Major Oil Projects Revisited or CERA meet ODAC

For those who do not normally follow these things, you may not have heard of the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, nor of Chris Skrebowski, who is a Trustee. Which is a pity, because last November they issued a report that led to the headline “New Projects Cannot Meet World Needs this Decade.” (updated here ) And in very large measure this article rebutted, ahead of time, the recent report by CERA that has been given larger circulation and which formed the basis of Daniel Yergin’s editorial in the Washington Post yesterday.

Although I have not read either report (not having the desire to pay $2,500 for 33 pages in the CERA case), the news reports written about both make it relatively easy to explain exactly what is going on.

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ODAC came to the conclusion, that we have a serious problem, because the numbers do not match, and planned production from the new projects will not meet this need. It is the depreciation in production that will cause the major problem, and that is, in part, why, every so often, we comment on those numbers at this site. For it is only by tracking them that we get a better appreciation of the real situation.

The Oil Drum