It isn’t over yet for Lord Browne

No oilman likes the idea that his might be the next sunset industry, but more than any other executive, Lord Browne has made it his business to denounce this growing school of thought. In one typical speech in 2004, he proclaimed: “We have to demonstrate that there has been no shortage of oil, and that there is no shortage of oil, and that there never need be a shortage … there is no reason why there should be any shortfall in the foreseeable future.”

But a whole range of indicators now suggest that global oil production will soon hit fundamental limits: the amount discovered each year has been shrinking for four decades; for every barrel we discover annually, we now consume three; production is already falling irreversibly in 60 of the world’s 98 oil-producing nations.

New countries join the slide almost yearly, and since the late 1990s these have included significant producers such as Britain, Norway, Denmark, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia. Most forecasters – even optimists such as the International Energy Agency and ExxonMobil – now predict that the entire world’s production, except for Opec, will peak early in the next decade.

independent