Iran an example of 'peak oil' fear

Oil Cartel and US Policy dating back to the ...

] At some point in the near future, worldwide oil production will peak, then decline rapidly, causing depression-like conditions or even the starvation of billions across the globe. That’s the worst-case scenario for subscribers to the “peak oil” theory, who generally believe oil production has either topped out or will do so in the next couple of years. What follows depends on who one talks to, but predictions run the gamut from the disaster scenario described above to merely oil prices in the $200-a-barrel range while society transitions to other energy sources. It’s not a view held by most industry experts, including the oil companies, the government and most analysts at the financial houses. But its adherents are growing, and include some fairly well-known names. In the coming week, a former chairman of oil giant Royal Dutch Shell is speaking at a peak oil conference in Ireland, as is former U.S. Energy Secretary James Schlesinger. Most peak-oil proponents simply don’t believe the numbers put forward by industry and the government. [url=http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/14/news/economy/peak_oil/index.htm?section=money_mostpopular:
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See also: Oil Hits New Record on Refinery Outages 15 Sept. 2007 - Oil Prices Set New Record, Gasoline Prices Rise As Hurricane Hits Texas Refineries

] Oil prices briefly hit a record high and gasoline futures rose Thursday as refiners reported production problems after Hurricane Humberto hit Texas. Oil first traded over $80 a barrel on Wednesday after the Energy Department reported declines in crude and gasoline inventories and refinery activity last week. But in addition to supply concerns, Humberto and a developing storm in the Atlantic were supporting prices Thursday. Several refineries in the Port Arthur, Texas, area were shut due to a widespread power outage. They included Valero Energy Corp.'s 325,000 barrel-per-day facility, Total SA’s 180,000 barrel-per-day plant and Motiva Enterprises LLC’s refinery with a capacity of 285,000 barrels of product a day. Exxon Mobil Corp. said its Beaumont, Texas, refinery that produces 350,000 barrels per day suffered a minor production outage but remained up and running. Traders appear more concerned about an Atlantic storm which the National Hurricane Center is calling Tropical Depression Eight. While the storm’s course remains unclear, energy investors get worried any time a tropical storm or hurricane threatens key oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico. [url=http://www.abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=3596589:
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] “The peaking of world oil production will be a seismic event, marking one of the great fault lines in world economic history," says Lester Brown of Earth Policy Institute, adding that “when oil output is no longer expanding, no country can get more oil unless another gets less." Food security will be severely affected since both modern agriculture and food transport are oil-intensive, he says, and the automobile industry will suffer when demand for cars plummets. Among the leading oil producers, output appears to have peaked and turned downward in a dozen or so, Brown says. Among the post-peak countries are the United States, Venezuela and the two North Sea oil producers, the United Kingdom and Norway, he says. The pre-peak countries are dominated by Russia, now the world’s leading oil producer, having eclipsed Saudi Arabia in 2006. Outputs may be increased by Canada, largely because of its tar sands, and Kazakhstan, which is developing its oil field in the Caspian Sea, the only large find in recent decades. Other pre-peak countries include Algeria, Angola, Brazil, Nigeria, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Among the countries where production may be peaking are Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and China. [url:
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] But few watching their television sets or listening to radios have learned of that larger picture during the Gulf oil spill. And that larger picture has far greater implications for the world. Naturally, television anchors focus on the nitty-gritty details: how many barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf this week? How quickly the spill will be stopped? Who is responsible? That is hardly surprising that the media focuses on today, not on what is perhaps going to happen in 100 to 150 years. Still, the BP oil spill, while its attendant loss of oil was tiny compared to the total amount of oil consumed yearly in the United States, is an unpleasant reminder that, because of the way we are consuming oil, there will be none left sometime in the next century or two. It so happens that long before the BP oil spill — four years ago to be exact — I began a book on the crisis in the oil world that published recently called Seizing Power: The Grab for Global Oil Wealth (John Wiley & Sons under the Bloomberg Press imprint). In that book, I dealt with how the inevitable depletion of oil might play itself out over the next century, the very aspect that the television anchors are ignoring. My main theme was this: the world supply of oil is running out. What I could not say in the book — because the BP oil spill had not yet occurred — but I will say it now is that the BP oil spill in the Gulf is but the latest, jarring reminder that as oil is consumed and depleted in growing numbers, the competition for what oil is left is inevitable, making the world a more dangerous place. [url=http://www.thestreet.com/story/10810406/1/summer-reading-oil-is-running-out.html?puc=unitedonline&cm_ven=unitedonline:
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