Experts assess impact of China’s oil needs

…This pursuit of energy comes as a result of the Chinese pursuit for prosperity, according to Matthew Simmons, chairman of Simmons & Co. International, an energy investment banking firm. By 2008 when China hosts the Olympics, officials hope that the 300 million people who live in the coastal regions will be as prosperous as any in Europe, he said, and that by 2020, poverty will be eliminated countrywide.

“China has an insatiable need for energy because they have an insatiable desire to get themselves out of the dark ages,” Simmons said.

The demand for increased energy comes at a time when some predict the world is fast approaching “peak oil,” that point at which the demand for oil exceeds the ability of the world’s companies to produce it. Some estimate the world will reach peak oil by 2020. Betty West, a petroleum geologist and president of Methane Resources Group, is not so pessimistic and suggested that very little has been done in the way of new oil exploration since the early 80s. She predicted that there are oil reserves waiting to be discovered that could ease the demand pressures.

Bangor Daily News