Peak Oil on Business Times

Two articles on peak oil were published on 7 Sep 2006 on Business Times, Singapore's business newspaper. One of the articles is a partial reprint of the Bloomberg exclusive that was blogged earlier. The original Bloomberg article was titled "Peak oil forecasters win converts on Wall Street to $200 crude". The Business Times one was titled "Is the end of the Oil Age nigh?", with the intro : "Proponents of a geologic theory known as peak oil say global oil production is now at or near its zenith".

The other article is an editorial titled "Dire need for more non-oil energy sources". This one was apparently written in-house, but without any author being credited. An excerpt follows.

business-times.asia1.com.sg :

The 12 per cent reversal in oil prices from last month's historic peak may hearten consumers, but that should not lull anyone into a false sense of security. The trend is clear: the five-year upward move in prices has shown that neither OPEC nor non-OPEC producers are in a position to tackle the looming energy challenge.

Barring a crash landing of the US economy via destruction of home values, the current economic drivers will keep oil demand strong. The peak oil theory - that oil production is about to hit an inevitable downward arc - is gaining currency even with Wall Street, so much so that even the prospect of a US$200 barrel is not discounted. Non-Opec production of crude is expected to peak in the next 10 years.

In the long term, consumers need non-oil energy resources. The extent of future demand can be gauged when it is realised that China, with a much larger population than the US, consumes just 2 barrels of oil per capita compared with 26 barrels in the US. So even the just-announced discovery of a huge oil find deep down the Gulf of Mexico will still leave the US dependent on imports for half of its oil. The need for alternative energy sources couldn't be more painfully obvious.

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