Crude awakening

Population growth, developing economies and a surge in vehicle ownership means the demand for oil will continue to grow. Can supply cope?

One of the most critical questions facing the global energy market today is whether key oil producing nations can increase production to meet the current, and future growth in world demand, otherwise known as the ‘peak oil’ issue.

…Matthew Simmons, the non-executive chairman and founder of Simmons and Company International (SCI), one of the largest investment banking practices serving the energy industry, is today’s strong proponent of the dangers of peak oil, and believes that the peak oil problem is poorly understood.


“It is no secret that the price of oil has fluctuated over the years, ‘we’re going to have low oil prices forever’ – people used to say, but only when the embargo of 1973 happened and prices went through the roof, did it allow a myriad of service companies to see the beginning of offshore oil get very serious,” says Simmons.

“Peak-oil is a reality, and it makes global warming look like a trivial problem. The immediacy of peak oil takes so long before we can do anything to prepare for how to go about using less oil – we might be lucky enough to have it 4/5 years away but it isn’t decades away – I say the likelihood of that is 1%,” he adds.

Arabian Business