:29 am 



“Crude stocks up 9.3mln barrels
Crude stocks at Cushing up 1.4 mln barrels
If accurate, I’m actually shocked at this huge up-tic”

It should hardly be surpising; we have been explaining for more than a year why the economy will never again be able to consume all the oil that is produced. It now requires 74,000 BTU per unit to deliver 66,000 to the economy. To sell all their oil the producers would have to do it at an 8,000 BTU per unit lose.

No one is ever going to get rich trading 74 apples for 66, but for some reason many people think it should be possible. This must be one of the simplest concepts since humans figured out how to bang the rocks together, but apparently it still baffles some?

http://www.thehillsgroup.org/

Kenz300 on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 7:44 am 



Oil Companies are selling their book……. they are all salesmen selling their product and doing all they can to slow the growth of any alternatives.

Exxon’s Climate Change Cover-Up Is ‘Unparalleled Evil,’ Says Activist

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/exxon-evil-bill-mckibben_561e7362e4b028dd7ea5f45f?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=Green&section=green

joe on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 7:56 am 



They sure put a heck of a spin on that one. A UK paper had this online yesterday.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/13/oil-unlikely-to-ever-be-fully-exploited-because-of-climate-concerns-bp

As a function of price, peak oil will likely be sooner rather than later. Though there will always be some who could afford it, but just some.

rockman on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 9:26 am 



“No one is ever going to get rich trading 74 apples for 66…” Of course the would if they buy those apples wholesale for $0.20 each and sell them for $0.70 each. Rather basic Econ 101. We can use 1 mm Btu’s of energy (from the well head to the car’s fuel tank) to produce 1 mm Btu’s of refinery product energy. But only if I’m paying less for the Btu’s used then the Btu’s utilized. One of the reasons the oil sands work is that a lot of relatively cheap NG Btu’s were used to produce some rather expensive oil Btu’s. Of course those oil Btu’s were worth a lot more a year ago. But same with gasoline: oil is selling for less than $50/bbl and gasoline is retailing for around $82/bbl and diesel over $100/bbl. Of course the economics aren’t that simple. But also remember the refiners use a lot of cheap NG Btu’s to make motor fuels.

rockman on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 9:32 am 



Joe – Exactomondo. The point I keep boring/angering some folks with. And that affordability you mention is also a function of general economic conditions which vary greatly over time and from country to country. Again some folks still don’t like using the POD (Peak Oil Dynamic) because it’s too inclusive. But as you’ve just shown we cannot have a logical discussion if we break out and discuss a single factor as if it’s not dependent on a number of positive/negative feedback loops.

frankthetank on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 10:45 am 



Keep my furnace pegged at 80F all winter and leave the cars running in the driveway all night. Why not? We’re never going to run out.

shortonoil on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 1:46 pm 



“Of course the would if they buy those apples wholesale for $0.20 each and sell them for $0.70 each. Rather basic Econ 101.”
That might be a little hard to do since a BTU is a fundamental unit of reality, and hasn’t changed (as far as we know) in the last 14 billion years. You are confusing those units of the FED, which are made out an of elastic illusion, with the real world. The only thing a BTU gets traded for is a BTU, if you think you are winning you haven’t learned the Laws of Thermodynamics:

1) You can’t win,
2) You can’t break even,
3) You can’t get out of the game.

If you made money trading BTU, you now have a bigger stack of paper, and less BTU than when you started. If someone pays 70 cents for a 20 cent apple they are dumber than a rock.

joe on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 3:36 pm 



Short, historically there are rocks who do exactly that! They were originally called slave traders, then they were called carpet baggers, then robber barons. They simply extract more of their fair share, see? Right now in the west we ALL extract more than our fair share, though usually that seems hard to believe given the levels of poverty etc. When the point when WE can’t afford oil happens, then nobody will. Except as always the one percent.

Boat on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 4:42 pm 



joe,

So what is a fair share. If we all lived like Ethiopians 8 of us would use the electricity of a modern day refrigerator. We would all share 6 cars per 1,000 population. You willing to live like them in order to save the planet?

Apneaman on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 5:42 pm 



Bloomberg Issues Dire Forecasts for US Shale Oil Industry by 2017

“According to the consultancy Wood Mackenzie, about a third of oil production in the US states, not including Alaska and Hawaii, comes from companies that have borrowed against their oil and gas reserves and that face redeterminations of their borrowing base,” Bloomberg says.

However the forecasts for the October redeterminations (banks recalculate the value of reserves for their oil company clients twice a year, in the spring and in the fall) are quite dire.”

http://sputniknews.com/business/20151015/1028573056/us-shale-oil-producers-forecasts.html

BC on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 6:25 pm 



https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=29KN

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=29KP

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=29Kh

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?g=29KK

apnea, the bank C&I loan charge-offs and delinquencies have already begun increasing YoY.

The cyclical bank loan-induced bubble party is over, only most of us have our backs to the punch bowl and don’t realize it’s quickly becoming empty in the dim light of the wee hours.

When this “sucker goes down”, as Dumbya was quoted as saying, many of us will be lucky if we can afford to live in our cars and supply a meal a day from standing in line for 8-10 hours at the food bank.

Then again, if the people of the former Soviet Union and Cuba had to do it, then we “capitalists” should not complain if we have to do it, too, in order to keep the exceptionally superior system going for the benefit of the top 0.001-1%.

Kenz300 on Fri, 16th Oct 2015 7:23 am 



Electric vehicles, bicycles and mass transit are the future…….

How The Decline Of Cars Is Changing Cities For The Better

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/car-decline-cities_561f34dae4b0c5a1ce620dd9