Sunday, January 6, 2008

Oil Price Touches $100 a Barrel; Signal of Pending Oil Shortages Ignored

The price for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil touched $100 on January 2, 2008, a new milestone. According to TheOilDrum.com, WTI oil price has been giving a very clear signal of pending shortage for over five years now, and in breaching the symbolic $100 a barrel mark, continues to do so. Those driving the world economy have steadfastly ignored this red warning light. In doing so, they are steering the world toward an energy disaster characterized by shortages, high energy prices, inflation, growing inequity, civil unrest and famine.

(PRWEB) January 4, 2008 -- Oil Production Graph Data for graph

A Signal Ignored
...The $100 a barrel price is a sign that times will never be the same again. According to TheOilDrum.com, the world is entering a new era, where the supply of energy will come to dominate the political landscape in a way that is currently not recognized by any of the leading candidates.

Over the past two years, citizens have been repeatedly assured that there is no problem with future oil supply... the public has heard false promises of lower future prices, and been beguiled by the possibility of a price collapse in the face of excess supply...

Both oil and natural gas resources around the world are found in underground reservoirs of a finite size... As the quantity of oil remaining in place falls, the rate at which oil can be recovered also falls... This happened to the United States in 1970... oil production... has since declined from... 9.6 million barrels a day (mbd), to ... 5 mbd. ...the North Sea, the Alaskan fields on the North Slope, and the huge Cantarell field in Mexico have entered irreversible decline... the world is now reaching the point where all of the oil fields of the world are in aggregate coming to peak production... countries that still have a surplus of oil to export are seeing ...an increase in their own demand for oil, which reduces the amount that can be made available for export... The increasingly limited ability of nations such as Saudi Arabia and Russia to increase oil production is already becoming evident, leading to a reduced potential for raising world production. It now appears unlikely that the world will ever see a daily oil production rate of 90 mbd, even when natural gas liquids and condensate are included. Thus, future projections that speak glibly of numbers above this level are foisting a canard on the world's population that all will come to regret...
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