[DantesPeak]

Who says the major media and oil companies don't realize that oil production has nearly reached its peak? On the front page of the Wall Street Journal today, the story of Peak Oil is there in black and white. OK, they don't really believe we may have past peak already, but this is a big step forward towards public awareness.

Remember it was the Wall Street Journal that broke the story on Cantarell, and telling the world oil production from that field was about to plunge.

So far the link below is not free, but perhaps Leanan or someone else can find a link to the full story later.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')il Officials See Limit Looming on Production
By RUSSELL GOLD and ANN DAVIS
November 19, 2007

A growing number of oil-industry chieftains are endorsing an idea long deemed fringe: The world is approaching a practical limit to the number of barrels of crude oil that can be pumped every day.

Some predict that, despite the world's fast-growing thirst for oil, producers could hit that ceiling as soon as 2012. This rough limit -- which two senior industry officials recently pegged at about 100 million barrels a day -- is well short of global demand projections over the next few decades. Current production is about 85 million barrels a day.

...

Mr. Simmons scoffs at estimates that production from proven fields will decline only 4.5% a year. He thinks a more realistic rate of decline is 8% to 10% a year, especially because modern technology actually succeeds in depleting fields faster.

If he's right, the industry needs to add new daily production of at least eight million barrels -- 10 times current Alaskan production -- just to stay even.

Mr. Simmons thinks the world needs to shift its energy focus from climate change to more immediate concerns. "Peak oil is likely already a crisis that we don't know about. At the furthest out, it will be a crisis in 2008 to 2012. Global warming, if real, will not be a problem for 50 to 100 years," he says.

[jupiters_release]

It doesn't really matter how much the media covers production decline while they tout hydrogen, bio, nuclear, jupiter's methane, solar, etc to replace oil.

[jdumars]

Wow! Well there you go.

Will anything change?
Will we simply continue the biofuel madness?
Will we wait for technology to save us?
How many wild rivers will be dammed to generate power?
How much life will be extinguished as we fight nature and each other?
Will anything change for the better?

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdumars', 'W')ow! Well there you go.

Will anything change?
Will we simply continue the biofuel madness?
Will we wait for technology to save us?
How many wild rivers will be dammed to generate power?
How much life will be extinguished as we fight nature and each other?
Will anything change for the better?

[DantesPeak]

Well, yes, they did bring up the non-issue of alternative fuels, but didn't provide much support for that. However they did take a slap at PO, in the last line below, using some words that appear to be almost a direct quote of something Daniel Yergin said.

I've contacted the WSJ myself and asked them to revise that last comment.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he current debate represents a significant twist on an older, often-derided notion known as the peak-oil theory. Traditional peak-oil theorists, many of whom are industry outsiders or retired geologists, have argued that global oil production will soon peak and enter an irreversible decline because nearly half the available oil in the world has been pumped. They've been proved wrong so often that their theory has become debased.

[Leanan]

I saw this, but haven't found a free link yet. I thought the WSJ was giving up on the subscription model (like the NYT just did). I guess not yet. Maybe it will be free tomorrow.

Pretty cool that peak oil (and a graph with ASPO's curve on it) is on the front page of the WSJ.

[Leanan]

Someone has liberated the entire article here.

[Cornelian]

I believe this is the article for free?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1195436 ... lenews_wsj

[Leanan]

Yes. The WSJ link works now, even if you're not a subscriber. (Dante's doesn't, because he screwed up the coding.)

I think they make it available to subscribers early. Probably went "live" for everyone else at midnight, Eastern Standard Time.

[TreebeardsUncle]

Compare this article on the effects of Chindian demand.

Note, it is also stated that there may be a supply shortfall of about 7.5 million barrels by 2013.

g


Oil Supply Warnings Follow the Price Spikes
By Peter Enav
Associated Press

Taipe, Taiwan -- Perhaps the biggest reason that oil costs nearly $100 a barrel can be found in places like China, where roads that were full of bicycles 15 years ago are now choked with cars and trucks. Or in India, where sales of diesel-powered generators have soraced as people try to avoid frequent power outages.
The rapid growth in China, India and other emerging economies has been fed by crude oil., but this rising demand for fossil fuels may finally be pushing the limits of supply. If basic economics is any guide, that could also mean $100 is just the beginning of far higher prices.
The International Energy Agency warned ealier this month that growing global demand, particularly from China and India. Could create a supply crunch as early as 20150.
Currently, oil producers are turning out about 85 million barrels a day, while the U.S. Department of Energy says world consumption is between 85 million and 86 million barrels a day. The department predicts output will reach 118 mllion barrels by 2030.
Some experts see a potential disaster looking -- in as soon as five years or even less. Chris Skrebowski, the editor of the London-based Petroleum Review, thinks slower-than expected supply growth combined with rising demand from burgeoning Asian economies could result in a worldwide shortfall of as much as 7 million barrels a day by 2013.
Demand is so strong that Matthew Simmons, a Houston oil and gas investment banker, says $100 a barrel oil may even be a bargain, with $300 crude likely in the future.
“Oil prices are unbelievably inexpensive,” said Simmons, the author of “Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy,” a widely debated book suggesting that the world’s largest oil exporter will be hard pressed to maintain its crude output, let alone increase it.
From the oil industry, too, there are voices of concern. For example, Christophe de Margerie, chief executive of Total SA, France’s largest oil company, believes the Department of Energy’s global production forecast is far too high.
“One hundred million barrels … is now in my view an optimistic case,” de Margerie said at an Industry conference in London late last month.
Over time, soaring energy costs could have disastrous consequences for the world economy, with affordable transportation being the most obvious casualty. Manufacturing, petrochemicals and power generation would all be affected.
But some analysts argue that consumption growth will slow if limited supply keeps prices high.
Recent evidence suggests prices of $80 a barrel have already begun to put a crimp in consumption in industrialized countries, said Leo Drollas, chief economist at the London-based Center for Global Energy Studies.
He projects annual consumption growth of 1.2 percent to about 93 million barrels a day in 2015. That growth figure is lower than in many existing forecasts.
Oil prices rose Friday on expectations that supplies would stay tight, with crude-oil futures for December delivery up $1.67 to close at $95.10 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Last week prices had surged to a record $98.62 a barrel.
“Demand will not grow at those prices,” Drollas said of oil at current, let alone higher levels.
Drollas’s view appeared to get a boost recently when the IEA lowered its oil demand forecast fo the fourth quarter by 500,000 barrels a day and for 2008 by 300,000 barrels a day. Demand growth will now average 1.2 percent in 2007 , the group said.
However, it said demand will likely grow 2.3 percent in 2008, keeping consumption close to global supply.
So far, subsidies in China and India have blunted the impact of high prices on their consumers. But state-run oil refineries are feeling the pinch, and China recently raised retail gasoline prices about 10 percent.
An if anecdotal evidence is right, that could indeed affect demand.
If the gasoline price jumps another 50 percent, I’ll quit driving and take public transportation,” said Zhou Zhiqiang, a Beijing driver. “I think it is the trend for oil prices to go up. The international oil price will ultimately surpass $100, because the resource will become scarcer and scarcer.
Looking at planned oil field developments, Skrebowski, the London-based oil expert, calculates that 23.6 million barrels a day of new production will come onto the market by 2013 – and that only if projects are completed on schedule, despite growing shortages of equipment and qualified personnel.
But the former long-term planner for energy giant BP PLC and oil analyst for Saudi Arabia believes that new production will be largely offset by the natural depletion of existing fields totaling 20 million barrels a day. The net gain, then, would be only about 3.5 million barrels over the five-year period, raising daily production to 88.5 million barrels.
Against that, Skrebowski says IEA demand projections would raise consumption to 96 million barrels by 2013, more than 7 million barrels short of his production estimate. [Actually the production estimate is about 7.5 million barrels short the demand projection made by the IEA.]
“After 2011 we could be in for serious trouble,” he said.

[The following 2 captions are included with this article.]
Diesel fuel draws a long line in Hangzhou, China, last month. Market watchers fear world demand will oustrip supply in 2015. Associated Press file, 2007
A busy gas station attendant in Chengdu, China, recently saw the country’s fuel prices rise 10 percent. China’s demand helps lift global costs. Color China

[essex]

Another link.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1195436 ... whats_news

[essex]

Another link.
HERE

[h20]

Well, "Plateau oil" and not quite peak oil, but page one!

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WSJ online', 'T')he current debate represents a significant twist on an older, often-derided notion known as the peak-oil theory. Traditional peak-oil theorists, many of whom are industry outsiders or retired geologists, have argued that global oil production will soon peak and enter an irreversible decline because nearly half the available oil in the world has been pumped. They've been proved wrong so often that their theory has become debased.

The new adherents -- who range from senior Western oil-company executives to current and former officials of the major world exporting countries -- don't believe the global oil tank is at the half-empty point. But they share the belief that a global production ceiling is coming for other reasons: restricted access to oil fields, spiraling costs and increasingly complex oil-field geology. This will create a global production plateau, not a peak, they contend, with oil output remaining relatively constant rather than rising or falling

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WSJ online', 'T')he current debate represents a significant twist on an older, often-derided notion known as the peak-oil theory. Traditional peak-oil theorists, many of whom are industry outsiders or retired geologists, have argued that global oil production will soon peak and enter an irreversible decline because nearly half the available oil in the world has been pumped. They've been proved wrong so often that their theory has become debased.

The new adherents -- who range from senior Western oil-company executives to current and former officials of the major world exporting countries -- don't believe the global oil tank is at the half-empty point. But they share the belief that a global production ceiling is coming for other reasons: restricted access to oil fields, spiraling costs and increasingly complex oil-field geology. This will create a global production plateau, not a peak, they contend, with oil output remaining relatively constant rather than rising or falling

[h20]

Read the full article. It gets doomeristic and peakist towards the end.

{threads merged by Bas}

[mos6507]

The peak oil issue is starting to percolate up into the mainstream. Obviously the US press is going to be the last to take it seriously, but it seems to be exploding now in the UK. Because the UK being an english language country, americans are going to read a lot of it via Google News. It will eventually bleed into the US press.

I think next year is the year that everyone starts to talk about it around the water cooler. That's assuming oil passes $100/bl and gas prices spike even more. I just don't see how it can be swept under the rug much longer.

[Waterthrush]

One thing is perfectly clear: oil companies WANT that profitable oil field in ANWAR so badly that they will bring it up (coded term here: access, as in "if access were granted.") and simply lie about its potential "the industry would be able to raise fuel production to meet demand in 2030 of 116 mbpd."

There are other places they would like access to as well, but ANWAR is their Holy Grail because infrastructure already exists and the oil is apparently not too difficult to obtain. Thus, the 6 months of production there would represent quick and immense profits for themselves, even though it would do nothing towards solving the energy problem.

And when it runs out after 6 months they would say, "Well, we tried!"

[TheDude]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')raditional peak-oil theorists, many of whom are industry outsiders or retired geologists, have argued that global oil production will soon peak and enter an irreversible decline because nearly half the available oil in the world has been pumped. They've been proved wrong so often that their theory has become debased.

[Waterthrush]

Well, the CNBC folks briskly disposed of the WSJ report 10 minutes into their 6 am Squawk Box show - Peter Buetel, oil "expert", immediately pointed to the Brazil oilfield as proof that there's much more oil out there to find.

According to Buetel, the problem is OPEC - they're not giving us enough of our oil ... I heard this kind of entitlement thinking on Bloomberg last week as well. I heard the commentator there actually refer to "our oil" when speaking of Iran and Venezuala.

The financial media simply cannot really comprehend what the implications of peak oil are. Even when they are mouthing the words about peak oil, their minds are telling them "everything will continue the way it is."

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('h20', 'W')ell, "Plateau oil" and not quite peak oil, but page one!

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WSJ online', 'T')he new adherents -- who range from senior Western oil-company executives to current and former officials of the major world exporting countries -- don't believe the global oil tank is at the half-empty point. But they share the belief that a global production ceiling is coming for other reasons: restricted access to oil fields, spiraling costs and increasingly complex oil-field geology. This will create a global production plateau, not a peak, they contend, with oil output remaining relatively constant rather than rising or falling