Over 70% US Gulf oil production shut down

More than 70 percent of US oil production in the Gulf of Mexico has been shut down because of the threat of Hurricane Rita and the aftermath of Katrina, authorities reported.

"Today's shut-in oil production is 1,097,357 (barrels of oil per day)," MMS [the Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service] said, adding that this represented 73.16 percent of the US production of 1.5 million barrels per day in the Gulf of Mexico. A total of 469 manned platforms, out of 819, and 69 of the 134 rigs were evacuated.

Comments:

Hello again my friend. I just watched a rather duplicitious discourse about oil on the BBC here in Singapore. Not once was Peak Oil mentioned and it was incredible to listen to the Saudi oil representative claim that there is total transparency in the oil supply chain!? This counters what Simmons has been hammering on in quite a few media outlets.

Looking forward to your take.

Cheers.

Posted by Brian Johnsen on September 22, 2005 at 08:01 PM SGT #

Hi,

I'd suppose the BBC was just trying to let the other side air their views too, hence the Saudi guest on the show.

They did have quite a few good articles out in the past months from the peak oil side of the camp, see :

1. BBC : Has oil production peaked?
2. 'Peak oil' enters mainstream debate - BBC

Posted by lowem on September 22, 2005 at 10:39 PM SGT #

I would guess you haven't seen this edition of the program because to say 'let the other side have their say' implies that two sides were put forth.

Unfortunately, the views of only two OPEC representatives and two industry CEO's were put forth. All of them tripping over themselves to agree with one another.

For a layman seeing this program I would think that the oil supply will be plentiful for the next 30 - 50 years and the only reason prices are high is because of the short-sightedness of business and government to increasing refinery capacity earlier.

Blatant fallacies were also posited including the supposition that the 'oil supply chain' was completely transparent - and this coming from a Saudi Aramco representative.

The sign off question was classic 'hard talk' though, with the questioner eliciting a little gold for all the fluff. The Saudi representative admitted that "there is no other energy source that can replace oil for many years" and that "our economy depends on oil to run".

It was a redeeming end to an otherwise pathetic program. Cheers.

Posted by BCJ on September 23, 2005 at 12:47 AM SGT #