[Graeme]

The great fuel folly
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')ecords tumble as the oil majors release their annual results. The most profit made by a European company: Shell's $27bn. The most profit made by any company ever: ExxonMobil's $40bn. Amid the noise about capital allocation and windfall taxes, there is a danger of missing the most important results of all. The oil and gas production of Shell, BP, ExxonMobil and Chevron is going down, not up. When BP announces its results today, industry insiders expect them to be down too.

This is not what is supposed to be happening. Our oil-addicted economies are supposed to be growing. The international oil giants are supposed to be expanding their production, not shrinking it. They are not supposed to be leaving the technically less well-equipped national oil companies such as Saudi Aramco and Pemex to carry the burden of expanding production to match global demand.

For people like me who worry about peak oil, the writing on the wall is ever clearer. We live in a world geared to the assumption that demand for oil can be met by supply. But it can't for much longer. The fallout will dominate our lives within a few years.

[dorlomin]

The comments are very interesting, most people seem to believe peak oil is a conspiricy cooked up between the oil majors and the national oil companies.