Friday October 21, 2005

Peak Oil - The pressure mounts

energybulletin.net -> guardian.co.uk :

Six years ago, the British sector of the North Sea was producing more than two million barrels of oil a day. The change since then has been dramatic - UK production in all offshore fields is 30% down on 1999 and dropping daily. North Sea output will fall until the resource becomes physically too difficult to extract - perhaps in 20 years' time. In resource terminology, North Sea oil has "peaked".

More than 50 countries - including 10 large producers, such as Britain, Mexico, China, the US, Norway, Indonesia and Oman - are now seeing their oil production levels decline. The combination of demand growth and supply declines suggests that the world is roughly where North Sea oil was in 1999 - close to its production peak.

While rich countries could buy time as supplies declined, that would not be an option for long, says Richard Douthwaite, a former UK government economist. To survive on the other side of a global oil peak, Douthwaite says, economies will have to be drastically restructured. "The real danger is that banks will jack up interest rates to stop inflation. The cost of business will inevitably rise. All prices in the economy will have to change because everything is dependent on oil. Every price in the world will have to change to reflect the carbon content of goods, and the new cost of energy."

(2005-10-21 19:23:20 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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