Canada's Heartland – Political Peak Oil's First Refuge

The concept of “political peak oil” (an obscure, unpleasant term I admit) has been floating around under that name or as “geopolitical peak” (even worse) for years. Large oil companies based in the US, and UK, and France – known as the ‘oil majors’ – cumulatively control, at most, 15 to 20% of proven global oil reserves, while nationalized oil companies control the remainder. Venezuela would be an example of the latter.

Nations with highly developed economies rely extensively on the ‘oil majors’ to supply fuel. Doesn’t matter how big global estimated potential oil reserves are in total: when an oil company has diminishing access to state-controlled fossil fuels it may be experiencing its own peak – as a corporation. What evidence do we have that ‘oil majors’ could be experiencing political peak oil? Anecdotes only: as in a recent quote from a French oil executive.

I’ll go a step farther and say that physical peak oil, besides being controversial as a mathematically-described phenomena, is almost irrelevant. All that matters to the average driver is the price and availability of fuel, and that will be, or already is to some degree, controlled by political peak oil. Expert opinions about existence and timing of physical peak oil are a distraction from that reality. The recent intense lobbying to have access to the relatively small pools of oil in ANWR and below the US’ formerly off-limit outer continental shelf zones corroborates this view.

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