Black Gold

I’ve been reading an interesting book which summarises some of the issues related to peak oil — it’s called Black Gold by George Orwel. Orwel isn’t as pessimistic as Deffyes, he points out that big new fields are coming into production in Azerbaijan, Angola, Algeria, Nigeria and elsewhere. But he’s not exactly optimistic either; he thinks the peak may come sometime in the decade following 2010. If you think that’s imprecise, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said that oil production will peak between “2013 and 2037.” So that’s all clear then.

Orwel also reckons that oil demand is set to rise at quite a lick for many years ahead. He cites IEA forecasts which suggest that developing countries could push demand up to 121m bopd by 2030. China’s demand is expected to double over 15 years to more than 10m bopd, half of current US demand. India’s consumption is expected to rise nearly 30% over the next five years.

fool