Thursday 1 April 2010

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.