Pay Attention To the Oil Price Naysayers

The folks over at The Oil Drum are a persistent bunch. As the years go by and it continues to look as though Steve Forbes’ post-Katrina prediction of $35 oil will forever fail to materialize, the forecasts by the crew at TOD appear increasingly likely to prove more accurate than predictions from most Wall Street types and nearly every big oil company and energy agency.

The Oil Drum (and other sites like it) in 2007 may turn out to be kind of like the housing bubble blogs back in 2005 when they screamed to the rest of the world that there was a problem but no one wanted to listen. The screaming at TOD is markedly less shrill than what’s found on many housing bubble blogs, but not heeding their warnings will likely be even more disastrous than ignoring the housing naysayers a couple years ago.


A case in point came early Monday after Euan Mearns had a good look at the latest news from BP – specifically their Statistical Review of World Energy. Judging just by the sound of the title of his retort – Lies, damned lies and BP Statistics – he obviously didn’t like what he read.

If you are unfamiliar with the Middle East OPEC reserves reporting scandal and the culpability of BP and OECD institutions in perpetuating myths about global oil reserves then this is explained below using Saudi Arabia as an example.

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