Anne Korin on Strategic Role of Oil in the World

This is a must view for anybody interested in Energy Security related policy wonkiness:

Click the image to go to the web page. Embedding doesn't work.

Anne's part starts at minutes 6:30. Feel free to jump straight to that and skip the other talking heads.

Hedging Peak Oil

What does BlackRock - the world's largest hedge fund think of peak oil?

This one picked from their 2010 investment presentation:

Hey, at least they have two different scenarios and you get more than 4 years to prepare. It's unfortunate that they take the other fossil flow rates from the IEA data as is. They are surely to be just as wrong as the oil rates have been.

US military: massive oil shortages by 2015

This is starting to sound like a broken record already, but now it's the turn of US military Joint Forces of Command who have prepared a study for military leaders to warn about coming oil shortage:

• By 2012 oil production surplus capacity could disappear
• By 2015 shortfall of oil could reach 10 million barrels per day
• This would slow down economic recovery
• ... which in turn would exacerbate geopolitical tensions
• ... which could turn into resource grab wars

So much for biofuels replacing the shortfall, eh?

There is a further gem in the reporting of the study by Guardian:

"US military says its views cannot be taken as US government policy but admits they are meant to provide the Joint Forces with 'an intellectual foundation upon which we will construct the concept to guide out future force developments.'" - Guardian

That is, "please don't take this seriously, but be prepared for it to be the official stance any time now". Just so that you know.

US Dept of Energy : Oil Crunch 2011-2015

This is starting to look like a coordinated news campaign or a real wake-up:

"A chance exists that we may experience a decline of world liquid fuels production between 2011 and 2015 if the investment is not there"

- Le Monde on interview of Glen Sweetnam, the oil market expert of US Energy administration

The situation is simply the following:

Many major oil producing regions are heading to a temporal investment related production peak or final oil flow peak by 2015

New discoveries and new producing fields are not there to offset the decline

The major additions from unconventional oils and biofuels (esp. US ethanol) are in serious doubt

So called 'above the ground factors' (i.e. politics, pricing, market issues) are making the flow of oil even harder to predict

So everything written here and elsewhere for the past 5+ years is coming to pass.

Except now it is becoming official. Currently it is confined to being mere political 'scare talk', but when it becomes fully priced in the markets, you can consider $80/barrel oil extremely cheap. And by then, it'll be way too late.